in following the life of christ so far as we have any materials, we have found one main characteristic to be patience—a resolute waiting on god’s mind. i have asked you to test, in every way you can, whether this kind of patience does not constitute the highest ideal we can form of human conduct, is not in fact the noblest type of true manliness. pursue the same method as to the isolated section of that life, the temptation, which i readily admit has much in it that we cannot understand. but take the story simply as you find it (which is the only honest method, unless you pass it by altogether, which would be cowardly) and see whether you can detect any weakness, any flaw in the perfect manliness of[103] christ under the strain of which it speaks—whether he does not here also realize for us the most perfect type of manliness in times of solitary and critical trial. spare no pains, suppress no doubt, only be honest with the story, and with your own conscience.

there is scarcely any life of first-rate importance to the world in which we do not find a crisis corresponding to this, but the nearest parallel must be sought amongst those men, the greatest of all kind, who have founded or recast one of the great religions of the world. of these (if we except the greatest of all, moses) mohammed is the only one of whose call we know enough to speak. whatever we may think of him and the religion he founded, we shall all probably admit that he was at any rate a man of the rarest courage. in his case too it is only at the end of long and solitary vigils in the desert that the vision comes which seals him for his work. the silver roll is unfolded before his eyes, and he who holds it bids him read therein the decree of god, and tells him, “thou art the prophet of god, and i his angel.”

he is unmanned by the vision, and flies trembling to his wife, whose brave and loving counsel, and those of his friends and first disciples, scarcely keep him from despair and suicide.

i would not press the parallel further than to remark that christ came out of the temptation with no human aid, having trod the wine-press alone, serene and resolute[104] from that moment for the work to which god had called him.