Susan. "Begone Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.'

Olympas. And what did the devil do, James? James. He had to obey the Lord. He left, and angels came to minister to the Saviour. Olympas. To what principle, Thomas, or to what passion was this addressed?

Thomas. If I could distinguish this by any name, I would call it ambition.

Olympas. Can you tell me any principle, passion, or appetite in man not included in these three temptations?

Thomas. There are indeed, innumerable passions, propensities, and principles of action in man. But it occurs to me that they might all be reduced to three-the animal propensities, pride, and ambition. And if these three categories include the whole, then, indeed, Satan might well retire from the unequal contest.

Olympas. You are almost, if not altogether, right. The impulses of our animal nature are sometimes called propensities, appetites, and desires. Of all these the supreme is the appetite for food in time of great or protracted want of sustenance, as in the case of our Lord, having fasted to the fortieth day before the temptation began. Where there is no fuel the fire goeth out. All the passions animal are perfectly tame and governable when the appetite for food is in full vigour. An overweening conceit of oneself, or pride, is the capital sin of all the passions; and ambition, sustained by avarice, consummates the whole train. Our Lord's triumph was indeed

complete, and the victory glorious. Jesus kept the field, and Satan fled.

What was the armour worn and the weapons used in this conflict of the great Captain, Eliza?

Eliza. The sharp two-edged sword proceeded out of his mouth, usually called the Sword of the Spirit. The helmet of Salvation, the shield of Faith, the breastplate of Righteousness, the girdle of Truth, the greaves of the Gospel of Peace, and the Sword of the Spirit, completed his panoply. Thus armed our Hero stood, and Satan fled. Olympas. And what next, James?

James. Angels came; but they came after the battle was over!

Susan. They wait upon him now almost too late.

William. Not too late: for he needed not their help.

Olympas. And what ministry did he now need? Thomas. Bread, I suppose.

Olympas. Food was certainly wanting; and a seasonable supply was brought by those who ministered to Elijah and others in distress. Rejoice we not, then, that our Lord resisted the arch apostate in his impudent, malicious, and murderous assault to seduce him to one of the three great sius-distrust, or unblief, presumption, and idolatrous ambition. The would-be "prince of this world," the rebel usurper, found nothing animal, intellectual, or moral in him that could be perverted, seduced, or alienated from the supreme admiration, service, and love of God.

The moral of this memorable temptation, in part, at least, is,-Satan comes when we are weakest, and always assails us in the weakest

point. He is to be conquered by one sword, and by one only. On the broad shield of faith we may quench his fiery darts; but when we attack him we must use the Jerusalem blade; for, like the sword that beheaded Goliah, there is none like it. IT IS WRITTEN constitutes the omnipotent argument-the sharpest arrow in the Christian's quiver; and by the dexterous use of this cherubic sword, we need not fear the world, the flesh, and Satan, that triumvirate of ruin which has tyrannized over mankind times and ways without number, converted Eden into a wilderness, earth into a Golgotha, and superinduced on our race the untold curses of indignant Heaven here, with the dread and dismal forebodings of a misery to come, enduring as the days of eternity.

CONVERSATION XXIX.

Olympas. HAVING had the lineage, birth, circumcision, education, and early circumstances of the Messiah under consideration, as also his early visit to the temple at twelve, his baptism, reception of the Spirit, temptation and victory, we shall now inquire into the theatre and nature of his employment after this time. Read, William, to the close of the fourth chapter from the fourteenth

verse.

[The chapter being read, William went on to say that]

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and began to " teach in their synagogues, being glorified by all." The cities of Galilee were then the theatre of his public instructions.

Reuben. I wonder that they let him preach in the Jewish synagogues. What were these synagogues?

Olympas. Places of meeting or holding public assemblies for the edification of the Jews.

Reuben. What was the order of worship in these synagogues?

Olympas. You can explain it, Thomas.

Thomas. I had better first, perchance, describe the places of worship among the Jews as I have gathered them from Josephus, the Bible, and the books I have read on the Jewish Antiquities.

Olympas. You may state all their places of meeting for religious uses.

Thomas. Their houses of worship and places of edification were the tabernacle, the temple, the colleges, the proseuchas, or oratories, and synagogues. The Tabernacle and Temple are fully described in the Bible: the Colleges, Proseuchas, and Synagogues are not fully described in the Bible. The schools of the Prophets and Colleges, if they were not the same, were very nearly related. I think you told me they were two names for the same institutions.

Reuben. I have never read one word of Colleges in the Bible.

Thomas. You have forgotten the books of Kings and Chronicles; for in one of each they are mentioned. So carly as the time of Huldah the Prophetess, who flourished in the reign of the good Josiah, about six hundred and twenty years before Christ, we find them named in 2 Kings xxii. 14, and again in 2 Chron. xxxiv. 22. And that persons of much divine learning were in those institutions (that in Jerusalem occupied the inner wall, whence, perhaps, came "Esquires of the Inner Temple")-is evident from the fact that when the long-lost copy of the Law was found, it was expedient to send to the College for an interpreter. Thus Huldah, a Prophetess, connected with the institution, is brought into notice as an expounder of the volume.

Next to those in antiquity were the Oratories or places of prayer. They were located on the tops of mountains and on the banks of rivers, and in such sequestered spots. They had open tops through which to look up to heaven. Our Saviour spent a whole night in one of them, and the pious were wont to assemble there in the early dawn