have appeared as ideals of good, and had to turn away from what the noblest of men would have cherished as innocent dreams or splendid chances,”[138] because to His pure eyes they were Satanic temptations. He suffered, being tempted, but His trouble and suffering were caused neither by irresolution, nor vanity, nor fear, but by His own lowly humility and to the sense of the exceeding greatness of His mission. Gotama, sorely concerned about himself, went apart to fast and meditate and wrestle for his own deliverance, but Christ went apart not to fast—fasting was an unheeded incident in and not the aim of His retirement, and in no perplexity about His own salvation, for that was assured and made the basis of assault,—but that in quiet meditation He might see more clearly the way by which the salvation of God could be brought to mankind. Christ was forced to acknowledge that absolute surrender to His Father’s will in His mission meant absolute antagonism to the world, and He was tried by suggestions as to the mode of prosecuting His mission, all the more seductive that they were confessed to be natural. Might He not, as the Beloved of Heaven, to carry the world along with Him, and to save multitudes from suffering, swerve just a little from His high ideal, and accommodate His ways to suit their prejudices? These temptations in the beginning continued His temptations to the very close of His ministry. Not once, but all His life, as He hungered for the sympathy and trust of those whom He sought to save, was He tempted, as in Capernaum, when many fell away from Him, to “change the stones into bread.” Not once only did He stand on “the battlements of the temple,” nor once only was He offered “all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.” Again and again was He in peril when He stood high in the opinion of the crowds, and heard them in their Hosanna entreating Him, through His very sympathy with and love for them, to gratify their wishes; yet in every case the temptation was rejected without the slightest wavering the moment it was understood. “Get thee behind me, Satan.” “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?”