1. How long did our blessed Lord live at Nazareth? 2. What did He do there? 3. Who was sent to prepare His way? 4. Where did John live? 5. What did he wear? 6. What did he eat? 7. What are locusts? 8. What did he tell the people? 9. What were they to be sorry for? 10. What is repenting? 11. What did he do to those who repented? 12. In what river did he wash them? 13. What was this washing called? 14. What was he called? 15. Who did he say was coming? 16. How would that One baptize them? [Illustration: JOHN THE BAPTIST PREACHING IN THE WILDERNESS.--Matt. 3:2, 8.] SECOND READING. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."--_Matt. 3:17._ ONE day, as John was baptising, Jesus came to him, and desired to be baptised. His mother and John's mother were cousins, and John knew He had never done one wrong thing in all His life, and had nothing to repent of. So he said, "I have need to be baptised of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" Then JESUS answered, "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then John baptised Him; and as they were coming up out of the water, the heaven above was opened, and there came God the Holy Ghost, taking a shape like a dove, and rested upon the Head of Jesus, and there was God the Father's voice speaking out of heaven, and saying, "This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then John the Baptist knew that Jesus was the Son of God, and the great King whose way he had been sent to prepare. [Illustration: THE BAPTISM OF JESUS.--Mark 1:9.] And this was the beginning of baptism, or christening, as we call it. We are all baptised into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and made to belong to Jesus Christ. QUESTIONS. 1. Who was John the Baptist? 2. Where did he baptize? 3. Who came to him to be baptized? 4. What relation was the blessed Virgin to his mother? 5. What did he say? 6. Why did he say so? 7. What was the answer? 8. What happened after the baptism? 9. Who came down from heaven? 10. Who spoke from heaven? 11. What did God the Father's voice say? 12. What did John know then? 13. Whose Son is Jesus? 14. How had John been preparing His way? [Illustration: CHRIST IN THE MANGER.] THIRD READING. "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."--_Matt. 4:7._ OUR Lord Jesus had come into the world to conquer the Devil, to whom Eve had given power over it when she ate the fruit. So He went up into a lonely place in the wilderness, that He might meet the Devil, and stand up against all the temptations that had led Eve astray. He was there forty days, with nothing to eat; and the Devil came and said, "If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." But He would not do it at Satan's word; and so as Eve fell by eating, He stood by resisting hunger. [Illustration: THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS.--Matt. 4:10, 11.]