But the fact that He was sinless does not imply that He was never tempted. Had He been entirely free from temptation, His manhood would have been so utterly different from ours that it would mean little or nothing to us. But He was not so free. This we have on His own authority, as the account of His temptation in the wilderness can only have come from Himself. And there can be no doubt that He was tempted not only on that occasion but constantly throughout His earthly life. As the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, "He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." But the sinlessness of Christ does not if rightly understood repel us, or prove any barrier between us and Him. It is not an abstract belief about Him, but is exhibited in His life as a man, thereby showing of what manhood is capable if the human will be brought into perfect harmony with the divine will. We know ourselves that the closer we bring our will into agreement with the Divine will, the less liable we are to fall before temptation, and we also know that the nearer we draw to Christ, the easier it becomes to will for ourselves what God wills for us. The sinlessness of the Son, Whose will was always in perfect agreement with that of His Father, has always been the inspiration of the saint, and at the same time the great attraction of His personality to the sinner. THE MISSION AND THE TEACHING OF CHRIST. Jesus did not begin His public Mission till He was about thirty years of age. It opened with His baptism by John the Baptist, when by the descent of the Spirit of God upon Him and the voice from heaven He was marked out as the "Beloved Son", or as the Fourth Gospel represents John the Baptist saying, "The Son of God". Then followed a retirement of forty days into the wilderness, at the close of which He faced and overcame the severe temptations, which were all intended to debase and destroy the ideal embodied in His Mission as the Saviour not of His nation only but of the whole world, and the Founder of a spiritual Kingdom in the hearts of men. He soon gathered together disciples, of whom He selected twelve, whom He named Apostles, to be His constant and intimate companions. They did not fully realise either the mystery of His Person, or the object of His Mission, till after He rose from the dead. The conviction that a flash of spiritual insight brought to Peter at Caesarea Philippi (St. Matt. XVI. 16) was not sufficiently strong to prevent Him from publicly denying His Master at His trial.