He was just entering upon his ministry. He had shut himself out from the world for forty days, preparatory to entering upon his work. He employed his time in silent contemplation and earnest prayer for strength and power and Divine guidance. He fasted all this time, as a physical preparation necessary to the attainment of the full powers of the soul. At the end of that time, conscious of the full possession of subjective power such as no man ever before attained, contemplating the career upon which he was about to enter, realizing all its possibilities for good and all its opportunities for the attainment of personal power and aggrandizement, the temptation came. His subjective mind was the tempter. Reasoning deductively from the consciousness of transcendent power, and selfishly, in obedience to the laws of its being, it pictured to the imagination of Jesus all the possibilities in store for him if he chose to exercise his power for selfish ends. The first temptation appealed to his sense of personal necessity. He was poor. "He had not where to lay his head" at night. He was dependent upon the bounty of his friends for his daily food. In the pursuit of his mission he had the prospect before him of being often thrown among strangers hostile to his faith; and his immediate necessities, after his forty days' fast, gave intensity to the temptation and suggested its concrete form. It came in the words: "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." Jesus understood the vision, not only as pertaining to his present necessities, but, in its broader sense, as a temptation to the exercise of his power for selfish personal ends, for the promotion of his individual ease and comfort. It was then that his objective power of reason asserted itself, and he refused to allow his subjective mind to usurp control. He knew that his mission on earth could not be promoted by the employment of his subjective powers for the purpose of ministering to his own selfish wants. Therefore he spurned a temptation which, if yielded to, would weaken the altruistic sentiment which was regnant in him. His next temptation followed the first in deductive logical sequence. It came in the form of a symbolical vision, in which he saw himself placed upon a pinnacle of the temple, and a voice said: "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." This suggestion was a sequence to the other, for it was as much as to say: "If you wish to heal the sick, exhibit your power in public, where all men can see and know that you have the power to preserve your own life. Then will you receive the plaudits of the multitude, and their faith in you will be made strong."