gash
upon Him! Why was it? It will never do to fall back upon the
miraculous, for the very point of the story of the Temptation is His
sublime refusal to sustain Himself by superhuman aid. By the
employment of miracle He could easily have commanded the stones to
become bread, and He might thus have grandly answered the taunt of the
Tempter and have appeased the gnawings of His body's hunger at one and
the same time. But it would have spoiled everything. He went into the
Wild to be tempted 'like as we are tempted'; and since miracle is not
at _our_ disposal He would not let it be at _His_. It is impossible,
therefore, to suppose that He scorned the aid of miracle to protect Him
from hunger, but called in the aid of miracle to protect Him from the
beasts.

Now in order to solve this problem I turned to my Bible, beginning at
the very beginning. And there, in the very first chapter, I found the
explanation. 'Have dominion,' God said, 'over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth.' There was nothing really miraculous in Christ's authority
over the fish. I never see a man dangling with a line without a sigh
for our lost dominion. There was nothing really miraculous in Christ's
immunity from harm. The wolves did not tear Him; He told them not to
do so. He was a man, just such a man as God meant all men to be. And
therefore He 'had dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.'
He was unscathed in the midst of the wolves, not because He was
superhuman, but because He was truly human. We are something less than
human, the wrecks and shadows of men. Having forfeited the authority
of our humanity, the fish no longer obey us, and we have perforce to
dangle for them with hooks and strings. The wolves and the tigers no
longer stand off at our command, and we have to fall back upon
camp-fires and pistols. It is very humiliating! The crown is fallen
from our heads, and all things finned and furred and feathered mock us
in our shame. But Thine, O Man of men, is the power and the dominion,
and all the creatures of the Wild obey Thee! 'He was with the wild
beasts.'

III

What did those wild, dumb, eloquent eyes say to Jesus as they looked
wonderingly at Him out there in the Wild? As they bounded out of the
thicket, crouched, stared at Him, and slunk away, what did they