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There always is this deeper power in man, and men are always finding it there. I think we are amazed not at the rarity, but rather at the abundance, of the power of martyrdom. When a great cause breaks out in war, and needs its champions, how wonderful it is to us, with our low notions of humanity, to see the land with its furrows full of the deserted ploughs from which the men have run to go and die for principle, and save their country. How wonderfully frequent are the stories that we hear of men giving their lives to do their duty. The exception is where the engineer of the railroad train which is rushing into certain ruin deserts his post; not where he stands still and calm, and is found with the iron clenched in his dead hand. No doubt, if he had time to think of it at all, he would be surprised at himself in the terrible instant when his quick resolve was made. He reaches down through the ordinary standards of his life, and takes up the deepest one of all, and says, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God; and the Word of God which is my duty now says, 'Stand and die'; and so I cannot live except by dying." And in spite of all the men who are sacrificing their convictions to their interests, there are thousands of men who might be at the head of things, and rich and famous, if they would only give up what they think is true for bread. Oh, it is very common I Men find in their own nature necessities which they must submit tot and they do submit to them. We can hear in their submission, though it makes them very poor, something of chat same trumpet-like triumph and exaltation which I think we always feel in those words from the lips of the sick and hungry Jesus, "Not by bread alone, but by the Word of God."

(F. C. Ewer, D. D. .)

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KJV: And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

WEB: Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.'"