National Epics by Rabb, Kate Milner

As he disappeared, darkness fell, and the Son of God, still hungry and cold, sought rest under a sheltering tree. But Satan watched near, and forbade rest. Thunder and lightning shook the Heavens; rain drenched the earth; the fury of the winds was loosed, and in their path the sturdiest trees were uprooted. Ghosts, furies, raved around the holy one, but, unshaken by fear, he endured all calmly, and came forth, as the bright sun shone upon the earth, to meet again the Prince of Darkness.

Enraged that the terrors of the night had had no effect upon his enemy, Satan cried out that he still doubted that the wanderer in the wilderness was the Son of God in the true sense, and would therefore try him another way.

So speaking, he caught him up and bore him through the air unto Jerusalem, and setting him on the highest pinnacle of the glorious Temple, said scornfully:--

"Stand there, if thou canst; I have placed thee highest in thy Father's house. Now show if thou art indeed the Son of God. Cast thyself down, for it is written that He will command his angels concerning thee, so that they in their hands shall uplift thee."

"It is also written," said Jesus, "'Tempt not the Lord thy God.'" And as he so spoke and stood, Satan, overcome with amazement, fell whence he had expected to see his conqueror fall, and, struck with dread and anguish at his certain defeat, fled to his rebel angels.

Straightway, a "fiery globe" of angels received the Son on their pinions, bore him from the pinnacle into a flowery vale, and there refreshed him with ambrosial food and water from the Fount of Life, while all around him the angelic choir sang his praises for the conquest of his enemy, and encouraged him to go forth on his work of saving mankind. Thence, rested and refreshed, he arose, and went, unobserved, home to his mother's house.

SELECTION FROM PARADISE REGAINED.

THE TEMPTATION OF THE VISION OF THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH.

Satan, meeting the Savior in the wilderness, tempted him to change the stones to bread, and then, after endeavoring to awake in him a longing for wealth and power, appealed to his ambition by leading him to a mountain top, and displaying to him the kingdoms of the earth.