prepared Eve for this, and she tells Adam that with him by her side all places are alike 'Now lead on ; In me is no delay; with thee to go, I carry hence; though all by me is lost, So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard Risen from a river o'er the marish glides, Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide : PARADISE REGAINED As a poem is considered greatly inferior to the 'Paradise Lost,' but yet contains some passages of excellence and beauty. The title, however, is not realised in the work, which might have been more aptly named the 'Temptation of Christ,' as it contains nothing of what the title leads the reader to expect-the great subjects of Christ's Death, the Resurrection, Ascension, and Second Coming of Our Lord, not being included. It begins with the baptism of Christ at Jordan by John the Baptist, and ends with the defeat of Satan after the Forty Days' temptation in the wilderness. Opening with an invocation to the Holy Spirit, we are led to the banks of the Jordan, where the Baptist is Divinely made aware that the Son of God is before him by the Spirit in the likeness of a dove descending upon the beloved Son. Satan is present also among the crowd of votaries, and when he hears the 'high attest,' he 'flies to his place,' and summons the infernal council to consider how best they may avert the long-delayed decree of Heaven, that the Woman's Seed should destroy their power. 'I saw The prophet do him reverence; on him, rising Again his peers commit to the arch-traitor the mission of trying by temptation to overcome the decrees of God. Meanwhile the Almighty, in the assembly of angels, declares that He has ordained His Son shall be tempted by Satan, but that the Messiah will certainly overcome the wiles of the tempter: 'This Man, born and now upgrown, Less overweening, since he failed in Job, Of female seed, far abler to resist All his solicitations, and at length All his vast force, and drive him back to hell; Jesus, after being baptized by John, is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where He meditates on the work of redemption He has undertaken. For forty days the Messiah continues thus solitarily meditating and fasting, at the end of which time Satan appears as an 'aged man, in rural weeds, following, as seemed, in quest of some stray ewe.' Getting into conversation with Jesus, and recognising Him as the one whom he had seen with John at Jordan, Satan asks Him to prove His divinity by commanding the stones to become bread, since in that wilderness men are to hardship and misery born. Jesus knows His tempter, and replies that 'Man lives not by bread only, but by each word Satan disappears after this repulse as night comes on, and again consults with his infernal council. Various modes of temptation are suggested, but the arch-traitor resolves to avail himself of Our Lord's hungering in the wilderness. Jesus is still wandering in the 'woody maze,' communing upon His divinely appointed work, when at the end of the forty days He lays Him down to sleep, And dreamed, as appetite is wont to dream, Of meats and drinks, Nature's refreshment sweet : And saw the ravens with their horny beaks Food to Elijah bringing, even and morn, Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought : He saw the prophet also, how he fled Into the desert, and how there he slept The strength whereof sufficed him forty days: Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. Thus wore out night. In the morning Satan again appears, not rustic as before, but seemlier clad,' and expressing surprise that the Son of God should be so neglected, invites Him to a banquet; but his proposed favour being refused, the 'table and provisions vanished quite.' The arch-traitor |