as May, yet the general time of ripening is June. There are other interpretations, but these will suffice as samples.

It is to be observed that none of these explanations touch the root of the matter-the destruction of an inanimate object because it was not in the condition in which it was expected to be found. Friends and foes seem to agree on one point, which Dr. Stranss states thus: "Mark adds these words in order to explain,—what in the case of a particular tree may be easily exA great mistake. plained, even in fig-time, by disease or from local causes,-why Jesus found no fruit upon it." It seems to me that Mark did no such thing. It was not the absence of fruit but the presence of leaves which Mark sought to explain. It appears that in the case of the fig the fruit often appears before, and generally with, the leaves; the early fruit comes before the leaves, which do not appear until late in the season.* Indeed, the appearance of fig-leaves is one of the signs of approaching summer, as Jesus said (Matthew xxiv. 32), “When its branch

puts forth leaves you know that the summer is nigh." If the yap in the original be translated “although" instead of "for,” it seems to me that great help will be afforded to the proper comprehension of the passage. No man was expecting figs; but as they went towards Jerusalem, in these first days of April, they saw a fig tree in foliage," although it was not the season of figs." If leaves,' then there should have been fruit, for the fruit comes first. Jesus was not angry, but, as was usual with Oriental teachers, when he found occasion to teach a lesson symbolically, he seized the occasion.

He blighted the tree not because it did not have fruit, but be cause being fruitless it did have leaves. The tree stood a symbol of the Jewish people, leafy and fruitless; in A great lesson. advance of all the nations of the earth in religious pretensions, while being at the same time quite as destitute of real fruit as the Greeks and Romans and others, whom they regarded as barbarians and pagans. In a special manner that particular sect of the Jews called the Pharisees leafed out into manifold baptisms, and minute tithings, and excessive fastings, and broadened phylacteries, while the fruits of piety and humanity were nowhere to be found in their lives. The act of Jesus was not vindictive, but didactic; he did no harm to the tree, while he

Hackett's Illus. of Scriptures, p. 141.

impressed a profound lesson upon his disciples by what may be considered an acted Parable and Prophecy.

But there is still another consideration which seems to me more important than all others. Possessing power to smite and tc destroy, and being about to yield himself volunA grand truth. tarily to death, a death from which he might easily extricate himself by destroying all his enemies, it was important that the world should know that he had this power; otherwise the grandeur of his self-sacrifice would be unknown to the race. There were only two ways in which he could exhibit it, by smiting things animate or things inanimate. It was in purest mercy that he chose the latter. We now know what he could have done when bound, and buffeted, and insulted, and led out to be crucified. He could have made Caiaphas, or Pilate, or Herod, or the Roman centurion the blasted result of the exercise of his power. To know that he had this power, and did not exert it on men, under the circumstances, is the grandest display of mercy possible to man, and, let it be said devoutly, possible to God. It is worth more than all the trees that ever grew. Plant this stricken tree of Tuesday beside the cross of Friday, and you have a suggestion worth the study of man through all ages of time and of eternity.

We have seen that very early in his ministry Jesus had entered the Temple and rebuked its secularization by driving the profaning money-changers from the sacred precincts. (See Second cleansing p. 126.) It does not seem to have made a per- of the Temple. manent cure of the evil. The Temple-market as

it was called, taberna, where animals for sacrifice, and oil, and wine, and salt, and incense, were sold to worshippers, and the uncurrent and profane coin of those who came from distant countries was exchanged, had been set up again in the Court of the Gentiles. Again Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of the dove-sellers, and drove these merchants from the House of God, and forbade the carrying of utensils through the Holy House, as if it were a common edifice.*

It is supposed that operatives and mechanics on their way to work stepped in for worship, bringing their tools with them and setting them down while they prayed, thus making the Temple a common-place. Perhaps also, rather than

take a longer way around, those who were engaged about the Temple carried utensils through the holy places. It was the general secularization of holy things which Jesus rebuked and endeav ored to reform.

It is to be noticed that the first cleansing of the Temple, at the beginning of his ministry, was performed by Jesus as an act of zeal on his part as a prophet. The learned Selden* and others maintain the existence of a zealot-right, which justified one who was moved by sudden uncontrollable prophetic impulse to attack existing irregularities in the national worship. In some such spirit Jesus seems to have performed the first cleansing. This second purification appears to be made in character of Messiah. The people were giving him such a recognition. He could not, in such a position, allow this profanation of the Temple of God. It is to be noticed that the first purification excelled in violence of act, and the second in severity of word. In both cases there was a majesty and moral force in the very presence of Jesus, which accomplished the cleaning of the courts by the quick disappearance of the merchants. Freely combining and using two passages from the prophetic writings, Isaiah lvi. 7, and Jer. vii. 11, he says: "Is it not written that My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you are making it a den of robbers.” The charge is that THE CHURCH had become at once narrow and profane. God's religion has the spirit of universality; it is a religion for all the nations; theirs excluded the nations, and where Hunanity should have been represented there was a body of thieves. These fine discriminations are characteristic of Jesus-discri minations which escape ordinary observation, but which, when once made by him, summon the history of the world to their demonstration. In every age we can now see, since Jesus has indicated it, that there is an exceedingly slight difference between a bigot and a thief. He who is unwilling to allow to his fellow-man the spiritual rights he has in virtue of being a man, will not long hesitate to take from him his material properties. And he who will cheat a saint will not long hesitate, when he has an oppor tunity, to defraud a sinner.

Fine discriminations.

This severity was followed by acts of mercy. Blind and lame people came to him, and he healed them publicly in the Temple. The children caught the general enthusiasm. The An act of mercy. remembrance of Palm-Sunday jubilations and the sight of the discomfited merchants, and of the healed patients,

De Jure Nat. et Gent., iv. 6. The | Phinehas, Numb. xxv. 11. supposition is suggested by the act of

whose sight and activity had been restored, kindled the ardor of the young, and they sang around the powerful Teacher, "Hosanna to the Son of David." It gave sore displeasure to the churchmen to see a man who was not in the succession, not of the tribe of Aaron, doing things more wonderful than miracles, and receiving these Messianic salutations. To the latter they called his attention, pointing to the children, and saying: "Do you hear what these say?" His reply was prompt and emphatic: "Yes! Have you never read, 'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise?'" (Psalm viii. 2.) They did not believe that he was the Messiah in any sense. The children employed words from the sacred writings which, whatever sense their tender minds may have seen in them, no man could accept who did not believe himself to be the Messiah in some sense. Jesus did accept them.

More and more the malignity of the church deepened against him. The scribes and chief priests sought how they might destroy him; for they feared him because the people were astonished at his teaching. During the day he taught in the Temple. When the evening came he retired to rest in Bethany.

CHAPTER III.

THE THIRD DAY-FROM MONDAY EVENING TO TUESDAY EVENING.

Bethany and Jerusalem. Tuesday, 3d April, 12th Ni

THE morning of the third day found Jesus and his disciples returning to Jerusalem. It would seem to have been dark when they crossed the Mount of Olives the evening before, so dark that they had not noticed the condition of the fig-tree which they had visited the morn783. ing previous. But now its appearance arrested their attention. The blight which Jesus shed upon it seems to have begun to take effect at once, and in twenty-four hours such a change had been wrought that now it was dried up from the rocts.

san, A. U.

Matt. xxi., xxii.,

xxiii., xxiv., XXV., xxvi.; Mark xi., xii., xiii., xiv.; Luke xx., xxi.

Peter, calling the yesterday to remembrance, said to Jesus: "Rabbi, see; the fig-tree which you cursed is withered away." The solemn reply of Jesus was: "If you have faith in God, I assuredly say to you, whosoever shall say to this mountain, 'Be removed and cast. into the sea,' and shall not be divided in his heart, but shall believe that what he says is coming, it shall be to him.. On this account I say to you, All things whatever you pray and ask, believe that you have received, and they shall be to you. And when you stand praying forgive, if you have anything against any one, that your Father in the heavens may also forgive you your trespasses."*

It is noticeable that, frequent and wonderful as has been the exhibition of the powers of Jesus, each fresh display strikes his disciples with astonishment. They had seen the dead raised, and now they are astonished at the withering of a fig-tree.

Jesus turns them from astonishment at the phenomena to consider the necessary internal condition of a powerful soul to be that of faith in God. A literal interpretation of his words about

*In the common version, Mark xi. | is in heaven forgive your trespasses." 26, there is added, "But if ye do not But these words do not appear in the forgive, neither will your Father which original in the oldest MSS.