bosannas of attendant crowds, for purging the Temple of the traffickers, at whose presence they connived ?

The answer surprised and confounded them. With that infinite presence of mind, of which the world's history furnishes no parallel, and which remained calm under the worst assaults, Jesus told them that the answer to their question depended on the answer which they were prepared to give to His question. "The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?" A sudden "Answer me," followed. pause said Jesus, interrupting their whispered colloquy. And surely they, who had sent a commission to inquire publicly into the claims of John, were in a position to answer. But no answer came. They knew full well the import of the question. They could not for a moment put it aside as irrelevant. John had openly and emphatically testified to Jesus, had acknowledged Him, before their own deputies, not only as a Prophet, but as a Prophet far greater than himself-nay, more, as the Prophet, the Messiah. Would they recognise that authority, or would they not? Clearly Jesus had a right to demand their reply to that question before He could reply to theirs. But they could not, or rather they would not answer that question. It reduced them in fact to a complete dilemma. They would not say "from heaven," because they had in heart rejected it; they dared not say "of men," because the belief in John (as we see even in Josephus) was so vehement and so unanimous that openly to reject him would have been to endanger their personal safety. They were reduced, therefore-they, the masters of Israel-to the ignominious necessity of saying, "We cannot tell." There is an admirable Hebrew proverb which says, "Teach thy tongue to say, 'I do not know.'" But to say "We do not know this instance, was a thing utterly alien to their habits, disgraceful to their discernment, a death-blow to their pretensions. It was ignorance in a sphere wherein ignorance was for them inexcusable. They, the appointed explainers of the Law-they, the accepted teachers of the people-they, the acknowledged monopolisers of Scriptural learning and oral tradition-and yet to be compelled, against their real convictions, to say, and that before the multitude, that they could not tell whether a man of immense and sacred influence—a man who acknowledged the Scriptures which they explained, and carried into practice the customs which they reverenced-was a divinely inspired messenger or a deluding impostor! Were the lines of demarcation, then, between the inspired Prophet (nabi) and the wicked seducer (mesith) so dubious and indistinct? It was indeed a fearful humiliation, and one which

in

they never either forgot or forgave!

And yet how just was the retribution which they had thus brought on their own heads! The curses which they had intended for another had recoiled upon themselves; the pompous question which was to be an engine wherewith another should be crushed, had sprung back with sudden rebound, to their own confusion and shame.

Jesus did not press upon their discomfiture-though He well knew -as the form of His answer showed-that their "do not know" was a "do not choose to say." Since, however, their failure to answer clearly absolved Him from any necessity to tell them further of an authority about which, by their own confession, they were totally incompetent to decide, He ended the scene by simply saying, "Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things."

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So they retired a little into the background. He continued the instruction of the people which they had interrupted, and began once more to speak to them in parables, which both the multitude and the members of the Sanhedrin who were present could hardly fail to understand. And He expressly called their attention to what He was about to say. "What think ye?" He asked, for now it is their turn to submit to be questioned; and then, telling them of the two sons, of whom the one first flatly refused his father's bidding, but afterwards repented and did it, the other blandly promised an obedience which he never performed, He asked, "Which of these two did his father's will?" They could but answer the first; and He then pointed out to them the plain and solemn meaning of their own answer. It was, that the very publicans and harlots, despite the apparent open shamelessness of their disobedience, were yet showing them— them, the scrupulous and highly reputed legalists of the holy nationthe way into the kingdom of heaven. Yes, these sinners, whom they despised and hated, were streaming before them through the door which was not yet shut. For John had come to these Jews on their own principles and in their own practices, and they had pretended to receive him, but had not; but the publicans and the harlots had repented at his bidding. For all their broad fringes and conspicuous phylacteries, they-the priests, the separatists, the Rabbis of these people—were worse in the sight of God than sinners whom they would have scorned to touch with one of their fingers.

Then He bade them "hear another parable," the parable of the rebellious husbandmen in the vineyard, whose fruits they would not yield. That vineyard of the Lord of Hosts was the house of Israel,

and the men of Judah were His pleasant plants; and they, the leaders and teachers, were those to whom the Lord of the vineyard would naturally look for the rendering of the produce. But in spite of all that He had done for His vineyard, there were no grapes, or only wild grapes. “He looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry." And since they could not render any produce, and dared not own the barren fruitlessness, for which they, the husbandmen, were responsible, they insulted, and beat, and wounded, and slew messenger after messenger whom the Lord of the vineyard sent to them. Last of all, He sent His Son, and that Son-though they recognised Him, and could not but recognise him-they beat, and flung forth, and slew. When the Lord of the vineyard came, what would He do to them? Either the people, out of honest conviction, or the listening Pharisees, to show their apparent contempt for what they could not fail to see was the point of the parable, answered that He would wretchedly destroy those wretches, and let out the vineyard to worthier and more faithful husbandmen. A second time they had been compelled to an admission, which fatally, out of their own mouths, condemned themselves; they had confessed with their own lips that it would be in accordance with God's justice to deprive them of their exclusive rights, and to give them to the Gentiles.

And to show them that their own Scriptures had prophesied of this their conduct, He asked them whether they had never read (in the 118th Psalm) of the stone which the builders rejected, which nevertheless, by the marvellous purpose of God, became the headstone of the corner? How could they remain builders any longer, when the whole design of their workmanship was thus deliberately overruled and set aside? Did not their old Messianic prophecy clearly imply that God would call other builders to the work of His Temple? Woe to them who even stumbled-as they were doing-at that rejected stone; but even yet there was time for them to avoid the more crushing annihilation of those on whom that stone should fall. To reject Him in His humanity and humiliation involved pain and loss; but to be found still rejecting Him when He should come again in His glory, would not this be "utter destruction from the presence of the Lord ? To sit on the seat of judgment and condemn Him—this should be ruin to them and their nation; but to be condemned by Him, would not this be to be "ground to powder?"

They saw now, more clearly than ever, the whole bent and drift of these parables, and longed for the hour of vengeance! But, as yet,

fear restrained them; for, to the multitude, Christ was still a prophet.

One more warning utterance He spoke on this Day of Parables— the Parable of the Marriage of the King's Son. In its basis and framework it closely resembled the Parable of the Great Supper uttered, during His last journey, at a Pharisee's house; but in many of its details, and in its entire conclusion, it was different. Here the ungrateful subjects who receive the invitation, not only make light of it, and pursue undisturbed their worldly avocations, but some of them actually insult and murder the messenger who had invited them, and -a point at which the history merges into prophecy-are destroyed and their city burned. And the rest of the story points to yet further scenes, pregnant with still deeper meanings. Others are invited; the wedding feast is furnished with guests both bad and good; the king comes in, and notices one who had thrust himself into the company in his own rags, without providing or accepting the wedding garment, which the commonest courtesy required.

This rude intruding presumptuous guest is cast forth by attendant angels into outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; and then follows, for the last time, the warning urged in vary ing similitudes, with a frequency commensurate to its importance, that "many are called, but few are chosen."

Teachings so obvious in their import filled the minds of the leading Priests and Pharisees with a more and more bitter rage. He had begun the day by refusing to answer their dictatorial question, and by more than justifying that refusal. His counter-question had not only shown His calm superiority to the influence which they so haughtily exercised over the people, but had reduced them to the ignominious silence of an hypocrisy, which was forced to shield itself under the excuse of incompetence. Then followed His parables. In the first of these He had convicted them of false professions, unaccompanied by action; in the second, He had depicted the trust and responsibility of their office, and had indicated a terrible retribution for its cruel and profligate abuse; in the third, He had indicated alike the punishment which would ensue upon a violent rejection of His invitations, and the impossibility of deceiving the eye of His Heavenly Father by a mere nominal and pretended acceptance. Lying lipservice, faithless rebellion, blind presumption, such were the sins which He had striven to bring home to their consciences. And this was but a superficial outline of all the heart-searching power with

which His words had been to them like a sword of the Spirit, piercing even to the dividing of the joints and marrow. But to bad men nothing is so maddening as the exhibition of their own self-deception. So great was the hardly-concealed fury of the Jewish hierarchy, that they would gladly have seized Him that very hour. Fear restrained them, and He was suffered to retire unmolested to His quiet restingplace. But, either that night or early on the following morning, His enemies held another council-at this time they seem to have held them almost daily-to see if they could not make one more combined, systematic, overwhelming effort "to entangle Him in His talk," to convict Him of ignorance or of error, to shake His credit with the multitude, or embroil Him in dangerous relations towards the civil authority. We shall see in the following chapter the result of their machinations.

CHAPTER LI.

THE DAY OF TEMPTATIONS-THE LAST AND GREATEST DAY OF THE
PUBLIC MINISTRY OF JESUS.

On the following morning Jesus rose with His disciples to enter for the last time the Temple Courts. On their way they passed the solitary fig-tree, no longer gay with its false leafy garniture, but shrivelled, from the root upwards, in every bough. The quick eye of Peter was the first to notice it, and he exclaimed, "Master, behold the fig-tree which thou cursedst is withered away." The disciples stopped to look at it, and to express their astonishment at the rapidity with which the denunciation had been fulfilled. What struck them most was the power of Jesus; the deeper meanings of His symbolic act they seem for the time to have missed; and, leaving these lessons to dawn upon them gradually, Jesus addressed the mood of their minds at the moment, and told them that if they would but have faith in God-faith which should enable them to offer up their prayers with perfect and unwavering confidence they should not only be able to perform such a wonder as that done to the fig-tree, but even "if they bade this mountain "—and as He spoke He may