are now-a-days to be found, and we may safely dismiss them among other absurdities of Jewish learning. Then, we have been told of a certain peculiarity of the fig tree, that it forms its fruit before putting forth its leaves, so that this particular tree, being full of leaves, might possibly, it is thought, have had fruit also in a state of sufficient forwardness to be eaten, and to satisfy the hunger of Christ; as if it were not a matter of well-known certainty, that the young figs remain hard and uneatable till past midsummer, that the earliest ripe are never found before the end of June, few even before the end of July, while the transaction here recorded took place at the time of the passover; that is, about the beginning or toward the middle of April. Yet if only seen in the right point of view, there is no inexplicable difficulty in the matter, and the very point which creates the embarrassment, is fitted, and no doubt was intended, to render the meaning of the whole more clear and manifest. 1. It must be seen at once by all who have the least spiritual discernment, that the deed performed by our Lord here was a symbolical transaction-a thing done, not properly for its own sake, but for the purpose of teaching a great moral lesson. Even supposing it had been the time of figs, and that, seeing such an appearance of leaves on the tree, Christ might justly have expected something on it to satisfy his hunger, yet to betray a spirit of resentment at not finding what he expected, by blighting the unconscious tree, would have been unworthy even of a reasonable being, not to speak of the Holy One of Israel; but how much more, when it was not the time of figs, when that was still at a distance of three months, and when, of course, there was no room for any feeling of resentment whatever to enter! It is clear as day, that the action of our Lord on the tree was altogether of a symbolical nature, and that he never would have done what he did, unless it had been to give, by this outward action, a suitable and striking exhibition of some important truth. Indeed, all the works of Christ on earth were chiefly of a prophetical or instructive character: they were performed, not for their own sakes alone, but as the means of revealing to the world his person and character, and the nature and objects of his mission. Hence, when John's disciples came inquiring whether he was indeed the Messiah, the answer returned was simply, "Tell him what things ye do hear and see." And hence, also, he called upon his disciples to "believe him for the very works' sake;" and said to the Jews, "The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me." | But if this was true of all his works, it was pre-eminently true of such as were miraculous, in which there was a display of properties manifestly and peculiarly divine. And if we may distinguish among these, then surely the symbolical or teaching character must have belonged in the highest and most emphatical sense to the works or miracles of Christ, which were of a more extraordinary nature than others, in performing which he travelled out of his usual course, and did what we cannot suppose he would have done at all, but for the higher ends of his mission. For what could he intend by such deeds, but to arrest men's attention, and, as it were, compel their regard 2. If now we look to the time and occasion when this miracle of blighting was wrought on the fig tree, we shall see plainly enough what was the nature of the lesson it was designed to teach, and how appro priate the work was at such a season. The Lord had just entered in triumphal procession into Jerusalem, riding on an ass, according to the words of the prophet, and thereby announcing himself as the King of Zion. In this cypacity he proceeded to the temple, the house that peculiarly belonged to him as king; and in proof of the authority which he claimed there, │ as well as of his holy indignation at the iniquity which exalted itself in the very centre of his kingdom, he cast out the covetous traffickers from its courts, saying: "My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves." This action also, so unlike the usual mildness and forbearance of Christ, was evidently symbolical, and was designed to show what was his sense of the state of things then existing in the land, and what, if not speedily reformed, it might expect from his hand. The temple was at that time the seat of the divine kingdom, and as such was well fitted to represent in general the members and interests of the kingdom. Even the rebel-i lious generation, whose obstinate perseverance in sin drew on the Babylonish exile, showed that they understood this when they said: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we." And there can be no doubt, that when Christ took possession of the temple as his own, as the palace of the great King, and expelled from it the unworthy characters who were polluting its courts, he meant to teach a lesson to the whole nation-to declare by an outward act, that, having withstood the preaching of John the Baptist, and refused to profit by his own instructions as the great Prophet of Israel, he was now ready to come near to them in judgment, and would drive them ali from the kingdom as he drove the traffickers from the temple. But lest, in their infatuated blindness, they should mistake his meaning, or not attend to the solemn warning, he repeated the lesson on the following day by direct instruction in the parable of the wicked husbandmen of the vineyard, in which he spoke so pointedly, that "the Pharisees perceived he spoke against them;" and which he wound up with the equally explicit and startling testimony, that “the CHRIST CURSING THE BARREN FIG TREE. 419 notwithstanding all your proud and flattering appearances, that I might as soon have found in this season of spring the fruit of mid-summer on the fig tree before me, as that spiritual harvest from you which I have a right to look for. Let it, then, be your warning monitor; see what for your sakes I have made it; and in its now blighted and withering condition, behold the emblem of what the just retribution of Heaven, if it fall, must inevitably make you." Thus we see, that when rightly considered-that is, viewed not in part merely, as is commonly done, but as kingdom of God should be taken from them, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.' (Matt. xxi. 43.) It was on the same morning, and as he was on his way to the temple, where he taught this parable, that he went to the fig tree and blasted it; so that the action on it stands mid-way between the purging of the temple and the direct instruction by the parable. And how suitably does it stand there! How clearly does it proclaim, in common with the other two, the purpose for which he comes as the King of Zion to his Church! viz., to seek the spiritual fruit which all his gracious and kindly deal-altogether a symbolical transaction, performed simply ings toward it as well as its own fair professions entitled him to expect! And if disappointed in this just expectation, how certainly does it then declare he would cause his judgment to alight, to bring the outward condition into fitting correspondence with the inward to render what would not bear fruit, when it might have done so, henceforth manifestly incapable of doing it a monument of blighting, desolation, and ruin! 3. Such being the evident design, and the only design of this transaction, we may surely understand that its being done when the time of figs was not yet come, was only to make the lesson more clear and manifest-to render it in a manner impossible for the people to think merely of the unfruitfulness of the fig tree and its blighted condition, but to force them to see in these the higher and spiritual things they represented. The fleshly nature of Christ, conscious of hunger, instinctively prompted him to look for relief to the first object that seemed capable of affording it. That the fig tree did not possess the means of doing so, the merest child could see was no fault on its partnature had denied it the power of yielding the satisfaction. But, ah! then, how much more easily was the mind carried out to think of those who might have brought forth the expected fruit, if they had but so willed it! And how much more forcibly was the warning pressed upon their notice of a fearful, impending visitation of judgment! For now the action spoke to them, not indirectly and by halves, but directly and exclusively. Had it been the time of figs, there would have been some excuse, at least, for their looking merely to the field of nature, and thinking only of what presented itself to the eye of sense; but as it was, there was no mistaking the transaction-it was a mirror in which the most unreflecting mind could hardly fail to behold the solemn and awakening truth it was designed to inculcate. So clearly, indeed, does the symbolical here shine through the visible-so exclusively was that in the eye of the evangelist, as it doubtless was also in the eye of Christ that he regards the tree as a living creature, a conscious representative of the people; in whose condition Christ hears, as it were, their mind expressing itself, and to whom therefore he answers and speaks the feelings of his own. "The will of my divine nature," he in a manner proclaimed, "as irresistibly constrains me to seek in you, the visible members of my kingdom, the fruits of righteousness, as the natural instinct of hunger has impelled me to seek here the means of a present satisfaction. But, lo! such is the hopeless degeneracy of your state, for the purpose of teaching a great moral lessonthere is no inexplicable difficulty about it. Not only so, but the circumstance of its being done when the time of figs was not yet, not nearly indeed come, rather serves to help us to the real meaning of the transaction, and might almost be regarded as a sort of key to its right interpretation. 4. It is not to be forgotten, that while the transaction spoke directly to the Jews, and, as a prophetical action, had its accomplishment primarily in them, it speaks also with loud and solemn warning to the whole professing Church of God. This is in every age a vineyard of the Lord's planting, in which every tree is planted for the purpose of yielding fruit to God. Nay, so intent is the Lord on obtaining this, and so large is the desire of his heart regarding it, that he will not be content merely with some degree of productiveness; for he says: "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bring forth much fruit." Not only are the leaves not accounted of, but a small return is also esteemed as nothing-much fruit is sought; because replenished as the Church is with gifts of grace, this alone is glorifying to the Father, and acceptable to the Son. Here, too, in this region of grace it is otherwise than in the region of nature; for the sun of grace ever shines, and its showers of blessing ever fall, so that it is always the time for yielding fruit to God; and if not yielded through all the seasons of life, it can only be because the root of the matter is not in us-we are as a field nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned. Fruitless professor, be warned in time of the perilous nature of thy condition, and trifle not with the things of God's mercy and judgment. mingle in his dealings toward thee; mercy, indeed, first, but that, if slighted and abused, assuredly runing into judgment. He is giving thee, as he gave sinners in the days of his flesh, line upon line, and warning upon warning; loath to execute the work of judgment, and still yearning for thy salvation, he not only plies thee with the calls and entreaties of grace, but turns the field of nature into a school of instruction, and shows thee there, in many an object of blighting and desolation, the emblem of thy deserved doom; but the judgment cannot always linger, and suddenly, may be by the morning dawn, will the hour of visitation come, as it befell this fruitiess fig tree. Awake, therefore, awake now to righteousness, and sin not; be up and doing in the Lord's service, lest repentance should be hid from his eyes. Salton. Remember that both of these P. F. ROBERT CUNNINGHAM.-Among other quaint but pious and cheering expressions upon his death-bed, Cunningham said, "I see Christ standing over Death's head, saying, 'Deal warily with my servant: loose thou this pin, then that pin, for this tabernacle must be set up again.'" SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.-Although he was known to be dying, the Parliament summoned him to appear before them at Edinburgh, to answer to the charge of high treason-for so his fidelity to the cause of Christ was termed. The messengers found him in bed. "Tell them," he said, "I have got a summons already before a superior Judge and judicatory; it behoves me to answer my first sumnions; and ere your day come, I will be where few kings and great folks come." JAMES RENWICK.-In returning thanks after a slight meal, previous to his execution, he used these remarkable words: “O Lord, thou hast brought me within two hours of eternity, and this is no matter of terror to me more than if I were to lie down on a bed of roses; nay, through grace, to thy praise I may say, I never had the fear of death since I came to this prison, but from the place where I was taken I could have gone very composedly to the scaffold. Oh, how can I contain this, to be within two hours of the crown of glory?" On hearing the drums beat for the guard to turn out, he exclaimed: "Yonder the welcome warning to my marriage; the Bridegroom is coming; I am ready, I am ready!" Renwick, who suffered martyrdom at the early age of twenty-six, was the last victim of a long period of persecution that had continued in Scotland twenty-eight years. "MY SHEEP KNOW MY VOICE." A TRAVELLER once asserted to a Syrian shepherd, that the sheep knew the dress of their master, not his voice. The shepherd, on the other hand, asserted it was the voice they knew. To settle the dispute, he and the traveller exchanged dresses, and went among the sheep. The traveller in the shepherd's dress called on the sheep and tried to lead them, but "they knew not his voice," and never moved. On the other hand, they ran at once at the call of their owner, though thus disguised. (John x. 4.)-Bonar's Mission to the Jews. SCENE AT ROME. THE first time I entered St. Peter's I found it quite solitary, a crowd having just dispersed from the ceremonies of Ash-Wednesday, when the pope scatters ashes on the heads of the cardinals. A poor peasant came in leading his little boy. He approached the statue of St. Peter, knelt reverently before it, crossed himself, repeated a prayer, rose and kissed the toe, and then lifted the child to it, who kissed it also. This done, he left the church. looked with pity on that child, and I thought of the Protestant family and the Sabbath school. The statue is placed on a pedestal breast high. The time I was there the pope entered with his Swiss guard, followed by a suite of ecclesiastics of various grades. He in like manner knelt before his bronze predecessor, prayed, and kissed the toe-an edifying example to his flock. He has plenty of imitators in this. The peasant and the pope were the first instances of my witnessing that piece of devotion. The toe is worn half away by wiping and kissing. He finished his devotions before the high altar. There was no music or audible prayer; the service was only mental or in whispers, the pope alone performing. Among his priestly followers, who knelt behind him, and moved when he moved, I noticed whispering and levity even when upon their knees. An English Puseyite clergyman present remarked to me that he often observed a want of seriousness and decorum in the priests of Rome in their devotions-whereat he felt a little scandalized, but not apparently stumbled. He believed in the Romish Church, he said, but not her "errors." The errors of Rome! What, and how many may they be, in the judgment of a Puseyite? I imagine Paul would need but two brackets to include them allone at the beginning of the book, and the other at the end.-Mitchell's "Notes from over the Sea." A MINISTER'S STUDIES. LUTHER'S maxim was admirable, "Bene errase est bene studuisse-He studies well who prays well.' Prayer is the best kind of study; first in itself, and second, because it guides and regulates all other! study. No man can study aright, who does not study with prayer. "Not to read or study at all," says Quesnel, is to tempt God; and to do nothing bet study, is to forget the ministry; to study only to glory in one's knowledge, is a shameful vanity; to study in search of the means to flatter sinners, is a deplorable prevarication; but to store one's mind with the knowledge proper to the saints by study and by prayer, and to diffuse that knowledge in solid instructions and practical exhortations-this is to be a prudent, zealous, and laborious minister." communication of one's studies to others. What is Add to this the remark of Bishop Wilkins as to the thorough and prayerful, will be plain. "The greatest learning is to be seen in the greatest plainness. The more clearly we understand anything ourselves, the more easily can we expound it to others." Studies and most edifying to others. Studies gained in prayer, that are gained in prayer are most useful to ourselves, always simple and plain. though concerned with the highest mysteries, are GOD'S LOVE. Not as the world loves, doth God love. They love to-day, and hate to-morrow; wearing their friends like flowers, which we may behold in their bosoms whilst they are fresh and sweet, but soon they wither. and soon they are laid aside. Whereas the love of God to his people is everlasting, and he wears them as a signet upon his right hand, which he will never part with. Not as the world gives, doth God give. Then give liberally, and repent suddenly, but "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance."White. THE CHRISTIAN TREASURY. THE ACCIDENTS OF PROVIDENCE. 421 FROM THE GERMAN OF THOLUCK. thereof is of the Lord."-PROV. xvi. 33. "And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him he passed by on the other side."-LUKE X. 31. The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing fail them. We children of men were pitiable indeed, if everything we did not see had on that account no being. No; in a world of which it is recorded, "Thou hast ordered all things in measure, number, and weight," there can be no place for accident. The lot may be cast into the lap strangely, by invisible or by visible hands-suddenly, or in such a way that men can mark its coming-from this side or that, from beneath or from above, sparingly or bountifully; yet the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord still. So long as we are in a school where we are baffled, as upon other points, so upon the great problem of imperfection, surely in God's world accident must play an important part for us; and as we are informed that in this world all things are ordered in measure, number, and weight, we may believe the declaration, though unable to substantiate it. Those stupid souls, on the one hand, who are not given to calculating and measuring even in plain, ordinary transactions, must certainly in "By chance." And so even Holy Writ knows of chance. Men are sometimes cautious in speaking of accident, but surely the bare word can have no sin in it, since our Saviour has used it. But what is accident? A divinity, a fate, aside from or superior to the Almighty Father of heaven and earth? It cannot be. No; it is nothing but a word which we ordinarily use when our sagacity is unable to unite the chain between cause and effect; it is more the name for something in us, than for anything in the nature of things. Effects which do not appear to be the result of plan and design we call accidental. Thus we speak of accidents, when anything happens which man did not predetermine, as where our Lord says, that the "priest by chance came down that way;" and here the word has its proper signification. But we speak still again of accident when the vast economy of the world, find chance meetit seems to us that something happens contrarying them at every corner. And as, on the other to the divine plan and design; and there the hand, there are men vain enough really to think word is nothing but a word. We talk of ne- that where their wits are brought to a stand, cessity when the decrepit old man dies in the hat is about the end of all knowledge, it is no weakness of his age, after both windows that wonder if the feet of such wise people are every look out upon the world of sense--the dull eyes moment stumbling upon accident, since they -are closed, and the door of the mouth is but are better satisfied that you should consider the seldom opened, and the hoary head has long wisdom that made the world imperfect, than worn the livery of the grave; we acknowledge their own. He who conceives vanity shall then a plan and design, since the fruit is bring forth a lie. gathered after it has become ripe, and the labourer is called from the field because his instrument is worn out. But let the youth be torn away unexpectedly, and by a casual circumstance, perhaps the falling of a stone from the roof--let the beautiful casket be crushed ere yet the spirit it contains has had time to unfold its impulses-then it is we speak of accident, for we see there no divine intention. Is it not a strange thing that so much effort is needful to persuade men that the great day will disclose a measure, and number, and weight, in many an accidental and fortuitous occurrence, when even these days on earth so often and variously served as much? There travelled once upon a certain road two men, of whom one was the fast friend of accident, and argued for it powerfully. The other, who believed in that wisdom which orders all things in measure, number, and weight, remarked to his philosophic companion, how upon the right side of the road the trees grew vigorously and beautifully, while upon the left they were stinted and sickly;-a manifest freak of accident. It was a plain case to our philosopher: but hold the side of the road upon the left was the lowest, and the trees there consequently felt less of the sunshine. O how much more seldom should we see chance in the world, if men's thoughts were not so often casual, finite, and contracted! How can we take accident out of God's hand and give it to another, when we so often see the "best laid schemes" fall short of the consummation; and on the other hand, a grain of dust from the wall, or the thin shadow that flits before the sun, determine the weightiest events? It was by chance" that the Priest and the Levite and the Samaritan came down that way. And had the Samaritan not gone down! a man's death would have been the consequence. As Napoleon was returning to France from Egypt, Nelson kept his eye upon the fugitive, and once even stood out with his whole fleet directly in the teeth of Napoleon's two ships; but a thick mist settled down between them both-and but for that mist, we should now be having a different world. In solemn majesty rests the old avalanche upon the summit of the glacier, and accumulates there, year after year, till the pinion of a little bird that struggles by on the wing jostles it—it slides!—and under the impetuous ruin thousand upon thousand of human lives are crushed out of being. True it is, that slight shocks do not make revolutions, nor do trifling junctures prevent them. To overwhelm a city, the avalanche must pile itself up for many a long year, and Napoleon must be Napoleon, if the complexion of the world is to be changed by a mere mist; and yet the contact of the little bird, and the misty partition-all come in for their share of the influences. Honest men, who have to decide upon the fate of the world, are the first to acknowledge how | that which they call destiny or accident produces its results. Napoleon often said of himself that no man could have a firmer belief in Providence than he; but had he believed in Providence, he would have bowed the knee before it, and brought to it the offering of a meek thanksgiving. The truth is, he believed in a blind destiny, and therefore offered himself up as Destiny's favourite child. Those men, however, who are called to a great mission, and who, at the same time, acknowledge the King of kings, are constrained to the avowal: "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the I city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep." If everything in the world is arranged in measure and number, then no part can be removed without destroying the whole, or at least spoiling its harmony, any more than in a symmetrical piece of architecture. And thus the Holy Scriptures declare, in many places, that misfortune as well as prosperity, evil as well as good, are under God's control: "I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things." And says another prophet: "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it!" So also in the New Testament, our Lord and his apostles, even in the case of the darkest crime, represent all as happening after the counsel of God. Thus it is written: "For of a truth, against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together, for to do what soever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." Thus do the prophets of the old and the new covenant significantly testify that both the small and the great come under the inspec tion of the Almighty. O short-sighted man! who, while he himself cannot embrace the small and the great together, thinks it must be quite the same with the eternal God. But would the Eternal be so great as he is, if by reason of his greatness he had no eye for the minute? Could the world be properly called a work of art, if the same Artist who was recog nised in the grand, did not also show himself in even the minutest? I can never look at yonder lofty cathedral, where the obscurest edge of the threshold is elaborated with the same fondness, the same care, and in the same spirit, as the spire that throws itself high into heaven, without recognising there a likeness of the great Architect of the universe. I will not, therefore, measure the Eternal by the scale of my diminutive eye. And although my ear is not open enough yet to catch, from out the clashing of the various powers and con- ! ditions in the world, the harmony that nevertheless breathes in all, yet I will not dispute it Should a deaf mute be suddenly introduced for the first time into a great orchestra, and see there the laborious activity of hands and feet, and the sweat of the brow, and—all for nothing! how puerile would he think it; and thus it is with us men in regard to the universe. 0, when I shall know Him even as I am known. and the measure shall be known, and the num |
