Let _us_ ask, have _we_ received Jesus as _our_ King?--have _our_ palm branches been cast at His feet? Feeling that He is alike willing and mighty to save, have we joined in the rapture of praise--"Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord to save us?" Have our hearts become living temples thrown open for His reception? Is this the motto and superscription on their portals--"This is the gate of the Lord, into which THE RIGHTEOUS ONE shall enter!" Jesus refused and disowned none of these gratulations--He spurned no voice in all that motley Jerusalem throng. There were endless diversities and phases, doubtless, of human character and history there. The once proud formalist, the once greedy extortioner, the hated tax-gatherer, the rich nobleman, the child of penury, the Roman officer, the peasant or fisherman of Galilee, the humbled publican, the woman from the city, the reclaimed victim of misery and guilt! All were there as types and samples of that diversified multitude who, in every age, were to own Him as King, and receive His gracious benediction. We have spoken of this incident as a glimpse of glory before His sufferings. Alas! it _was_ but a glimpse. What a picture of the fickleness and treachery of the heart!--That excited populace who are now shouting their hosannahs, are ere long to be raising the cry, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Four days hence we shall find the palm branches lying withered on the Bethany road, and the blazing torches of an assassin-band nigh the very spot where He is now passing with an applauding retinue! "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils." It does not belong to our narrative to record the remaining transactions of this day in Jerusalem. The shades of evening find the Saviour once more repairing to Bethany. The evangelist _Mark_, in the course of his narrative, simply but touchingly says:--"And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple, and when He had looked round about upon all things" (the mitred priests, the bleeding victims, the costly buildings), "and now the eventide was come, he went out unto BETHANY with the twelve." (Mark xi. 11.) As He returned to the sweet calm of that quiet home, if He could not fail to think of the hours of darkness and agony before Him, could He reap no joy or consolation in the thought, that that very day week the redemption of His people was to be consummated--the glory that surrounded the grave and resurrection of Lazarus was to be eclipsed by the marvels of His own! XIX. THE FIG-TREE.