Let us drop the figure. Never before the incarnation was there another people so highly favored as the Hebrews. God chose them for his own, and established his covenant with them, and talked with them from heaven, and dwelt in their midst upon the mercy-seat, and led them forty years with a pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness, and smote every enemy that rose up against them, and exterminated mighty nations to make room for them in Canaan, and brought them into the goodly land which he had promised to their fathers--a land flowing with milk and honey, which he gave them for a perpetual inheritance. But how often they forgot his covenant, and forsook his ordinances, and turned aside after other gods, and provoked him to anger with their inventions! Then he hewed them by the prophets and chastised them by the heathen, but they would not return from their evil ways. He permitted their cities to be sacked, their young men to be slain in battle, their virgins to be carried away captive, and their kings to serve in chains at the tables of the uncircumcised. When they returned to him with weeping and supplication, he returned to them with loving-kindness and tender mercies. "Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore my heart is troubled for him. I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." But after all, when Christ came, he found only fruitless foliage upon his long-cherished fig-tree. Mint, anise, and cummin were scrupulously tithed; but the weightier matters of the law--judgment, mercy and faith--were altogether neglected and forgotten. The phylacteries were large, the prayers were loud and long, the chief seats in the synagogue were always occupied, and no poor man in vain stretched forth his hand for alms; but the religion of the Jew ran all to superstitious observances and ostentatious formalities, divine precepts were sacrificed to human traditions, a nation of hypocrites could not produce the fruits of righteousness; and, given up at last to the grossest self-delusion, they rejected their King and crucified the Lord of glory. How graciously he had labored! how anxiously he had watched and waited! and yet there was no grateful return for all his arduous toil and loving care. But is he willing to cut down the worthless tree, or blast it with his curse? See! he is crossing the ridge of Olivet on his way to Jerusalem, riding in triumph amidst the acclamations of the multitude who have witnessed his miracles and confessed his Messiahship, his path carpeted with their garments and covered with branches of the palm. Reaching the brow of the hill, he looks down upon the beautiful city, lying like a jewelled crown before him. He thinks of all his labor for her children, and all their base ingratitude and suicidal unbelief. He knows that those who are now shouting him on his way with hosannahs will soon be clamoring for his crucifixion and