We know from St. Paul’s works, as well as from Rabbinical literature, that “to move mountains” was a common metaphor to express intellectual or spiritual ability. St. Paul speaks of faith that would “move mountains;” and you will find in Lightfoot’s _Horae Hebraicae_ (ii. p. 285), “There was not such another _rooter up of mountains_ as Ben Azzai.” Now we know from St. Luke’s Gospel (xvii. 6), that Jesus used a similar metaphor of trees, as well as of mountains, to exemplify the power of faith; and this without any reference to “something done and done miraculously:” “If ye have _faith_ as a grain of mustard seed, ye would say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou _rooted up and planted in the sea_; and it would have obeyed.” Planted in the sea! Can you dream that so preposterous a portent could have been prayed for by any sane and sober follower of Christ in compliance with his Master’s suggestion? Bear in mind that these words in St. Luke’s Gospel were uttered a long time before the blasting of the fig tree is supposed to have happened, and at a different place. Does not then a comparison of this passage with the other two make it probable that Jesus was in the habit of encouraging His disciples to be “pluckers up of mountains” and “rooters up of trees,” not literally but metaphorically, meaning thereby that they were to attempt and accomplish the greatest feats of faith? You will, perhaps, be surprised when you find what it was that Jesus regarded as the greatest feat of faith in the passage of St. Luke just mentioned. It was a feat of which we are accustomed to think rather lightly; partly, perhaps, because we are often contented with the appearance of it without the reality: it was simply forgiveness. He had told the disciples they must forgive “till seventy times seven:” The Apostles, in despair, replied “Increase our faith:” and then Jesus tells them that if they had but a germ of living trust, they could become “uprooters of sycamine trees,” in other words they could perform forgiveness, the greatest feat of faith. But perhaps you will say, “At all events in St. Mark, the earliest authority for the miracle of the blasting of the fig-tree, there is no mention of forgiveness, and nothing that would indicate that his version of the words of Jesus referred to what you call ‘the greatest feat of faith,’ _i.e._ forgiveness.” On the contrary, you will find that St. Mark, with some apparent confusion of different thoughts, retains the trace of the original spiritual signification of the words (Mark xi. 22-25): “Have _faith_ in God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass, he shall have it. _Therefore_ I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them; _And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any