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 say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets." But if the case be fairly examined, are we really much better than they? Is not the fate of the barren fig-tree equally the fate of all churches, and of all individuals, who, notwithstanding a show of religion, are barren of its fruits?

Do not our times offer a great display of religious profession and doctrine—great apparent luxuriance—but a practical neglect of applying the truths of religion to their proper use, the purification of the heart, and the reformation of the life? And does not the apparently unimportant incident under consideration, contain weighty instruction, applicable to all times, and to all people, whenever religion is shewn in a precocious appearance of knowledge and sanctity, instead of the seasonable growth of wholesome fruit, with the due expansion of truths to ripen it?

When the fig-tree is seen afar off, prematurely bedecked with foliage, He who ever hungers after rightcousness will come to it, "if haply he may find anything thereon;" but should the promising appearance prove to be "nothing but leaves," the curse is already pronounced; the means given to bring forth fruit have been mis-appropriated; and presently the fig-tree must wither away.