the window, which made it seem as though the Christ in the picture were actually alive and calling to His worshipper. My friend was so impressed by the suggestiveness of the incident that he wrote the following lines and sent them to me:

Subdued by mystic glamour of the scene
And loth to let the bright illusion go,
I pondered thankfully how it might mean
That all the fair created things we know,
Common as wind and sunshine, none the less
Reveal the moving of Christ's Hand to bless.

The healthful life on mountain, moor, and sea,
All toil or joy where useful deeds are done,
In spheres immense of man's activity -

These are not Christless; all true life is one,
Disclosing still, for hearts that understand,
Blessings and beckonings of that mighty Hand.

How absolutely true! There is nothing insignificant in life, nothing that does not belong to God. Instead of kneeling by the waters of affliction in useless lament, rise and watch for the beckoning hand which will guide you to what can sweeten them. Your problem, whatever it is, is God's too. "When He giveth quietness who then can make trouble?" "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" "Behold, the Lord's arm is not shortened that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear."

BELIEVING PRAYER

"All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." MATTHEW xxi. 22.

THIS emphatic saying of Jesus appears in a rather strange setting. It forms the concluding verse in Matthew's account of the cursing of the barren fig tree, a story which is told with greater fulness of detail in Mark's version. According to Mark, Jesus, on His way from Bethany to Jerusalem, approached a certain fig tree in the hope of finding some fruit to satisfy His hunger, but was disappointed, whereupon He exclaimed, "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever." Mark then goes on to tell the story of the day's doings. This was the day on which Jesus cleansed the Temple from the money-changers and victim sellers. After this trying and exciting experience, Jesus returned to Bethany for the night, and, so Mark tells us, took His way to Jerusalem again the next morning. When the little party passed the fig tree to which He had directed attention on the previous day, the disciples found that it was withered up from the roots. Peter, surprised at this, commented upon it, and Jesus in response went on to bid him have faith in God, and to declare that such faith would

move mountains. He concluded His address by saying: “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them."

This is a completer version of the circumstances under which the words of our text came to be spoken than Matthew's is, and throws a considerable light upon them. Evidently Matthew's version is not an exact copy of Mark's, although in substance the same, a fact which goes far to establish the utterance as being authentic. Where Matthew has, "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing ye shall receive," Mark has, "Believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them." Mark's version of the saying is even more striking and emphatic than Matthew's, but either of them is remarkable. Notwithstanding the fact that they differ so widely in form, they mean much the same thing, and therefore it is evident that what Jesus said impressed His hearers so deeply that they remembered it perfectly, although perhaps they did not preserve the actual words. Admitting, then, that we have here a genuine saying of Jesus, what can it possibly mean? Is it actually true that the things we ask for in perfect faith come to us with unerring certainty? I think there are a good many of us who would hesitate before giving an unqualified affirmative to that question.

The circumstances under which the words were spoken give the clue to their meaning. Let us look

at them a little more closely. Do you really believe, any of you, that Jesus was so unreasonable as to curse a tree because He expected to find fruit on it and was disappointed? Mark expressly tells us that the time of figs was not yet; so, even if the tree were endowed with consciousness and a sense of moral responsibility, it could not be held blameworthy for bearing leaves instead of fruit. It is childish to suppose that Jesus blighted it because He was angry with it. My belief is that we have here an acted parable, but probably not a miracle. There is a fig tree in my garden, and I notice that every year the fruit precedes the leaves. At the present moment not a leaf is visible, but the fruit is already forming. The function of the leaves is to protect and shelter the ripening fruit. When Jesus saw leaves on the barren fig tree He knew that the fruit ought already to be there, even though it was too early to expect that it should be ripe. When He found none He saw at once what was the matter: the tree was rotten and dying. Hence His words were not so much a curse as a prophecy : No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. The next morning the prophecy was found to be fulfilled. I have seen a similar thing happen in an hour on a hot summer's day to a bush that had not sufficient stamina to carry its burden of luxuriance.

But was there not something else in the mind of Jesus as He looked upon this dying tree, and is not that something else the reason why Mark inserts

the story of the cleansing of the Temple before he finishes his account of the fate of the barren fig tree? I think Jesus saw in this incident a figure of the impending doom of His country and her religion. The Jewish nation was like the barren fig tree. It had produced ordinances and ceremonies of the most elaborate character. Never were the externals of religion better attended to than at the time when priests and Pharisees crucified Jesus. But these were nothing but leaves. The Temple ought to have been the shelter of the ripening fruit of noble and exalted spiritual experience, but that fruit was absent. Jesus realised this with bitter sorrow, and saw in the dying fig tree an emblem of it all.

But He also saw something more. He saw that at the darkest and the worst God could and would provide Himself with suitable instruments for the realisation of His holy will. So as Jesus watched the star of Israel setting in darkness and materialism, He turned with quiet hope and confidence to the simple men beside Him. Here was the new Israel, the spiritual Israel who should bring mankind to God. Now as always, God had chosen the weak things of the earth to confound the mighty. Hence his exhortation to Peter and his companions was in substance something like this: The work of Israel is over; she is like the barren fig tree; she is perishing for lack of moral power. God is now calling you to do the work which she ought to have done and to witness Him to the world. "Fear not,