172 TEACHING IN THE TEMPLE. fore, instead of crossing the summit of the Mount of Olives, took the shorter way around its eastern base. Tuesday. Again, in the morning, our Lord, with his disciples, leaves Bethany for Jerusalem, by the same path which he had taken yesterday, and now, as they approach the fig-tree, so lately covered with thrifty leaves, they find it withered away, and dried up from the roots. Peter draws attention to it, and Christ improves the occasion to speak to them of the power of an undoubting faith. Arrived at the temple, he at once enters upon his work of teaching the people, when he is interrupted by the captious objections raised by the chief priests and elders to his authority. The whole day seems to have been passed in the temple. He discoursed upon many important subjects, illustrated them by striking parables, and defeated the malicious attempts of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians, who tried successively to entangle him by insidious questions. At last, the measure of his forbearance having been exhausted, he turns to the multitude, and to his disciples, and gives them an earnest caution against these corrupt teachers, whom he denounces as blind guides and hypocrites. Then, sorrowfully reflecting upon the ingratitude and obstinacy which his benevolent labours had met with, and upon the merciless return he was about to receive, he utters that touching expostulation: "0 ITS DESTRUCTION FORETOLD. 173 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" All these things took place, probably, in that inner court-yard of the temple in which was situated the treasury, where the people deposited, in chests prepared for the purpose, their voluntary contributions to maintain the service of the temple. Here Jesus saw that poor widow, whose name is unknown, but whose deed of self-denying, unostentatious charity, in casting in two mites, was more in the sight of heaven than all the offerings of the rich. As our Lord was now retiring from the temple, one of his disciples directed his attention to the majestic structure, "Master, see what manner of buildings and what stones are here." Then came that fearful prophecy, so improbable as it doubtless seemed when uttered, but yet so literally fulfilled: "There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down." This night he retired, we are told, to the Mount of Olives, but whether he went as far as Bethany we are not informed. Wednesday.-Last night our Lord abode in the mount that is called the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning, as he sat there still, the disciples came unto him privately, to ask him when that 174 THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. destruction of the temple should be which he had yesterday foretold. As they were gathered in a group upon the face of the mount, its summit towering above and behind them, the newly risen sun looking over it, began to throw his beams upon the pinnacles and porches of the temple. What more glorious object to behold than a majestic pile of buildings, on some lofty eminence, receiving the first salutations of the king of day! He gives a new existence to the beauty of its proportions, before confused or ill-defined, and bathes them now in a stream of golden light. So have we seen the Mosque of Omar seated in calm dignity and splendour upon its lofty platform, and its wide area filled with turbaned votaries, moving to and fro in their bright and many-coloured robes, or prostrate at their morning prayer. So to our Saviour and his apostles appeared, but far more beautiful and majestic, that temple of the Lord; its court of the Gentiles thronged with a mixed multitude, its white-robed priests ministering in their appropriate inclosure, and the smoke of incense and the morning sacrifice ascending in clouds to heaven. Now they ask, "When shall these things be?" When shall this holy place, so adorned with goodly stones and gifts, be consigned to destruction, so that one stone shall not be left upon another that shall not be thrown down? "And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the sorrows. PROPHECIES OF JUDGMENT. 175 world?" Then follow the fearful prophecies of the judgment and of the destruction of the city and temple: "There shall be wars and rumours of wars, nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes in divers places, famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of After the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of God, but my Father only. Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." The earnest warning, Watch! is again enforced by the parable of the ten virgins and the talents, and the dread discourse is ended with the description of that day, "when the Son of Man shall come in his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." In the evening of this memorable day, Bethany is for the last time honoured by the presence of her Lord. Simon the leper receives the Divine Physician who 176 ANOINTING OF CHRIST. had healed his loathsome malady, and Lazarus is one of them that sit at the evening feast. His sister Mary comes to serve, and in the fulness of her love brings an alabaster box of very precious ointment of spikenard. She pours part of it upon the head of Jesus, and with the rest she anoints his feet. To us, whose customs are so different, this may seem a singular expression of respect. But we may remember, that among the ancients it was no uncommon thing for the guests to be crowned with chaplets of flowers and perfumed with odours. The disciples objected to this action of Mary, not for its singularity, but its expense. The ointment, said they, might have been sold for much and given to the poor. The traitor Judas was the instigator of this complaint; not, says St. John, that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had charge of the common purse. The objection, however, seems plausible to those who overlook its solemn significance, in the anticipation of the approaching sacrifice-the anointing of his body for the tomb, in which, for her and for our salvation, it was about to be laid. By those who overlook this, it may be asked why our Saviour, who was so unostentatious, so regardless not merely of the luxuries but even of the conveniences of life, so mindful of the necessities of the poor, and so ready to relieve them-why he should seem now to contradict the uniform tenor of his life, and |