"The barren fig tree which was withered at our Saviour's word, as an awful warning to unfruitful professors of religion, seems to have spent itself in leaves. It stood by the wayside, free to all, and, as the time for stripping the trees of their fruit had not come--for in Mark we are told that 'the time of figs was not yet[18]'--it was reasonable to expect to find it covered with figs in various stages of growth. Yet there was 'nothing thereon, but leaves only.' Find the nineteenth verse of the twenty-first chapter of Matthew, Malcolm, and read what is said there."