"'One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe; and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad[16].'"
[16] Jer. xxiv. 2.
"But can figs be naughty, Miss Harson?" asked Edith, with very wide-open eyes. "I thought that only children were naughty,"
"There are 'naughty' grown people as well as naughty children," was the reply, "and inanimate things like figs in old times were called naughty too, in the sense of being bad.--The fruit of the fig tree appears not only before the leaves, but without any sign of blossoms, the flowers being small and hidden in the little buttons which first shoot out from the points of the sterns, and around which the outer and firm part of the fig grows. The leaves come out so late in the season that our Saviour said, 'Now learn a parable of the fig tree; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh[17].' Did not our Lord say something else about a fig tree?"
[17] Matt. xxiv. 32.
"Yes," replied Clara; "the one that was withered away because it had no figs on it."
"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."
[18] Mark xi. 13.
"'And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.'"
"A fig tree having leaves," said Miss Harson, "should also have figs, for these, as I have already told you, appear before the leaves, and both are on the tree at the same time; so that, although unripe figs are seen without leaves, leaves should not be seen without figs; and if it was not yet the season for figs, it was not the season for leaves either. The barren fig tree has often been compared to people who make a show of goodness in words, but leave the doing of good works to others; and when anything is expected of them, there is sure to be disappointment. 'Nothing but leaves' has become a proverb; and when it can be used to express the barren condition of those who profess to follow the teachings of our Lord, it is sad indeed."