“Thou hast thy record in the monarch’s hall,
And on the waters of the far mid sea;
And where the mighty mountain shadows fall,
The Alpine hamlet keeps a thought of thee.
Where’er, beneath some Oriental tree,
The Christian traveller rests—where’er the child
Looks upward from the English mother’s knee,
With earnest eyes, in wond’ring reverence mild,
There art thou known. Where’er the Book of Light
Bears hope and healing, there, beyond all blight,
Is borne thy memory—and all praise above.
Oh! say what deed so lifted thy sweet name,
Mary! to that pure, silent place of fame?—
One lowly offering of exceeding love.”
[25] This was a common opinion among the Fathers of the Church.
[26] Mark xi. 1-12.
[27] Stanley’s “Sinai and Palestine,” p. 188-191. A work of rare interest, which condenses in one volume the literature of the Holy Land.
[28] “Christian Year.”
[29] Bethphage, lit. “the house of figs.”
[30] Stanley, p. 418.
[31] “If the miracles generally have a symbolical import, we have in this case one that is entirely symbolical.”—Neander.
[32] “Trench on the Miracles,” p. 444. See a full exposition of the design and import of this miracle in this exhaustive and admirable dissertation.
[33] “The fig-tree, rich in foliage, but destitute of fruit, represents the Jewish people, so abundant in outward shows of piety, but destitute of its reality. Their vital sap was squandered upon leaves. And as the fruitless tree, failing to realise the aim of its being, was destroyed, so the theocratic nation, for the same reason, was to be overtaken, after long forbearance, by the judgments of God, and shut out from His kingdom.”—Neander.