another, the divines, who agree in nothing else, combine in straining their utmost to destroy the intellects of their hearers, for the greater facility of saving their souls. You know, too, that this Empire abounds not only in statesmen, philosophers and divines, but in every thing else—insomuch that it is in the strange plight of having at once more people than it knows how to employ, and more land than it is prepared to use for their sustenance and habitation. Can your readers, who have the advantage of the care, instruction and example of statesmen, philosophers and divines of such a very different order-can they believe it possible that this very Empire is, under such circumstances, actually engaged in pushing its limits still farther on one side of the Moon, while on the other it is snarling with a neighbouring state about the exclusive property of a remote region which neither of them cultivates, and neither of them wants; but which has become a bone of contention between them, because some hundred years ago a sailor planted a flag in an adjoining region, many hundred miles distant, and because his two daughters, who claimed it after his death, quarrelled and divided the inheritance, without having accurately marked out the boundary ditch betwixt the two portions? They were both engaged in trade; the elder in the haberdashery line, encouraged chiefly by the fashionable world; the younger, in a huckster's shop for the sale of tobacco, rice and clubs, for the accommodation of the vulgar. Both eventually became embarrassed, and the revenue officers of their respective governments thereupon scised the property of both. The elder's affairs are in the hands of the Lunatic Empire which is noticed first in this letter: and though, from the causes mentioned, the poet's language may well apply to it-Mole ruit suâ,*-yet such is the prevailing infatuation, that both it and its antagonist, triumph over the inhabitants of that part of this globe which they see frequently darkened by cloudy atmosphere, and pride themselves on an exemption from like annoyance, as securing to By its own native weight * Precipitately falls. In plainer English,— them the privilege of being an enlightened people. The rival governments boast of being each under the guidance of a single individual, distinguished by his fancy for dancing on the tight rope, where he can have all the display and all the admiration to himself. Each poises and brandishes his pole with such equal dexterity as to promise fatal consequences to the one who first ventures within range of the other. One flourishes under the appellation of Skin, obtained from a trick of swelling the revenue by skinning off the hide which hides the mysteries of private concerns. The other bears the name of Yolk, which he has won by his endeavours to settle the goose with the golden egg on each bank of a river abounding at present in pigeons only. All the intelligence yet communicated agrees in shewing that these districts of the Moon are in a very Lunatic state, and much in need of that evangelical spirit which prevails with us. Is it possible to devise some method of transmitting thither a few copies of your magazine? by way of hint, that in spite of our thick atmosphere, we are not so thick under the hat as not to have discovered that the only Gospel is, to glorify God in the highest, by maintaining peace and good-will among men; and that we know no means of maintaining peace and good-will among men, without a readiness to abandon, for the sustenance and habitation of other men, that which we cannot use for our own. P.S. Later intelligence from the Moon states that the Star in the East, which preceded the gospel, has been seen by the Lunar inhabitants; and the consequences have been most happy. LI. THE BARREN FIG-TREE. And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever.-Mark xi. 13, 14. The various commentaries which have been made upon the Scriptural account of the barren fig-tree, may serve as a caution against the common error of attempting to supply want of information by ingenious conjecture, The seeming inconsistency of expecting to find fruit before the proper season, and of cursing the tree for having no fruit, when none could be reasonably expected, has led to the supposition, amongst other conjectures, that "the time of figs" signifies the time of gathering the ripe fruit, and that the text should read thus:-"Seeing a fig-tree afar off, having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon for the time of [gathering] figs was not yet [over;] and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves." The commentators have endeavoured, by conjectures and arbitrary alterations of the text, to clear up an obscurity, which has no existence but in their own minds. They have cut the knot, instead of untying it. Subsequent investigation has proved, as it has done in other cases, that after all the ingenious pains taken to explain a supposed inaccuracy, there is no inaccuracy to explain. Nay, in the very difficulty attempted to be removed, lies the chief point of instruction. The incident recorded in the gospel occurred a few days before the passover, which took place that year at the beginning of April. The figs do not ripen till the middle or end of June. Why then, was fruit expected so long before the season? The botanist can give a reason founded on facts, in place of the theologian's conjectures. In the fertile tree, the fruit appears before the leaves. A tree, therefore, “having leaves," might be fairly expected to have fruit in an eatable state. It was a rule with the Rabbins, that the leaves of the fig-tree begin to appear about the time of the passover; and our Lord refers to it as a common sign of the season: When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near."* Instances, however, of premature growth are occasionally met with in particular situations, and under peculiar circumstances. The tree seen afar off was distinguished, in a district where fig-trees abound, by the unusually forward state of its foliage. It was noticed as "having leaves;" which implies that the other trees had none that the tree in leaf was an exception. The supposition, therefore, was not unreasonable, that fruit might be found in an equally forward state,-that the leaves were not expanded in vain.† "But when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not." How just a figure of the state of religion among the Jews at that time! An ample covering of religious doctrine, ostentatiously displayed, but of the fruits of religion, utter barrenness ! The truths of revelation perverted from their proper function of bringing fruits to perfection, and serving no other end than to distinguish the forward, but barren tree, from the yet naked but fruitful one! When truth is thus misinterpreted and misapplied, the means of fertility are destroyed: the curse is unavoidable and eternal. "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever." The morning light shows the tree "dried up from the roots." "There "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin; but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth." fore say I unto you, the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." Christians are apt to regard themselves with complacency, in contrast with that blind and hard-hearted people, to * Mark xiii. 28. † See Knight's Illustrated Commentary, and the Note in the Pictorial Bible. whom the denunciations of Scripture are supposed exclusively to apply: "And say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets." But if the case be fairly examined, are we really much better than they? Is not the fate of the barren fig-tree, equally the fate of all churches, and of all individuals, who, notwithstanding a show of religion, are barren of its fruits? Do not our times offer a great display of religious profession and doctrine, great apparent luxuriance; but a practical neglect of applying the truths of religion to their proper use, the purification of the heart, and the reformation of the life? And does not the apparently unimportant incident under consideration, contain weighty instruction, applicable to all times and to all people, whenever religion is shown in a precocious appearance of knowledge and sanctity, instead of the seasonable growth of wholesome fruit, with the due expansion of truths to ripen it? When the fig-tree is seen afar off, prematurely bedecked with foliage, He who ever hungers after righteousness, will come to it, "if haply He may find any thing thereon:" but should the promising appearance prove to be "nothing but leaves," the curse is already pronounced; the means given to bring forth fruit have been misappropriated; and presently the fig-tree must wither away. LII. A REMNANT LEFT. Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah."—Isaiah i. 9. Were any proof required of the continued mercy and presence of the Lord, even with the most degraded of the children of men, it might be found in the preservation of those relics of innocence and sympathy, implanted in childhood, which no powers of evil have been able entirely to destroy. There are preserved in every human being, whilst |