^68 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



and on this account, says Paxton, our Lord alludes to it as the most 

 difficult to be rooted up and transferred to another situation. 'If 

 ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this 

 sycamore tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou plant- 

 ed in the sea, and it should obey you,' Luke xvii 5. The extreme 

 difficulty with which this tree is transferred from its native spot to 

 another situation, give the words of our Lord a peculiar force and 

 beauty. The stronger and more diverging the root of a tree, the 

 more difficult it must be to pluck it up, and insert it again so as to 

 make it strike root and grow; but far more difficult still to plant it 

 in the sea, where the soil is so far below the surface, and where the 

 restless billows are continually tossing it from one side to another ; 

 yet, says our Lord, a task no less difficult than this to be accom- 

 plished, can the man of genuine faith perform with a word ; for with 

 God nothing is impossible, nothing difficult or laborious. In the 

 parallel passage (Matt. xvii. 20,) the hyperbole is varied, a moun- 

 tain being substituted for the sycamore-tree. The passage is }hus 

 paraphrased by Rosenmuller: So long as you trust in God and me, 

 and are not sufficient in self-reliance, you may accomplish the most 

 arduous labors, undertaken for the purpose of furthering my reli- 

 gion. 



