Vn. THE PARABLE OF JOTHAM. 125 



13. No man of like capacity, I believe, born of any 

 other nation, could have deliberately, and with no momen- 

 tary shadow of suspicion or question, formalized the 

 spinous and monstrous fallacy that human commerce and 

 policy are naturally founded on the desire of every man 

 to possess his neighbour's goods. 



This is the < release unto us Barabbas,' with a witness ; 

 and the deliberate systernatization of that cry, and choice, 

 for perpetual repetition and fulfilment in Christian states- 

 manship, has been, with the strange precision of natural 

 symbolism and retribution, signed, (as of old, by strewing 

 of ashes on Kidron,) by strewing of ashes on the brooks of 

 Scotland ; waters once of life, health, music, and divine 

 tradition ; but to whose festering scum you may now set 

 fire with a candle ; and of which, round the once ex- 

 celling palace of Scotland, modern sanitary science is 

 now helplessly contending with the poisonous exhala- 

 tions. 



14. I gave this chapter its heading, because I had it in 

 my mind to work out the meaning of the fable in the 

 ninth chapter of Judges, from what I had seen on that 

 thorny ground of mine, where the bramble was king over 

 all the trees of the wood. But the thoughts are gone from 

 me now ; and as I re-read the chapter of Judges, now, 

 except in my memory, unread, as it chances, for many a 

 year, the sadness of that story of Gideon fastens on 

 me, and silences me. This the end of his angel vis- 

 ions, and dream-led victories, the slaughter of all his 



