Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1875-07-08
geadiug fur the Sabbath.
CONDUCTED BY
REV. ROBERT LATHAM.
THE TREES OF THE LORD.


lyric sketching in few bold touches the
heavens and the earth, the writer among the
specific illustrations of divine wisdom and
power cites the trees of the forest. Of these
he selects single species as pre'eminent:
The of the Lord satisfied with moIsture),
The cedars OF Lebanon which he hath planted"
The reasons of the selection are not far to seek.
No other member of the Sylvia of Palestine is
so large and stately and durable and various
y useful. Besides being all ornament to any
landscape, the cedar could be fashioned into
the mast of ship, or the beams Of a house,
or the ceiling of a temple or Golfer for mer.
chandise. It was the wood chiefly employed
in the construction of the first temple and the
second, in both cases obtained from the Ty.
rians, by whom it was foated down to Joppa,
and thence carried over land to Jerusalem.
And when Herod made those repairs and en-
largements which were almost equivalent to
a third temple, the stone he used was white
marble, but the wood was cedar from the
forests of Coele-Syria. And to-day the mod
ern visitor to the Harem at Jerusalem, as he
walks down the nave of the church of the
Virgin, long since converted by Mohamme-
dams into the Mosque of Ell Aksa, sees over
head carved ceiling of red wood, which had
the same origin. 1.-THE only other instance l
remember seeing was in one of the hotels at
Beirut, where the principal reception room
was thus adorned.
The cedar does not grow so high as some
other trees, but still is tall enough to give full
effect to its stately trunk, far-reaching branch
es and dense foliage. The durability of the
wood is something marvellous The ancients
seem to have considered it imperishable. The
cedar roof of the Ephesian temple of Diana is
said to have lasted 400 years and the beams
of another temple at Utica nearly thrice that
period. Some modern naturalists have esti-
mated the age of existing trees in Lebanon at
1000 years! One need not wonder at the
CURE of the Psalmist (xcii. 12) who speaks
of the righteous man as "growing like cedar
in Lebanon, still bearing fruit in old age, and
full of sap and green" Happy the believer
whose life and character justi6es the compar-
ison In quite another strain does David
psalm xxx. 81 refer to these giants of the
forest. Describing thunder storm as illus
trating the power of God, he speaks of the
voice Of the Lord as "shivering cedars, shiver-
ing even the cedars of Lebanon" The
mighty trees which alike in the winters snow
and the suumer's heat spread out their ever
green branches, and whose existence is meas
ured not by years but by centuries, yield to
to their Maker, and fall with sounding crash
before his bolts.
Formerly cedars existed in great abund-
ance, and covered the sides of the twin ranges
of Lebanon, but these vast forests have long
since disappeared. Even as early as the
fourth century it was difficult to procure
enough timber for building of moderate
size, and now the tree is confined to few
places. Recent inquiries have brought to
light dozen or more groves, some of them OF
great size, and containing numerous trees.
But there is one particular grove on the wes-
tern slope of Lebanon, at the head of the
valley of the river Kedisha, the B'sherreh,
which was long supposed to be the only re.
naming representative of the lordy woods
which once clothed the whole of "the goodly
mountain" This is technically known as
"The Cedars," and is always visited by trav.
elers. Indeed, chapel has been erected in
the heart of the group, where every year wor-
ship is rendered after the Roman rite, while
Greeks, Marontes, and Armenians come
hither yearly to celebrate the feast of the
TRANSPORTATION. The same superstitious rev.
erence is found among the Mohammedans of
the country. The Arabs consider the trees to
be holy, and that to mutilate them would be
to commit sort of sacrilege sure not to 60
unpunished. When I was on the ground my
dragoman gravely assured me that it was
impossible to count the number of the trees,
that an Englishman had once tried to accom-
plish it by putting separate label on each
trunk, and that even the great lbrahim Pasha
(the greatest man Syria has seen for a centu-
ry) made the same effort, but both signally
failed
But although this is very absurd super
stition, the place is certainly extremely inter-
esting Approaching it from the East, one
has to surmount very high and difficult
pass, which in the spring of 1874 was greatly
encountered with snow. The pack mules had
to be unloaded, and their burdens carried by
men. And the travellers, although they did
not fare so badly as one poor little donkey
who sank so deep in the snow that only the
tips of his ears were visible, yet had to ride
through deep banks with crust on top and
an uncertain footing below, and sometimes on
shelving hillside, so that progress was
neither safe nor pleasant. But once on the
summit, one has grand outlook on the wide
and deep and varied gorge below, extending
5000 feet to the sea. Far down on one side
is speck cf green which contrasts strongly
with the arid sides of the mountain around.
When reached, it is found to be grove of
some 400 trees spread over three or four gen.
tie knolls. Some of them are young, others
are very old-how old can only be conjec-
tured, since the stems have ceased to grow in
regular concentric rings But their enormous
girth Gone sixty three feet around) and vene-
rable appearance, make any assigned antiq
uity look creditable. 1t was very pleasant to
saunter under their wide stretched boughs,
and watch the play of light and shade on the
grass, and mediate on the varied associations
of the spot This was, however, often sadly
interrupted by seeing the rude and ignorant
vandalism Of former visitors, who hacked off
the bark of these glorious trees in order to
make place to inscribe their own worthless
names. 1t would be righteous retribution
to brand LEBANON on the naked flesh of these
miscreauts, whose puerile vanity has induced
them to imperil the existence of venerable
trees, whose probable origin runs back to the
year of our I.ord.-Christian IntsHigencer.
Flr FoR-WHAT PLAcE?-It is related
of the distinguished Rev. DIR. Bellamy that
he had seasons of deep dependency, when he
was confident he was going to hell His
brethren often labored with him in vain.
One day, after all reasoning had failed, one
Of the ministers said to him:
"Well, brother, you know more about your
self than we do. To US YOU appear very well