Connecticut western news., 1890-12-17

As we ride along on these mountains spread their branches and breathe their aroma and east their shadows all through the Bible Solomon discoursed about them in his botanical works when he spoke of trees ''from the ce- dar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall" The Psalmist says, ''The right eous shall grow like cedar in Leba- non" and in one of his magnificent doxologies calls on the cedars to praise the lord. And Solomon says the coun- tenance of Christ is excellent as the cedars, and Isaiah declares, "The day of the Lord shall be upon all the ce- dars of Lebanon" And Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Amos and Zephaniah and Zechariah weave it's foliage into their sublimest utterances.
 As we ride over Lebanon today there is bowling wind sweeping past and a dash of rain, all the better enabling us to appreciate that description of a tenn pest, which no doubt was suggested by what David had seen with his own eyes among these heights, for as a soldier he carried his wars clear up to Damascus, and such poet as he, I warrant, spent many day on Lebanon. And perhaps while he was seated ou this very rock against which our carriage jolts he writes that wonderful description of a thunder storm: '"The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Leb- anon. He maketh them also to skip like calf, Lebanon and Sirion like young unicorn. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of f3re.'
 As the lion is the monarch of the fields and behemoth the monarch of the waters, the cedar is the monarch of the trees. And think one reason why it is so glorifed all up and down the Bible is because we need more of it's characteristics in our religious life. We have too much of the willow, and are easily bent this way or that; too much of the aspen, and we tremble un- der every zephyr of assault; too much of the bramble tree, and our sharp points sting and wound; but not enough of the cedar, wide branched and heaven aspiring and tempest grap- paing.
 But the reason these cedar stand so we'll is that they are deep rooted. They run their anchors down into the cav erns of the mountain and fasten to the very foundations of the earth, and twist around and clinch themselves on the other side of the deepest layer of rock they can reach. And that is the difference between Christians who stand and Christians who fall. It is ths difference between a superficial character and one that has clutched its roots deep down around and under the Rock of Ages.
 ABIDE IN EVERLASTING STRENGTH.
 One of the Lebanon cedars vas ek- amined by a scientist, and from it's con centric circles it was found to be thirty Eve hundred years old and still stand ing, and there is such a thing as ever lasting strength, and such stanchness of Christian character that all time and all eternity instead of being it's demo lition shall be its opportunity. Not such are those vacillsting Christians who are so pious on Sunday that they have no religion left for the weekday. As the anaconda gorges itself with food and then seems for long time to lie thoroughly iasensible, so there are men who will on Sunday get such a religious surfeit that the rest of the week they seem thoroughly dead to all religious emotion.
 They weep in church under a charity sermon, but if on Monday a subject of want presents itself at tho door the beg gar's safety will depend entirely on quick limbs and an unobstructed stair way. It takes all the grace they can get to keep them from committing as- sault and battery on those intruders who come with pale faces and stories of distress and subscription papers. The reason that God planted these