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The prophet Zechariah chooses the myrtle to express the beauty, the utility, and the low condition of the church;

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a man seated on a red horse, was seen among the myrtle trees which were in the bottom of some valley." This visionary scene, while it presents a just idea of the lowly and depressed state of the church, and suggests many pleasing reflections concerning her preservation and security under the protection of her Saviour, agrees with the aspect of nature in the east, where the groves of myrtle are frequently to be seen rising to a considerable height, although not so high as to conceal a man on horseback, especially from one advantageously placed on a rising ground, as the prophet in vision seems to have been.

The aspect of nature to which these Scriptures refer, is beautifully displayed by the glowing pencil of Savary, in his letters on Greece. Describing a scene at the end of the forest of Platanea, he says; "Myrtles intermixed with laurel roses grow in the valleys to the height of ten feet. Their snow white flowers, bordered within with a purple edging, appear to peculiar advantage under the verdant foliage. Each myrtle is loaded with them, and they emit perfumes more exquisite than those of the rose itself: they enchant every one, and the soul is filled with the softest sensations." The pine, the fir, and the box, contribute also to the beauty and richness of oriental scenery; and are sometimes referred to by the sacred writers: but the allusions are few and unimportant.

The Mustard Tree.

The account which our Lord gave of the mustard tree, recorded in the gospel of Matthew, has often excited the ridicule of unbelievers, or incurred their pointed condem* Page 351.

Zech. i, 18.

nation: "The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; which is indeed the least of all seeds, but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches of it."u We behold no such mustard trees in this country, say the enemies of revelation, therefore the description of Christ must be erroneous. But the consequence will not follow, till it is proved that no such trees exist in any part of the world. This parable of the mustard tree was delivered in a public assembly, every individual of which was well acquainted with it; many of them were the avowed enemies of our Lord, and would have gladly seized the opportunity of exposing him to the scorn of the multitude, if he had committed any mistake. The silent acquiescence of the scribes and Pharisees affords an irrefragable proof that his description is perfectly correct. They knew that the same account of that plant more than once occurs in the writings of their fathers.

In the Babylonish Talmud, a Jewish Rabbi writes, that a certain man of Sichem had bequeathed him by his father three boughs of mustard; one of which broken off from the rest yielded nine kabs of seed, and the wood of it was sufficient to cover the potter's house. Another Rabbi, in the Jerusalem Talmud says, he had a stem of mustard in his garden, into which he could climb as into a fig tree. After making every reasonable allowance for the hyperbolical terms in which these Talmudical writers indulged, they certainly referred to real appearances in nature; and no man will pretend that it was any part of their design to justify the Saviour's description. But, the

u Matt. xiii, 31, 32.

birds of the air might certainly lodge with ease among the branches of a tree that was sufficiently strong to sustain the weight of a man. The fact asserted by our Lord is stated in the clearest terms by a Spanish historian, who says, that in the province of Chili, in South America, the mustard grows to the size of a tree, and the birds lodge under its shade, and build their nests in its branches.

CHAP. II.

THE WOODS AND TREES OF PALESTINE.

Wood of Ephraim.-The Oak.-The Shitta-tree.-The Sycamore.-The Mulberry. The Palm-tree.-The Pomegranate.-The Fig-tree.The Vine. The Olive. The Apple-tree.-The Citron.-The Almond.

THE land of promise cannot boast, like many other countries, of extensive woods; but considerable thickets of trees and of reeds sometimes arise to diversify and adorn the scene. Between the lake Samochonites and the sea of Tiberias, the river Jordan is almost concealed by shady trees from the view of the traveller. When the waters of the Jordan are low, the lake Samochonites is only a marsh, for the most part dry and overgrown with shrubs and reeds. The lake of Tiberias is bordered with reeds; while the banks of the river on both sides, are shaded with planes, alders, poplars, tamarisks, and reeds of different kinds. In these thickets, among other ferocious animals, the wild boar seeks a covert from the burning rays of the sun. Large herds of them are sometimes to be seen on the banks of the river, near the sea of Tiberias, lying

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among the reeds, or feeding under the trees. Such moist and shady places are in all countries the favourite haunts of these fierce and dangerous animals. Those marshy co verts are styled woods in the sacred Scriptures; for the wild boar of the wood is the name which that creature receives from the royal Psalmist: "The boar out of the wood doth waste it; and the wild beast of the field doth devour it." The wood of Ephraim, where the battle was fought between the forces of Absalom and the servants of David, was probably a place of the same kind; for the sacred historian observes, that the wood devoured more people that day, than the sword devoured. Some have supposed the meaning of this passage to be, that the soldiers of Absalom were destroyed by the wild beasts of the wood; but it can scarcely be supposed, that in the reign of David, when the land of promise was crowded with inhabitants, the wild beasts could be so numerous in one of the woods as to cause such a destruction. But if their numbers had been so great, we know that, unless they had been detained contrary to their natural dispositions by the miraculous interposition of Heaven, for the purpose of executing his righteous vengeance on the followers of Absalom, intimidated by the approach of two hostile armies, and still more by the tumult of the battle, they must have sought their safety in flight, rather than have staid to devour the discomfited party. Besides, we do not hear that one of David's men perished by the wood: were they miraculously preserved; or, were the wild beasts able to distinguish between the routed army and the victors, and politic enough to side with the strongest? We are not without an express revelation, or at least without neces

a Pococke's Trav. vol. ii, p. 70, and Sandy's Trav. p. 110.
b Psalm 1xxx, 13.
c 2 Sam. xviii, 8.

sity, to suppose a miraculous interposition. The scene of the expeditions which the Turks undertook against Faccardine, the famous emir, in the fifteenth century, was chiefly in the woods of mount Lebanon, which all travellers agree furnish a retreat to numerous wild beasts, yet the historian says not one word of either Turk or Maronite being injured by them, in his whole narrative. Absalom himself was the only person who properly perished by the wood; being caught by the hair of his head, of which he had been so vain, in the branches of a large oak, where Joab found him and thrust him through with a dart. But, supposing the wood of Ephraim to have been a morass covered with trees and bushes, like the haunts of the wild boar near the banks of Jordan, the difficulty is easily removed. It is certain that such a place has more than once proved fatal to contending armies, partly by suffocating those who in the hurry of flight inadvertently venture over places incapable of supporting them, and partly by retarding them till their pursuers come up and cut them to pieces. In this manner a greater number of men than fell in the heat of battle may be destroyed. The archbishop of Tyre informs us, that one of the Christian kings of Jerusalem lost some of his troops in a marshy vale of this country, from their ignorance of the paths which lead through it, although he had no enemy to molest his march. The number of those who died was small; but in what numbers would they have perished, may we suppose, had they been forced to flee, like the men of Absalom, before a victorious and exasperated enemy? Lewis II. king of Hungary, lost his life in a bog in his own kingdom, in the sixteenth century and according to Zozimus, Decius the Roman emperor perished in a fen, with his whole army. It may there

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d La Roque, Voy. de Syr. tome i, p. 70, and tome ii, p. 206.

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