Who are more unwearied in rendering its gates salvation, and its walls praise? As neighbors and citizens-Who are more zealous in alleviating the burdens of one another, and promoting the honor and prosperity of their native land? As Parents and Christians, Who are more assiduous in rejoicing the hearts of their families and friends, and shedding around them, as the sun, light, life, and enjoyment? While the piety of some requires to be trumpeted forth by acts of ostentatious display, the righteous are always known, like the secret wells of the desert, by the living verdure about them; for wherever they go, blessings attend their steps. Like the palm, whose "presence is a never-failing indication of fresh water near its roots," their presence is heralded by the happiness of those they have benefited, by the virtuous habits which have sprung up from the good seed they have sown, and by the shouts of industry and plenty which their influence and example have diffused. Go where they will, either in civilized or heathen lands-whether among the illiterate Esquimaux or the polished nations of Europe-and they receive the commendation of all who are around them. They carry with them an atmosphere of light, of cheerfulness, and holiness, which diffuse a grateful fragrance through the circles of society; and though they are not advanced to the highest stations of the empire, yet they receive as much, if not more, real honor from mankind; For they that honor me, saith GOD, I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Blessed and holy spirits! Go on prospering and to prosper. The tongues of thousands bless you. The hearts of those ye have gladdened leap at your approach. In the Almighty Parent let your root be established, and from him shall your fruit be found. In him your branches shall spread, your beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and your smell as Lebanon. II. The righteous, also, shall flourish like the palm tree, in their resistance to external calamity. Neither weight nor violence can make this tree grow downwards or crooked; but the more it is oppressed, the more it flourishes, the higher it towers, and the stronger and broader it becomes at VOL. II,-33 the top. From this singular quality it became the emblem of constancy, patience, and victory by the eastern nations; and hence CHRIST was honored at Jerusalem by the waving of the palm branches; and the redeemed in heaven are described as carrying palms in their hands, in token of the triumphs they had achieved. How like indeed to thee, thou Prince of righteousness and life, was the palm that came forth to honor thee! "Eminent and upright, thou art ever verdant and ever fragrant ; under the greatest pressure and weight of sufferings, still ascending towards heaven; affording both fruit and protection; incorruptible, immortal, and never fading away!" Is it not thus with thy servants, thou blessed Prince of Peace; for are they not members of thy body, thy flesh and of thy bones? No situation so thoroughly proves the Christian as the afflictions of mortality. The feeblest infant may endure the sunshine, but it requires the man to face the storm. To bravely resist the attacks of calumny and disappointment, and evidence to the world that our piety is invincible and calm; to regard the desertions of fortune and the frowns of pain with composure, remembering that they are the debts and penalties of poor human nature; to walk away from the newmade grave with our hearts wrapped only in GOD, and resolutions more enkindled to benefit the surviving, these are the characteristics of great and noble minds; but, like diamonds, they have been found in the lowliest situations. Like the waves in the storm, the righteous have been tossed to and fro by the trials of life, but like them they are uninjured; for soon the tempest of suffering subsides, and the light of heaven sleeps upon their * See Cruden in loco, and H. J. Rose's edition of Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon. "The permanency and perpetual flourishing of the palm leaves, and their form resembling the solar rays, make this tree a very proper emblem of the natural, and thence of the divine light. Hence in the holy place or sanctuary of the temple, (the emblem of CHRIST'S body,) palm trees were engraved on the walls and doors, between the coupled cherubs. See I Kings, vi. 29, &c. The reason given by Plutarch and Aulus Gellius, why they were used as emblems of victory by idolaters, is the nature of the wood, which so powerfully resists incumbent pressure; but doubtless believers, by bearing palm branches after a victory, or in triumph, meant to acknowledge the divine Author of their support and success, and to carry on their thoughts to the divine Light, the great Conqueror of sin and death. (See 1 Mac. xiii. 51, xviii. 17.) † Dr. Horne. bosom. But why should affliction enervate or unman us? Have we forgotten that the same GoD who gave the day gave also the night-the storm as well as the calm? They serve the same purpose in the moral as in the natural world. They teach us by contrasts the value of the Divine gifts, and tend to purify the heart from its carnal corruptions. Oh, how many have been indebted to affliction's school! It is thus that they have learned themselves and the nature of the world, the mode of enjoying as well as of suffering; and, with the apostle, they have known both to be full and to be hungry, to abound and to suffer need. Let it not be said, that this fortitude is constitutional. Humanity always rebels against suffering; and resignation is acquired by remembering our relation to GoD and the world, and the moral benefits resulting from momentary pain. The merchant, the scholar, the man of pleasure, the ambitious zealot, knows and practises it; for they perceive that in acquiring treasures much is to be endured. In preparing for heaven, the richest of all prizes, the Christian schools his mind to trials, as the pupil to his studies, knowing that they are the means of purifying his nature, and exalting his affections more ardently to GOD. His constitutional passion bows to the influence of his faith. He invokes the aid of the Spirit of THE ALMIGHTY, by whom his virtues and graces are quickened, his repentance and devotion, enlivened and perfected; and enlarging at the top like the holy palm, he is filled with the light and consolations of the Gospel, and goes on his way rejoicing, looking unto JESUS, the Author and Finisher of his faith. III. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree in their duration. Ever verdant, and beautiful, this tree flourishes as well in a desert as on the banks of a river-in a temperate valley, as on a stormy mountain in the limits of perpetual snow. In winter as well as summer, they blossom throughout the year; and they last to a vigorous old age, regardless of the storms and hurricanes that rage around them. A modern traveller* informs us that "the * Dr. Shaw. palm tree arrives to its greatest vigor about thirty years after transplantation, and continues so seventy years afterwards;* after this period it begins to decline, and usually falls about the latter end of the second century." In length of days, also, shall the righteous flourish as this tree. Regarded as a temporal promise, the blessing of a long life may, undoubtedly, be viewed as the heritage of the pious. Solitary cases affect not a general principle, for although many followers of CHRIST are called away in the morning and noon of life, yet regular and virtuous habits, springing from love towards GoD, tend to protract the existence to a venerable age. On the contrary, vicious indulgences, irregular living, and rounds of worldly folly, generally curtail the span of our pilgrimage, while consistent piety, removed from all these excesses, carry it forward to a distant term. But though we desire old age, yet we all fear its approach, and though willing to live, yet we are afraid to die. Old age is a lease which nature grants but to few, and that, upon condition of enduring all its trials. It has been the prayer of the great and good, that they might never outlive their usefulness: and when we behold the aged, hoary, not with wisdom, but with hairs, we tremble lest they have lived in vain. But when we contemplate the pious patriarch spared for three score years and ten, who has been both parent and priest of his domestic flock, he resembles, indeed, a fruitful palm tree, which, still yielding fruit in its old age, is only waiting for the transplantation of the master of the vineyard. Many are they which have flourished thus around us; but their time of vigor and usefulness has expired, and now they beautify, and enrich the paradise of GOD. Holy and immortal spirits! the tears of a whole generation, the Church, and your pious friends, hallow your remains! We love, we honor, we embalm your memory! Once you stood among us, indeed, like venerable palm trees, and though long living under your refreshing shade-though enjoying the rich fruits your love and wisdom imparted, we never What a singular illustration is this tree, in this particular, of the period of the vigor and the term of the life of man! tasted their sweetness till now- we never realized your worth till you were gone! "Like birds whose beauties languish, half concealed, How blessings brighten as they take their flight!" But the resemblance, faint as it is, goes beyond this world. Though the righteous be gathered to their fathers, yet it was only the separation of mind from matter which we wept over; their immortal spirits soared far beyond these mortal precincts to perfect the life they here began. Oh! my brethren, 'tis not the whole of life to live, nor all of death to die! See the crystalis cast off its leafy covering, and mount upon golden wings into the air! Behold the torpid insect and bird resuming their suspended vitality, and living again after being enshrouded in a temporary oblivion! Immortal offspring of GOD! are ye not much better than they, and feel ye not holier, and loftier aspirations? Recollect Enoch and Elijah conveyed to Heaven on chariots of fire! Remember him who burst the icy fetters of the tomb, and became the first fruits of them that slept! Former generations have been swept away, we ourselves are rapidly following the sad procession, but our immortal spirits cannot die more than matter which merely changes its form. The souls of the righteous are still alive, and, though like the air invisible to flesh and blood, yet they exist before God, in a glorious form. GoD, is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, though their bodies have long ago been mingled with the dust; and although the remains of those we love have been consigned to the winds of Heaven, yet God is not a GOD of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto him. The promise that the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree, still cheers and sustains their souls. They are waiting in the world of spirits, in holy hope for the final catastrophe of nature, when the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. They are waiting under the altar for the advent of the Son of Man with clouds, when every eye |