w
a nation can exist without date-palms, and he may well regard it as the
greatest injury that he can inflict upon his enemy to cut down
his trees."

"Miss Harson," asked Edith, very earnestly, "isn't the palm tree in the
Bible?"

[Illustration: DATE-PALM AT JERICHO.]

"It certainly is, dear," replied her governess, "and it is one of the
trees most frequently mentioned. In Deuteronomy, thirty-fourth chapter,
third verse, Jericho is called the 'city of palm trees.' Travelers still
speak of these trees as yet growing in Palestine, but they are not
nearly so abundant as they once were; near Jericho only one or two can
be found. There are many allusions to the palm in the Scriptures. King
David, in the ninety-second psalm, says that the righteous shall
flourish like the palm tree: 'Those that be planted in the house of the
Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall bring forth
fruit in old age.' The palm is always upright, in spite of rain or wind.
'There it stands, looking calmly down upon the world below, and
patiently yielding its large clusters of golden fruit from generation to
generation. It brings forth fruit in old age.' The allusion to being
planted in the house of the Lord is probably drawn from the custom of
planting beautiful and long-lived trees in the courts of temples and
palaces. Solomon covered all the walls of the holy of holies round
about with golden palm trees.--You will find this, Clara, in
First Kings."

Clara read:

"'And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved
figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, within and
without[26].'"

[26] I Kings vi. 29.

"In the thirty-second verse," continued Miss Harson, "it is written that
he overlaid them with gold, 'and spread gold upon the cherubim, and upon
the palm trees.' 'They were thus planted, as it were, within the very
house of the Lord; and their presence there was not only ornamental, but
appropriate and highly suggestive--the very best emblem not only of
patience in well-doing, but of the rewards of the righteous, a fat and
flourishing old age, a peaceful end, a glorious immortality.'"

"What does a 'palmer' mean, Miss Harson?" asked Malcolm. "Is it a man
who has palm trees or who sells dates? I saw the word in a book I was
reading, but I couldn't understand what it meant."

"In olden times," replied his governess, "when people made so many
pilgrimages, some of the pilgrims went to the Holy Land