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tion, to the humble roadside, the green and grassy slope extends, telling its story of the 

 joy and happiness which have gathered on its sod, and the sad tale also of sorrow and 

 woe, how young and old have been borne out of that threshold, the child and the mother, 

 the youth and the gray-haired father, amidst tears and sobs, down to the silence of the 

 grave. And over all that scene the drooping elm looks down from its towering height, a 

 witness of the domestic drama which has been acted there for years, and now the recog- 

 nized type of those virtues which adorned our ancestors, those protests and assertions 

 which made them great, the courage and defiance which made us free. Do you think there 

 is in all the world another tree like the American elm — the accepted ornament of our 

 ancient rural homes, the grand and solitary sentinel, seen from afar, and telling this story of 

 American life with which you are all so familial', and of which you are all so proud ] In 

 this centennial period of our history, too, how this tree is woven into the heroic events of 

 our annals ! There are many incidents of that great time when our fathers rose up to 

 assert their independence ; the amazing stand at Lexington and Concord ; the calm and 

 steady courage at Bunker Hill ; the solemn assembling of the Continental Congress ; the 

 generous devotion of the colonies to each other ; the impressive patience of our great 

 revolutionary existence ; but not one stands out in greater proportions than that scene at 

 Cambridge, when Washington, in the calm majesty of his manly strength, assumed the 

 command of a disorganized body of militia, named it the Continental army, and waged 

 war against the most powerful Empire and the best disciplined troops in the world, and 

 founded an independent nationality of freemen. The canopy beneath which this sublime 

 event occurred has become immortal as the Washington Elm. 



Who that is familiar with sacred history can fail to be reminded of the most stirring 

 scenes in the career of God's chosen people, as he contemplates the 



Cedar, 



the tree which crowned Lebanon, and was associated with the highest and most sacred 

 art and architecture of the Jews. N'ever was tree dedicated to more illustrious achitec- 

 ture than when Solomon sent his four score thousand hewers into Lebanon and covered 

 his Temple " with beams and boards of cedar." And the great king immortalized the 

 tree when he selected as the type of one of his noblest conceptions : " His countenance is 

 as Lebanon, excellent as one of the cedars." 



The temple of Diana, at Ephesus, which was 220 years in building, was constructed 

 in its frame and boarding entirely of cedai\ It is of this tree that Madame de Genlis 

 says : " The rose will be in all countries the queen of flowers ; but among trees the honour 

 of being king belongs only to the ancient and majestic cedar." And so high a place has 

 this tree secured in history, that " the few cedars still remaining on Mount Libanus are 

 preserved with a religious strictness ; and on the day of the transfiguration the Patriarch 

 repairs in procession to them, and celebrates a festival called the feast of cedars." 



Trees for Inspiration, 



The intimate relations which trees bear to remarkable events and illustrious persons 

 are almost innumerable, as you may infer from the few and striking illustrations to which 

 I have called your attention. But these insensible though living companions of man do 

 not stop here. They afford shelter and encouragement to his loftiest aspirations, and 

 oifer him protection and sympathy in those hours when his mind is filled with fervour 

 and inspiration. Evelyn says : "Innumerable are the testimonies I might produce con- 

 cerning the inspiring and sacred influence of groves from the ancient poets and hisf 

 torians. Here the noblest raptui-es have been conceived ; and in the walks and shades o_ 

 trees poets have composed verses which have animated men to glorious and heroic actions. 

 Here orators have made their panegyrics, historians their grave relations, and here pro 

 found philosophers have loved to pass their lives in repose and contemplation." Would 

 you find instances of this in your own day ? Attend Hawthorne, then, in his wooded 

 walk at Concord, and learn the height which man's contemplation may reach amidst the 

 whispering silence of the groves ; join Thoreau in his forest seclusion, and know the in- 

 spiration which belongs to those solemn arches and the leafy chapels which Nature pre- 

 pares for her worshippers. 



