THE ROSE TREE. 287 



noted by the Hebrew word ahalim, which is applied to a sweet 

 smelling wood [Prov. vii. 17; Psal. xlv. 9 ; Cant. iv. 14], which the 

 agalloch or wood of aloes is not. 



THE ROSE TREE, 



FROM a passage in the Book of Eccleslasticus, we learn that the 

 rose was a favorite among the Jewish people, as it also is in more 

 eastern countries ; and further, that it was a noble tree : 'I was ex- 

 alted like a palm tree in Engeddi, and as a rose-plant in Jericho,' 

 ch. xxiv. 14. From this it is evident that the plant now called ' the 

 rose of Jericho,' is a vegetable of a very different description. 



The following passage from a celebrated traveller, describing the 

 rose of Persia, will perhaps convey something like an accurate 

 idea of the celebrated roses of Sharon and Jericho, piior to the des- 

 olating of those fruitful regions. 



* On first entering this bovver of fairy land, I was struck with the 

 appearance of two rose trees; full fourteen feet high, laden with 

 thousands of flowers, in every decree of expansion, and of a bloom 

 and delicacy of scent that imbued the whole atmosphere with the 

 most exquisite perfume; indeed, I believe that in no country of the 

 world does the rose grow in such perfection as in Persia in no 

 country is it so cultivated and prized by the natives. Their gardens 

 and courts are crowded with its plants, their rooms ornamented 

 with vases filled with its gathered bunches, and every bath strewed 

 with the fullb-lown flowers, plucked from the ever-replenished 

 stems. Even the humblest individual, who pays a piece of copper 

 money for a few whifs of a Kalioun, feels a double enjoyment when 

 he finds it stuck with a bud from his dear native tree ; but in this 

 delicious garden of Negauvistan, the eye and the smell were not the 

 only senses regaled by the presence of the rose : the ear was en- 

 chanted by the wild and beautiful notes of the multitude of night- 

 ingales, whose warblings seem to increase in melody and softness 

 with the unfolding of their favorite flowers : verifying the song of 

 thek poet, who says, "When the charms of the bower are passed 

 away, .the fond tale of the nightingale no longer animates the 

 scene."' 



It was right, says Paxton, to consecrate a plant so lovely to the 

 service of religion. Solomon has accordingly chosen it to repre- 

 sent the matchless excellences of his divine Redeemer : ' I am the 

 rose -of Sharon ' [Cant, ii.] ; and the prophet Isaiah, to give us 

 some faint conception of the wonderful change which the gospel 

 produced in the state of the world, after the ascension of Christ, 

 says, * The wilderness shall rejoice and flourish : like the rose shall 

 it beautifully flourish.' Chap, xxxv. 



