THE YEW. 123 



stone, and with the merest ledge or crevice for its 

 feet, it holds itself unchanged for centuries, and is 

 the most imposing picture nature affords of imper- 

 turbable endurance. So, too, upon many a remote 

 hill-side, beaten and ravaged by tempests ; expos- 

 ure to the wrath of the elements seems congenial, 

 and life in the midst of perils to be joy and strength. 

 Once a year, at least, all evergreen trees are 

 decked with light and pretty shades of verdure, in- 

 dicating the flow of their annual tide of life ; the yew, 

 like the rest, is found changing with the seasons, 

 and not only in the spring, but emphatically, when 

 the fruit, looking as if wrought of ruby, crimsons 

 before the last sunshine of the autumn. Instead 

 of an emblem of death and sorrow, the yew should 

 stand, therefore, as the representative of energy and 

 the impregnable, and I cannot but think that some 

 such view of its true significance must have actu- 

 ated those who either laid the foundations of their 

 churches and abbeys close to existing yews, or who 

 having raised such buildings, then planted yew- 

 trees close alongside. For what more sublime pic- 

 ture of the endurance of God's kingdom could be 

 selected, or what emblem more exact of the immor- 

 tality of man ? To this day stand one or two of the 

 old yews near which the founders of Fountains 

 Abbey sat themselves down in rural council. Ages 

 have passed away since the sound of vespers fell 

 from those beautiful aisles upon the ear of the way- 



