DESCEIPTIVE ENUMJSEATION OF TREES. 105 



wliicli is its chief characteristic, uiitoached. But 

 the reason is evident. Tlie Cedar is here in- 

 troduced as an emblem of Assyria, -wliicli, tliougli 

 vast and wide-spreading and come to full maturity, 

 was, in fact, on the eve of destruction. Strength, 

 therefore, was the last idea which the prophet 

 wished to suggest. Strength is a relative term 

 compared with opposition. The Assyrian was 

 strong compared with the powers on earth, but 

 weak compared with the arm of the Almighty 

 which brought him to destruction. So his type, 

 the Cedar, was stronger than any of the trees of 

 the forest, but weak in comparison with the axe 

 which cut him off, and left him (as the prophet 

 expresses the vastness of his ruin) spread upon the 

 mountains and in the valleys; while the nations 

 shoolc at the sound of Ids fall. 



Such is the grandeur and form of the Cedar of 

 Lebanon. Its mantling foliage, or shadowing 

 shroud, as Bzekiel calls it, is its greatest beauty, 

 which arises from the horizontal growth of its 

 branches, forming a kind of sweeping, irregular 

 pent-house. And when, to the idea of beauty, that 

 of strength is added by the pyramidal form of the 



