298 



THE YEW. 



there is far greater probability that at the period 

 when crosses were erected in these sacred spots as 

 emblems of the victory over death achieved by 

 the Author of our faith, the Yew-tree was sta- 

 tioned not far off, to symbolize, by its durability 

 and slowly altering features, the patient waiting 

 for the resurrection, by those who committed the 

 bodies of their friends to the ground in hope. 

 Heathens indeed might with propriety have se- 

 lected the most deadly of trees to represent the 

 character of what they might well consider a mer- 

 ciless destroyer ; but such a feeling could have 

 had no place with sober Christians. They, on 

 the other hand, would regard the perpetual ver- 

 dure which overshadowed the remains of their 

 forefathers, and was shortly destined to canopy 

 their own, as the most fitting expression of their 

 faith in the immortality of the soul. Generation 

 after generation mightbe gathered to their fathers, 

 the Yew-tree proclaiming to those who remained, 

 that all, like the ever-green, unchanging Yew, 

 were yet living, in another world, the life which 

 had been the object of their desire. The Yew, 

 then, we may safely conclude, is not an unmean- 

 ing decoration of our churchyards, much less a 

 heathenish symbol, or, as some will have it, a tree 

 planted with superstitious feelings, but an appro- 

 priate religious emblem : — 



" Of vast circumference, and gloom profound, 

 This solitary Tree ! A living thing 

 Produced too slowly ever to decay ; 

 Of form and aspect too magnificent 

 To be destroyed." 



Wordsworth. 



Miss Kent quotes from Dr. Hunter a passage 



