The distinguishing features of the palm-tree can easily be given in a short description. It is found where moisture is present. It flourishes in proportion to the cultivation bestowed upon it. Its great characteristic is a sturdy, persistent, upward growth. It always rises higher and higher. It grows as long as it lives, and there is a singular elasticity in its fibre. Though heavy weights may be hung upon it to draw it down to earth, it has an extraordinary power of asserting its heavenward tendency. And then its form is singularly beautiful and noble,—its tall stem gracefully and continuously rising without branches, and its canopy of feathery leaves at the summit spreading in the blue sky above the orchards below. To this must be added the fact that the palm is an eminently useful tree. It bears fruit abundantly; and its fruit is highly important to man. Nor is the value of this tree confined to its fruitfulness. There is an Arab proverb which says that there are as many uses for the palm-tree as there are days in the year. The distinctive peculiarities of the cedar may, in the same popular, unscientific way, be given in a few words. This is a tree of the mountains, as the palm is a tree of the plains. The cedar grows rapidly and lives long. Naturalists have made startling calculations regarding the age of some of the grandest specimens that remain. The cedar is singularly hardy and tenacious of life; and the determined growth of its gnarled and knotted trunks may most fitly be taken as the emblem of strength. Though the cedar is a lofty tree, it is more distinctly marked by the wide-spreading breadth of its shade. This characteristic seems to be well caught in the prayer-book version of the passage before us, which is worded thus: “The righteous shall flourish as a palm-tree, and shall spread abroad like a cedar in Libanus.” Few scenes in nature are grander than the old cedar-grove on Mount Lebanon, especially when the dusky outspreading branches and foliage are covered with masses of snow, and stand in wintry harmony with the rugged forms of the mountains around. The cedar is worthy to be called the “monarch of the forest.” It has been very truthfully said by a scientific observer of nature, that what the lion is in the animal world, that the cedar is among the trees. We cannot wonder at the enthusiasm and pride with which the Jews regarded these famous trees. The allusions to them which occur in the sacred writings are full of poetry, of national feeling, and religious faith. Well may they be the image also of those who are strong in the blessing of God; well may it be said that “the righteous” not only shall “flourish like a palm-tree,” but shall “grow,” shall “spread abroad,” “like a cedar in Lebanon.” Take now some of the features of these two famous trees of the Bible, as thus roughly described, and add them together, and put into them their moral and religious meanings; and the great emphasis and richness of the blessing of the righteous will be perceived. Upward growth, so as to be as near as possible to Heaven and as far as possible from earth,—perpetual freshness, perpetual fruitfulness, elasticity of hope and heart, tenacity of purpose in the habit of the life, strong endurance, wide-spreading shelter and influence, steady resistance to storm and change,—where could we find a larger aggregate of religious characteristics for the servants of God? He has put all these qualities in the cedar and the palm; and using these trees as the vehicle of his promise, he assures the possession of these qualities to the righteous.—Sunday Magazine.