Palms of Elim

This “‘oIume is intended as a companion to “The Graphs

OF ESHCOL.”

The latter contains a series of meditations on the glory and blessedness of a future Heaven — the rest which remaineth for the people of God, — ‘Gleanings from the Land of Promise.’ The present, embraces the complementary theme indicated by the name on the title-page, the “rest” of Grace here, preparatory to the “rest” of Glory hereafter. As in the case, too, of the other, it is designed especially for the comfort and refreshment of those in the “Valleys” (as Elini means), — the varied valleys of earthly tribulation, God’s own children of sorrow; to be “a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain” (Isa. iv. 6).

There is a foretasted heaven on earth. “The Palms OF Elim” afforded their grateful shade not in Canaan but in the wilderness. Even the gatherings from Eshcol were borne “on this side Jordan.” Bunyan’s hero was soothed and quickened as he listened, while yet at a distance, to the bells of the Celestial City. In a word, the “saint’s rest” is a present possession, as well as a glorious reversion:

viii PREFA CE.

“We which have believed DO enter into i’est” (Heb. iv. 3). The believer does not require to soar upwards to the Golden Gates to have the prayer fulfilled — “Oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest.” No: rather folding these wings underneath the shadowing Palms of the “desert land” (Deut. xxxii. 10), he can say, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul!” *

It is with hallowed and stirring emotions the traveller in Palestine, when within sight of the earthly Jerusalem, finds himself under the shade of the venerable forms of Gethsemane’s traditional Olives. But here is a nobler verity; the better privilege of every spiritual pilgrim who has the eye of faith on the Jerusalem above. Unlike these hoary relics of Divine agony and triumph by the side of the Kidron, we can point to Palms of gospel promise, which never lose their verdure, nurtured by the river of life flowing from the Paradise of God, “Whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed” (Ezek. xlvii. 12). The reputed Sibylline oracles of Greek and Roman fame were alleged to have been written on palm-leaves. Not only, however, were these full of mystery — purposely enigmatical; — but they were tossed capriciously

* “I have only lately learned that ‘Tadmor’ is the Hebrew for Palm; and that ‘Tadmor in the wilderness ’ and Pa/mj’ra, not only designate the same place, but have the same meaning... Phoenix, too, is the Greek for paltn; and the fable of the bird is supposed to originate in the tree which, if it is burned down, will send up a new stem” {Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, p. 148). The phoenix is frequently seen in ancient Christian sculptures, resting on a branch of the Pahii-tree, — as, e.g., in the quaint but interesting fresco in the Chapel of St. Felicita in Rome, near the Baths of Titus. In the background of the fresco, which represents her martyrdom and that of her seven sons, two palms are introduced, on each of which a phoenix is perched.

PREFACE. ix

in an urn, and thence drawn at random. The Oracles of God, with their “good and comfortable words,” have no such dubious or arbitrary interpretation. They are written on the palm-leaves of ‘a more sure word of prophecy.’ “Thy Word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it.”

Pilgrims of eternity! weary and travel- worn, may you find here and there in these pages, with their figurative Palms, restful, consolatory thoughts, under whose shadow you may repose; — a series of answers to the question asked while fainting under the burden and heat of the day, “Tell me, O Thou whom my soul loveth, where Thou feedest, where Thou makest Thy flock to rest at noon!” (Song of Sol. i. 7). The God of the pillar-cloud, your Heavenly Father, thus speaks in our selected motto-verse, as He conducts you under these spreading branches — “This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weaiy to rest, and this is the refreshing:” and “when He giveth quietness, (rest), who then can make trouble?” (Job xxxiv. 29). It is the Master’s special invitation to His best beloved followers still, as of old, “Come ye yourselves into a desert place and /rj, awhile” (Mark vi. 31).

Let us look, above all, to Him who is pre-eminently “77;^ Heavenly Faljn;” who came down to gladden with His presence the Elim encampments of His redeemed Israel, and who Himself utters the prophetical words — “The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary” (Isa. 1. 4). He paid the price of His own life-blood to secure the precious gift of rest to the ’ weary and heavy-laden.’ One of the most beautiful and striking emblems of the early Christians, found on the sepulchral slabs in the Roman Catacombs and elsewhere (in addition to that already referred to), is the well-known monogram (• Chrism,’ see engraving on tiile-page), wreathed or intertwined with pahii branches, denoting that the Pahn, the emblem of triumph,* is victory through the Divine Redeemer. Equally notable, we may further add, is the introduction of the Palm in ancient monuments and frescoes in connection with the Apostle Paul. But he himself gives ’ the writing and interpretation’ — “Thanks be to God, who giveth us the VICTORY through our Lord Jesus Christ.” t

The following description of the Palm, by the late Dean Alford, was recently perused by the writer under a grove of these on the heights of Bordighera, “the Jericho of North Italy.” The accomplished Christian scholar was only conveying to others, in his own fervent way, the impression made upon him in visiting one of earth’s Edens. But perhaps, too, he may have had in his mind’s eye a loftier spiritual meaning, when he thus speaks of the Palm as “the Child of the Sun.” It was read, at all events, in a bright day in autumn, with the higher reference vividly impressed on me.

“There is no end to the picturesque groupings of these lovely trees, and their graceful effects in the sunlight. In the sunlight! — for of all trees the Palm is the child of the sun, and the best purveyor of

* “Talma victorine signuni est illius belli, quod, inter se, carno et spiritus gerunt.”

t It is hardly necessary to remind the reader what a conspicuous place the palm occupied in the carving and in the Holy Place of the Temple of old. “And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims and palm-trees and open flowers, within and without. The two doors also were of olive-tree; and he carved upon them carvings of cherubims and palm-trees and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold, and spread gold upon the cherubims, and upon the palm-trees. And he carved thereon cherubims and palm-trees and open flowers; and covered them with gold fitted upon the carved work” (l Kings vi. 29, 32, 35).

Keep reading