Day has succeeded night again. This is the third day since we left the Damascus road. We are now camped in the valley at the base of Lebanon, which is at this point 10,000 feet high and almost as steep as the roof of a house. Many loose rocks and bowlders of all shapes and sizes are scattered promiscuously over the mountain side. There is no road to be seen—nothing more than a cow trail or hog path. And yet in order to see a single Cedar we are compelled to climb to yonder giddy heights. Well, we all start—three gentlemen and two ladies. One woman soon gives out, but the other is the kind of a woman who, when she says, “I will,” means with a twist on it, “I will!” She says that she started and she is going. She reminds me of the French woman who started to the top of Mont Blanc. Twelve hundred feet before reaching the summit she gave out, and, being dragged by guides, she kept crying: “If I die carry me to the top.”
To climb Lebanon at this place is barely within the limits of possibility. The way is steep, high and rough, and at times perilous. To be sure, on foot one could climb it without danger, but not without great physical exertion. On horseback, however, it is a hazardous undertaking. No four-footed animal, save a mountain goat or an Arabian steed, dare undertake the ascent. If I live to get down, I shall christen my Arabian pony “Amnon, the reliable, the sure-footed.” The mountain is scaled, the summit is reached, and no Cedars yet. I am now standing on the heights of Lebanon, looking down upon the blue Mediterranean 10,000 feet below me and only three miles away towards the setting sun. The gray clouds, lying along the western horizon, look like white-winged ships floating on the bosom of the sea. For aught I know, they are ships freighted with whirlwinds and thunder-storms; or perchance they may be—I hope they are—freighted with rain to refresh this parched earth.
CEDARS OF LEBANON.
Leaving the summit and coming down three thousand feet on the western side, I find myself resting under the venerable Cedars of Lebanon, seven thousand feet above the sea. It is a perfect day. The sky is of a rich, deep, azure blue and seems only a few feet above me. The atmosphere is pure and crisp. It is a glorious thing to be here. Look where you will, you find something to admire. The air is delightful; the earth, sea and sky are beautiful; but the waving Cedars are the one central object of interest and admiration—their age, their history, their beauty! Then come the sacred associations that cluster about the Cedars of Lebanon. All my life I have been reading of these trees. Before I could read, my mother used to sing me a sweet song about the Cedars of Lebanon. All of mother’s songs were sweet, but especially sweet, I thought, was this one about the Cedars. And now I am here looking at them with my own eyes. Of all trees on earth those are by far the most renowned. Of all the vegetable kingdom they are the crowning glory.
From this mountain Solomon got the timber to build his temple on Mount Moriah. In all probability some of these trees that I am now looking at were here in Solomon’s day. I feel that I am in the presence of Age. These venerable Cedars are not ringed round by years or decades, but by centuries! And yet their wrinkles may be counted by the score. These trees are mentioned more than twenty-five times in the pages of Sacred Writ. They are called “goodly Cedars.”
As I see these historic trees bowing and bending in the cold and cutting breeze, I am naturally reminded of a thought beautifully expressed by the “sweet singer of Israel” where he says: “There shall be an handful of corn in the earth on the tops of the mountain; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon, and they of that city shall flourish like grass.” We are told also that “the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree and grow like a Cedar of Lebanon.” I wonder why and how it is that the righteous can grow like a Cedar in Lebanon. Upon examination I find that these Cedars grow on a mountain top; that they grow out of a rock; that they are rooted in barrenness. I find that every crack and crevice in the rock is filled with their roots and fibres. The roots of the trees shoot themselves deep down through the rended rocks and take a firm hold upon the eternal hills. And when earthquakes come and the mountains reel and totter on their bases; when cyclones come with death and destruction locked up in their wings; when the storms howl and the sea is lashed into rage and fury,—the Cedars of Lebanon do then bow and bend gracefully in the breezes; but they are uprooted never. They say,
“Let the winds be shrill,
Let the waves roll high,
We fear not wind or wave.”
And when the earthquakes have ceased and the mountains no longer reel; when the cyclones have passed; when the sea is lulled to sleep and the winds are only a whisper, then the Cedars of Lebanon lift themselves up in their pillared majesty, spread wide their broad arms and look up smilingly in the face of God as if to say: “We thank thee, O Lord God Almighty, for the firm footing that thou hast given us in the eternal rocks—in the everlasting hills.” I thank thee, O God, that the righteous grow like the Cedars of Lebanon. I bless thee that the righteous grow on a mountain top—on mount Calvary; that they grow out of a rock—Jesus Christ, the Rock of Ages.