uttering loud oaths and cruel threats, and the tree was filled with
terror. It called aloud for the angel, but the angel came not.

"Alas," cried the vine, "they have come to destroy the tree, the pride and
glory of the forest!"

The forest was sorely agitated, but it was in vain. The strange men plied
their axes with cruel vigor, and the tree was hewn to the ground. Its
beautiful branches were cut away and cast aside, and its soft, thick
foliage was strewn to the tenderer mercies of the winds.

"They are killing me!" cried the tree; "why is not the angel here to
protect me?"

But no one heard the piteous cry,--none but the other trees of the forest;
and they wept, and the little vine wept too.

Then the cruel men dragged the despoiled and hewn tree from the forest,
and the forest saw that beauteous thing no more.

But the night wind that swept down from the City of the Great King that
night to ruffle the bosom of distant Galilee, tarried in the forest awhile
to say that it had seen that day a cross upraised on Calvary,--the tree on
which was stretched the body of the dying Master.

1884.