Transcribed from the 1840 W. Birch edition by David Price.

PALM SUNDAY:

OR,

LITTLE MARY’S SATURDAY’S WALK.

BY LADY CALLCOTT.

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PRINTED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE KENSINGTON SCHOOLS IN PEEL STREET,
HOPE TERRACE, AND THE POTTERIES.

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KENSINGTON:

PRINTED BY W. BIRCH, HIGH STREET.

1840.

PRICE ONE SHILLING.

p. 3PALM SUNDAY;
OR,
LITTLE MARY’S SATURDAY’S WALK.

“Come, Mary!” said Mr. Lumley to his little girl, one Saturday afternoon, “put on your bonnet and your thick shoes.  I am going to Davies’s cottage, and there is a basket for you to carry, with some work for Jane, and some jelly for her grandmother.  The lane is pretty clean, and the stepping-stones, even the rickety one, quite out of water.”

Before the last comfortable assurance could be heard, Mary was ready for the walk.

Papa at leisure on a fine Saturday afternoon to help her to enjoy her holiday would have been enough; but to go to old Molly Davies, and to see her favourite Sunday-scholar Jane, was pleasure indeed.

It was a charming afternoon,—one of the first that Mary had called so that spring.  The winter had been severe; there had been no fine Saturdays in February, scarcely one in March.  But on this, the wind was soft, the sun was shining, the violets had no withered brown edges to their deep blue petals, but looked and smelt as March violets should look and smell.  In the sheltered lane there were a few full-blown primroses among the moss, the woolly stems of the cowslips were already peeping up in the meadows, and innumerable buds of all Mary’s favourite spring flowers seemed ready to open in the warm sunshine.

“Oh, papa, how happy I am!” cried the little girl, as she shewed him a lap full of gay colours.  “Here are yellow pileworts, and grey lady’s-smocks, and wood sorrel, and cowslips, ready to blow; and, I declare, there’s a wood anemone quite blown.  Oh! this year these darling anemones will answer to their pretty name of pasque-flower, for they will be in full beauty by Easter.

“Do you know, papa, I feel as if it were more good in God to create beautiful things p. 4to make us happy when we only look at them, than even to give us needful and useful things, which are often far from being beautiful or pleasant.  I hope I am not foolish or wrong to say so.”

“No, my little Mary.  I remember the wise and good Mrs. W—y said the same thing, almost in your very words, to me some years ago, when she saw a bunch of spring flowers in water on the table of a sick friend.  I am glad you are learning to see and love the goodness of God while you are young; it will make it easier to do your duty towards him for the rest of your life.”

“Hush! dear papa.  Hush one moment!—I am almost sure I hear a willow-wren in the hedge; and those wagtails!  I declare they are catching flies already; and look! there are the little tadpoles all gathering round that green mossy stone, how merry they are in the clear water!  But here we are at Davies’s cottage, and there’s a thrush singing; and old Molly says the thrushes sing earlier in the copse behind their house than anywhere else.  Do you think it’s true, papa?”

“I don’t know, my dear.  But run in and settle it with Molly, while I step on to the overseer’s; and by the time you are ready to go home, I will call for you.”

Now, this was just what Mary liked.  She went into the house by herself, and felt very important as she opened her basket and gave Jane directions about the needle-work to be done for her mamma, and then helped her to spread the cloth on Molly’s little deal table, that she might eat some of the jelly, to do her good directly, as Mary said.

Meantime, the flowers were laid out in due order by the two little girls; and as soon as Molly was at leisure, a hundred questions were asked at once, but as she declared she could only answer one by one, Mary was obliged to curb her impatience.

“Well, then,” she said, “do tell me why this pretty yellow flower is called pile-wort?”

“I have been told,” said Molly, “that wort means root or plant in general; as for the pile you know that is an old word for cross, and as you have brought a bit of the root, I can shew you why this is called pile-wort, or cross-root.  Look, I will cut the root across, and you will see a number of black spots in the form of a cross, upon the white part.  In former days this root was used in washes and salves, for healing many kinds of sores.  This pretty little green leaf, whose flower is just budding, lying close by, is adder’s-tongue; and I still often boil it with sweet oil and wax to make salve for the wounds and cuts that mowers and reapers are apt to meet with in the course of their work.”

“And what do you do with the lady’s-smocks?” cried Mary.  “I see such a store of dried ones hanging up there!”

“They are the remains of last year’s gathering, Miss.  The powder made of them is p. 5given for agues.  The bundles of roots hanging by them belong to your pasque-flower: they are good in powders and in drinks for obstinate coughs; and this pinkish wood-sorrel makes a sort of tea which is very good for colds.  In short, you have not brought anything but the pretty primroses that I do not remember using or seeing used to cure some ailment or other.”

“What, Molly, even the violets?”

“Oh yes, Miss!  The syrup of violets makes people sleep as well as the laudanum the doctors are so fond of now-a-days.  But next month and the one after it are those of all the year that bring forth most of the plants of which the leaves and flowers are good for physic.  August and September ripen such as have most virtue in the seeds and roots.  If your mamma likes it, I shall be very glad to tell you all I know about these things, and Jane can shew you all the plants I use in the fields.”

“Thank you!—thank you, dear Molly! but here comes Sam, with a whole bundle of sticks.  What can they be?  Oh, I see now, they are palms to wear to-morrow.  Are they good to cure sickness?  And why do we call them palms, and carry them about on Palm Sunday?”

“Why, Miss, I think you had better ask your papa the two last questions, and, in the meantime, I will do my best to answer the first.  The bark of willows in general, but particularly that of the sallow, which is the palm-willow, has long been known and used as a cure for agues and low fevers; and though the elm and some other barks were employed, yet none was found to be so good as the sallow, till the Jesuits brought the bark of a shrub from America, about two hundred years ago, which is so much more powerful as a cure for the same disorders that the European barks are nearly out of use. [5]  But here comes your papa, and I shall be as glad as you to hear what he will have to tell you.”

“Papa! papa!” cried the eager little girl, as she ran to meet her father, “do come in quick, and tell Molly, and Jane, and me, all about them.”

“All about what, or who, my dear?  The new benches in the church, or the children in the new school?”

“No, no, not now; but about the palms, papa! and Palm-Sunday, and why we carry palms, and—”

“Enough, enough, my little girl.  If I answer all those questions, I must sit down in p. 6the chimney-corner, and Jane must give me a draught of whey, and Molly must have patience with us for at least half an hour.”

“That I will, and be thankful too, your reverence,” said the old woman.  Jane dusted the settle, and brought the whey, and the party was soon seated.

And now, who so happy as little Mary?  Seated on her father’s knee, hoping to have all her questions answered, with old Molly in the opposite chimney-corner, Jane at work in the window-seat, and old puss purring on the hearth: it was far the best Saturday afternoon she had known, this year at any rate.

“You know, my little Mary,” said Mr. Lumley, “that what you call palms are really branches of willow in flower, and that all willows bear their flowers, called catkins, before their leaves come out.  I think you know, also, that real palms are trees which only grow in hot climates, whose large branch-like leaves grow like a crown, distinguishing them among trees, on the top of the stem, whether it be only one year old or a hundred.  I think you can compare a palm-leaf to nothing so aptly as to the ostrich feathers which ladies wear in their head-dresses.

“Now these palm branches have been thought, at all times and in all places, so beautiful as to be fit to carry before kings and conquerors, as signs of victory and of fame likely to last.”

“In what particular country was that, papa?”

“Wherever palms grew at first, but by degrees neighbouring countries adopted the palm as a sign of victory, and we read of them in every profane history as well as in the Bible, where you know the palm is often named.”

“Was there any reason besides the beauty of the leaf for this, papa?”

“You shall judge.  The palm leaf, even when cut from the tree, is not subject to decay.  In the countries where it grows it is used to thatch houses, nay, even for the walls when woven into mats.  Palm mats make soft bedding for men, and safe cradles for infants; and I have seen labourers in rice grounds well sheltered from sun and heavy rain by a hood and cloak made of one leaf of a palm-tree.  The fibres of many kinds of palm are woven into coarse cloth, and most of them furnish materials for strong and durable ropes.

“The juice that flows from the top of several palms, when a small cut has been made either in the bark or at the foot-stalk of a leaf, is as refreshing as Jane’s whey, when fresh; and after standing a few days a strong spirit is often distilled from it.  The juice from the date palm, indeed, when boiled, produces a very sweet, dark-coloured sugar, called jagree.

p. 7“The palm-tree wood is useful in building; it resists the attacks of all insects, even those of the white ant, and is perhaps the most durable wood in the world.”

“How can we know that, papa?”

“A piece of timber was lately brought to England from the ruins of Babylon.  It was found in the ceiling of a chamber where it must have been at the very least for two thousand years.  Your dear friend Mr. Brown examined it, and found it was palm-tree wood.”

“How wonderful! but, papa, has the palm-tree any fruit fit to eat?”

“What think you of cocoa-nuts and dates?  You like them both, I think; and in many countries these fruits furnish great part of the food of the natives during many months of the year.  And from the refuse cocoas and the seeds and nuts of other palms a sweet oil, good for food as well as for lamps, is pressed.”

“Dear papa, you might well say the palm is distinguished among trees.  Were there many palms in Palestine?”

“Yes, my dear; and in Egypt, where the Jews dwelt so long, many more; nay, even while they wandered in the desert, they often came to clumps of date trees, whose charming shade, sweet fruit, and refreshing juice, were to them truly a ‘table in the wilderness.’  You cannot wonder, then, that on all occasions of rejoicing, and especially on the solemn feasts, when the heads of families went up to Jerusalem to worship, the people gathered the branches and carried them with their other offerings to the temple, where they probably formed shades and screens from the intense heat of the sun, while they waited in the court of the people.”

“Has that custom of the Jews anything to do with our carrying palms on Palm Sunday?”

“It is the origin of it.  You have read in the New Testament, when our blessed Saviour was preparing, with his disciples, to eat his last paschal supper in Jerusalem, the people met him as he was riding towards the gates of the city, and received him with shouts and rejoicing, crying to him, Hosannah! which means, Save, we beseech thee, and strewing palm branches in his way, and some even spreading their own clothes before him.

“As this is supposed to have happened a few days before the feast of the passover, which was, and indeed still is, observed by the Jews at the same time with our Easter, though not always on the very day, the first Christians used to carry palm branches into their churches on the Sunday before Easter, in memory of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem.”

“Well; but, papa, how came we to use willows instead of palms?”

p. 8“It was natural that, as the first Christians were all Jews by birth, they should observe many of the customs and ceremonies of the Temple of Jerusalem in their own churches; and when the Christians became numerous, and gained riches and power in all countries, that their priests and bishops should wish to make the worship of the Christians at least as grand as the worship in the ancient temple of the Jews.  Accordingly, they imitated as far as they could the dresses and music, and some of the offerings; and among these that of the palm leaves.

“Now, the Christians in most of the countries of Europe looked upon the bishop or pope of Rome with the same reverence that the Jews paid to their high-priest, and considered the chief church of Rome as holy as the old Temple of Jerusalem.  Of course, it was impossible for many of them to go to Rome every year to worship there; but every one who could possibly afford it went thither once in his life, and carried offerings in money, or jewels, or curious things, such as he could afford.  Noblemen and kings gave great estates to the church; and for some hundreds of years, the popes pretended to have authority over all kings and princes.  During that period, the visitors to Rome were not to be counted.  The ceremonies observed during the whole week before Easter attracted crowds from all countries.  The churches were decorated with costly hangings of tapestry, or gold and silver cloth, or silk and velvet.  And on Palm Sunday, in the church where the pope himself sung the service, the altar was covered and ornamented with palm branches.

“At a particular part of the forenoon prayer, the pope pronounced a blessing over the palms, which were the signs of the victory of Christianity over the heathen; and then the palms were distributed to the cardinals, the bishops, the princes, and, in short, to as many persons as they would serve.”

“What was that for?” interrupted Mary.

“Such of the persons receiving them, as had come on a pilgrimage from a distant country to Rome, carried these palms home, as a sign that they had accomplished their undertaking, and called themselves palmers in consequence.  They, and all who had palms from the church, preserved them carefully, as they believed that the blessing pronounced over them by the pope would extend to the house in which they were kept.”

“Now, papa, tell us why we call willows palms, and gather them for Palm Sunday.”

“A little patience, my dear, and I will.  I need not say that palm-trees do not grow in all the countries where there are Christians.  Even in Italy the climate does not suit them.  There is, however, one small sandy valley, open to the sea and the southern sun, on the coast of Genoa, where the date-palm is cultivated on purpose to supply Rome with p. 9branches for Palm Sunday; and I have heard it said that it is the exclusive privilege of one family living in a village on the coast to furnish these branches, because it is descended from a sailor to whom the right was granted in reward for having, by quickness and presence of mind, saved the lives of hundreds, and ensured success to the raising the immense obelisk of Egyptian granite in the Piazza di San Pietro, where it has stood ever since the days of Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who was pope from 1585 to 1590.  At his command it was raised out of the earth in which it lay buried by the enterprising skill of the architect Domenic Fontana.  Crowds assembled to behold the wonderful work.  Silence was enjoined to all upon pain of death, that nothing might for one moment draw the attention of the workmen from what they were about, or prevent their hearing the signals agreed upon.  A Genoese sailor, however, accustomed by his seafaring life to the management of ropes, perceived that the cords to which the obelisk was fastened were slackening, and, in defiance of the order, loudly cried out, ‘Acqua! acqua!’ (Water! water!)  Fontana instantly understood his meaning and the danger, and ordered pails-full to be brought and splashed over them, by which means the ropes, which had been dried too much by the sun, were quickly tightened again, and the heavy obelisk saved from falling upon the workmen.”

“Oh, papa, how could that be?” said Mary.

“When you go home, your brothers will shew you the difference wetting will make in the length of a rope, and then you will understand my story better.  I am sure Molly and Jane know it already by their washing-lines.  But to finish my story.

“The brave sailor was tried and sentenced to be put to death for disobedience to the Pope’s orders; nor was it (the story goes) without difficulty that Fontana obtained his pardon, and, as it seems, a slender reward for so great a service.

“It is probable, too, that this family may be employed to manufacture artificial branches, when (as is frequently the case) the trees themselves do not supply a number equal to the demand. [9]  This they contrive by tying reeds and sedges to willow wands, in imitation of the palm leaf, and placing a portion of the real palm at the tip of the mock one.”

“Oh, thank you, papa—thank you.  What a pretty story, what a brave, good man the sailor was; how I love him!  I hope it is quite true, papa.

“Indeed, my dear, so do I, and I am inclined to believe that it is.”

“But what a pity there is no more of it, papa.  We have not been sitting in this p. 10snug corner nearly half an hour.  Have we, Molly?  Have we, Jane?  You are not tired, dear Molly?”

“Oh no, my dear Miss Mary.  Perhaps,” continued the old woman, “your papa can tell us why the willow, rather than any other tree, was chosen to represent the palm; if he really will spare us a little more of his time?”

“Willingly,” said Mr. Lumley.  “From the prayer of consecration used in early times on presenting the palms at Rome, we learn that fruit and flowers were also presented.  This clearly shews that the whole ceremony was copied from some of those of the Temple of Jerusalem.  There, at the Feast of the Tabernacles, along with the palm branches, boughs of the willow and myrtle, and the fruit of the citron, each perfect in its kind, were presented by every man to the priest at the altar.”

“Why was that, papa?”

“The palm, as I told you before, was a sign of victory; and the Jews loved to worship God as the leader of their hosts, as the Lord of Battles.  The willow grows by the fresh water brooks, and is a sign of fertility; it was properly laid on the altar of Him ‘who openeth his hand and filleth all things living with plenteousness.’  The myrtle is a shade and shelter from the heat, and its bark and leaves preserve all materials tanned with them from decay; it is in reference, I think, to this quality, that Queen Esther is often called Hadassah, or the Myrtle, because she sheltered the Israelites and preserved them from the malice of Haman.  As to the ripe citron, its fragrance, its beauty, and perhaps its quality of keeping long unspoiled when gathered from the tree, fitted it for an offering representing the beauty and fruitfulness of the land of promise.

“Now you see, Mary, that of the trees or fruits offered in the Temple of Jerusalem, or the church of Rome, the willow is the only one which is found in the northern countries of Europe, and therefore the only one likely to be used by us on Palm Sunday.”

“I am sure,” said old Molly, when Mr. Lumley had done speaking, “we shall not easily forget why we gather willows and carry them instead of palms, eight days or so before Easter.  Can your reverence tell us if the poor Jews preserve any of these customs now?”

“A great many; although the glory is departed from their temple, many with true hearts continue to perform their ceremonies, and to the best of their power, to make their offerings in their synagogues.  At present, I have not time to tell you more than that they spare no expense to procure fair citrons and flowering myrtles: the willow, you know, they find everywhere; but they generally supply the place of palm by the branch of an almond tree.”

p. 11Mary’s half hour was now spent.  The minute-hand of Molly’s great clock pointed to half-past three.  Mamma expected her and papa home by four; so, tying on her bonnet, she bade Molly and Jane good-bye, and followed by Sam, with a bundle of palms for her brothers, she set out gaily on her walk home, gathering fresh flowers for her own flower-pot, and arranging the new things she had learned that day in her little head, by the help of a question to papa every now and then about citrons, myrtles, willows, and palms.

BOTANICAL NAMES OF LITTLE MARY’S FLOWERS.

MEDICINAL USES
ACKNOWLEDGED BY LINDLEY IN HIS “FLORA MEDICA, 1838.”

Violet.—Flowers anodyne, and roots emetic.  Used in the Grand Seignor’s Sherbet.

Cowslip.—Pleasant sedative, particularly in wine.

Pilewort.—Very acrid.  Used sometimes for blisters, or for drawing-plaisters, but with great caution.

p. 12Lady’s-smocks.—Lindley does not seem to know its use in agues, but says it is a popular remedy for falling-sickness in children.

Wood Sorrel.—A cooling drink in fevers.

Wood Anemone.—The pulsatilla very acrid, and those who rub down the powder vomit and are affected with colic if they do not use a veil.  Used in very small doses for complaints on the lungs.  The Anemone Nemerosa is much milder.  Both have been used by country people, in various ways, often with good effect; but sometimes producing much mischief.

Sallow.—The bark of many willows is an effectual substitute for cinchona or Jesuit’s bark.  A substance called Salicine is produced from it, used with effect instead of Sulphate of Quinia.—Lindley.

Willow bark contains a good deal of tannin.—Hatchet.

Next to oak-bavin, willow sprays peeled make the best charcoal for gunpowder.

THE END.

Printed by W. Birch, High Street, Kensington.

FOOTNOTES.

[5]  Though old Molly did not know it, just about the time she was speaking, some gentlemen began to examine the sallow bark with more attention than it had met with before.  And they procured a medicine from it called salicine, which seems to have the same properties as the quinine, which is made from Jesuit’s bark.

[9]  Little Mary’s friend Mr. Brown told her afterwards, that the only place in Europe where the climate and soil is sufficiently favourable to the palm for dates to ripen is Valencia; and that the palm-trees there had been originally planted for the purposes of the church.