The long rainy season was over, the roads once more were settled, and the happiest festival of all the year joined with the charms of Spring to draw the Hebrew people toward their sacred city. Nowhere in the whole land was there more to cheer the eye than in the beautiful town through which the festal caravans from the north were now passing on their way to the Passover. Jericho was called "the City of Palms," from the profusion of those stately trees in its fertile valley. These now added spring blossoms to their evergreen foliage; the sycamore was beginning to give cheering promise of its figs, and the balsam-tree, whose gum was worth twice its weight in silver, was showing its scanty and precious bloom in the walled gardens, whose wealth Mark Anthony gave to Cleopatra as a fit gift from a conqueror to a queen. The people were astir with the excitement of the season, as the travellers began to pour into the city. Soon word went round that the noted prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, was approaching, with a large company about him. The wonder grew, as the report of a great miracle upon the blind Bartimeus went from mouth to mouth. The fever reached into quarters not abounding in Jewish enthusiasm, and quickened the calmer blood of the revenue officers of the Roman government. The chief of them went out to get a glimpse of the famous preacher, whom so many hailed as the long-expected Messiah. The rich publican, being a man of small stature, and, from his political relations, not likely to receive much civility from the crowd at such a time, climbed up into a sycamore fig-tree, whose spreading branches probably overhung the street. If seen at all by the populace it was with little favor, for they hated alike his connection with Rome and his lax, or, perhaps, his enlarged views of the Jewish creed. To the surprise of all as much as himself, the publican is singled out by the Messiah from among them all in the words: "Zaccheus, make haste and come down; for to-day I must abide in thy house." The result of this interview is all that is said of Christ's stay in that place. The city, once an abode of kings, has passed away, and enough of its ruin only remains to allow tradition to point out in a crumbling tower and a solitary tree the publican's house and watch post. The story remains, the burden of the rude rhyme of the primer, a text for many a homily of old,--a topic for us now.