“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?” “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.