Ancient Olive Trees, Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem

‎We are in a little wall enclosure near the northern end of the valley of the brook Kedron. Jerusalem stands on its hill over there at the west, just hidden by the olive trees before us, its high walls overlooking the spot where we are now. The Mount of Olives rises behind us at the east.
‎It is a peaceful, sunshiny place, this ancient garden—a lovely spot with those old, gnarled olive trees speaking of times past and the vigorous, crowded growth of young, new plants and grasses telling of the earth’s vitality to-day. It is a garden of most sacred associations—a place where our most deeply rooted feelings reach down into the past and where our highest aspirations reach up towards the Highest.
‎It was down here, one night almost nineteen hundred years ago that the Master came to gather strength for the approaching end. These cannot be the very same trees that rustled in the garden that night, but they may be direct descendants from the old stock.
‎“Into the woods my Master went,
‎Clean forspent, forspent.
‎Into the woods my Master came,
‎Forspent with love and shame.
‎But the olives they were not blind to Him,
‎The little gray leaves were kind to Him;
‎The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
‎When into the woods He came.”
‎(Sidney Lanier: A Ballad of Trees and the Master.)