Suppose the tree should say: “My roots are strong, my boughs
elastic and tough, firm against the stroke of wind and storm.
Look at my bark, how smooth and fresh; and where is there a
tree whose tides of sap are fuller or richer? What leaves,
too, are these that I have woven out of the threads of sun and
soil! Little wonder that the birds build nests in my branches,
while the cattle find shade beneath my boughs.” Well, this
is a good argument--for an apple-tree--but a poor one for a
man. The hungry farmer-boy does not leap the fence on his way
to the apple-tree looking for apple-sap or apple-boughs or
apple-leaves--he is looking for apples. And God has built this
world, not for the root moralities that support man. Industry
is good--it is good not to lie and not to steal, and not to
kill and not to perjure, but these beginnings are fundamental
only, the man must go on from the leaf to the fruit. The
fruit is truth in the inner parts, justice, measured by God’s
standard, and mercy that tempers justice, love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith that trusts, and
will not be confounded. (Text.)--N. D. HILLIS.
(1169)