THE OLD AGE OF THE TRERF. 171 
CHAPTER IV. 
THE OLD AGE OF THE TREE. 
Five hundred years have gone by, yet the Tree 
stands. A thousand times have the storms of 
heaven wrestled with its sturdy trunk and wide- 
spread limbs, while the earth trembled at the 
contest ; five hundred Winters have bent down 
its long and crooked branches with a huge load 
of snow, and more times than we can mention 
have huge branches withered, died, and dropped 
off. Yet the Tree stands. But how altered in 
its aspect from the tree as it first appeared before 
us, a tender, fragile, graceful sapling, and then 
aripe young tree! All the lines of young grace 
and beauty are gone, and with them the pliancy of 
the sap-charged stem. The great trunk is now a 
great tower of wood, covered with huge knots and 
warts, and furrowed into deep channels, down 
