216 LIFE OF A TREE. 
ful ray of the Summer’s sun may warm the old 
timber, and dart here and there into its huge 
recesses ; but there is now no sap to change, and 
no fruit to ripen. Autumn comes and finds her 
old companion for half a thousand years struck 
dead at last, and no longer sensible to the sweet 
influences of the season. Winter rejoices over 
the hoary monarch, terrible, gaunt, and majestic 
even in death; for Winter laid him low, and sends 
his fierce messengers, the winds, to buffet and 
molest the rugged remnant of the dead trunk, 
and then, as though with a trace of pity, buries 
the sad monument of its own ruthlessness in a 
mountain of snow. 
Is there an ‘‘ appointed time”’ for the duration 
of vegetable life? Job tells us, Chap. xiv. 7. 
‘“‘ There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that 
it will sprout again, and that the tender branch 
thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof 
wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die 
in the ground; yet through the scent of water it 
will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. 
But man dieth, and wasteth away ; yea, man giveth 
up the ghost, and where is he?” But this sen- 
tence, in all probability, is only intended to apply 
