TREE-FORM OUT OP ITS UNIT. 23 



friend, it is not one continuous storm, for there are occasional 

 glimpses of sunshine to help you along 1 And you would 

 do well to look at the bright as well as the dark side of 

 things. But storms will assail you : many and many another. 

 It is part of the discipline of life. 



A tree extracts nutriment not only from wandering winds, 

 but from "rushing storms;" the most violent "thunder- 

 showers" as well as the silently descending dews have con- 

 tributed materially to the building up of its fabric. Except 

 in winter when there is no growth, no vital movement, the 

 course of the tree is upward and onward in all kinds. of 

 weather. The wind may roar among its branches, and the 

 rain fall in torrents, but it continues to grow despite these 

 hostile influences, and becomes a great tree at last. The 

 very strength which we admire in a tree has been extracted 

 from a thousand tempests. Storms have already tended to 

 give it stability. 



It is ever thus with Nature's really great and noble. They 

 show to the greatest advantage when assailed by storms. 

 These only develope them. How frequently is innate talent 

 brought out through the fear of wanting bread, the struggle 

 to maintain a family ! Individuals so circumstanced usually 

 make the most valuable contributions to literature and the 

 industrial arts. Man would never exert himself, he would 

 live a life of inglorious ease and self-indulgence, he would 

 do nothing to advance either himself or his species, if there 

 were no difficulties in his pathway. He would retrograde, 

 go back to primeval savageism. It is adversity which calls 

 forth the nobility of his nature, and makes him transform 

 every obstacle into a monument of his skill and strength. 

 The wise and noble-minded are ever brave and calm when 

 enemies assail. Conscious of the rectitnde of their inten- 

 tions, they meet the foe with boldness and decision of char- 

 acter, and the very storm is only a means of developing 

 the intellectual and moral greatness of their nature. To 

 the obscure and crooked ways of their enemies they oppose 

 plain, straightforward conduct; to their calumnies, a pure 

 and blameless life ; to their meanness and unfairness, up- 



