18 LIKE A TREE 



shoots, a new generation out of the life of the 

 old tree. Stand, as I have, in the midst of such 

 a circle, twenty feet, thirty feet, forty feet, in 

 diameter, try to think back to the tree that stood 

 there generations before, and you will say rev- 

 erently, "What a tree it was that once stood 

 here! How splendid it is here to stand in the 

 very presence of immortality, for the tree still 

 lives, in those that have grown from its roots." 



You have seen lives like that, and I have seen 

 men like that, out of the circle of whose influence 

 there grew up other lives, splendid lives as the 

 life before them was splendid. The circle of the 

 family, the circle of the business acquaintances, 

 the whole round circle of the man's influence, 

 springing up with a new life, that is immortal- 

 ity ! You have known such a life in this church, 

 and I have come to know something of it. Here 

 and there, again and again, I have met men who 

 have said, with a thrill in their voices, "I was one 

 of Dr. McLean's boys ;" women have said, "I 

 was in Dr. McLean's Sunday school ;" others have 

 said, "I was here in Dr. McLean's pastorate;" 

 so I hear one and another, scores, hundreds, 

 bear testimony to a life that was once lived here, 

 I have stepped into this ever-enlarging circle of 

 wonderful life. I bow my head in reverence, and 

 say, "What a man he was, John Knox McLean !" 

 From him we may learn how to live, so that other 

 lives shall take up the wonderful thread of life, 



