20 LIKE A TREE 



world, and the tree is still living on, blessing 

 the world. 



Here is God's plan. The tree lived a thousand 

 years, reared its vital magnificence heavenward 

 in order that there might be a great ship, an 

 humble home, a roof over a family, that life, life, 

 life might go on ! So of these life circles of ours. 

 "What a life," we say, and "what a catastrophe!" 

 he was here today doing great things for the 

 world, and on the morrow gone. Ah ! but where, 

 where is he? Nothing ever disappears in God's 

 universe. Shall we not believe that, somehow, in 

 the mystic alchemy of God's providence, the lives 

 that are splendid here, are somewhere transmuted 

 into a life more splendid, more far-reaching, more 

 blessed ; that the life that here was only a human 

 life, a finite life, has become linked with the life 

 that is divine, that is infinite ! 



Let me change but one word in a familiar 

 verse, that shall say it better still. 



"The tree may live for a thousand years, 

 For a thousand years and a day, 

 But God and I will live and love 

 When the trees are passed away." . 

 Blessed fate! Glorious privilege to be like a 

 tree! Aye, like a Big Tree, Gigantea,-Semper- 

 virens!" 



