10 LIKE A TREE 



bling, than when wandering through a forest, 

 suddenly to come across a great tree that has 

 been lately cut down, and then to set yourself to 

 the task of counting the rings, and finding how 

 long the tree has grown. Count slowly and 

 calmly, those tiny, little marks of life a hundred 

 years! and our forefathers were just completing 

 the war of 1812, making sure of their indepen- 

 dence, on land and sea ; two hundred years ! and 

 our forefathers were the Colonists, a little com- 

 pany on the eastern slopes of the Alleghanies ; 

 three hundred years! and the Pilgrim Fathers 

 in England were wondering how they could cross 

 the ocean to the New World ; four hundred 

 years! and Columbus is still telling about the 

 New World he has found ; a thousand years ! 

 back, in the Middle Ages, the great tree is grow- 

 ing in the fastnesses of California ; two thousand 

 years! when the angels sang in Bethlehem 

 there was a Christmas tree growing on the moun- 

 tain side of California; three thousand years! 

 when David wrote of the man like a tree, there 

 was this tree, no longer a sapling, growing here ; 

 and when Moses led the people of God out of 

 Egypt, there was a tree starting its growth to- 

 ward the heavens here where now it speaks to 

 us of time to grow ! 



But, as you count those rings, what do you dis- 

 cover? You discover how infinitesimal is the 

 growth; you can hardly measure it without a 



