LIKE A TREE 



every appearance of having once been a profit- 

 able bearing orchard, but as I saw it after the 

 freshets of last winter, and perhaps the winter 

 before, the sand from the hillside had been 

 washed down, and all over the level field of the 

 orchard had piled itself up a foot high, two feet 

 high, and more, around the trunks of the trees, 

 and every tree in the orchard was dead or dying. 

 Too much earth killed the tree. Too much earth 

 kills a man ! 



Let a man live of the earth and yet above the 

 earth ; let a man root himself to the circumstances 

 of his physical life, and the worldly things about 

 him, but Oh, let him be careful how these shall 

 sweep in upon him, in his desire of greed or 

 worldliness, until the life is killed out of his soul, 

 and instead of the great, uplifted and enduring 

 foliage of a beautiful life, he becomes only a 

 wreck of what was once a promising life a soul 

 blasted, withered, dying dead. Too much 

 earth ! Too much earth ! 



Another element in the dignity of the tree I 

 know not how to put it it follows right after 

 this thought of the tree lifting itself up towards 

 the heavens, its finest life, yonder where the 

 breezes of God play upon it constantly, but it 

 seems to me we may think of something like 

 this : the unhurried growth of the tree. I know 

 of no experience more enlightening, more hum- 



