LIKE A TREE 



only a fretful child, instead of a dignified soul. 

 But the tree, have you not noticed how the tree 

 adapts itself to circumstances? The earth may 

 slide away from under its root, or a great boul- 

 der may come crashing down the mountain side 

 and the tree perforce must lean from its perpen- 

 dicular, but the tree always leans gracefully; it 

 adjusts itself to circumstances, and you cannot, 

 even by the wildest effort of the imagination, 

 think of the tree as grumbling and complaining 

 because the circumstances of its life are not just 

 as the tree would have it. 



Now, what are the elements of this dignity? 

 First, is there not this, that the tree is firmly in 

 the earth? How splendidly it roots itself down 

 into the soil and underneath the rocks. Without 

 apology, it spreads its great buttressing roots, 

 far and wide; it is not ashamed to say openly 

 before the world that it is growing out of the 

 common clay, of which the world is made. There 

 are men who are ashamed of their environment; 

 there are men who feel that to confess themselves 

 earthly is to show that they are not spiritual; 

 who draw hard and fast lines between that which 

 is natural and of the earth and that which is spir- 

 itual and of the heavens ; but the tree grows out 

 of the earth in order that it may lift itself toward 

 the heavens. So does the true man; never 

 ashamed of his humble origin, whatever it may 

 be ; never ashamed of the fact that he has a body, 



