THE ASH-TREE. 



87 



these results upon our hearts which constitute the true utility and the 

 magnificence of the purpose of the world around us. If we ask what 

 is the use of an immense proportion of the world's contents, meaning 

 by "use," serviceableness for food, or for drink, or for clothing, there 

 will come no answer. It was but a small part of the Divine munificence 

 to provide for the satisfaction of lodily wants. It has pleased God to 

 make innumerably more things fitted to do good to our souls than He 

 has prepared of a kind suited to the body, only we think so little of it 

 and so seldom. See how earnestly we thank Him at meal-times, and 

 rightly so, for our meat, and peas and beans, for our milk, and sugar, 

 and bread : do we not sometimes err in forgetting to thank Him for the 

 Trees ? I see, too, in these beautiful pendulous ones, the weeping-ash 

 for example so charming an ornament for a lawn, especially when not 

 far from a silver birch a sweet emblem of filial love. For though fed 

 and allured in every possible way by the atmosphere and the sunshine 

 overhead, see how the branches seem to love the spot from which that 

 glorious canopy of verdure took its rise ! Tall and illustrious as the tree 



Ash. 



is now, once it was a little seedling that might be crushed beneath the 

 foot. So true is it that nature contains counterparts of everything that 

 is delightful in the history of human life and the human affections one 

 form or another gives us a picture of everything that goes to make 

 up home and love, faithfulness, and reverence, and solace. 



Botanically, the ash-tree is distinguished from every other arbor- 

 escent plant of our country (save and except the somewhat similar 

 mountain-ash) by the peculiar form of the leaves. These, instead of 

 consisting of a single blade, like those of the oak, the elm, or the 

 beech, are composed of several pairs of leaflets, with an odd one at the 



