32 PROSERPINA. 



struction and pleasure of the people, there occurs this curi- 

 ous statement respecting any person who will behave himself 

 rightly : " He shall be like a tree planted by the river side, 

 that bears its fruit in its season. His leaf also shall not 

 wither ; and you will see that whatever he does will prosper." 

 I call it a curious statement, because the conduct to which 

 this prosperity is promised is not that which the English, 

 as a nation, at present think conducive to prosperity : but 

 whether the statement be true or not, it will be easy for you 

 to recollect the two eastern figures under which the happiness 

 of the man is represented, that he is like a tree bearing fruit 

 " in its season ; " (not so hastily as that the frost pinch it, nor 

 so late that no sun ripens it ;) and that " his leaf shall not 

 fade." I should like you to recollect this phrase in the Vul- 

 gate "folium ejus non defluet " shall not fall away, that 

 is to say, shall not fall so as to leave any visible bareness in 

 winter time, but only that others may come up in its place, 

 and the tree be always green. 



2. Now, you know, the fruit of the tree is either for the 

 continuance of its race, or for the good, or harm, of other 

 creatures. In no case is it a good to the tree itself. It is not 

 indeed, properly, a part of the tree at all, any more than the 

 egg is part of the bird, or the young of any creature part of 

 the creature itself. But in the leaf is the strength of the tree 

 itself. Nay, rightly speaking, the leaves are the tree itself. 

 Its trunk sustains ; its fruit burdens and exhausts ; but in the 

 leaf it breathes and lives. And thus also, in the eastern sym- 

 bolism, the fruit is the labour of men for others ; but the 

 leaf is their own life. "He shall bring forth fruit, in his 

 time ; and his own joy and strength shall be continual." 



3. Notice next the word 'folium/ In Greek, <}>v\\ov t 

 'phyllon.' 



"The thing that is born," or "put forth." "When the 

 branch is tender, and putteth forth her leaves, ye know that 

 summer is nigh." The botanists say, " The leaf is an expan- 

 sion of the bark of the stem." More accurately, the bark is a 

 contraction of the tissue of the leaf. For every leaf is born 

 out of the earth, and breathes out of the air ; and there are 



