50 " THE LEAVES OF THE TREE Were FOR THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS." 



comprehend the aptitude of the comparison. More than this, it cannot be too 

 often said that the tree has been placed before us in all it stages of construction 

 throughout countless centuries for no other purpose than to serve as a model and 

 symbol of the human tree. At the time when the embryo tree, or germ, first be- 

 comes visible with the aid of a powerful microscope, it appears as a little bag sur- 

 rounded by the far larger bulu: of starch or gluten, which is to form its food in its 

 earlier stages, and which we call the seed. The seed is in fact a bag of food which 

 is to form the sustenance of the baby tree in its center that embryo tree appear- 

 ing as yet merely in the form of a soft egg-like bag or vegetable cell. This cell is 

 the progenitor of the tree, which is composed of innumerable cells of similar ap- 

 pearance built upon and joined to one another like stones in the wall of a house. 

 The first cell, the "Adam and Eve in one flesh," of the vegetable world forms 

 within itself two other cells, dividing itself into chambers by a partition, and each 

 of these chambers has the same power of reproduction as the first parent, out of 

 whose substance they are made. Then this first generation of two beings begin 

 each to subdivide into a second generation of three or four baby cells, which form 

 partitions and stand upon one another in close bond as a second course of living 

 stones. These each bring forth their vegetable children, which take their ap- 

 pointed places, each by subdivision, in the living structure. The third genera- 

 tion, the third course in the building of the vegetable house, is filling up the little 

 trunk and root of the young tender tree, as yet almost shapeless to the human eye 

 in its simplicity. But successive generations of these progressive subdivisions and 

 their growth into their appointed size and station gradually reveal the shape and 

 character of that race of vegetable cells which is the progeny of the first parent, 

 and which forma the growing tree. 



"The blind man in the parable whom Jesus is represented to have restored to 

 spiritual sight could see ' men as trees walking.' The anatomist well knows that 

 the circulatory system of veins and arteries is like a tree, whose sap is blood, branch- 

 ing from the heart to the lungs and skin, and rooted in the stomach and intestines. 

 The skeleton is like a tree, of which the spinal cord is the trunk, the ribs and arms 

 and head being branches, and the legs the roots. The human muscles are as fibers 

 of the tree, which, as in the plant, brace it, and bend it to the required directions. 

 The windpipe is the trunk of the tree, whose sap and nourishment are air, whose 

 root is in the nostrils, and whose branches are the bronchial tubes, terminating in 

 that network of ever-moving twigs and leaves called lungs, and bringing the air of 

 heaven to nourish *nd purify the leaves and twigs of the venous tree, which is in- 

 terlaced with it. Tbe skin is the mutual leaf surface of another pair of conjoined 

 trees, arterial and venous, each based in different portions of the heart; and the leaf 

 surface of the outer skin exposes the sap of these two trees to the necessary action 

 of the atmosphere. The nervous system is like an inverted tree whose root is in the 

 brain, whose trunk is in the spinal cord, and which ramifies into every portion of 

 the human body, terminating outwardly in myriads of fine nerve twigs in the out- 

 spread foliage of the skin. It will thus be seen that the outward skin represents the 

 aborescence and foliage of the osseous, arterial, venous, and nervous trees which 

 make up the greater portion of the human frame in fact, man is a compound tree, 

 exposing foliage at every part to the action of the air and light and warmeth. And 

 the lungs also are like foliage of a more delicate kind, to expose the interior rami- 

 fications of the arterial and venous trees to the action of the ever- flowing, ever- 

 ebbing air. In the leaves of plants are innumerable little pores or mouths which 

 perspire the surplus moisture of the sap or plant blood, which exhale oxygen and 

 inhale carbonic acid gas from the air. In the foliage of the human skin are simi- 

 lar pores or mouths which perspire the surplus moisture of the human blood and 

 respire the gases of the air in much the same manner as the leaves of plants. And 

 as the leaves of plants fulfill their term of office and then die and fall upon the 

 earth, so fall the leaves or scales of the human skin foliage when their work is done. 

 And as the next crop of leaves comes upon the plant to take up the busy work in 

 the ensuing season, so comes the young growth of skin leaves upon the human tree 

 to fulfill their necessary functions. 



" Who can look upon these things," continued Mr. McLean, "although not one- 

 hundredth part of the parallel between men and trees has yet been drawn, and 

 fail to to understand what trees composed the Garden of Eden, among which God 



