184 ARBOR DAY 



"Heardst thou these wanderers reasoning of a time 

 When men more near the Eternal One shall climb ? 

 How like the new-born child, who cannot tell 

 A mother's arm that wraps it warm and well! 

 Leaves of His rose ; drops in His sea that flow 

 Are they, alas! so blind they may not know 

 Here, in this breathing world of joy and fear, 

 They can no nearer get to God than here?" 



FORMS AND EXPRESSIONS OF TREES 



BY WILSON FLAGG 



THE different forms of trees, and their endless 

 variety of foliage and spray, have, from the earliest 

 times, been favorite studies of the painter and the 

 naturalist. Not only has each species certain dis- 

 tinguishing marks, but their specific characters 

 are greatly modified in individual trees. The 

 Psalmist compares a godly man to a tree that is 

 planted by rivers of water, whose leaf shall not 

 wither seeing in the stateliness and beauty of 

 such a tree an emblem of the noble virtues of the 

 human heart. Trees are distinguished by their 

 grandeur or their elegance, by their primness or 

 their grace, by the stiffness of their leaves and 

 branches, or by their waving and tremulous motions. 

 Some stand forth as if in defiance of the wind and 

 the tempest; others, with long, drooping branches, 



