32 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
tassels in the wind; no flowery meadows folding ns in 
their grassy arms; and no magic chain of love-like 
songs and bleatings, and tender associations, and soft 
stirrings of the heart, filling the soul with joy upon joy, 
till life itself becomes but as an hour of sunshine. 
There is a moral beauty and a teaching for the spirit in 
all the budding things of the green out-door world, 
which to the wise man afford inward satisfaction, and 
never fail to renew his hope. Their very frailness and 
evanescence hint of our short stay here, as their renewed 
growth with each return of spring symbolizes the spring 
season to which we shall awake in another world. The 
story of the fig-tree but emblems the condition of man: 
if he be without fruit he shall be accursed; if he do 
naught for the service of men, he shall fail under the 
doom of the fig-tree which the Lord condemned. 
“ He gafe ensample in His parsone, 
And we the wordes have alone, 
Like to the tre with leves greene 
Upon the which no fruit is seene.” 
Goweh. 
Let him, while his outward deeds are fair and goodly to 
behold, cherish also the inward sympathies and high 
thoughts which tend to fruitfulness in the future; and 
he shall then become as a tree wdiose harvests are equal 
to its spring promises; and the fruition of his heart 
shall endear him to his age and generation. “The 
greene leaves outward sheweth that the tree is not drie 
inwarde; and the good workes oftenlie notifieth the in- 
warde heart secretlie/^ 
* Golden Boke, Letter 7. 
