Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 2.pdf/351



VERY tree is known by its fruit, as every man is known by his life. A tree is frequently used as a symbol of man, and in none more than by its fruit: and the quality of the tree is, in every sense, a symbol of the quality of the man with which it is compared. It has been observed: "A garden was the earliest known academy for the study of human nature. Do you see the weeping ash, with a seat encircling its trunk? that is a fine lady, who reverses the order of Providence, and grows downwards to the earth, lest she should be vulgar. She has her parties, where the light of heaven entereth not, and where they are too crowded to admit the warmth of heaven, which would have prevented them from turning their backs on one another.

"Yon towering Lombardy poplar is a devotee, so eager to pierce the skies that all his efforts are upwards, and he has no time even to think of yielding fruit; yet this does not prevent him from making much spongy, useless wood, and harbouring a host of insect vermin beneath his ill-favoured, disagreeably-scented leaves.

"There is not much apparent beauty in the form of the tree nailed to the wall. The pruning knife has lopped him of his leafy honours severely, and he has been stopped in the attempt to lift his head too high.