Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/156

150 we say, "in every act," because it bare twelve manner of fruits. Twelve is a symbol employed when it is intended that the expression shall be all-embracing. Twelve manner of fruits is every kind of fruit which the tree of life is capable of producing. The fruits are good works. He in whose heart the tree of life is planted, bearing its twelve manner of fruits, is he who in all his works bears heavenly fruit, and all whose deeds are good. It is he, the entire works of whose life are the fruits of love—of that love whose center and source is the Lord; of love which is all-embracing in its character; of love which is holy, pure, unselfish, overflowing with benevolence to all mankind.

Such a tree when planted in the heart, "yields its fruit every month;" because the Lord's love, when it is the soul's animating principle, produces works that are genuinely good in every changing state. "And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." Leaves signify the thoughts or rational intuitions of man; and the leaves of the tree of life, or the thoughts of those in whom the love of the Lord is the ruling principle, are all good and for the good of all mankind—for the healing of the spiritual diseases of themselves and all the world.

And how beautifully comes in the declaration, "Blessed are they that do his commandments,