A Parable

A broad and beautiful tree spread its branches over the green pasture,—a brook ran murmuring at its feet,—the sun kissed its leaves, and dewy diamonds blazed with color, the quiet shadows fell, with interlacing sunbeams sifting through dark branches. The tree waved its welcome to the summer breeze that fanned fragrance from the clover fields near by, where bees hummed and gathered sweets for winter’s over-tiding.

Love careth for His own, and here, in wondrous ways, provided a shelter for His love-directed birds, giving them homes in nests that swung in the cool retreats of bough and branch.

This tree, men, for want of better knowing, called an oak.

The soft, wordless utterances of sunshine and shadow, of bird and bee, alone were spoken in all that landscape, so beautified and so blessed by this sturdy sentinel of the fields, until an acorn seemed to break the silence of love and the stillness of life, saying, “O tree, return unto an acorn, return unto me, and be an acorn, return and be as I am, so undisturbed, so quiet, so satisfied.”

The great, beautiful tree responded only with the gently waving branches that swung the baby birds in their nests, and breathed a benediction on the weary traveler at its foot.

This is all that was said or done. God is in His heaven and on His earth. His tree is His reflection, satisfied with its seed and source, Truth and Love. The talking seed was unheeded, and the meadow music flowed on without discord.