It is a tree of the wind and the storm. See how those in yonder group sway and courtesy, bow and beckon, advance and retreat in the light breeze! And the rain does such marvels to them in the way of color, tinting the leaves into wondrous things of glistening black-and-silver, and bringing out exquisite, evasive greens and browns, red and rose colors, tender blues and greys, from the trunks and branchesAll the things of Nature are for man’s use and joy, but perhaps they serve their very highest use when we return God thanks for their beauty
Yes, I am sure that there is a wisdom wiser than the prudence which sends us in out of the rain. The flowers and the grasses teachus more than has ever been put between the covers of books. The trees bring us the real news of the real world long before they are crushed into pulp and made into the paper on which is printed our morning service from the scandal monger and the stock broker. It was heralded as a marvelous triumph of modern ingenuity when, the other day, a forest tree was cut down and made into paper on which the news of the world was printed and hawked along the streets within four and one-half hours from the moment when the axe was laid at the root of the tree. Marvelously clever, that, but shall we ever be wise enough to bring the trees themselves to the city, instead? If we were but able to read the message they bear, the newspaper might go away into outer darkness, whence it sprang.