The Xenia sentinel. [volume] (Xenia [Ohio]) 1863-186?, 1863-12-22
Talk of the Lichen on the Rock.

Talk Of the Lichen on the Rock.
Far up the side of the mountain
the naked rock shot up still higher.
It seemed very high as you looked up
ward. The rock-was even onits face,
and was full perpendicular. On its
surface were four kinds of ichen
growing-from that whose leaf was
very small,to the last which was quite
coarse and large. We sometimes see
such lichen on an old fences old tree,
or an Old. house. The face of the huge
rock was almost covered with it. As
I sat down under the shadow of the
mountain, waiting for my friend, I gaz-
ed at the ichen, and began to wonder
in my mind what it was created for,
and Of what use it could be, when I
seemed TO hear a small crispy voice,
far up the rock, calling out,
:" Mother, how old am I p
Why, my child, you have but just
begun to live. You are only eight
years old yet?''
And how old are you?"
"I call myself young, for I am only
FIVE hundred and twenty years old. "
"I now listened with all my ears,
for T knew It was the Hehen. talking
among ;tllefnselvgSs Li.felt sure that
they~.Nould say more, and 1 took
out my pencil to put down what they
would say. Pretty soon 1 heard the
same little voice say,
Mother, amt you discouraged"
discouraged! at what, pray ?"
At your sizel Five hundred and
twenty years old, and how very small
you are!'
"Not so small, either I cover six
inches square already, while there's
my poor grandmother, almost eleven
hundred years old, and, she covers
only five inches, even: nov Very
few, I am happy to say, of the
ic1en family, who hayeworked harder
or accomplished more than. I have,
though I do say it myself"
"WeIl, mother, of what use is it to
cling to this great rock, and hang
here summer and winter, amid storms,
and cold, and winds beating upon US ?
Here 1 have elung and been trying to
gnaw into this rock for eighty years,
and have not yet got my roots in half
an inch. What's the use We might
as well die and drop off. Nobody
would miss US or care. What do we
live for ~
To raise wheat"
Raise WHAT"
Raise wheat, to be sure"
"Pray, mother what do you mean? ?
We ichen away up here, on this cold
rock, raise wheat If that amt fun
ny!
Listen, my .eAad. This huge
mountain is .sofid rock. If it was all
pounded up 6Re it would make soil on
which men weuldraise wheat. But it
is now very hard, and there is nothing
to pound it and turn it into powder.
And so God has createdus, the lichen,
to have our home here, to cling to it,
to gnaw it, and with a kind of acid
we have, to crumble and dissolve it.
Don't you remember that the very
last year, you rolled down two little
grains of the rock? Well, every grain
we make falls down, then the rains
wash it into the little brook, and the
brook carries it into the river, and the
river raises itup, and as it oyerfows
its bank, drops it just where the old
soil is worn out and the wheat needs
new. The Nile thus carries down lit
tie particles from the mountains and
makes Egypt so fruitful"
ooh, mother, how often canI gnaw
off rock enough to raise a kernel of
wheat ?"
"Perhaps once in thirty years"
ooh! what slow work When will
what you dig out this year raise
wheat? 2"
"Perhaps five hundred years hence.
God sees that there will be old men
and little children upon earth then,
and they will want bread, and so He
has created US and placed us here to
prepare soil, and get His rock ready
to raise wheat. Thus he goes before,
and provides, and makes even the
poor lichen useful; and if we do our
duty, His smile will cheer US, and
though we can do but little, a very lit .
tie, yet that little viii do good of
The Iichen stopped talking, but I
did not stop thinking. What would
my young reader have thought had he
been there p Rev. John Todd.
A Dadnstrian troveIinor In TraIond