Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-04-12
APPLE TREES IN LOVE.

Henry Ward Beecher.
II makes no difference that you have seen
forty or fifty springs; each one is as new,
every process as fresh and the charms a. fas-
ciuating, as II you had never witnessed
single one, Nature works the same things
without seeming repetition. There, for in-
stance, is the apple tree. Every year since
our boyhood it has been doing the same
thing: standing low to the ground, with
round and homely head, without an element
of grandeur or poetry, except once a year.
In the month of May apple trees go court
ing. Love is evermore father of poetry.
aud the month of May finds the orchard no
longer plain, sober, business affair, but the
gayest and most radiant trolicker of the wear.
We have seen human creatures whose ordina-
~ lie was dutiful and rrosaic; but when some
extraordinary excitement of grief, or more
likely, of deep love, had thoroughly master
cd them, they broke forth into a richness of
feeling, an inspiration of sentiment that
mounted up into the very Kingdom of
beauty, aud for the transient hour theylglowed
with the elements of poetry. And so to us
seems an apple tree. From June to May, it
isa homely, duty-periorming, sober, mat
ter-ot-fact tree. But May seems TO stir up q
love heat in its veins
The old round-topped, crooked-trunked,
and ngainly-boughed fellow drops all
world-ways, aud takes tn itself new idea of
life. Those little stuhbed spurs, that, all the
year, had seemed like rheumalic fingers, or
thumbs and fingers stiflened and stubbed by
word, now are transformed. Forth put they
a little head of buds, which few rains and
| days of encouraging warmth solicit TO a
| cluster of blossoms. At first rosy aud pink,
! then opening purely white. And now,
where is your old homely tree? All its
crookedness is hidden by the sheets OF bios
| SONS. The whole top is changed to a royal
| dome The liberal, truit-bearing tree is
transtigured, and giows with rainment whittier
and purer than any white linen. 1t is a
| marvel and glory! What If you have seen
| it before, ten thousand times oyerH An
apple tree in full blossom is like a message,
sent fresh from heaven to earth, of purity
| and beauty! We walk around il reverently
| and admringly. We are never tired of look.
| narily is, yet it speaks of the munificence OF
| God better than any other tree.
The oak proclaims strength and rugged
| simplicity The hickory grown in open
| fields speaks language of gentility. The
| pine is solitary, stately fellow. Even in
| forests, each tree seems alone, and has q
| sad, CastiliAn pride. The elm is a prince.
| Grace and glory are upon its head. In our
Northern fields it has no peer. But none
| of these speak such thoughts of abundance,
such prodgal and munificent richness, such
lavish, unsparing generosity, as this same
| plain and homely spple-tree. The very
| glory of God seems resting upon it! 1t is
| a little inverted hemisphere, like that above
| the stars that nightly blossom out into the
| darkness above it. Though Its hour of glory
| is short, into it is concentrated magnitcence
| which puts all the more stately trees into the
| back ground. II men will not admire, insects
| and birds will
There, on the very topmost twig that rises
| and falls with willowy motion, sits that ride
| ulous but sweet-singing bcholink, singing, as
| a Roman-candle fiZZes, showers Of sparkling
| notes. If you stand at noon under the tree,
| you are in a very bee hive. The tree Is musi.
| cal. The blossoms seem, for q wonder, &c
| have q voice The odor is not rank atmos
| phere OF sweet Like the cups from which
| IL IN poured, il is delicate and modest You
feel rs If there were tmidity in it, that ask eG
| your sympathy and yielded to solicitation
| You do not take IL whether you will or not
| but, though it is abundant, you follow it rather
| than find il. Is not this gentle reserve, tina
| yields to real admiration, but hovers aloo
| from course or cold Indifference, a beautifu
| trait in woman or apple-tree? +?
| But was there ever such q spring. Did or
| chards ever before praise God with sucl
choral colors? The whole landscape is aglov
with orchard radiance. The hilisides, tn,
valleys, the fields, are full of blossomin.
| trees. The pear and cherry have shed the
blossoms. The ground is white as snow will
their flakes. But it is high noon Just now
on this eighteenth day of May, with til,
| apple trees! Let other trees boast their sri
| periority in other months. But in the montl
| of May, the very flower month of the wear
the crown and glory of all is the apple-tree
Therefore, in my calendar, hereafter, I ia
ordain that the name of this month b,
changed. Instead of May, let it hencefortl
be called in my kingdom, The Month o
the Appie Blossom"