The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-12-06

of death is stronger than the would-be rescuer's will If man standing upon the top of the Eiffe tower in Paris should leap from it's summit, his body would be whrled round and round until 1t was at last dashed into mangled heap of un- recognizable flesh when 1t struck the earth below. Why? The attraction of gravitation which dragged that body down could not be overcome by the vi- brating arm as it is by the wings os d bird, which, launched from such a height, could arrest it's fall in mid-air and fly higher until it disappeared into the blue sky of the heavens dome. There is an inevitable sequence in natures laws There is natural sequence in spiritual laws. If q man plants the right seed for a spiritual harvest he will reap a spiritual harvest. If he plant sinful seed he shall reap a sinful harvest. Furthermore by the same kind of reasoning, after mans earthly lifes work is done. whether it be well or badly done, it is done forever. It is like tree which has fallen to the north or to the south. "In the place where the tree faleth there it shall be-"
 The Study of Trees.
 am going to use for my pulpit the trunk of a fallen tree upon which we have rested in our wanderings through the woods. l do not care whether this tree lies upon the steep mountain side covered with moss and creeping ivy, whether 1t spans some brook or whether It lies at the foot of a gerat precipiee over which 1t has tumbled The only thing' l do care about is that this trunk should have fallen of it's own accord. Ry that 1 mean that it has not been cut down by a woodmans ax. When we study n VIC af 4,,.,x
 lie we must study them in their sim plicity. We must study them as nature was studied by King Solomon, who evi- dently spent as much time roaming over the Judean hills as he did in the Jerusa- lem palace.
 tree may live to be very old. but, after all, there must come a time when the trees life shall cease to exist. Then. after it totters and falls, it is always q dead tree. What has been done by that tree has been done forever Some trees have been known to live lO0 800. 1000 and some are even supposed to have lived 50OO years. Dr. Adamson has declared that the baobab tree of Africa sometimes lives to be 5000 years old. The explorer De Candolle has estimated that the Taxdium distichum lives even to a greater age than that. A trees age can be estimated by saving the trunk in two and counting
 
 cry ring representing a year. But though the tree may live 5000 years or even longer there comes time when that tree must fall. Then fallen tree is always dead tree. So there must come time when a mans earthly life is done, and 1t is done forever. Tn the place where the tree falleth there it shall be-
 A Startling Thought.
 Is It not asstartling. thought that after mans heart once ceases to beat he cannot change anything in his past life? Is It not 2 startling thought that man who is president of the United States. With an army and navy and fifty millions of people back of him, as Abraham Iin- coin had, can within few hours be A cold corpse and unable to utter a word? One night sitting in Ford's theatre; a snort time afterward with Edwin Stanton bending over him and saying: "IIe is gone; we must leave his work to be Judged by the centuries! Is 1t not an overwhelming fact that man with all the mental powers of Gladstone cannot arrange his papers after he is once dead. but had to leave them all to his literary executor? Oh, how often we have heard this sentence in house weher there has lately been a sad funerals: "If I could only bring him back for few moments to ask him what he would like me to do about this matterr' But the fallen tree is a dead tree. What that tree has done is done forever and can never be undone What has been left undone is left undone forever.
 A dying mans last gasp is even more significant and overwhelming than new born babys first cry. One is the rising the other the setting sun. The one is the first word of story which is about to be told and may be told well; the other is the last word of the last sentence of the last page, when the story Is ended. One is the reveille sounding the call to arms the other is a tattoo beaten upon a untitled drum by the side of an open grave. One Is the spring blossom, the other a falling snowflake. One is birds note sung among the growing leaves; the other is the snapping of trunk when the old tree is about to make it's last plunge and go down with a crash.
 Living man may once have been as strong as the great tree for whose life George P. Morris pleaded with eloquent verse. but when the human being is dead he cannot even lift himself into the coffin which may have been made from the tree trunk which his own hands hewed down. He cannot even walk out 10 his own grave, but has to be carried there like a helpless log being dragged to the dam One second after the pulse has ceased to
 
 grave, but has to be carried there like helpless log being dragged to the dam. One second after the pulse has ceased to beat he cannot raise his little finger one inch or change one word in his last will and testament any more than fallen tree trunk, if it had the power of thought could lift itself and stand upon the aged stump which the buried roots are still anchoring in the ground and live it's life over again. Choice may be given to the living man-choice to live right or wrong; choice to reach after the higher or the lower life-but the time will come when man, like the tree. which may live many centuries beyond the age of man, shall fall. Then there will be no power of choice. What has been done by him is done and can never be changed. What has been left undone by him will be left un- done and will never, never be done by him as long as eternity lasts. A fallen log symbolizes it.
 The fallen tree is dead tree. which nearly always falls in the direction it this sentence in house when there has are exceptions, which. though rare, do occur Once in a great while tree does not fall in the direction it has grown. A city merchant, loving natures widest haunts, might go into the woods to build there little cottage The site Is selected near the bank of a running stream When the Foundations are laid the architect finds that an old tree is leaning danger ollsly toward the rising walls. The mer- chant would like to have the virgin beau .ty of the trees untouched, but fearing lest the tree might fall upon his future home and iniure some one. he gives orders to the workmen to cut the tree down. The ropes are tightly twisted about the tI.ar