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

been condemned in Pilates judgment hall the Jewish doorkeeper struck at him and cried: Move on, man! Move on faster! Why doth thou finger? Move on!' With that the condemned Christ turned and said, T will go. but thou shalt remain until I come" And so. says the legend, the brutal Jewish doorkeeper wanders up and down the world, begging God for death, but he cannot die. He cannot die. Though that is only legend, it Is solemn truth that every good word we have spoken or. evil deed we have done lives on after we are dead. It lives on in the lives of others with whom we come in contact We live on in the good we have done. Then we are like that beauti- full tree mentioned in an Easter fable whose branches were laden with apples of solid gold and its leaves covered with silver bells. When the leaves of that tree were shaken by the soft winds those bells would begin to chime the sweetest music. and that would be the signal for the poor and the starving to come and gather the falling fruit. Or we shall live on after we are dead In the evil we have done to our neighbors. Down through the centuries has the evil been perpetuated of that first sin. when tempted man and woman plucked the fruit hanging from the branch of tree. So through all time the influence of our lives for good or evil shall go on bringing forth fruit
 As the Tree Grows, So 1t Falls.
 There Is another significant reason why the dead tree nearly always falls Tn the way it has grown-the direction is deter mined by the influences which were at work upon it's younger life The proverb declares that "old trees cannot be trans planted" The knots are too big. The e fnn ho,, l,va,, ala1 -f-a ff,t, heavy The roots are too wide to be lifted and moved. The imperfections of trees may be the more readily recognizable in their old age, but the influences which caused the tree to grow to the north or to the south nearly always do their work for good or evil when the trees are hard ly more than small saplings. If this fact be true is 1t not of utmost importance that parents should carefully look after tthe work of rearing their children? A mid dle aged man said to me some time ago: "rhe most awful realization that 1 have of ife's duty is that am father. When l look back and see the influence my par ents had upon my life, and when see my boys every day copying me in dress, in speech in action, in wanting to wear clothes as l wear mine and do things be- cause l do them. it makes me tremble' Yes, parents the most important part of your earthly influence is that which you are now exerting over your children. You are now influencing them at the critical time of their lives They are now young trees. to be easily bent as you will, and if you set the wrong kind of an example before them, as did that parent who one day saw his boys playing that they were intoxicated, as their father often was, you will destroy those young lives cas- fly as herd of swine can root up a sagebush
 A Word to the Young.
 Young people l would like to speak just one word to you. You are apt to think that the period of youth does not amount to much. l want to tell you that you are now forming the habits that will grow stronger and stronger as the years roll on The bark of the tree is the place where the life is supposed to exist. But if the inside of the tree, or the wooden part. is allowed to be tunneled by a worm the inside of the tree will soon be eaten out Then the whole tree will soon totter and fall One small sinful habit can destroy the human heart One little tug in youth in the wrong direction can pull off the branches of truth and purity and love and honor and make q lopsided tree. What you do now will decide the moral character of your future. Trees 900 years old are neither more nor less than the fully developed and expanded perfections and imperfections of a tree only four, five. ten, twenty, thirty years old. Nearly all the hardened criminals who spend most of their lives in the pen itentiary committed their first crime when they were nothing more than boys under twenty years of age, Many mur- derer has started on a quick journey for the galows by wheting his taste for blood when as child he tortured a dog or caged rat old trees bear the sears upon their sides from the wounds inflicted in youth. These scars can be seen upon the tree even after the tree has tumblcd to the ground and is dead.
 The Tree of Life.
 But though fallen tree Is dead tree, which nearly always falls in the way 1t has grown. living tree. no matter how young or old. can become an ngrafted tree. Grating may be accomplished in many different ways. In budding grating bed is selected Then a strong young branch is cut crosswise with q sharp knife. Then the bud is placed upon the bare branch and the four pieces of bark are joined at the buds base and the wound is covered with Japanese mating. So the young human trees may be in- grafted. They can have Christs perfec- tions in all their freshness and fragrance made to grow into them They can grow into the Christian life so gradually and sweetly that they will not be able to tell the exact moment of their conversion. They will be like that young girl who was asked on joining the church when she commenced to love the Lord Jesus Why" she answered. "f never com menced to love the Saviour I feel that I have always loved him.
 But there Is another way of grafting There is the sprouting grating. By this process whole limbs will be cut off and new limbs from other trees will be placed into the fork-shaped crotches. If neces- sary nothing need be left but the trunk | of the old tree. This was the way Christs | life was ingrafted into Paul's This was | the way Baxter and Bunyan aifd Jerry | McAuiey and Harry Monroe and the | seven-deyiled Mary of ancient and modern | times have been converted. Whole 1 branches of sin. which have been growing | for many years upon these sinful trunks l have been cut off. Gnarled and worm l eaten and disease producing branches, | which have only produced poisonous leaves of sin. have been topped off, and into those sinful trunks have been in- grafted the long, healthy growing branches of the reesof life. My brother, from the oldest and the weakest and the