A PARABLE.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 January 1922, Page 4

A PARABLE.

FOB THE NEW YEAR

“I journeyed, and I came into a great fot-est of tall pipe trcps. And men were j at work cutting theip flown. And not j far away was a sawnpll that sawed them | into ■ lumber,” writes Sfifed the Sago in thp' “Christian Century.” “And they sawed down a great pine, and it fell wjth a mighty shopt that woke the echoes of the forest. “And I said I am a lover of trees, and I could almost as eifsjly murder my father as put down a tree so fine and tall as/ that- Yet I know that it ip us t be done, and it may b e that yonder tree >vill cut into lumber for a topple of worship, pr a hall of justice, or an happy ]mmp.

“And thp foreman spake unto me, saying ‘This tree wjlj be cut up fop the making pf matches.’ “And I said sOll miglitpst peaks matches out of the chips and splinters of it, but the tree itself wopld make matches enough to set the world afire.

“And ha said all the lumber which thpu seest at the in ill, and all the trees that these men are cutting, yea, and eyery tree in this vast forest, is for the leaking of matches.

“Then was I sad to think of those monarchs of the forest casting down their crowns and tumbling from their thrones to light the cigarettes of fools, “But T considered that there he other and more honourable uses of matches and that so great a tree would not give its life without serving many noble purposes. For it would light the evening lamp in many a home, and kindle a glow on many an hearthstone and set ablaze the fires of industry and productive toil. “And I began to think less unkindly of this match business.

“And I thought of my own life and of the lives of other men, into how many splinters they are divided. And I said within myself that I had never been able to make of my life, one single, solid, undivided contribution to

any heroic achievement, hut that it had been cut up into matchwood and kindling by the exigencies of the daily demands. “Yon, what is this parable but a splinter, with the end dipped a little space, into the personality of him who writeth it, tfiat peradventure it may kindle a kindred glow in the heart of someone else who hath seemed to himself to fritter away his life in trivial duties, with no opportunity for couspietjous and heoic deeds?

“Now this is my message unto all such:—“lf thou hast lighted the lamp of hope in the humblest life; if thou hast put a torch into the hand of a. child that he might walk aright down .the path of temptation; if thou hast set in the windows of thine own soul where it is visible unto men a candle lighted by a spark of thine own conviction or experience so that thereby any life hath been guided aright; if thou has kindled anew the flame of love upon the hearth of any co]d and troubled home; if thou has warmed the milk of human kindness in the cup of any human being, then thank God that lit hath permitted thee and thy life to be out up into matches,”