4
4
And its last word, or so I thought, till the post brought a parcel of old books for giving away, and “by chance” opening one I read this: “A few years ago, sojourning by the beautiful shores of the Lake of Thun, during a genial September, I walked day by day in sight of the orchards which cover those green fields and hills and saw their manner of fruit-bearing. It was as if the root and branches in their perfect rapport conspired to push out the golden apples wherever there was wood to carry them. The trees were not fruit-bearing only, they were ‘filled with fruit,’ to the praise of that sun and soil.”
These moments of vision that come (who can tell how? the wind bloweth where it listeth) are meant to be like sunshine on our trees. In the midst of a crowded day we are given almost a glimpse of the land of far distances, and we stand still, arrested on the road. What was it that blessed our eyes? And then we know, for the hush upon our spirit tells us what it was.
Or we are facing a crisis in life. Every hour of that day is etched in memory like an etching on ivory. We know then what it is to be rent. It is like the rending of living flesh from living flesh. It is more than that. We have no words for what it is. Till suddenly we look up and see—but what was it that we saw? Something that was not of earth. And that bright hour never fades for us. Years flow over it like water over gold. They do not dim its brightness.
But all this that “may better be known by experience than by any writing” is never granted for our comfort only, but for the ripening of the golden apples that should be on the trees wherever there is wood to carry them. We are inclined to be content when we have feelings of sweetness; but the Gardener of souls seeks not for feelings but for fruit, to the praise of His sun and soil.
I turned to the title page of the small blue book which had offered me this word about the apples, to find the date of its writing. It was the year when I stood, a girl of seventeen, on the sunny hillside that looks on the mountain smothered in soft masses of cloud; but I had never seen that book before.
By kindly touches like this upon our work our Lord encourages us to hope that we are about our Father’s business, even we who can so poorly serve. And I thanked Him for bringing me this incident of long ago from the Lake of Thun to complete the message of this chapter. There is something eternal in the simplest things of the Spirit.