Part 9 (2/2)

THE MODERN PARABLE OF THE ORANGE TREE

It is most appropriate at this season when California is just beginning to harvest its ”golden crop” to open wide our eyes and find the message of these beautiful fruit bearing trees. For the Christ, who's mind was quick to p.r.o.nounce a curse on idleness in the parable of the barren fig tree, would no doubt have been just as alert to have emphasized worthy success by speaking a parable of the orange tree, had there been orange groves in Palistine then as there are today.

But there were no citrus trees in the Holy Land when He walked its highways and crossed through its orchards. Hence the religious worker of today has the advantage over the founder of our faith of a visual acquaintance with this luxuriant tree. Indeed this fruit has, because of its color, become the most attractive of all fruits in modern life, so universally in demand that it seems to me that the orange itself has and is still seeking interpreters. So if, with Ruskin, we can only ”open our eyes and see things”--see through and back of things, I am sure that we will clarify the vision of our souls and find emphasized some abiding truths in a new parable of the orange tree.

It would be informing to speak of the first orange fruit found in America--to tell in detail how the Spanish explorers gave the citrus fruit to the Indians of Florida, who in eating it dropped the seeds in the soil, making possible the wild orange groves now beautifying the valley of the Indian river. For this is the romantic story of the origin of the orange tree in America.

Or it would be keenly interesting to every Californian to read about the arrival of the Franciscans in the southern part of our State, who established twenty missions in the rear of each of which was a garden where the orange, olive and fig were planted and bore fruit. Because this explains the inception of the industry in our great commonwealth and puts into our hand the key which unlocks the entrance to these modern gardens of Hesperides--these orange belts now scattered throughout our State.

Or in this day when scholars are feverish to learn the origin of things, we could speak of the world's first orange trees which were found in India. From the two original spices--the bitter and sweet--which were first discovered there, we could trace the evolution of the one hundred different varieties of the citrus fruit which are found in the world today, the original fruit being imported by merchants from India into China in the ninth century and into Europe in the fifteenth century, and then finding its way to America during the period of Spanish exploration.

But we prefer to be interpretive, to come closer home than this. We prefer to consider these fruit bearing orchards as an object lesson immediately at hand and to think of the labor and activity of the people co-operating with nature's forces that have made this golden crop about to be harvested possible. Thus recognizing at once the suggestion coming so eloquently from these trees that, the fundamental secret of all growth in character as well as in nature is adaption to environment and service, not the pa.s.sive submission of Calvinism alone, nor the uncontrollable egotism of an unrestrained Arminianism, but the union of both, the working of G.o.d with man--spiritual co-operation, the most helpful phrase in modern religious thought. So with this primary principle as a premise let us try to interpret in detail the new parable of the orange tree. For the man that has learned its parable has found, as Dr. McClaren would say, the secret of a fine soul culture.

Some days past as I stood upon an elevation commanding a view of that great area of eight thousand acres of orange groves, spreading off into the distance with its wide expanse of tree tops blended into a continuous luxuriant green and its myriads of ripening oranges nestling in the deep green back ground, like countless numbers of gold fish at the surface of a sea or like circular stars in some new sky, these were the three suggestions that came to me as I tried to learn its beautiful parable.

First, the secret of a refined Christian character is an abiding sense of the reality of G.o.d, as revealed in Christ. For the finest spirits, the deepest minds and the most arresting personalities from Gladstone and Lincoln down to the ordinary citizen, have been those that have drawn their inspiration and thought from hidden sources. Just as the fruit and leaves of these trees receive their rich color from the sunbeams and absorb their health from the moisture coming from the heart of G.o.d's hills, so the cultured souls of history have received their winsome illumination of personality from a light that s.h.i.+neth neither by land nor sea.

We realize that these trees could not grow where there is limited suns.h.i.+ne and a restricted water supply. Neither can men find moral maturity and health until they possess that type of mind which is characterized by spiritual reality. We know that California's far-famed orange orchards would not be possible without incessant sunlight; and that our golden fruit would never again pa.s.s through the Golden Gate to the markets of the world, if the sun did not appear to shower down upon our orchards its magic beauty gathered in its own paradise beyond the gates of the morning. But Tennyson, who had a sane knowledge and appreciation of the Sun of Righteousness, was also well aware of the secret of a beautiful life when he said of those who had not discovered it,

”For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing G.o.d, they lift not bands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend?”

At first I could not understand why the owners cultivated their orchards so incessantly. But when I was told by one of the experts that continual pulverizing of the soil made the moisture more accessible to the roots, permitted the oxygen of the air to find its way to the tree, and liberated the nitrogen in the soil so that it would be absorbed, then I saw clearly that there was a scientific reason for the constant harrowing; and felt that it might be very practical to demand that we deepen our convictions so that we can go into the fields of human life equipped with the mighty contagion of something to say that will go deeper than the ears, to harrow the inner life of patronizing listeners.

For without the prophet whose harrowing words opens up a way to the nerve of conscience and quickens the deeper emotions of the soul men will not become eager to receive truth and the ma.s.ses will remain proselytes of mammon and low ideals. Indeed the irresistible characters in religious service like the great singers are those who have had their hearts broken; but at the same time and as a result, their interest in righteousness deepened and their wills nourished and strengthened.

These trees are peculiarly beautiful and strong because they send their roots into a well prepared soil thrilling with the liberated elements of life and their branches into G.o.d's air to woo the purity of the sunlight. And the young who are to lead us safely in the future are those whose souls have been cultured by helpful and trying experiences--those who have been taught to think deeply, to see far in vision and to act bravely because the conviction of truth and experience has liberated from the subconscious mind--or the subsoil of their lives--those elements which send through the whole man the iron of the prophet and the revealed wisdom of the apostle.

One of the strange characteristics about the orange is that the tree is unusually sensitive and the fruit very hardy. Indeed the tree can be blighted by a frost that will not injure deciduous fruits so that it must be planted in localities protected by a warm climate and G.o.d's hills, and often watched and tended like an infant child. But the orange itself, which is so hardy, has an advantage over many other varieties of fruits and can be s.h.i.+pped into any market in the world. For the citrus fruit is not perishable in the same sense that the plums and peaches are and after being removed from the trees may be kept for weeks with advantage without being destroyed by decay or losing its beauty.

I say this is rather unusual. But, to mention the second lesson of the parable, it is no stranger than the guiding of youth through the formative years into a maturity, morally beautiful and capable of vision. And it is only as the home and school, the church and state watch over these sensitive periods, protecting the young from the blights of the frosts of skepticism and sensuality that their lives will mature into characters as golden and hardy as our native fruit. Sane, honorable evangelism never excludes Christian nurture any more than the sunlight obviates the necessity of soil cultivation.

The orange tree, it is true, does not tower in height and conspicuous leaders.h.i.+p like the giant Sequoias and Redwoods--although it is said that the bitter specie of the tree occasionally acquires considerable diameter and that the trunk of one near Nice still standing in 1789 became so large that two men could scarcely embrace it. The citrus tree does not tower like Babel. But better yet, it simply bears fruit for food--which the giants of the forest fail to do--like the strong men who prefer only to be reliably useful.

And this third thought suggested by our object lesson is most apparent.

For with the instinct of good Americans we hasten to declare that the sight of these trees all comparatively of the same height and vibrant with the same beauty and glow of health does not suggest a monarchy, an aristocracy or even a plutocracy but rather a successful democracy; not only one of an equality of rights, because they all have access to the same sunlight and soil, but also an equality of duty because they all seek to bear fruit--a commonwealth in which every private citizen is capable of being an uncrowned king. This must have been the lesson that Ruskin interpreted from nature when he said: ”A forest of all manner of trees is poor, if not disagreeable in effect, a ma.s.s of one species of trees is sublime.”

And thus as I stood on the highest foothill overlooking these valleys, these were the most important thoughts that were suggested to me by what I saw--the necessity of these three qualities in the forming of mature character, faith in G.o.d, the guidance and protection of friends.h.i.+p and education for youth, and useful service, all of which condensed into a single phrase means the co-operation of G.o.d with man in producing the beautiful fruit of a refined, symmetrical life.

And then it dawned upon me that a number of other men had also learned parables from the trees. For as I looked over that great expanse of orchards to the south, detecting the irrigating streams flowing among the trees, with patches of the barren desert appearing here and there in striking contrast, the results of an abiding faith in G.o.d came to me in the words of David:

”Blessed is the man that walked not in the counsel of the unG.o.dly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

”He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

And finally as I descended the foothill and came long side of an orchard and saw a barren, scrubby trunk next to a splendid orange tree vigorous and laden down with fruit, the words of Christ pressed to my lips for utterance: ”By their fruit ye shall know them. * * * A good tree cannot bear evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bear good fruit.”

It was then that I said to myself, why should not all men observe and find the helpful parable in this favorite California tree. Because we are more than mere animals we should rebel against hearing the terrible parable of a barren fig tree p.r.o.nounced on our lives. But if we profit by the thoughts suggested by a modern parable of the orange tree, then our spirit will be as beautiful and wholesome as the eternal green of its leaves, our character as golden as its fruit and our deeds as numerous as its blossoms, for often the new blossoms appear before the ripe fruit has been picked from the branches.

<script>