| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 11 |
Page 4 |
It must be noted that each tree brings forth its own fruit. There is widest variety among trees; so also is there in Christian lives. No two are the same. It is not wise for us to try to copy the mode of fruitfulness of some other person. Imitation is one of the most common faults in Christian living. One man lives helpfully in his own way and hundreds take him as their pattern. Thus they lose their own individuality and mar both their character and their work. The true way is to get full of Christ and simply be one’s self. No tree tries to bear fruit like some other tree; each one bears its own fruit and that is best for it. Each life, too, should yield its own fruit. It may not be such fine fruit as another life bears, but it is the finest which that life was made to produce and therefore is its best. Much of our strength lies in our individuality.
Another feature of this tree is that it brings forth fruit in its season. Different kinds of fruits ripen at different times of the year. Some come early in the summer, some late. There are those who bring forth lovely fruits even in childhood, whose lives are tender, thoughtful, unselfish, and true. But ordinarily we must not look for the fruits of ripened experience in youth time. Child Christian should not be expected to be just like older Christians. Naturalness is one of the charms of any beautiful life.
We must not look for the ripeness of mature life in those still in the youth time of experience. It is a fruit tree that is in the psalmist’s mind. This tree brings forth its fruit in its season. There are weeks and weeks in which the fruit hangs upon the tree, and though it have all the semblance of lusciousness, it is still hard and sour. By and by, in the time of ripening, all is changed, and the fruit is mellow and sweet. It is so in life. Many excellent people, with much promise of fruit, do not bring their fruit to perfection until the late autumn of life. St. Paul was an old man when he wrote that he had learned in whosoever state he was therein to be content.
Page 4