p. 13 | This Planting by Clara Edna Rosencrans

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 22, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 16.

This Planting

By Clara Edna Rosencrans

BORDERING the back yard of the Mission Home is an old, discolored, weather-beaten board fence. Time has dealt very unkindly with this fence, fretting away its once trim timbers, leaving notches and general unevenness. The dwellers across the vacant lot have chosen to knock off several boards, in the process of shortening the route to the near-by meat market and restaurant.

Over this fence—out of the filth, the coal cinders, and the refuse that cumber that vacant lot—clambers a wild vine, beautiful in the midst of its homely surroundings, lifting its sprays heavenward, and clinging for support to the ugly old fence. Its life began away back in the early autumn days of last year, when a little seed was blown from somewhere and found a resting-place here. The sun shone warm and bright then; but soon the bitter, biting frost came, rubbish from the restaurant was piled upon our little seed, and it went to sleep. Perhaps if it could have thought, its thoughts would have been that life for it was over—that never again would it see the light; but the God who created it, had His own plans for the little seed.

Early in the spring, before we came to the Mission Home, strange processes began to stir in the heart of the tiny black germ. The warm rain fell upon it; the sun cast its ardent rays into its earthy bed; the dark, ugly covering burst; and, lo, from out their warm wrapping came two tiny green sprouts! Slowly they unfolded baby leaves, which drew their life from the uncongenial, fetid soil, and crept up over the rough boards, covering them from sight. Here the birds came to sing in the early morning, and here the active family of the old black cat that lives in the rear of the restaurant found a happy romping ground.

Looking at that vine this morning in the rays of the early morning sun, every spray doing its utmost, every leaf drawing in solar brightness and giving it out again in vivid life, our heart read a parable of the goodness of God, which we will pass on to the readers of the SIGNS:

The world, when first it came from the hands of its Creator, was pure and good—beautiful, noble, fruitful. Like the fence when first built, it was made to fulfil a well-defined purpose; but like the fence again, its beauty has been marred, its strength is gone, not by time in this case, but by the tempest of sin and sorrow. Death has depleted it, and evil has left its mark upon it, till great gaps are made which nothing in this world can close. It is ugly, unsightly, impure. In its soil, cumbered with weeds, foul with sin and uncleanness, the seed of God's love was dropped. For years—nay, ages—it lay dormant. The chill frosts of indifference, the cold north winds of adversity, seemed utterly to have blighted and killed it.

But at last came the springtime. The early rain fell in warm showers; the vivifying sunshine of the Holy Spirit shone upon it—shone upon the chill soil—and the germ broke from its covering and came forth to radiant life. Up and up and still higher it reached toward the sunlight, covering the unsightliness and sin of a lost world with beauty and light. Vine of the Lord's planting, it will go on growing in breadth and sweetness, until at last it shall cover the earth “as the waters cover the sea.”

Many of the boards are still uncovered by the vine, their ugliness and deformity still seen; but the green of the branches rests the eye, and makes a spot of loveliness in this otherwise unsightly back yard. So the love of God, the fragrance of the Christlike character, the fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and all their kindred graces—make this old world a place where men can dwell. But far more—ah, transcendently more—beautiful will it be when a new and splendid structure is built upon the ruins of the old, and the vine has spread its fragrant branches over all its breadth. “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.”