PALMS FROM HEATHENDOM by T. E. White

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 25, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 21.

PALMS FROM HEATHENDOM.

By T. E. White

[A letter from Rev. T. E. White, of Salinas, Porto Rico, to the Herald of Gospel Liberty.]

Not long ago I was rambling on a high hill or mountainside. There were great gullies and huge boulders, so much so that to walk around them and over them made it tiresome and difficult. And right there upon that craggy mountainside, hundreds of palm trees had rooted and lifted themselves to such a height and with such uniformity and beauty, that I had to stop and gaze and ask that some truth might be taught me. With one single exception they are just like the palm trees on the seashore, having that same roundness and smoothness, being smaller at the bottom and gradually growing larger until the long, wide-spreading branches are reached. These mountain palms have a tougher fiber—that is the difference,—and this is explained when it is considered that the air they receive is cooler and that they have grown up out of a soil where many difficulties existed.

But notwithstanding the cool air, the rocks, the uneven and seemingly grudging soil, they were beautiful palm trees, and could be classed with those that grew by the seashore. They told me many beautiful things. They began life as palm trees and were unwilling to change. Each year they cast their roots still deeper into the earth and lifted their branches still higher toward the skies. This made their bodies so long, so smooth, and so straight. They were an example of humility, and at the same time they were exalted far above every other tree on the mountain. All the storms and cyclones sweeping from the Caribbean Sea that had beaten against them had not caused them to yield.

Then I took myself to thinking of the many ministers in the Christian Church battling against creeds, against hundreds of sins in city, town, and country, and doing all this, many of them, upon small salaries; of our missionaries in Japan, so far away from home and loved ones, striving against Buddhism, Shintoism, and rank, cold materialism; of myself and three others, striving against Romanism and Spiritualism, and sins and vices not a few; and of every struggling soul who wishes to grow beautiful for God and useful for His service. I wished that everybody might see the royal palm tree on the mountainside, and learn its lessons; that all might know Jesus, His words and His love, and be planted in Him, sinking deeper into His love and truth day by day, and rising higher and higher in the glorious hope of His coming. This would make every life sweet, beautiful, and straight. It is the palm tree’s nature to grow straight, and so it is with man when he is planted in Christ.

The enemies of missionaries may continue to hurl their unjust criticism against the missionary and his converts; they may slightingly speak of their hearts as barren soil and say that they fall at every wave of doubt or persecution, but when the jewels of earth shall be gathered, thousands who have accepted Christ in heathen lands and have grown stronger because of a multitude of difficulties will come forth “clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.” “And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”