Just Think of It by David Nelson

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 20, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 12.

Just Think of It.

By David Nelson

GREENLAND is without a forest. Do you ask, How are their habitations warmed in winter? Sailors tell us that train-oil is their fuel. Train-oil is obtained by boiling the fat, or blubber, of whales. But wood is wanting. Their houses must be covered; their spears and javelins must have handles. Without domestic or hunting utensils, boats or fishing-tackle, their homes cannot be tenanted; without wood these things cannot be made. Travelers tell us that a certain current of the ocean, or certain winds, or both united, bear along in a proper direction the once stately tree, and another and another with abundant constancy, and lodge the needed forest between the islands. There it remains until needed by those whom the Lord forgets not. The soil does not nourish the needed oak for their convenience, but the billow obeys his voice and bears it to them.

No trees are thus borne along the shores of France, or Spain, or England, or perhaps any other nation. They are not needed, but in the frozen climes. Where these trees are torn from, or how they are swept away, we are not commonly told, and it matters not, so that the Greenlander fails not to receive his mercies. When other shores become naked, and forests wave not there, they are not supplied as is this land of snow, for ocean's current is not freighted thus with trees, or it does not bear in the right direction, or the islands do not stand so as to form a storehouse for the timber. Reader, while looking at these facts, such as are scattered all over the earth, it is evident enough that our Parent designed it all in kindness. To believe otherwise requires an appetite for untruth that no man need covet.—Rev. David Nelson.