p. 5 | THE TREE OF LIFE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 27, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 35.

THE TREE OF LIFE.

THERE was a tree once planted on the earth by the divine Hand that can not now be seen. You look in vain for it among the stately oaks and the “whispering pines of the forest.”

Many there doubtless are who would be glad to find it; for its fruit possesses the marvelous power of perpetuating life. If you could eat of it, you would never die. Were it accessible, physicians would be obliged to forsake their calling; for they would nevermore be summoned to the bedside of the sick. The undertaker also would go out of business.

“The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the Tree of Life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” Gen. 2: 8, 9; 3: 3.

What a striking contrast! The trees grew side by side, in the center of the garden; but one was the minister of life, while the other became the vehicle of death.

“So near grows death to life.”—Milton.

Inasmuch as our first parents were granted free access to this tree, it is altogether likely that they partook of it before the fall. Why, then, did they not live forever? Because the boon of immortality depended, not upon once tasting of life, but upon eating it continually, upon character. As a matter of fact, Adam and his immediate posterity did live much longer than men do now. This is probably due in part to the fact that Adam and Eve both partook of the life-giving plant, perhaps repeatedly, before they were banished from their Eden home.