Dwarfs | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 2, 1871

Dwarfs.

The Chinese, it is said, have a peculiar, and yet effective, way of dwarfing trees. They are very successful in growing miniature pines and oaks, which they keep in pots, as we do flowering plants. They of course commence with the tree or shoot when it is young and pliable, when it is easy of manipulation, and can be readily trained to their will. The first operation is to cut off the principal or tap-root just as soon as it has enough of the smaller roots to insure its life. This removed, the process of trimming off the sources of vitality and growth continues. The embryo tree is given but a scanty supply of the poorest earth, as well as of water, air, heat, and light; and thus, instead of reaching its normal condition—instead of displaying a vigorous growth and abundance of luxuriant foliage, it exhibits a stunted and dwarfish exterior—a shrub where it should be a tree.

But oaks, and pines, and cedars, are not the only things which are dwarfed in this world. Minds, consciences, religious experiences, and Christian life, may be dwarfed by processes similar to those employed by the Chinese; with this difference, that the influences which produce these results usually come from within instead of from without. Take the young convert; he is as the cutting or seedling transplanted into the church, and it depends largely upon himself whether he in the future shall be a dwarf, put away in a corner, useless, and doing no good to himself or others; or whether he shall be as a giant tree, whose branches shall cast a shade broadly upon the land, blessing thousands who shall repose beneath it. He may starve his soul by denying it work for Christ, until it shall become shriveled and dried up; or he may enter upon a course of growth, which shall have no ending in this world at least. To do this, the roots of his faith must strike down into the rich soil of an active Christian life—he must have that vitality which comes of prayer, of going out into the highways and byways, and bidding the stranger and the wayfarer to come in to the feast of the Master. There is nothing that so dwarfs the soul as idleness in the work appointed to God's people. It is denying it food, and air, and light—cutting off the roots which connect it with the sources of life and growth.—Sel.