FLORIDA CISTERNS IN TREE TOPS.
A writer tells of a surveying party who were resting at noon in a forest in Florida, when one of the men exclaimed, “I would give fifty cents a swallow for all the water I could drink.” He expressed the sentiment of the others; all were very thirsty, and there was not a spring or stream anywhere in the vicinity. While the men were thus talking, the surveyor saw a crow put his bill into a cluster of broad, long leaves growing on the side of a tall cypress. The leaves were those of a peculiar air plant. They were green, and bulged out at the bottom, forming an inverted bell. The smaller end was held to the tree by roots grappling the bark. Feeding on the air and water that it catches and holds, the air plant becomes a sort of cistern. The surveyor sprang to his feet with a laugh. “Boys,” he said, “that old crow is wiser than every one of us.” “Why, he knows that there are a hundred thousand water tanks in this forest.” “Where?” they cried in amazement. The surveyor cut an air plant in two, and drained nearly a pint of pure cold water from it. The men did not suffer for water after that, for every tree in the forest had at least one air plant, and almost every air plant contained a drink of water.—Selected. The above story illustrates important facts in spiritual life. Men are dying for want of the water of life,—the power and blessings of God’s wondrous grace. They strive, and spend money and strength, and pray and cry for rest and peace, while it is flowing free all around them; and all that it needs is the simple faith of the little child to grasp it. Feel after God; reach out and touch him by faith; he is “not far from every one of us.” Drink; the water flows free.