The Barren Tree by Hart Hall

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 6, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 22.

The Barren Tree

By Hart Hall

"Why cumbers it the ground?" the master said. "These fruitless branches might as well be dead. These many years I come in vain to thee; Thy days are numbered now, thou barren tree. In vain the sun and rain, the mellow soil; In vain the gard'ner's watch-care and his toil. Thy heavy verdure well the world deceives; They search for fruit in thee—and find but leaves."

"Just one more year," the gard'ner pleads. "I'll give it still more labor, all it needs, If mayhap from these many branches strong Fruit yet may come to cheer thy waiting long. The soil shall be enriched, the limbs cut back, Nor all that care can give it shall it lack; And then at harvest, if no fruit be found, The ax shall lay this slothful to the ground."

You wish to know the future of the tree? The answer may be told in you and me. The days now granted to us may be few, But future life eternal if we're true. Staunch trees of righteousness we may be found, Or trifling idlers, cumb'rers of the ground. The leaves, appearance, should but shade and shield The fruit of love that Christian hearts will yield.