THE FRUIT OF THE ELM

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 12, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 15.

THE FRUIT OF THE ELM.

LIFE'S best fruit often appears in other lives. In the ancient book of the Similitudes of Hermas, the angel speaks to the disciple a parable. He points to the vineyards where the dwarfed and pruned elm trees were planted between the rows that on their branches might grow the luxuriant vines, and he says: "See, therefore, how the elm . . . gives . . . more fruit than the vine." "How, sir," said the disciple, "does it bear more fruit than the vine?" "Because," said the angel, "the vine, being supported upon the elm, gives both much and good fruit; whereas, if it lay along the ground, it would bear but little and that very ill, too."

That was a good lesson for the disciple of that day and of this. Often the best part of the fruit we can bear is in supporting and strengthening and serving others in their fruit-bearing; and often the best part of the most notable fruit which the world praises is due to the unseen, quiet ministries of love and unselfishness behind those fruits of ability or genius. If we are not gifted to be as fruitful as the vine, perhaps then we can be the more abundantly fruitful, as the elm. What we could never do of ourselves we may yet do through unselfish love in the service of our brethren.—S. S. Times.