THE TREE OF LIFE | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 15, 1857

THE TREE OF LIFE.

It has been a question of perplexity to many minds how the tree of life could be on either side of the river and yet be but one tree. This need be no question of perplexity. We have an example among the trees still growing on our earth, which illustrates perfectly how it can be, and probably is. It is found in the following account of the "Banyan Tree," from—"Train's Am. Messenger Abroad."

"Yesterday I visited the Botanical Gardens, where for many years large sums of money have been expended to make it worthy of the Bengal public. Here I saw the great Banyan tree, which I at once recognized; for I had seen it in my primitive school-book in miniature, when I went to a woman's school. It is an imposing spectacle with its 110 trunks, covering more than an acre of ground, and is one of the great objects of interest in Bengal. It is a noble work of God, standing proudly by itself, giving shade to a hecatomb of cattle or a regiment of soldiers—the proud monarch of the Indian forest, who lives to grow old—a type of man, with sons and daughters, grand children and great-great-grand-children growing up around and about the parent trunk with an affection and solicitude more than human; for the marriages and intermarriages never break up the household, but only strengthen the links that bind them together. Wherever there is a weak point in the extended arm of the parent tree, out shoots a sprout forthwith, and fastening in the ground afresh, another support and new life is thrown into the mammoth trunk; and no storm, however terrible, no convulsion save an earthquake, can shake its center, or injure a single member of the family, when each gives strength and support to the other."