Much of what is called religion has no roots. It is set up and propped, or it may be inserted in the soil, but it is not planted. It is like the twigs which in our childhood we took, and with gleeful delight put in our mimic gardens, but which never grew.—A tree is never truly planted if it be dead. You can no more be said to plant a dead tree than a stone pillar. The pillar may be as deeply and as firmly fixed in the earth as the tree, but no one would speak of it as planted. It has no sympathy with the soil. It is held up by mechanical pressure and constraint. A tree is never planted except it is living and establishes vital affinity with the soil. When its roots begin to send forth its tender fibres, and they suck in their appropriate nutriment from the soil, and transmit it through trunk and branch and twig, then it is planted. It has taken hold of the earth, and therefore it lives. But when the earth only takes hold of it, and the tree does not return the friendly grasp, it is dead. And when it is dead, the soil which once fed its life, rots it, just as the atmosphere, which is our vital air while we are living, will hasten the putrefaction of our bodies as soon as our last breath is drawn.