“YOU have heard that in a few days I am going to leave you. The King has sent for me, now that my time of fruitbearing in the desert is over, to bloom in his own garden; and as I do not know on what day I may have to go, I would like to give you a few words of counsel now. When I am gone you will have to pass through many trials, of which at present you can have no idea. In the first place the thorns and weeds will all revive and do their best to choke you. Your only way really to overcome them is to absorb all the nourishment you can, and to gradually overshadow them as I have done. If you don't choke them they will choke you, and remember they have the prince on their side. Beware of him. I once was nearly killed by his cunning. I had got discontented with my gardener, and thinking I would like to be independent, I pushed out my roots into the sand, which he continually moistened, (to persuade me I was getting nourishment from it), and then when he had me in his territory, he dried up the sand to a burning heat, and nearly scorched up all my life. Do not think for a moment there is a single thing that can help you on in this desert but the waters of the river. This you can get at present through others. Be thankful for this, and value their care to which you owe so much; but, oh, never, never rest until your own roots go into the river. It was a sad long time before I learned this. Indeed, I never should have found it out if the King had not driven me to it by taking away the gardener. Then, indeed, had I not found out the river I should have perished. Oh! the joy of the moment when I first drank in its water myself! Seek then without delay to have two roots at least stretching into the river.
Another danger I would warn you of is from a different quarter altogether. The gardeners are not to be trusted implicitly. Even they may err, as they did in my case. Thinking to be wiser than the King, they built a glass house round me, and watered my roots with mixtures of their own preparing, instead of the pure river water. Beware of this. Remember, I have proved that the water of the river is all that a tree requires to live vigorously, and to produce fruit in this desert. I am not now being taken away because I was unable to live here, but because I was able. Refuse, then, everything that is adulterated or mixed. Beware, too, of the glass house; if once you are enclosed in it, you will get so vain of your own importance, and go shooting higher and higher, regardless of your strength, that you are certain to have a downfall as I did, when the house is gone. It is far better to grow in strength than in height. Never aim at making a show.
Remember, too, that it is only when you have your own roots in the water that you become an evergreen; unless you do this you will only keep green in summer while you are watered, and lose all your leaf not your life, that is in the roots in the winter. Do not make the mistake I did in letting the roots, on which all your strength depends run near the surface. Let them be deeply buried where none can find them, so that their existence is only known by the fruit they produce. If these roots are secure you can defy the sun, the wind, the frost, the burning sand, the thorns, and all the enemy's devices. If these are touched, not all the watering will suffice to keep you vigorous. And when in the prime of your life your broad branches afford a grateful shade to the weary traveler, and your boughs are laden with fruit, never, never forget that you owe all to the King's Son. It was he that obtained the seed, and it is his river that keeps you alive."
Such were the words of counsel the King's tree addressed to the seedlings. Next morning number of men were seen coming across the desert. They were servants from the King sent to transplant the tree. This was a moment the plant had rather dreaded, for it expected to get a great shaking especially in its long outstretching roots. With wonderful skill, and in quite an unexpected manner, however, the skilful workmen avoided all injury to the plant. Finding that its two main roots ran into the river, they carefully lifted the tree with a large ball of earth into a large wooden stage which they wheeled towards the river, gently lifting the two roots out of the ground as they went along. They then pushed the wooden platform like a raft into the river leaving the ends of the two roots in the water they so greatly loved, and then the tree was gently floated along, on the broad bosom of the river without a jar, to the city of the great King. It was planted in his garden near the fountain head of the desert river, and thus its roots still drank in the same precious stream, only in greater abundance, that had been their strength and delight in the desert land. So that from that never-to-be-forgotten time, when in the dark hour of its despair the tree first struck root into the water it never left it again.
Thus ends the story of the desert tree. We leave it in the royal garden in a soil of surpassing richness, never more to bear the burning sun and rough desert blast, but before all the court to bear witness, by its never fading flowers, to the sustaining power of the river. Surely the tree was satisfied far beyond its highest wishes. The King's Son loved to gaze upon it, the fruit of his toil and hard labor, grown from the seed he had found, nourished by the river of his love and as he looked upon its beauteous flowers-he, too, was satisfied.