IN a part of India called Tinnevelly, there grows a remarkable tree. God’s providence has planted it among a simple, untaught people, to whom it is a friend untold. It gives them drink, food, beds, mats, stock for trade, almost everything they need or possess. Now there is one strange peculiarity about this wonderful tree. It grows from a seed; when this seed is put into the ground, instead of growing up quickly, it forests its rootlets down—down—through the hardest earth, for very many feet it may be, until it reaches water. Then, having got to the life-giving stream, it springs up immediately, fresh and vigorous, and in time becomes a splendid tree.
Does not this remind us of some words of the Lord Jesus, when He spoke of the “living water,” which He can give, and which He promises shall be in each true believer “a well of water, springing up into everlasting life”? The seed could not grow until it touched the water; neither can we grow at all, spiritually, unless we come to Christ and drink “out of the wells of salvation.” He tells us that the “living water” means the Holy Spirit, “which they that believe on Him should receive.”
ML 01/21/1917