This lesson from nature is planned to impress the truth that we must be worthy "through and through" if we are to endure the test of character which comes to every life.
The Talk.
"I want every one of you to stop looking at me and to take a good look at the wood out of which the pew ahead of you is made. [If necessary, revise the following sentences to meet your immediate conditions.] You will notice that the pew is made up of a good many pieces of oak fastened together so nicely that you can hardly tell where they are joined. And so it is with all this other furniture, and with the tables and the chairs and the bookcases in your homes and everywhere else. A great many fine trees must be cut down every day to furnish the wood from which all the things are made. The furniture manufacturers buy the wood in the form of heavy lumber. The companies which sell this lumber to the furniture factories send their expert tree buyers into the forests to pick out the trees which will make the best lumber. These tree experts go into the forests and select the trees that they want, and leave all the others standing.
"One day a tree buyer, after examining an oak grove, told the owner that he would pay him a certain amount of money for a specified number of trees, and at the same time he pointed out the trees which he wanted.
"'But,' said the owner of the forest, 'you have overlooked one of the nicest-looking trees of them all. Don't you want this one?' [Draw outlines of tree, [Fig. 114].]
"'No,' replied the buyer, 'I can't use that tree. It is no good for our purpose.'
"'No good!' exclaimed the owner, 'why that tree looks to me to be a good deal better than some that you selected.'