A HUSBANDMAN was at work in his field, earning his living by the sweat of his brow, when there came a man carrying a young tree in his hand, which he planted at one side of the field, saying:

“Give this the space that it needs, let it spread and grow, and wait patiently: in due time its fruit and shade will repay you;” having said which, he departed.

The husbandman heard the man’s words, but went on with his labor from day to day without much regarding them. The tree remained where it had been planted, putting out new branches and growing higher and stronger.

But after a time strange doubts and suspicions concerning the tree entered the husbandman’s mind. As it took up more ground, he looked on it grudgingly, and said to himself:

“This is not a fruit tree at all, but a thorn. If I let it stand, it will send up its evil shoots all over my field.”

Then, taking his axe in his hand, at one stroke he severed the stalk from the roots.

After this the seasons came and went as they ever had done. The husbandman sowed in the spring and reaped in the harvest. And so he continued to do from year to year, until his labors began to tell upon his strength, and he felt stealing upon him the infirmities of an old man. His field still yielded its crop, but was bare and sunny, without a sheltered spot in which he could sit down and rest.

It happened one day after hours of toil that he sank exhausted, and slept even under the burning rays of the sun. In his sleep he dreamed that he was sitting in the shade. Over him green branches were spread. They were loaded with fruit, which hung so near the ground that he put forth his hand as he sat, and plucked and ate. Birds were also singing in the branches, and a cool breeze passed through them, fanning his brow. He said:

“Surely these have been growing, and their shadows deepening, to cover my head and refresh me in my old age.”

As he spoke suddenly the man who had long ago appeared to him again stood before him, saying:

“Such would have been the tree that I planted on this spot had you not, in unbelief and self-will, cut it down.”

The husbandman awoke from his sleep and found it was only a dream, and that he was still lying alone and unsheltered under the burning rays of the sun.

Not recognizing the Sender, we refuse the gift, to bewail our folly when it is too late.