Merely out
of itself the tree can give nothing,--literally, nothing. True, if cut
down, it may, under favorable circumstances, continue for a time to
feed the growing shoots out of its own decay. Yet not even at the cost
of decay and speedy exhaustion could the old trunk accomplish this
little, but for the draft made upon it by the new growths. It is
_their_ life, it is the relationship which they assert with sun
and rain and all the elements, which is foremost in bringing about even
this result. So it is with the great old literatures, with the old
systems of philosophy and faith. They are simply avenues, or structural
forms, through which succeeding generations of souls come into
conversation with eternal Nature, and express their original life.
Observe, again, that the tree lives only while new shoots are produced
upon it. The new twigs and leaves not only procure sustenance for
themselves, but even keep the trunk itself alive: so that the chief
order of support is just opposite what it seems; and the tree lives
from above, down,--as do men and all other creatures. So in history, it
requires a vast amount of original thought or sentiment to sustain the
old structural forms. This gigantic baobab of Catholicism, for example,
is kept alive by the conversion of Life into Belief, which takes place
age after age in the bosoms of women and men.
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