the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Man (the Good): Beneficial Influence of
Spurgeon's Illustration Collection
or
Alexander Von Humboldt thus writes of the cow-tree:: 'On the barren flank of a rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry leaves. Its large woody roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone. For several months of the year not a single shower moistens its foliage. Its branches appear dead and dried; but when the trunk is pierced there flows from it a sweet and nourishing milk. It is at the rising of the sun that this vegetable fountain is most abundant. The negroes and natives are then seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow, and thickens at its surface. Some empty their bowls under the tree itself, others carry the juice borne to their children.'
May not the earnest Christian ministering good on all sides be imaged in this marvelous tree? He is in his own esteem full often a withered and dead tree, but there is within him a living sap, which wells up with blessing t all around. His surroundings are all against him, the soil in which he grows is hostile to grace, yet he not only lives on, but luxuriates. He derives nothing from earth, his fountain is from above, but he enriches the sons of earth with untold blessings, and though they often wound him they experimentally know his value. To him full many of the poor and needy look up as to a friend in need, he is full of the milk of human kindness; where he cannot give in golden coin he distributes comfort in sympathy and words of cheer.
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Spurgeon, Charles. Entry for 'Man (the Good): Beneficial Influence of'. Spurgeon's Illustration Collection. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fff/m/man-the-good-beneficial-influence-of.html. 1870.
