Every human life is like the life of some tree. Each tree is at its best when it well fulfils the purpose for which it was made. There are trees which must stand as towering as the date-palm if they answer their end, and there are other trees which can never expect to be towering, for they were made, like the box, to keep near the ground. Some trees are for outward fruit, as the apple, and some for inward fruit, as the ash. Fruit is "correspondence in development with the purpose for which the tree exists," is "production in the line of the nature of the tree." When, then, the orange tree produces sound, sweet oranges that refresh the dry lips of an invalid or ornament the table of a prince, the orange tree does well; and if it produces such fruit to as large a degree as possible, and for as long a time as possible, it has done its best. So, too, does the pine do well when it produces wood wherewith a good house for family joy may be built, and the spruce does well when it brings forth a fiber that may be fashioned into paper on which words of truth can be printed, and the oak does well when it develops a grain suitable for the construction of a vessel that plowing the waves shall carry cargoes of merchandise. If the pine, the spruce, the oak, grow to the extent of their opportunity, and become all that they can become in the line of their own possibility, each and all have made the best use of their lives. But how varied are the opportunities as well as the missions of trees, of the garden cherry and the forest poplar, of the swamp tamarack and the plantation catalpa! Trees of the same genus may be so differently placed that one can attain an abundant growth while another must strive hard simply to exist. An elm along a river bottom, fed by constant moisture, lifts wide arms to the sunlight, while an elm on a rocky hill, scarce finding crevices for its roots, necessarily is small and stunted. And still that stunted elm may, in its place, make or not make the best use of its life. Human lives are as diversified in their natures as the growths of the field and forest. Our tastes, our aptitudes, our memories, our imaginations, widely vary. The world is made up of thousands upon thousands of different needs, that must be met if mankind is to prosper. Every function necessary for the world's welfare is an honorable function and becomes, when attempted by a consecrated heart, a sacred function. The world cannot live without cooking, nor can it live without building, nor without bartering, nor without teaching. How to make the best of the function or functions that are his, is the question every human being should ponder.