The Ash Tree: How Divine Ideas Take Root in Human Life

Isaiah speaks of planting an ash tree—a picture of civilization itself. The cultivated tree is the joint product of human care and earth's fertility. Consider how any great institution becomes prevalent: a strong idea of freedom, justice, or mercy enters a powerful soul. That idea demands the world. One day the visionary plants it—with vigorous word or deed, thrusting the live, fiery idea deep into the fruitful soil of human life. Then something remarkable occurs. Human nature takes up that idea and nourishes it. Wonderfully all forces gather around it and give it their vitality. History bears witness to power unknown; philosophy discovers keys to her hard problems; economy finds life made more thrifty and complete; poetry shows its nobleness; affection wreathes it with love. All the essential hopes, fears, and needs of human nature come flocking to it, until you cannot conceive of human life without it—as thoroughly woven into the landscape as the ground itself.

A free Church, a just court, a popular government—this is how every institution comes to be. Martin Luther planted Reformation's seed in Europe's soil. Yet helpless was Luther without Europe; helpless also was Europe without Luther. Here lies the mutual need of great souls and the world itself. This same principle governs personal character. We inherit no quality by mere internal fermentation, nor by external influence alone. Rather, some seed of motive or example is set into our lives, then taken possession of by those lives and filled with our own substance.