Our childhood was pleased with the story of the old monk who was shipwrecked alone on a desert isle.  He always carried with him a few roots and seeds.  Planting these, he died, but sailors coming twenty years later found the isle waving with fruit trees.  To the beauty of this legend let us add the truth of one who has made all this land his debtor.  In 1801 a youth passed through western Pennsylvania.  He was collecting apple seeds with which to found orchards in the then unbroken states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.  When he came to an open, sunny spot in the forest he would plant his seeds and protect them with a brush fence.  Years afterward new settlers found hundreds of these embryo orchards in the forests.  Thrice he floated his canoe laden with seeds down the Ohio to the settlers in Kentucky.  To this brave man, called by our Congressional Record “Johnny Appleseed,” whole states owe their wealth and treasure of vineyards and orchards.  This intrepid man is a beautiful type of all those who, passing through life’s wastes, sow the land with God’s eternal truths, whose leaves and fruits heal nations.  If God remembers the roots in dark forests he will not forget his truths in human hearts.  Therefore, sow thy seed.  Ye are saved by hope.

The ground and basis of all hope whatsoever is God.  It is his good providence and redemptive love in Jesus Christ that make us optimists.  Hope is not within the scope of our wisdom or culture or skill; and hope is not in our health or tool or treasure.  We journey into an unknown future.  It is not given to us to know what a day or an hour of the new year may bring forth.  How impotent are the wisest and strongest in the hour when we hear the sound of the ocean and in darkness ford the deep and dangerous river, beyond which is high and eternal noon.  What can the child on some great ocean steamer caught in a winter’s storm do to overcome the tempest?  Can it drive the fierce blasts back to their northern haunts?  Can its little hand hold the wheel and guide the great ship?  Can its voice still the billows that can crush the steamer like an egg-shell?  Can its breath destroy the icy coat of mail that covers all the decks?  What the child can do is trust the Captain who has brought this same ship through a hundred hard storms.  It can rest and trust and hope.  And all we upon this great earth-ship have been caught, not in a storm, but in the gulf stream of God’s providence.  The warm tropic currents sweep us on to the heavenly harbor.  The trade winds above aid the forward flight.  More than all else is the larger planetary movement that sweeps gulf stream, winds and ship onward towards the infinite.  Soon shall we enter into quiet waters and cast out our anchor.