A great storm had just swept over the part of Australia in which I was staying, and its track was marked by giant gum trees lying shivered and broken where once they reared their proud heads to the heavens. As I viewed those magnificent trees overthrown by the tempest, I felt that they held a silent lesson for me if only I were wise enough to learn it. Thus I set out to discover why these had fallen and why some had stood when the great test came suddenly upon them.

There was one that had brought down other trees in its fall, lying across the roadway. Its length cannot be less than 150 feet, its girth 15 feet. Just yesterday it stood, and seemed as strong as any of its fellows, but now it lies there, its history as a tree finished forever. The cause of its overthrow was easily found. Through some flaw or wound in the bark of its great trunk not far from the ground, white ants had penetrated to its very heart. Silently and unseen, day after day, they had eaten out its strength just where it was most needed. A casual observer would have seen nothing wrong with it hours before the storm. Its leaves were as green and its great limbs as strong as any other, but when the trial came, the secret of years was revealed. The giant had been "white-anted." It could not stand the test, and great was the fall of it. Sad, too, that other trees of promising growth were destroyed in its fall.

White ants are little things. You could crush a thousand of them with one stamp of the foot, but their work is deadly. I thought of several things that are to Christians what the white ants were to that tree: things which are often allowed a place in their lives, little things chiefly, some secret self-indulgence that grows day by day into a habit; some self-pleasing that does not seem to matter much at the time, but which really comes under one of these three heads: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. These are the things that are the undoing of many a promising Christian testimony, and every human heart has a proneness to them as we all know.

Outwardly things are the same. The spiritual vigor does not appear to be much diminished, but the inner life is being slowly and surely sapped. Then at last comes the storm, followed by the inevitable fall. May God give us deliverance from evil, and may we be watchful and self-judged before Him in little things. "But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof" (Romans 13:14).

But there was another tree, almost as great as the white-anted tree, not broken off at the ground, but literally torn up by the roots. We marvel at the force of the wind that could do a thing like that, but the solution of the marvel is easy. The roots themselves were widespread, but they had not struck deep into the soil. The visible growth and foliage were far in excess of the secret unseen growth; the tree had not much depth of earth. My brethren, we must give heed to this if we are to stand as a testimony for Christ in the world. We must be rooted and grounded in truth and love. We need to know the Word of God and live by it. It must be in our souls and not in our heads only, or the time will come when the shallowness of the work in us will be discovered. Nothing can be of greater importance to us than a secret history of soul with God, for it is in secret that our roots strike deep into the grace in which we are planted, and we learn that our security lies in Him and not in ourselves. Thus are we preserved when the test comes. "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15).

—J.T.M. (abridged)