THE TREE AND MAN'S ART


in hyper-artificial conditions that complexities in art production as
well as in living arise, complexities which in the long run do not
develop human nature or beautify material conditions; and which
eventually are reacted from by some great and simple and normal
personality, called a Reformer, who lives intimately with Nature,
and who longs to suffuse life and inspire humanity with his vision.
   How truly the tree has been treasured in olden times! One has
only to turn to the Old Testament to understand. The voice of God
came to Moses from the burning bush; and David, when he inquired
of the Lord, how and when he should attack the Philistines, was told,
"Thou shalt not go up; but fetch a compass behind them, and come
upon them over against the mulberry-trees. And let it be, when thou
hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees, that
then thou shalt bestir thyself; for then shall the Lord go out before
thee, to smite the hosts of the Philistines." To the Jews, the willow
was at one time an emblem of joy. At the institution of the feast
of the tabernacles, the children of Israel received the command, "Ye
shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches
of palm-trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and the willows of the
brook." Much nearer, because associated with the holiday still so
kind to our children, are the Druid festivals, the Christmas tree, the
mistletoe. And the Druids not only worshipped the oak tree, but
made of it their temple of justice where their courts of the people
were held. They seemed to feel in its strength and permanence, its
beauty and kindness, a source of inspiration in dealing with the cares
of their people and in helping to dispense mercy and kindness.
UR own poet, William Cullen Bryant, felt that "the groves
      were God's first temples." And if the forest impressed the
      early worshippers to kneel and give thanks and supplication,
does it not seem reasonable that the same dim vaults and winding
green aisles might have touched vividly the spirit that sought to
make a permanent shelter for the expression of spiritual exultation?
Although Ruskin insisted that technical Gothic architecture was not
derived from tree forms, yet he does say that "as this architecture
grew more and more beautiful and aspiring, it developed into a closer
and closer resemblance to vegetation, that this resemblance is in-
structive as an indication of the temper of the builders. It was not
a chance suggestion of the form of an arch from the bending of a
bough, but a gradual and continual discovery of a beauty in natural
forms which could be more and more perfectly transferred into those
of stone, that influenced at once the heart of the people and form of
the edifice. . .. The stony pillar grew slender and the vaulted
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