Working
We may learn a lesson from the bird. One year it began to build on the lower branches of the tree. It hastily gathered the strings and hairs and straws and wove them into its tiny house. By and by the cunning house was finished, the bird laid in it her little eggs and hatched young. How proud she was! What songs floated out from the old tree! And how busily she worked that she might provide a good breakfast for her little family. But one morning the nest was empty. A few scattered feathers told the tale. The cat had destroyed the old bird and all her treasures!
What was the matter? Why this sad ending to such bright hopes? Do you not see? She had placed her treasures too low down, she had builded too near the earth.
Now God looks down today and sees us who have minds with which to reason,-He sees some of us beginning to have treasures upon the earth; he sees us planning, and building all our hopes on having pleasures here, on getting rich, on having great earthly wisdom, or a great name among our friends, just as though we always were going to live here. His great heart of love aches as He sees it. He longs to save us from the trouble that must be ours if we build so low down. He allows some of our treasures to be taken to show us the danger, and then He cries out, build higher! O, build higher! If you have your treasures so low down, they will be stolen, or spoilt, or destroyed. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven."Look up, My child, look up. Here you may send up your treasures and they will be enduring. Here are everlasting mansions that I am preparing for you, will you let Me write down your name? Will you have them? Here is a dazzling crown that when once received no man can take from you. Here are riches eternal and that fadeth not away. Will you have them? God help us to send our names and our treasures. Then we shall be safe, for we shall want to go where our treasures are.
August 10, 1893 EJW, PTUK 297-298
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We have begun to clear our land here in the woods. One year ago last August Mrs. May White, Ella and Mabel White, and myself kindled the first brush fire, beginning to clear the land. It was very interesting work for the children; they enjoyed it ever so much. Four tents were then pitched, and the men began the work of felling trees, and preparing the land for cultivation. A breaking up plough, drawn by sixteen oxen broke up the land. The land was simply ploughed. We could not then afford to do more than this. . . .
In this way we employed men who had worked at the cabinetmaker's trade, carriage builders, and painters. They were in poverty and great need, and some had large families to provide for. We paid them not less than a dollar a day, and fed them. In this way we have worked to get a few acres cleared and planted in peaches, apricots, plums, pears, nectarines, apples, figs, oranges, and lemons. These trees were planted in the furrows the last of September and the first of October. The next April the entire orchard was ploughed again. By the next August, the trees were fragrant with blossoms. In November there was beautiful fruit on the peach and nectarine trees. These trees had been loaded with fruit, but most of it had been picked off when small. It was thought best for the trees to do this. With the blessing of God, by the coming November we shall have plenty of fruit.
Our school is located here. Their land was cleared and planted with trees at the same time that my orchard was planted. This coming season we expect that it will bear fruit for the school. Our people are settling in this place. Here students are to be educated in books, and are also to be taught how to do all kinds of manual labor. The Lord will help us in this work. This is the first term of school. There are sixty students in attendance. Thirty of these come from a distance, and live in the home. All the students are young men and young women of excellent capabilities.
We have located here on missionary soil, and we design to teach the people all round us how to cultivate the land. They are all poor because they have left their land uncultivated. We are experimenting, and showing them what can be done in fruit raising and gardening.
For the benefit of our school we knew that we must get away from the cities, where there are so many holidays, and where the interest taken in ball playing, horse racing, and games of every kind, amounts almost to a craze. In the woods we are just where we should be. Not that we expect to get away from Satan and from temptation, but we do hope to be able to teach the youth that there is something satisfying besides amusement.
7MR 253-254