want to be just as
good and kind as this man is.'

"Let us all be careful in choosing our examples of how to live. The
life of Christ is full of help to us, and the lives of many of His
true disciples all about us today give us a practical illustration of
the best way to live."

TREE SURGERY
--Rally Day
--Obstacles

Trees Need Skillful Surgery More Often Than People Do--Superfluous
Branches.

THE LESSON--That the life which wastes its strength in unnecessary
efforts cannot bring forth the best fruits.

That the boys and girls may realize the sad results of forming habits
which hinder growth, development and fruit-bearing, is one of the
great objects of the teaching of the Sunday school. Rally Day is an
especially appropriate time for a lesson along this line of thought.

~~The Talk.~~

"A stranger from the East was visiting a large fruit farm in the
celebrated Hood River Valley in Oregon. He was astonished at the size
and appearance of the growing apples, and he asked the owner of the
fruit farm to tell him the secret of such wonderful results.

"'There is no secret at all,' responded the fruit raiser. 'You see, if
a tree is allowed to do as it pleases, it usually covers itself with a
vast number of useless branches and a multitude of leaves, which are
of no benefit whatever except to make shade; and when a tree has too
many branches and too many leaves it requires so much strength to keep
them alive that there isn't enough left to put into the fruit. In
other words, the tree can't bear large, fine fruit if it must also
support a lot of useless branches and leaves.' This is the way an
apple tree will grow if it is allowed to have its own way. [With the
broad side of your green chalk, draw the general form of the tree,
Fig. 118; add the trunk and dead branches in brown, and draw the grass
with green, and the apples in red, completing Fig. 118.]

[Illustration: Fig. 118]

"'Such a tree can never bear good apples,' continued the fruit
man. 'Many of its branches die, because the tree simply can't support
so many limbs and leaves. Notice that all our trees are carefully
trimmed.' And he pointed the visitor to trees that looked like this:
[Draw the second tree, using the same colors as in Fig. 118,
completing Fig. 119.]

[Illustration: Fig. 119]

"'It is an absolute fact,' added the fruit man, 'that if we allow
these unnecessary leaves and branches to stay on the tree they absorb
the life and