Growth in life should be the
norm; as Emerson suggests that, "the man of today should scarcely
recognize the man of yesterday. But to most of us, we want to rest, not
advancing, resisting and not cooperating with God's divine expansion of our soul;
so most growth comes by shocks and calamities. Perhaps, we cannot part with our
friends or we cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out
that archangels may come in."
He uses the following
illustration to make his point.
"The man or woman who would have
remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much
sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the
gardener can become like the mulberry, having branches that send out unexpected
roots to the ground and causes the tree to spread over a wide area yielding
shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men."