Isaiah 55

The Language Of The Leaves

The trees of the field shall clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12.

Boys and girls who are well are nearly always happy. They feel that it is a good thing to be alive. But of course doing what is wrong spoils everything. A Hindu trader in India said to a convert, “What medicine do you put on your face to make it shine so?” “I put nothing on,” answered the convert. “What do you put on?” he was again asked. “Nothing; I don't put anything on.” “Yes, you do, all you Christians do. I've seen it in Agra, and I've seen it in Bombay.” The convert laughed, and said: “Yes, I'll tell you the medicine. It is having a happy heart.” That happy heart, boys and girls, is a thing that never goes with doing mean actions; you yourselves know that.

There should be much to make everyone happy in this leafy month of June. A blind girl used to be taken to walk in a wood near her own home, and she told me how she loved that wood in the sunny summer days. She felt the sun although she did not see it. “Sometimes Jennie comes with me,” she said, mentioning another blind friend, “then we sit underneath a tree and listen to the sound of the leaves. Sometimes we try to guess the names of the different trees. They ‘ clap their hands' for us,” she added.

The chapter in Isaiah from which your text is taken is a very beautiful one. It is part of a great poem; and as with other great poems, even when one does not understand every word, a good reader can make it seem like a piece of music. What is it all about, do you think? Just getting happiness from the things that God gives us for nothing “without money, and without price,” like the music of the leaves on a June day, or the happiness that the Indian found from having formed a friendship with God.

I wonder how the people to whom it was first addressed felt about it. They were men and women of whom some were sad, and others were careless. They were really prisoners of war, and had been exiled from their homes. Far away from their beloved country, in the great and busy city of Babylon, the sad ones remembered the old days and the old home. Those exiles of long ago often longed to be back within sight of their own Jerusalem. Sometimes their conquerors would say, “Give us a song.” “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” But their hearts were too sad for singing. You know what it is to be told to sing when something is bringing a lump up into your throat.

The others, the busy and careless ones, were the boys and girls who had been born in exile, and who had grown to be men and women in Babylon. To them,

Babylon had, in a sense, become a home. The language of the country had become their language, and the ways of the great city had become their ways. They had learned to make money; some of them had become very wealthy indeed. So you see it was natural for them not to have the feeling of hatred towards their conquerors that the older generation had. They drank of the streams of Babylon and forgot about Zion. But I like to think of the little remnant who could remember the time when their old home meant a place where God was Master, and when doing His will was the great ambition of their lives.

At last, after many years, those exiles were to be allowed to return to Jerusalem, and you can understand how it was that they were not all enthusiastic about going. The money-makers did not want to leave Babylon, and the spirit of the fathers and mothers was broken.

Isaiah's message was meant for both. There was an air of June about it. He did not scold the moneymakers; he tried to turn their thoughts to higher things the mountains, the hills, and the beauty of summer when the leaves of the trees seem to clap their hands with joy.

Isaiah wanted to encourage the Israelites to return to their native land when he spoke of the beauty of God's earth, and told how even the trees would cheer them on their way. Already God is saying to you boys and girls, “I have a great work for you to do in this world; make up your minds to get ready for it.” It may be harder work than your grandfathers ever had to do, but though in the meantime there is confusion and perplexity in the world, God's sun still shines, and the leaves of the trees clap their hands for you as they did when they cheered on the captive Israelites to Jerusalem.

But when the summer-time is here I love another book,

Not told upon a printed page, hut gurgled by a brook,

And whispered by the eager pines, and thundered by the sea,

And gossiped in a dialect by every passing bee.

There is no story in the world which I have ever seen

To equal Nature's volume, where the leaves are all of green.

The book is ever open at the most exciting page,

To suit the reader old or young, of any taste and age;

The pictures are in colors fair, the plot is ever new

However wild or wonderful, you know it all is true.

The book will last a lifetime long, and best of all, my friend,

Each summer 'tis “continued,” and it never has an end!

(A. F. Brown.)