A Young Folks' History of the Church

Once upon a time the owner of a very large garden planted therein a tree, the fruit of which was very precious and of great value to all who ate of it. For a time, the tree grew and bore much good fruit. But the owner of the garden had an enemy who went about secretly sowing seeds of weeds and all manner of briers and brush, that they might spread all over the garden and kill out the good tree which the master had planted. The enemy also persuaded many of the workmen in the garden to neglect the good tree, and let the briers and weeds grow up around it and so prevent its growth. Thus in time the once precious fruit of the good tree became wild and scrubby, no better than the enemy's trees which grew around it.