Notice again the four statements in that good-by word.  Your chief concern is to win men.  It is the toughest task you ever undertook:  it will take supernatural power.  I have all the power you need.  Instinctively you feel as though the fourth thing should be, “I will go.”  That would seem to be the logical conclusion.  “No,” Jesus says, “you go.”  Plainly if we are to do something taking supernatural power, and we haven’t any such power of ourselves, there must be the closest kind of contact with the source of power.  The man who is to go must be in the most intimate contact with the Man who has the powers needed in the going.

And this is simply a law of all life, given to us here by life’s greatest Philosopher.  The seen depends upon the secret always.  The outer keys upon the inner.  The life that men see depends wholly upon the life that only the Master sees.  David had power to slay the lion and bear in secret, away from the gaze of men, before he had power to slay the giant before the wondering eyes of two nations.  The closet becomes the swivel of the street.

In crossing the ocean there are two great dangers to be dreaded and guarded against, aside from the storms that may arise.  The greater of these is an abandoned ship.  One that through some stress of storm has been left by the sailors in the attempt to save their lives.  It is most dangerous because it sends no warning ahead of its presence.  In crossing the Atlantic by the more northern routes the other danger is from the icebergs that may be met in the steamer’s path.  If a fog obscure the lookout the boat is slowed down, and a man kept busy with line and thermometer taking the temperature of the water.  The iceberg is kindlier than the derelict, in the chill it sends out.  The presence of the danger can so be detected, and measures taken to avoid it.

But the great danger here is not simply in the huge mountain of ice that you see looming up against the sky, great as that is.  It is in the unseen ice.  Hidden away below is a mountain of ice twice as large and heavy as that seen above the water’s surface.  The danger lies in the terrific force of a blow from this hidden pile that would crush the strongest steel steamer, as I might crush an egg-shell in my fingers.

We all admire the beauty of the trees that rear their heads, and send out their branches, and make the world so beautiful with their soft green foliage.  But have you thought of the twin tree, the unseen tree that belongs to these we see?  For every tree that grows up and out with its beauty and fruit there is another.  The twin tree goes down and out.

Sometimes, as far as this we see goes up, the other goes down; as far as the branches go out so far do the underneath branches go out, sometimes farther.  This unseen tree is ever busy drawing moisture, and food from the soil and sending it, ceaselessly sending it, up to the upper tree.  The beauty and fruitfulness above are because of this secret life of the tree.