Wisdom from a Watermelon

I was passing through Columbus, Ohio, some years ago and stopped to eat in the depot restaurant. My attention was called to a slice of watermelon, and I ordered it and ate it. I was so pleased with the melon that I asked the waiter to dry some of the seeds that I might take them home and plant them in my garden. That night, a thought came into my mind—I would use the watermelon as an illustration. So, the next morning, when I reached Chicago, I had enough seeds weighed to find out that it would take about 5,000 watermelon seeds to weigh a pound, and I estimated that the watermelon weighed about forty pounds. Then I applied mathematics to the watermelon.

A few weeks before, someone, I know not who, had planted a little seed in the ground. Under the influence of sunshine and shower, that little watermelon seed had taken off its coat and gone to work. It had gathered from somewhere 200,000 times its own weight and forced that enormous weight through a tiny stem and built a watermelon. On the outside it had put a covering of green, within that rind of white, and within that a core of red. Then it had scattered through the red, little seeds, each one capable of doing the same work over again.

What architect drew the plan? Where did that little watermelon seed get its tremendous strength? Where did it find its flavoring extract and its coloring matter? How did it build a watermelon?

Until you can explain a watermelon, do not be too sure that you can set limits to the power of the Almighty, or tell just what He will do or how He will do it. The most learned men in the world cannot explain a watermelon, but the most ignorant man in the world can eat a watermelon and enjoy it. God has given us the things that we need, and He has given us the knowledge necessary to use those things. And the truth that He has revealed to us is infinitely more important for our welfare than it would be to understand the mysteries that He has seen fit to conceal from us.
—William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)

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