These thought were written in October, after having spent a little time pruning fruit

trees. A garden teaches many lessons, and the pruning of fruit trees is by no means the

least helpful.

First of all, why do we prune? While to one unaccustomed to fruit culture the

principles upon which the pruner works may not be at once clear, it would be obvious

that every cut of the knife was not wanton waste, but purposeful and good. Translating

our thoughts into the sphere of spiritual things, we also are persuaded that every branch

or shoot that the heavenly husbandman removes, is taken away for our good and for His

glory. As we stood for a moment considering whether such and such branches should

come off or stay on, the blessed comfort came to us to think how much more may we not

believe that every cut we receive from the pruning of the Lord is the result of wisest

choice and tenderest concern.

Why then do we prune? First, to produce the maximum amount of fruit-bearing

wood; secondly, to give such fruit-bearing wood as much light and air as possible, and

thirdly, that the resulting fruit shall be so placed as to be most easily gathered; these three

reasons for pruning need no alteration of wording to speak to the believer of his own life

and experience. We are expected to produce fruit, and just as the pruner's knife cuts

away much that may look pleasant to the eyes, so the Lord has to remove much that to

the eye of the flesh seems attractive and necessary: the pruner knows, however, that

unwise pruning instead of producing fruit-bearing wood, produces year by year branches

of twiggy growth that rob the tree, and deprive it of air and sunshine. God looks at us, as

we look at our trees. He sees that branch of mental activity, that development of worldly

or social affairs, is a branch that will be unfruitful and will also spoil the remaining fruit,

and so He prunes. The reader should think kindly of this when suffering the cutting off

of some fancied good, some hoped-for success--the Lord is pruning, He desires fruit.

Air and sunlight are necessary not only for ripening the fruit when it has developed, but

for ripening the wood upon which the fruit shall form. Remember, fellow-believer, fruit

forms on ripened wood.

There are other minor considerations which are true in both the natural and spiritual

1. All trees are not alike.--While with some varieties fruit sets all along the

branches, in others, fruit is borne at the tips of the branches and is found

practically all on the outside of the tree; to prune merely by rule of thumb would

spell ruin. How thankful we should be if, hesitating and half afraid at times

through inexperience, we remember in the spiritual sphere that the Lord has said,

"My Father is the  husbandman."  This physical fact (viz., the differing

fruit-bearing habits) should also deter us from hasty comparisons. We are apt to

think that the experiences of one child of God should be modeled upon our own;