prays for a storm to come, of some sort or other, to blow the dead
wood out of the tree, and to get rid of all this oppressive and
stifling weight of sham Christians that has come round every one of
our churches. 'His fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge
His floor,' and every man that has any reality of Christian life in
him should pray that this pruning and cutting out of the dead wood
may be done, and that He would 'come as a refiner's fire and purify'
His priesthood.

Then there is the other side, the pruning of the fruitful branches.
We all, in our Christian life, carry with us the two natures--our own
poor miserable selves, and the better life of Jesus Christ within us.
The one flourishes at the expense of the other; and it is the
Husbandman's merciful, though painful work, to cut back unsparingly
the rank shoots that come from self, in order that all the force of
our lives may be flung into the growing of the cluster which is
acceptable to Him.

So, dear friends, let us understand the meaning of all that comes to
us. The knife is sharp and the tendrils bleed, and things that seem
very beautiful and very precious are unsparingly shorn away, and we
are left bare, and, as it seems to ourselves, impoverished. But Oh!
it is all sent that we may fling our force into the production of
fruit unto God. And no stroke will be a stroke too many or too deep
if it helps us to that. Only let us take care that we do not let
regrets for the vanished good harm us just as much as joy in the
present good did, and let us rather, in humble submission of will to
His merciful knife, say to Him, 'Cut to the quick, Lord, if only
thereby my fruit unto Thee may increase.'