01.27. Moulting and Shedding

Chapter 27 MOULTING AND SHEDDING.

I notice that birds have a way of moulting their plumage without outside assistance. Birds know that when men begin to pull their feathers out, the next thing on the program is that they will be roasted. Men are beginning to discover in these days what the birds all along knew, that pulling and roasting come very close together.

I observe also that the trees shed their leaves of their own accord. It would be too big an undertaking for men to go around with baskets and ladders and try to strip the forests. Nature has its season when, with the stoppage of the flow of sap, and the blowing of autumn winds the leaves come whirling down in a golden shower. And it was done so gently, quietly, thoroughly and satisfactorily! In like manner we have to shed things. We started the spiritual life by leaving off our actual sins. Later we got rid of the Old Man. Since then we cannot number the wrong ideas, unwise methods, foolish notions, hasty conclusions and improper ways of approaching and dealing with men we have dropped. No bird ever moulted like we have done. No tree has ever outstripped us in the shedding business.

All that most honest people want is a season of light and grace, and behold the sap which nourished error and mistake ceases to flow, and while a gentle wind from heaven stirs the soul, the blunders, ignorance, prejudices, false ideas, follies, nonsense and tomfooleries of other years go whirling like yellow leaves to the ground.

One thing we shed as a young preacher was a rattan. No one told us not to carry it, but some kind of sap quit flowing as we got nearer to God, and the little walking cane shed itself.

After that we moulted a beaver hat. No one mentioned the remarkable harmony existing in the juxtaposition of two equally hollow spheres, and no one knocked the remarkable headpiece away from the self-satisfied countenance which it surmounted. This would have been to have secured a longer stay. Instead of that a season of grace came, and in that autumn of sober reflection with recollections of the poverty and lowliness of the Saviour, a wind blowing softly from the skies lifted the hat, and it fluttered out of sight and mind as the leaves of other years have departed and are forgotten.

Then came the shedding of witty speeches perpetrated while leading a testimony meeting The happy repartee, the quick turn of thought upon another person, which brought a laugh from the audience, looked well, scored an intellectual victory, and was undertaken with a kind and loving heart; but the sight of mortified servants of God, old followers of the Cross almost snubbed into silence, and gray-haired and simple-hearted people wounded to the quick at the amusement brought upon them--this sight was soon adequate and amply sufficient to put an end to the practice forever.

Once in a meeting a brother stood up and quoted for his testimony, "The cleansing stream, I see, I see!" and sat down. We replied, "There is something better than seeing the stream of cleansing, and that is being in it!" The pained look of the brother went to our heart, as we fear our words had gone to his. Anyhow, we did some more "shedding" that day, and determined to be more careful and tender from that hour forward.

We question much whether young people should be put forward to lead the testimony service of a campmeeting; especially if they aspire to shine instead of lead, and crave to be witty and even funny at the expense of gray-haired men and women of God who were in the service of Heaven before the joking, jesting, amusing, brilliant, talkative leader was born into the world.

It takes religion, sense, tact, and a kind, loving, considerate heart to make a good leader of a testimony meeting. So when we see pertness taking the place of piety, and humor usurping the station of love, we feel like praying: "Lord, let the seasons of grace roll on; stop the sap; befrost the leaf; and send a wind from heaven to strip from us all wrong foliage and clothe us instead with leaves that are full of healing and load us down with the fruits of the Spirit for which men are hungry and starving all over the land."

We know of three different cases, where one preacher thinking that another was making grave lifetime mistakes, wrote a warm letter of warning; but as it proved the communication was much warmer than the writer intended. It blistered and burned! Then came in reply an outcry of pain and of protest from the victim, whereupon two of the parties went into the moulting business. This time it was the gridiron epistle that was dropped. We mean by the gridiron epistle, a letter which is written in such a spirit and style that its hard, unbending lines and high temperature most forcibly remind one of that implement of the kitchen on which the process of broiling takes place.

Time would fail to tell of what, and how much is quietly dropped, or vigorously flung off in the course of years from the boughs and branches of a healthy Christian life. They are not sins, but are unwise sayings and doings, wrong conceptions of doctrine, false ideas of duty, mannerisms, improprieties, eccentricities, extravagances--in a word, things that, like fungus growth, need to be cut off, or, like the frosted leaf, ought to be shed quickly and blown utterly away.

Happy for the frost which falls with killing power on certain fruits and leaves that we have beheld hanging on to certain lives. And truly that strong, autumnal gale from Heaven cannot blow too soon which shall strip from us and bear away the needles, the superfluous, the unsightly, the burdensome and the hurtful, and leave us open for a foliage and fruitage which shall be honored of God, and blessed to the present and everlasting good of men.

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