Gone at the Root

*’ whe7t the root of a tree perisheth, the leaves keep green for a while, but within a while they wither and fall off; so love is the root and heart of all other duties, a7id whe7i that decay eth, other thi7igs decay with it’ What would the virtues be if they could remain without love? A sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. But, as a rule, they do not long remain. First one drops off and then another, like falling leaves; and by-and-by the man is as a bare branch, only fit to be cut down and cast into the fire. Some, who once professed great things, have now hardly enough rags of morahty left decently to go to hell in, and all because they were without true love, and therefore were rotten at the core.

Evil in the heart is a deadly wound, but it is usually unperceived till it has done its work. No axe has been lifted against the man’s morals, no great strokes have gashed his visible character, and yet the end has been certain, the ruin has been complete: the spiritual life-sap ceased to flow, the branch of usefulness withered, and at last the tree fell over, to lie prone among the spoils of death. We have seen it — seen it so often, that our most solemn warnings are reserved for secret declensions. There is something nobler in falling by the woodman’s strokes than in perishing by a little worm at the root. The meanness of decaying into corruption, while standing in the midst of a church, is awful.

Lord, have mercy upon us, and keep us from this evil. Amen.