The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1882-02-04
CUT OFF THE DEAD WOOD.
BY Bishop Clark, Of Rhode Island.

This is good work for the beginning
of new year.
Dead wood is not only unsight,y, but
it is injurious to the tree. We need to
get rid Of it, in order to give that which
is alive fair chance. From the window
where | write see number Of old oaks
that have begun TO die at the top, be-
cause of the fish hawks who build their
hugs nests there and saturate the bark
with salt water. The tree is sure to die
unless the process is arrested, although
il may perish more slowly than it would
| do If the roots were affected.
Some men begin to die at the top
The action of the brain is affected, and
they become immobile, inert, indolent;
the impulse is taken out Of their life, and
while the ordinary functions Of existence
continue to act, and they 60 on eating
and drinking, and talking and sleeping,
they cease TO be OF any further use in the
world. They are the dead wood of soci-
ETY., and everybody feels that they are
an incumbrance. And il is the dead
wood that breeds vermin. Inertia is
l tUG VI
Some men carry about great deal Of
dead wood, in the form Of absolute opin-
ions, absurd prejudices, foolish supersti-
tions, and useless ideas in general. /
suppose there are few people who are
no; more or less incumbered with im-
ps'ltimc1ia of this sort. The most learned
sGvaa may have some favori,e theory
1 ,..k.~k E. s,,,aus,,.- ~. IL. full ~ anil
destined to bear much fruit, when in fact
il is as dead as his walking-stick, and
not half as useful. How many treaties
are consigned to oblivion, not because
they are badly written or deficient in
learning, but simply because they deal
only with dead things,--withered
branches that can never bear fruit
What a waste OF ink, and paper, and
paste, and brains and good Russia leath-
er,-all thrown away in the endeavor to
give currency to something that has no
vitality in it. When "the learned
au,her" has given US all his facts-and
they may be ant,-reasoned out
all his points-and they may be well
argued, and exhausted all his rhetoric
and il may be true rhetoric, the wearied
reader asks, "What il it is so? Who
cares or what mortal use is it to me,
or 10 any other man that walks the earth,
whether this mans theory is sound or
not"
have recently run my eye over three
or four such books, which | defy any
man ioread in detail ; every page crowd
cd with dates, and names, and refer
ences. and rccondite quotations, Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, and
twenty other tongues and found them
to be as dead as any dry bones or with
cred leaves ;ha, ever ratified in the autumn
blast. Artists sometimes plead for the
dead branches in 4 tree, because they
are considered picturesque and these
useless books may have some merit Of
this sort-a quaintness and queerness
that would amuse the reader if there
were anything behind it. There are
certain works Of which il is said that
Everybody praises them, and nobody
reads them."
This has been said of Milton, though
untruly; but when / read in the
periodicals the standard puff Of some Of
their learned writers I wondered how
many pages of the book the critic ever
read.
There is too much dead wood in the
learned professions, and in most other
departments of life. The sap does not
seem to have reached them. They are
much to be pitied, but they are none the
less in the way for all that. II may or
may not be their fault that they bring
forth no fruit. They would be glad to
do something il they knew how; andper-
haps they might have accomplished some
little work ifthey had not mistaken their
vocation.
The Christian ministry would be none
the worse for little judicious pruning.
There are lawyers and doctors who
might be lain on the shelf, and the world
be no worse of. The great army OF the
unemployed is a sad spectacle to look
upon but, then, If one finds that he has
got into the wrong place, why need he
stay there so persistentlyf There is
something which every man can do who
has arms and hands and tongue in his
mouth, and any small modicum Of brains
in his head. There is the soil to be