this
COLLECTION OF FRAGMENTS
is offered
BY HER YOKE-FELLOW IN THE GOSPEL.
Rochdale,
September, 1888.
PREFACE.
This is a book made up of fragments. The Master once said “Gather up the fragments that nothing be lost.” It may be that victuals will be found here that may feed those who cannot sit down to a meal. Many of the articles have appeared in Joyful News already, but, perhaps, are none the worse for that. We send out this little book in the hope that both crust and crumb will be eaten!
I. SPIRITUAL FARMING.—No. 1.
DRAINING.
If the men who farmed England in the olden time could return, few things would surprise them more than the condition of the land. Many a field now bearing good crops each year, was in “the good old times” moorland or fen. Sheep and cattle graze where once only wild birds could live. Drainage has made the change. The land, once too cold and wet to allow anything valuable to grow, has been by grips and drain pipes, made to produce food for man and beast.
Is it not so on God’s farm? “Ye are His husbandry,” and just as the farmer knows that if he cannot have his wet land drained, his seed will be starved, or the young corn perish with the cold, so we who toil in the Lord’s fields need to learn that in many places the first thing to be done is to