What They Said

"A Christian, for the sweet fruit he bears to God and men, is compared to the noblest of all plants, the vine.  Now as the most generous vine, if not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems and grows at last weak and fruitless, so doth the best man, if he be not cut short of his desires and pruned with afflictions.  If it be painful to bleed, it is worse to wither.  Let me be pruned, that I may grow;  rather than cut up, to burn."

Joseph Hall