Isaiah 37:31 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

Root and fruit, or character in its completeness.

The text speaks of two necessities for the plant in its perfection—root and fruit; it may speak to us of the complete human character.

I. CHARACTER IS OFTEN FOUND IN MANIFEST INCOMPLETENESS .

1 . We have character deficient in fruitfulness. Some men are intelligent, acquisitive, contemplative; they have solid knowledge; they have reached clear and strong convictions; they have formed admirable private and domestic habits. But they bring forth very little fruit; they exert very little influence; they are incommunicative; they have nothing to say when something needs to be said; they have no tact or courage for action when something demands to be done. These men contribute little, or nothing appreciable, to the advancement of truth and righteousness; they are not the forcible factors they have had the means of becoming in the society in which they move.

2 . We have, also, character deficient in root. Some men are exuberant in expression; they communicate. freely; they are forward to speak and to act on every possible occasion; they are constantly efflorescent. But they lack knowledge, judgment, wisdom; they have not trained their minds; they have not compared their thoughts with those of others, and come to sound and settled conclusions; they have not acquired fixed habits of mind and of life; they are uncertain and unreliable quantities, on whom you cannot safely reckon in the day of trial. Of these two orders of human character neither is without excellency, but both are manifestly incomplete.

II. INCOMPLETENESS OF CHARACTER IS REGRETTABLE IN GOD 'S SIGHT AND IN OURS .

1 . It is unbeautiful. For it lacks symmetry; it is one-sided, and therefore offensive to the spiritual eye.

2. It is a state of insecurity. The man that has root without fruit, knowledge and experience without action and influence, is a man who "has not" his own possessions (see Matthew 25:29 ), for he is making no serious practical use of them, and from him who "hath not" will be taken away, by the constant penalty which attends neglect, "even that which he hath"—viz, his unused capacity. And the mart who has fruit without corresponding root wilt find that his influence will soon wane, his power soon wither away. Speech without knowledge, action without thought, outward activity without inward growth, will soon reach its limit and disappear.

3 . It leaves a large part of sacred duty undone.

III. COMPLETENESS OF CHARACTER MAY BE AND SHOULD BE ATTAINED . Assuming that we are bound to employ our powers in the direction in which our own preferences lead us, and granting that it is well for human character to partake of much variety, it remains true that we should make an earnest effort to attain to some completeness of character by attention to those elements which we are tempted to neglect. In every department of human action we recognize the duty of bestowing special care on the weakest point—the candidate for literary honours on the subject with which he is least familiar; the builder on that part of the ground where the foundation is least substantial; the general on that outpost which is least defensible, etc. The defects of character are subject to repair; earnest effort is sure to be rewarded. They who have "the root of the matter in them" can bring forth fruits of usefulness by patient, prayerful endeavour. They who are quick to bear fruit upward can strike their root downward and enrich their spiritual resources by study, by thought, by painstaking acquisition, by prayer.—C.