Felled Trees at Martin Top

As I walked up Martin Top Lane last week, I passed a few trees which had been felled. It’s always sad when trees are cut down, but perhaps they were leaning dangerously, and threatened users of the road. I counted the rings. It wasn’t easy, but I got to 176, with the central part of the trunk, measuring 2-3 inches, undecipherable. It’s perfectly conceivable they were planted 200 years or so ago, when the chapel was erected. 

It's a wonder our little church hasn't been cut down. There’s many an ideology out there that would do so: we‘re too old fashioned. We are the opium of the masses. We worship the wrong god. We take the bible too literally. We’re all hypocrites. We cause all the wars. Though the Church of Jesus Christ is often afflicted, S.J. Stone wrote:

Tho' with a scornful wonder,

men see her sore oppressed,

by schisms rent asunder,

by heresies distressed,

yet saints their watch are keeping,

their cry goes up, "How long?"

And soon the night of weeping

shall be the morn of song.

The Church in Britain is weak and compromised. Yet as Job remarks:

For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.

Job 14:7