A friend of mine said he had a beautiful canary bird; he thought it
was the sweetest singer they had ever had. Spring came on, and he felt
it was a pity to keep the poor bird in the house, so he put it under a
tree right in front of his house. He said before he knew it a lot of
these little English sparrows got under that tree (and you know they
cannot sing any more than I can, and I don't know one note from
another), and went, "Chirp, chirp, chirp." Before he knew it, that
little canary had lost all its sweet notes. It had got into bad
company.
After he found out that he had made a mistake, he took the bird into
the house, but it kept up that "Chirp, chirp, chirp." He bought
another bird, but the canary nearly ruined it. He said that bird never
got back its sweet notes.
Now, don't you know lots of Christian people who had a fine testimony
several years ago, but they have lost their witness, and all they do
now is talk, talk, talk, talk? Why? Because they are out of communion
with God, and have lost their witness.
"Hitch On" and "Cut Behind"
Some one tells of an incident that happened in a New England town the
other day. All the boys were sleighing. A big sleigh--we call it a
"pung" up there--was being driven through the streets by an old man
who looked like Santa Claus. He was calling out to the small boys to
hitch on, for a pung is like a 'bus, it always holds one more.
There were already about twenty rollicking boys hitched on, when one
little fellow dropped off behind. He tried, but couldn't catch up
again, and pretty soon he began to look out for another chance for a
ride. A man's sleigh was standing near by, and the boy began to eye
the man. When the man in the sleigh started off, the little fellow
hitched on behind, and the man grabbed his whip and struck him
directly in the eye. It looked as if the eye had been put out, but it
wasn't.
Now, that's the way we go through this world. Some say, "Hitch on,
hitch on"; others, "Cut behind, cut behind." The hitch-on people fill
the churches, and the cut-behind ones empty them.