Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 56:221 (Jan 1899)
Article: Warp And Woof
Author: Frederick A. Noble

BSac 56:221 (Jan 1899) p. 26

Warp And Woof

Rev. Frederick A. Noble

Men and women who were born in northern New England, as also in many other of the more rural sections of our land, a half-century ago, can hardly fail to carry in memory very vivid pictures of the old spinning-wheel and loom. The spinning-wheel was more common than the loom; but in every well-to-do and well-furnished farmhouse the loom was an essential part of the family belongings. It requires only small play of the imagination for the ear still to catch echoes of the whir of the busy wheel as the soft rolls were spun into yarn, and the thump of the loom as the nicely adjusted threads of prepared material were changed into cloth. Many a wife and mother put some of the most effective services of her life into these forms of wearying activity. Many a lad, full of the promise and potency of high achievement, grew from infancy to manhood with few suits, if indeed any, save those which were constructed out of these home-made fabrics.

It is a wonder more poets have not sung the song of the loom. Even our beloved Whittier, whose heart was so full of genuine sympathy with all forms of toil, and who transfigured cobblers and huskers and lumbermen and drovers and ship-builders and fishermen with the magic touch of his genius and invested their simple lives with an abiding glory, left the picturesque form of the dear, old domestic weaver, who for two centuries and more was such an important factor in the life of the home and of the nation, to

BSac 56:221 (Jan 1899) p. 27

fade out and pass away like the rude machine whose loaded shuttle with deft hand she drove back and forth till her web and her work on earth were alike complete.

But, sung or unsung, the story of the loom has wrought its way into the sweet recollections of multitudes of old-time, country-bred folk.

Aside, however, from the high uses it was made to subserve, there was a lesson in that weaving, as there is in all weaving, on which it is worth while to lay stress. That old loom back there in the valleys and on the hillsides of New England in its aims and processes was typical of higher and more significant movements which are all the time going on under providence and in the unfoldings of history. That devoted woman, sitting there on her hard seat from morning till night and patiently struggling with her task, was doing in her small, human way just what God is all the time doing in his larger and diviner way.

Two constituents entered into the finished product of the loom—warp and woof. But observe how these constituents were arranged in order to secure the result of a woven web. The warp was the mass of threads which extended lengthwise and ran straight through from end to end of...