so small ?
It would be shown the little yellow veins of gold they were separating,
and told it that the precious gold was wanted, and if only a few
ounces were got from a ton of quartz it would amply repay them,
because they had got all that was good. It is the gold we want
to separate and preserve. And that is what God intends by trial
to separate the dross from the gold.
It is trial and suffering that God uses to bring out the good
there is hid in us. It is painful, but it is necessary. The gold
shines but little in the quartz. It is hid, and nothing but crushing
will bring it out. There is an aromatic plant waving its leaves
and flowers in the air with but little scent. There is the rough
pebble picked up on the beach we can see no beauty in it. But
put the quartz into mill and furnace, crush the aromatic plant,
cut and polish the pebble, and what follows? Bright and shining
gold from the quartz, fragrance from the crushed plant, and splendid
fair colours from
the polished pebble that has been cut.
"This leaf? This stone? It is thy heart.
It must be crushed by pain and smart,
"It must be cleansed by sorrow's art,
Ere it will yield a fragrance sweet,
Ere it will shine a jewel meet,
To lay before thy dear Lord's feet,"
This world to us is what the measured
mile is to the steamship. We are on trial. God places us here,
some good, some evil, and has plainly set before us the consequences.
If we resist the evil and choose the good - everlasting life;
if the evil, punishment and suffering. And we shall proceed to
illustrate this.
Our first parents were placed in the Garden of Eden, and permitted
to eat of every tree in the garden but one. On the day they disobeyed
and eat of it, death was to be the penalty. This was a trial,
to prove whether they would be obedient. Satan, the great enemy
of mankind, suggested to Eve, that if she eat it, she would become
wise, God knowing she would live for ever. She looked at the fruit
- how much in a look! - She saw it was "pleasant to the eye,"
and immediately the "hand," the willing servant of the
eye, "took" the fruit, eat, and gave to Adam. He likewise
ate; and thus they did not stand the trial, and both were expelled
from Eden.
An old man was sitting by the roadside in Hampshire on a heap
of flint stones, with a wire mask over his face, a hammer in his
hand, breaking flints into pieces to mend the roads. He was poor,
and had applied to the parish for help, and they had set him to
work to break these stones. It was very hard work and little pay,
and as he was toiling and
