p. 11 | The Robes of Righteousness

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 31, 1908

The Robes of Righteousness

A BELOVED pastor once made use of a beautiful illustration. A naturalist one day was studying a cocoon, in which a butterfly was struggling to be free. He heard it beating against the sides of its little prison, and his heart went out in pity for the helpless creature. Taking a tiny lancet he cut away the fragile walls and released the little captive. But to his amazement it was not the beautiful creature that he had expected to see. It lay struggling upon the table, unable to walk, unable to fly, a helpless, unlovely object. In place of the gorgeously colored wings that he had expected to see, there were only weak, shriveled members.

What was the matter with this creature that should have been so fair?—The prison gates had been opened too soon, the obstacle had been removed before the struggler had developed sufficiently through the struggling to be ready for its glorious flight into the sunshiny skies and among the perfumed flowers.

O God! when the walls seem to close about us, when we struggle and agonize to be free, when thou dost not cut away the barriers, is it not because, in thine infinite wisdom, thou dost see that we are weak and dost want us to become strong? Then, at last, when the struggle is finished, like the butterfly, we may come forth, not perhaps in glorious robes of splendid colors as it is, but in the everlasting robes of righteousness.—Selected.