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AN ANGEL IN THE BLOCK

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 18, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 30, No. 1.

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AN ANGEL IN THE BLOCK.

It is related of Michael Angelo that, while walking in an obscure street in the city of Florence, he discovered a fine block of marble, lying neglected in a yard, and half in dirt and rubbish. Regardless of his holiday attire, he at once fell to work upon it, clearing away its filth, and striving to lift it from the slime and mire in which it lay. His companions asked him in astonishment what he wanted of that worthless piece of rock. “Oh, there is an angel in this stone,” was the answer, “and I must get it out.” He had it removed to his studio, and with patient toil with mallet and chisel he let the angel out. What to others was but a rude, unsightly stone, to his educated eye was a buried glory of art, and he discovered at a glance what might be made of it. A mason would have put it in a stone wall; a cartman would have used it in filling in, or to grade the streets; but he transformed it into a creation of genius, and gave it a value for ages to come.
And so it is with time. Some see it only as rubbish to be disposed of. Others know no use but to fill up the gaps of toil or pleasure; but the trained eye of the devout student of Providence sees in it the sleeping or buried angel, and knows that if by the grace of God he handles it right he can bring that angel out. He can carve it into the forms of angelic service—he can shape it into a life of holy devotion till, like that which Theodore Parker admired in the missionary Judson, it is worth more than “a temple like the Parthenon.”
Without religion, it is most inevitable one should be constrained to exclaim at last, like one of the great marshals of France, “My life has been a failure.” But with it, time will be transmuted from the rough block into the glorious statue, or, rather, the living form. Consecrated aims will make it at once useful and blessed—a patch of light, but a pathway, too, to angelic glories in a higher sphere.—Sel.
How many professors are there, who would rather have sinful self satisfied than crucified.