ICE BROKEN: ICE MELTED.
By Jos. CLARKE
In our periodicals we frequently find a column filled out with a short, pointed paragraph, full of meaning. In a late Health Reformer we read such an item as above described. It is this: “There are two kinds of repentance. One is that of Judas, the other that of Peter. The one is ice broken, the other is ice melted. Repentance unto life will be repentance in the life.” How do we see the workings of this principle? In the breaking of iron or other hard metal, the lump may be reduced to fragments; but let it be melted, and it may be cast in the most desirable, tasteful, or useful form. So with an offending brother. You may break him in pieces by hastiness, but you have only reduced him to fragments, so to speak. No particular good is done; and perhaps harm may follow; but melt him by love, submit him to Bible principles, as the mould in which he is to be re-cast, and you soon recognize the features of the Christian. Let us all lay aside the breaking process, and use only that of melting; and let us first become such as have gone through this experience ourselves; then our influence will melt and subdue. The writer of this does not suppose that no one has already tried this method, but too many of us have hammered, when we should have warmed.
JOS. CLARKE.