The Gospel Plowshare

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 27, 1911

The Gospel Plowshare

A COMMON, every-day farm plow was used recently in unloading a cargo of niter from the hold of a vessel as she lay at a San Francisco dock. The entire fifteen hundred tons of niter had frozen into one solid mass, which was very hard. Explosives could not be used, and picks and shovels were too slow. As a joke, a bystander suggested using a plow. A good-sized plow was secured, and it loosened the niter as fast as a big gang could shovel it into the steel bucket. This is probably the only instance on record where a ship's cargo was discharged in this way.

So there are sins which have hardened and frozen deep down in the hold of the human heart. The ordinary processes of moral reform are too slow to make any headway at reformation. The only instrument with which to uproot them is the keen plowshare of the gospel.—Selected.