p. 11 | WALTER CRANDALL by Walter Crandall

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 7, 1930

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 57, No. 39.

WALTER CRANDALL

By Walter Crandall

Fog

WALTER CRANDALL

ONE evening a few nights ago a fog settled down over the city of Washington, blanketing it as a mother tucks in her babe. Pedestrians “felt” their way along hazy streets, while motorists cut zigzag trails down wide avenues.

There is nothing remarkable about fog. It is only a cloud come down to earth, perhaps the same fleecy cloud of the day, which has melted out, to re-form on the earth at night. But what a contrast!

People remark about both—the beauty of the one and the blight of the other. They do not pause to remember that in cursing fog they curse the thing that a few hours before they may have blessed!

It seems ever so with beautiful things. The charm and enchantment that grow through distance become charmed with the commonplace when they reach our door. Even the rose loses its beauty if we tear away its petals to see its heart. The snow that lends its purity to that upon which it falls can blind the eye that looks too close and long.

It isn’t the rose that’s at fault because we tear away its petals, and thus kill its beauty. Nor does the snow inflict pain because it is pure. Rather, it is we who look too close, in order to question why or how it got that way. So senseless are we become that good things of themselves now fail to please. Indeed, we must needs go and tear the heart out of things, or scrape their surface, or bounce them up and down to learn if they are real. We forget that God above, in all the grandeur of His firmament, has never been seen of man, except the glory of His presence.