THE DISCIPLINE OF SORROW.
If the block of marble that lies before the sculptor was capable of feeling, how it would deplore and bemoan every stroke of the hammer, chipping off piece after piece of substance. It would deem its lot a pitiable one indeed. Yet the hammer and chisel are transforming the rough and shapeless stone into a form of life, grace, and beauty, fit to adorn the palace of a king. So it is with us. Our characters are like unhewn blocks of marble, rude, misshapen, comparatively worthless; and God is sculpturing them into forms of divine symmetry and beauty, that may forever illustrate to the universe the power of his grace. The heavy blow of adversity and the rasping cares and petty annoyances of our daily life are but different parts of the same divine and loving process. And shall we look simply at the hammer and chisel, and doubt the glorifying work for which God is using them? Shall we think only of the chips which the blows of his presence strike from us, and overlook the immortal characters which the Great Sculptor is seeking thus to perfect for his celestial temple?—Selected.