Rough Work

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 16, 1873

It is rough work that polishes. Look at the pebbles on the shore! Far inland, where some arm of the sea thrusts itself into a salt loch, lies girdled by the mountains, and sheltered from the storm that agitates the deep, the pebbles on the shore are rough, not beautiful; angular, not rounded. It is where the long, white line of breakers roar, and the rattling shingle is rolled about the strand, that its pebbles are rounded and polished. As in nature, as in art, so in grace; it is rough treatment that gives souls as well as stones, their luster. The more the diamond is cut, the brighter it sparkles; and in what seems hard dealing, their God has no end in view but to perfect his people.—Dr. Guthrie.