HARD KNOCKS by Sunday

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 16, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 44.

HARD KNOCKS.

By Sunday

HERE is a lesson from an iron bar: A bar of iron that costs $5.00, worked into horseshoes is worth $12.50; made into needles it is worth $350; made into pen-knife blades it is worth $3,000; made into balance springs for watches it is worth $250,000! What a drilling the poor bar must undergo to reach all that; but hammered and beaten, and pounded, and rolled, and polished, how is its value increased! It might well have quivered and complained under the hard knocks it got, but were they not all necessary to draw out its fine qualities and fit it for higher offices! And so all the drilling and training which you are subject to in youth, and which often seem so hard to you, serve to bring out your nobler and finer qualities, and fit you for more responsible posts and greater usefulness.