"I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS."
By S.
THERE was once a rough white stone found near a rude cabin in a thinly-settled portion of the country. The children played with it by day, and left it lying by the doorstep at night. Stones of any kind were scarce there, or the children might have tossed this one into the weeds, or thrown it at some distant object and left it where it fell. One day a stranger came to the cabin. He was weary and in need of food. While waiting for an answer to his knock, he noticed the white stone and picked it up. He made known his errand to the one who answered his knock, and, while waiting for food, examined the stone closely. The children wondered at the interest he took in their plaything; the parents wondered that a man of so much seeming intelligence should spend so much time looking at a rough stone. When the stranger was ready to depart, he asked what value they placed upon the stone. "None whatever; you may take it if you wish." "No," said he, "I will not take it for nothing. I will give all I have for the stone." So saying, and in spite of their protests, he emptied his purse into the good man's hands, and took his departure. We will give the stone a tongue and let it talk through its experiences. "Why does he take me from my surroundings, from the hands of the little children who delighted to play with me? Why is he putting me in his dark wallet and carrying me so far? I don't understand this." The stranger finally reached a large city, and found a lapidary. "Polish this stone for me," he said; "make its facets many. It must be made fit to adorn the crown of the king." The lapidary went at the work. He drew various designs, and made many close and exact measurements of the rough stone. "What is all this handling for? I don't understand it at all," exclaimed the stone. The outer surface was first ground away until all the little checkings, abrasions, or corrosions of time and the elements disappeared. It was a trying process. The raspings of the emery flour, sharpened by oil, tore away the tiny particles of the stone with no seeming regard for the feelings of the stone itself. When the lapidary ceased to turn the mill, the stone said, "Now I hope this ends it. Surely I have borne enough. Never was stone afflicted and tormented as I have been." But the lapidary had his orders, and he had only begun with the stone. It was merely a smooth clear pebble now, and emitted no brilliancy whatever.5The stone was fastened to a plate, and the workman went over its entire surface with a diamond point, tracing deep the outline of the design he had drawn on paper. "Now, what is all this for?" the stone cried out. "There is no enjoyment in it. It is agony. I don't understand it at all." When the drawing was complete, the stone said, "Now I shall have peace, I hope. Surely I have suffered enough." The stone did not know that all that had so far been done was merely preliminary to the real work that the lapidary had in mind to do. The workman cemented the smooth stone to the end of a rod, and placed it in an apparatus so adjustable as to permit of the stone being held on the swiftly-revolving polishing disk at any desired angle. "I wonder what is coming now," said the stone. "Surely my afflictions have been enough. I have been ground out of all semblance to my former self. I don't understand this. I believe that an enemy is at the bottom of it all." Now the real business on the stone begins. It is held down upon the polishing disk till it would seem that the stone must burst into a thousand fragments. Then it is lifted and ground in another place, almost beyond its endurance. After the entire stone has been ground down to the engraved design of the lapidary, and it looks utterly unlike what it was when it was used for a child's plaything, another polishing disk is put on the spindle, and every separate facet of the cut stone is now burnished till the beautiful light-rays sparkle and dance over its entire surface. It has taken tedious days to do the work; but now it is finished, and the owner of the stone is called in to view the result. "It is all I could ask," he said. "I gave all for it, and it was worth the price." The beautiful stone was carefully wrapped, and sealed in a box to await the pleasure of the owner. "The first eyes that look upon it must be the eyes of my king." "I don't understand this," said the stone. "Why should I be shut away from the light when it is the light that makes me beautiful?" But the stone was left under the owner's seal until one day the owner of the gem came into the king's presence, broke the seal that had held the gem in the darkness so long, and let its luster shine forth. The king was delighted. "I will give it an honorable place in my royal crown," he said. "It is indeed fit for the brow of a king." "I did not understand this," said the gem. "I was a mere stone—a plaything for a child; I am a jewel now, with a most honored place in the crown of a king. I understand it now. My experiences were trials indeed; but they made me what I am. I suffered afflictions; they are past now, and O how small they seem! Other stones have rebelled under the grinding and the polishing, and have broken down into very inferior fragments, or have been powdered into dust to use in polishing others. I had nearly rebelled myself; but how glad I am that I allowed the process to go on till the designer's work was complete in me. Now I shall enjoy forever the presence of the king, and be a joy forever to my king and his retinue." Reader, are you permitting God to work out His design in you by the trials He permits for your polishing? He is now preparing jewels for His crown of rejoicing. Are you submitting to His process and becoming one of His jewels? or rebelling under every affliction, and so becoming of less and less worth to Him? The polisher will not permit needless affliction, for that would undo His design. Every trial, temptation, affliction, persecution, faithfully borne, will make us brighter jewels. They are the emery wheels that burnish the facets of our character that they may reflect the glorious brightness of the character of God. Every affliction or trial borne makes us more like Him, and better able to help others to bear the trials that come to them. "Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing steadfastly in prayer." "In everything commending ourselves, as ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings; . . . as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." 2 Cor. 6:4-10. "They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." Mal. 3:17. Then let us not, as children of God, say that we "don't understand this," when God permits afflictions to come upon us. He understands; and if faithful, some day we also shall understand. S.