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MAKING US WHITE

“What have I done that I must suffer so?” “Must I always bear such humiliation?” We answer that God puts a high estimate upon “the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” A proprietor pulls down his old house and tears up the lilacs and cherry trees, and plows and seeds his ground anew, to make a fitting place for a better home. But how would the green grass sob, and the shrubbery shriek, could its story be heard. Suffering is not always a penalty. It is often corrective. It is educative. Purifying, training and glorifying, in its nature, it must go forward until the end. An old captain on an ocean steamer says, “A little head wind is good; it makes the furnace draw.” Patience is beautiful and useful, but it means something to be patient about. It is like the night blooming cereus; it comes only to perfection in darkness, and when midnight is densest. At one end of yonder paper machine is a pile of beautiful white paper. How the rags would scream at their scouring, and grinding, and pressing, and crushing. But see the result! So, Christian, see what blessed things are intended to reward your trials.—American Wesleyan.

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— October, 1883 —