The following illustration is from a sermon by Dr. Henry Van Dyke;
The portrait of Dante is painted on the walls of the Bargello, at Florence. For many years it was supposed that the picture had utterly perished. Men had heard of it but no one living had ever seen it. But presently came an artist who was determined to find it again. He went into the place where tradition said that it had been painted. The room was used as a storeroom for lumber and straw. The walls were covered with dirty whitewash. He had the heaps of rubbish carried away, and patiently and carefully removed the whitewash from the wall. Lines and colors long hidden began to appear, and at last the grave, lofty, noble face of the great poet looked out again upon the world of light.
“That was wonderful,” you say; “that was beautiful!” Not half so wonderful as the work which Christ came to do in the heart of man—to restore the forgotten image of God and bring the divine image to the light.
(2747)
The blood of Christ is a symbol under which is often described the vitality of divine life restoring the image of God in the soul of the sinner. An illustration from nature of this process may be found in this extract:
A valuable discovery has been made whereby the faded ink on old parchments may be so restored as to render the writing perfectly legible. The process consists in moistening the paper with water, and then passing over the lines in writing a brush which has been wet in a solution of ammonia. The writing will immediately appear quite dark in color; and this color, in the case of parchment, it will preserve. On paper, however, the color gradually fades again; but it may be restored at pleasure by the application of the sulfid. The explanation of the action of this substance is very simple. The iron which enters into the composition of the ink is transformed by the reaction into black sulfid.—Electrical Review.
(2748)
See [Nature’s Recuperative Powers].
RESTORATION IN NATURE