And from its first day to its last
Still fairer grows. (Text.)
(3289)
TRIAL A MEANS OF GRACE
Troubles and afflictions are intended under the dispensation of divine grace to bring out the deeper capacities of the soul. Experiences which are calculated to deaden the careless mind will develop consecration, zeal, and devotion in the thoughtful.
Scientists subject radium to every conceivable test. In an ordinary temperature it never ceases emitting light, heat, and electricity. It was at first imagined that this perpetual threefold emanation would cease, or at any rate be diminished, if the substance were exposed to intense cold. But it was discovered that radium when immersed in liquid air, which is extremely cold, immediately evolved more light, heat, and electricity. Then it was plunged into liquid hydrogen, of which the coldness is almost incalculable and inconceivable. The radium only glowed still more intensely with its emanations of light, heat and electricity.
(3290)
TRIAL REFINES
In the English county of Cornwall are great beds of what is called “china clay.” You may take up a lump of this substance and examine it in vain with the view of discovering anything admirable or beautiful. But one day you may be traveling in the English midlands, where you may be invited to inspect the factories in which are made the exquisite Royal Worcester porcelain or the equally precious Wedgwood ware. You will be fascinated by everything you see. The same dead, cold, repellent, ugly clay you saw in Cornwall you are now admiring with ecstasy. It has been brought to the potteries, and touched by the fire, and painted by the artist, so that it rivals even the loveliest flowers in delicacy and beauty.
(3291)