He was a man I looked upon;
He still that early impress wore.
And I could change him never more.(Text.)
(1555)
IMPRESSION BY PRACTISE
A native Korean, who was told to memorize the entire Sermon on the Mount, did so with remarkable exactness. When asked how he accomplished it, he said: “My teacher told me to learn it with my heart as well as with my memory, so I hit on this plan. I would try to memorize a verse, and then find a heathen neighbor of mine and practise it on him. I found the verse would stick after I had done that, and I couldn’t forget a word of it.”
(1556)
IMPRESSIONS
On almost any sea beach you may see lying together smooth white pebbles, and ragged sponges, both drying in the sun and waiting the return of the tide. But when the tide comes and strikes the pebbles not a drop of the water enters them, thousands of years they have rolled up and down there, wearing smoother and growing more impervious all the time. But at the first touch of the incoming tide the sponges drink themselves full.
There is the same difference in men. Tides of spiritual influence flow around some men and they keep growing harder—the same tides fill and transform others.