THE WORK THAT POLISHES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 17, 25 April 1901, Page 15

THE WORK THAT POLISHES.

It is the rough work that polishes. Look at the pebbles on the shore I Far inland, where some arm of the sea thrusts itself deep into the bosom of the land, and, expanding into a salt loch, lies girdled by the mountains, sheltered from the storms which agitate the deep, the pebbles on the beach are rough, not beautiful ; angular, not ronnded. It is where long white lines of breakers roar, and the rattling shingle is rolled about the strand, that its pebbles are rounded and polished. As in nature, as in arts, bo in graoe ; it is rough treatment that givflb souls, as -well as stones, their lustre ; the more the diamond is cut, the brighter it sparkles ; and in what seems hard dealing, there God has no end in view but to perfect His people's graces. Our Father, and kindest of Fathers I He afflicts not to hurt, but to help — He sends tribulations, but hear St. Paul as to their purpose : ' Tribulation worketh patience, patienoe experience, experience hope.'