Bible Truths Illustrated by J. C. Ferdinand Pittman

BIBLE TRUTHS ILLUSTRATED
above the winds, above the trees, almost above the flight of the
birds ! Here I rest, age after age, and nothing disturbs me !"
Yet, what is it? It is only a bare block of granite, jutting out
of the cliff, and its happiness is the happiness of death. By and
by comes the miner, and with strong and repeated strokes he
drills a hole in its top, and the rock says, "What does this mean?"
Then the black powder is poured in, and, with a blast that
makes the mountain echo, the block is blown asunder, and goes
crashing down into the valley. Ah !" it exclaims as it falls,
"why this rending f" Then some saws to cut and fashion it;
and humbled now, and willing to be nothing, it is borne away
from the mountain and conveyed to the city. Now it is chiselled
and polished, till, at length, finished in beauty, by block and tackle
it is raised with mighty hoistings, high in air, to be the top stone
on some monument of the country's glory. H. W. Beecher.
16. "Close to Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, is a bell-buoy marking
a concealed rock. This bell rings only in the storm. It is only
when the wind is high and the billows roll and beat against it
that it gives forth the music that is in it."
17. "We are apt to believe in Providence so long as we have
our own way; but if things go awry, then we think, if there is
a God, He is in heaven, and not on earth. The cricket in the
spring builds his little house in the meadow, and chirps for joy
because all is going so well with him. But when he hears the
sound of the plough a few furrows off, and the thunder of the
oxen's tread, then the skies begin to look dark, and his heart
fails him. The plough comes crunching along and turns his
dwelling bottom side up, and as he goes rolling over and over
without a home, he says, 'Oh, the foundations of the world are
destroyed, and it is going to ruin !" But the husbandman who
walks behind the plough, singing and whistling as he goes, does
he think the foundations of the world are breaking up? Why,
he does not so much as know there was any house or cricket
there. He thinks of the harvest which is to follow the track
of the plough: and the cricket, too, if he will but wait, will
find a thousand blades of grass where there was but one before.
We are like the crickets. If anything happens to overthrow our
plans, we think all is going to ruin."
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