| Dr. J.R. Miller | Page 12 |
Therefore, instead of worrying over the rough, stern, and severe things in his environment, a hearty, wholesome boy ought to set to work to master them, and in mastering them get strength and victoriousness for his own life. A connoisseur in gems brought a large, beautiful onyx to a fine artist, and said: “See how clear, pure, and transparent this stone is. What a fine one for your skill, were it not for this one fatal blemish!”
Then he showed the lapidary at one point an under lying tinge of iron-rust, which, he said, made the stone almost worthless.
But the artist took it, and with matchless skill and delicacy wrought upon the stone, carving on it the graceful figure of a lovely goddess. By most ingenious and patient use of his engraving tool, he fashioned it so that what had seemed an irreparable blemish was made into a leopard-skin, on which rested the feet of the goddess the contrasting colors enhancing the beauty of the cameo.
This illustrates what we may do with the hard things in our condition, what God would have us do with them. We think we can never make anything beautiful and worthy of our life, with the many discouraging things, the obstinate hindrances, there are in our lot. Really, however, we can make our life all the nobler, richer, greater, stronger, worthier, by means of the very things which, we think, ruin our chances. We can so carve the stone that the iron-rust which seems to mar it shall prove one of its finest features when mastered and wrought into its own place.
That is the way to treat hard and discouraging things in our lot. It is useless to fret over them, fretting will never remove them, and it only weakens our energy and mars our life. There is no other such enemy to noble living and heroic achievement as worrying. But if we meet the hindrances and discouragements with undismayed courage, with persistent resolve, and with unconquerable energy, we shall master them, and in mastering them carve royalty of character and noble worth for ourselves.
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