BE A UTY FOR ASHES. 37 1 



could be made human." It certainly refines the rudest 

 nature ; its mystery lies at the root of all art and liter- 

 ature, of all the high life and progress of the world ; and 

 when sanctified it elevates the humblest sinner into a 

 companionship in the kingdom and patience of Jesus 

 Christ. Fairer than the moss that spreads its soft 

 velvet pall over the cold ashes of the deserted hearth ; 

 more precious than the delicate verdure of spring that 

 covers over and obliterates the deaths and decays of 

 autumn, is the moral beauty that comes out of the ashes 

 of worldly loss and mortal pain and dark bereavement. 

 On the most awful battlefields of life grow the greenest 

 pastures of peace ; on the fierce lava streams that have 

 desolated the heart, bloom the sweetest virtues and 

 flourish the peaceable fruits of righteousness. As 

 Nature spreads over her trap-rocks a bright garniture 

 of lichen, moss, and wild-flower, making what had been 

 the product of fiery convulsions that had shaken the 

 whole earth to its foundations the most picturesque 

 features in the landscape : so the Spirit of God lays His 

 rich adornment of grace upon the greatest difficulties 

 and the most disturbing trials, subduing them into har- 

 mony with heavenly things, and making the life in 

 which they occur more attractive and useful. The pure 

 white snow of the Divine peace falls upon that volcanic 

 grief which lifts the soul highest to heaven ; and where 

 the lurid flames of pain and passion vent forth their 

 intolerable heat and their devastating fire-streams, the 

 radiance of sunrises and sunsets, burning low, falls 

 softly and innocently as the crimson stain on the snow 



