A short time ago a few of us were visiting a great stone quarry. We went first to the finishing rooms, where were beautiful specimens of monuments, with artistic, delicate ornamental work, and perfect polish. Great building-stones, rounded pillars, and various specimens of the stonecutter's art were exhibited, and prepared for their places in some majestic structure. Outside were immense blocks of solid granite lifted up by powerful cranes; on another side, what might be called refuse was being broken up, accurately and carefully, into paving-blocks.

We approached the edge of the immense pit or quarry, whence the stone was brought. Far down were men, drilling and making ready to break off an immense block of granite. It was there the work began. The stone could be of no value until it was detached from the surrounding mass, then brought up from that great depth. Then it could be squared, chiseled, and prepared for its place- "polished after the similitude of a palace."

And is not this God's way of fashioning stones for His spiritual house? Deep down in those pits of fallen nature, held fast in the bonds of habit and of evil, He finds men. First of all, with the drills of conviction He bores down into the hard heart, and at last by the power of His Spirit and truth, that soul is broken loose, and raised up to where His fashioning work begins. "But God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." There is the detaching work done in the quarry's depth. "And hath raised us up together:" then the mighty "derrick" has lifted the soul out of the place of death and judgment. What power has done it? "According to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead."

But now the great work of fitting these living stones for their appointed place begins. Great pieces often have to be broken off, so, long-formed habits, old associations, have to be broken from the believer. The mighty hammer of God's word breaks off many a fond hope, many a favorite pleasure. Humiliating and painful it may be, but what blessed results! "We are His workmanship," and a beautiful stone is ready for its place in the temple of God," a "pillar" in that house, to go no more out forever; a monument of mercy and grace, not to be placed upon a grave, but a monument of life to display the glory of that grace which has thus made us "meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."

So let us not repine at the chisel and the drill; let us not be perturbed by the noise, or unduly discouraged by the dust. The end will be praise to the great Workman:"That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." S. R.