As we walk beside the hills that have been so violently shaken by a severe earthquake, we realize that times of complete calm follow those of destruction.

In fact, pools of clear, still water lie in the valley beneath the fallen rocks of those hills as water lilies reflect their beauty to the sky.

The reeds along the streams whisper in the wind, and the village rises once again, forgetting the graves of the past.

And the church steeple, still bright after weathering the storm, proclaims a renewed prayer for protection from Him who holds the corners of the earth in His hands and gives strength to the hills. JOHN RUSKIN

God plowed one day with an earthquake, And drove His furrows deep! The huddled plains upstarted, The hills were all aleap! But that is the mountains’ secret, Long hidden in their breast; “God’s peace is everlasting,” Are the dream words of their rest.

He made them the haunts of beauty, The home chosen for His grace; He spreads forth His mornings upon them, His sunsets light their face.

His winds bring messages to them— Strong storm-news from the main; They sing it down the valleys In the love song of the rain.

They are nurseries for young rivers, Nests for His flying cloud, Homesteads for newborn races, Masterful, free, and proud.

The people of tired cities Come up to their shrines and pray; God freshens them within again, As He passes by all day.

And lo, I have caught their secret! The beauty deeper than all! This faith—that life’s hard moments, When the jarring sorrows befall, Are but God plowing His mountains; And those mountains yet will be The source of His grace and freshness, And His peace everlasting to me.

WILLIAM C. GARNETT

My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.—Even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.—He maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.—Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.—I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.

He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.—He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.