A bar of steel worth five dollars, when wrought into horseshoes, is worth ten dollars.

If made into needles, it is worth three hundred and fifty dollars.

If made into into penknife blades, it is worth thirty-two thousand dollars.

If made into into springs for watches it is worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

What a drilling the poor bar must undergo to be worth this! But the more it is hammered and passed through the fire, and beaten and pounded and polished — the greater the value.

May this parable help us to be silent, still, and longsuffering. Those who suffer most are capable of yielding most; and it is through pain that God is getting the most out of us, for His glory and the blessing of others.

Life is very mysterious. Indeed it would be inexplicable unless we believed that God was preparing us for scenes and ministries that lie beyond the veil of sense in the eternal world, where highly-tempered spirits will be required for special service.

J.C. Pittman, 1917