that is still waiting
to be trodden by feet sturdy and bold enough to go on down into the
shadows, before the upward turn is reached again. And these threads will
work out a rare beauty in the pattern being woven.

Is there perfect music without the underchording of the minor? Not to
human ears. For they are attuned to life as it has really come to be. And
the minor chord is in real life, never quite absent; and the minor chord
is in the true human heart, never wholly absent. And only the music with
the minor blended in is the real music of human life. Only it can play
upon the finest strings of the human heart.

But this sort of thing, the getting of beauty out of ugly threads, the
getting of music where there is discord, the upward turn again of the
valley road, all this is a bit of the touch of God upon life, where the
hurt of sin has come in. Only the Lord Jesus can make music where sin had
brought in and wrought out such discord. Only He can change the weaving
into beauty, where the ugly slimy sin-threads have come in. He can lead up
again out of the depths, but only He. His blood, Himself, is the thing
added that makes music where no melody had ever been a possible thing; and
gives the weaver's threads the transforming touch that works beauty where
there was only the ugly; and pulls you up again to the higher levels. The
good never comes out of bad. It comes only by something radically
different coming in and overcoming the bad.

In Seoul they showed us the great bell hung at the crossing of certain
chief streets there. And then they told us the bell's legend. In early
twilight times an artisan had made a great bell at the king's command, but
the tone of it was not pleasing to the royal ears. So a second one was
made, and a third, but neither was satisfactory. Then the king said that
if the man did not make a bell with pleasing tones his life should be
forfeited for his failure. This was very distressing for the poor
unfortunate bell-moulder.

His daughter, a young girl in her teens, either had a vision, or felt
within herself that a sacrifice was the thing needful to give the bell its
true tone. And so she resolved to give herself to save her father, and
with rare fortitude one night she plunged into the great pot of molten
metal. And the tone of the bell was so sweet and musical that the king was
delighted. And the maker, instead of being killed, was highly honoured. So
ran the simple bit of Korean folklore.