in our character,
is a rough place in the stone, which must be chiselled off. All the
crooked lines must be straightened. Our lives must be cut and hewn
until they conform to the perfect standard of divine truth.

Quarry-work is not always pleasant. If stones had hearts and
sensibilities, they would sometimes cry out in sore pain as they feel
the hammer strokes and the deep cutting of the chisel. Yet the workman
must not heed their cries and withdraw his hand, else they would at
last be thrown aside as worthless blocks, never to be built into the
place of honor.

We are not stones; we have hearts and sensibilities, and we do cry out
ofttimes as the hammer smites away the roughnesses in our character.
But we must yield to the sore work and let it go on, or we shall never
have our place as living stones in Christ's beautiful temple. We must
not wince under the sharp chiselling of sorrow. Says Dr. T. T.
Munger:--

"When God afflicts thee, think he hews a rugged stone
Which must be shaped, or else aside as useless thrown."

There is still another suggestion from this singular temple-building.
Every individual life has its quarries where are shaped the blocks
which afterward are built into character, or which take form in acts.
Schools are the quarries, where, through years of patient study, the
materials for life are prepared, the mind is disciplined, habits are
formed, knowledge is gained, and power is stored. Later, in active
life, the temple rises without noise of hammer or axe. Homes are
quarries where children are trained, where moral truth is lodged in the
heart, where the elements of character are hewn out like fair stones,
to appear in the life in after days, when it grows up among men.

Then there are the thought-quarries back of what people see in every
human life. Men must be silent thinkers before their words or deeds
can have either great beauty or power. Extemporaneousness anywhere is
of small value. Glib, easy talkers, who are always ready to speak on
any subject, who require no time for preparation, may go on chattering,
forever, but their talk is only chatter. The words that are worth
hearing come out of thought-quarries where they have been wrought
ofttimes in struggle and anguish. Father Ryan, in one of the most
exquisite of his poems, writes of the "valley of silence" where he
prepares the songs he afterwards sings:--

"In the hush of the valley of silence
I dream all the