Not to me
Came its renewal. I was still athirst.
"The other looked upon me graciously,
Beheld me wasted with my bitter need,
And gave me--nothing. With a face severe,
And prophet brow, he bade me quickly seek
My own hard quarry--there hew out a way
For the imprisoned waters to flow forth
Unhindered by the stubborn granite blocks
That shut them in dark channels. I sprung up,
For that I knew my Master; and I smote,
Even as Moses, my gray, barren rock,
And found sufficient help for all my house,
All my servants, all my flocks and herds."
The best friend we can have is the one, not who digs out the treasure
for us, but who teaches and inspires us with our own hands to open the
rocks and find the treasures for ourselves. The digging out of the
iron will do us more good than even the iron itself when it is dug out.
Shoes of iron are promised only to those who are to have rugged roads,
not to those whose path lies amid the flowers. There is a comforting
suggestion here for all who find peculiar hardness in their life.
Peculiar favor is pledged to them. God will provide for the ruggedness
of their way. They will have a divine blessing which would not be
theirs but for the roughness and ruggedness. The Hebrew parallelism
gives the same promise, without figure, in the remaining words of the
same verse: "As thy days so shall thy strength be.
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