Received in faith, the bitter trials and fiery afflictions we sometimes experience bring joy to our hearts for they are our music in the making. They are the notes that make up the symphony of our lives. Composed and directed by the Master of Music Himself, this glorious melody is the sweetest music on earth, and it is much more precious than fine gold!

Many of the sweetest joys of Christian hearts are songs which have been learned in the bitterness of trial. Many a cold, icy nature is made warm and tender by the grief that crushes it. --J. R. Miller.

There is a legend that tells of a German baron who at his castle on the Rhine, stretched wires from tower to tower, that the winds might convert them into an aeolian harp. And the soft breezes played about the castle, but no music was born.

But one night there arose a great tempest, and hill and castle were smitten by the fury of the mighty winds. The baron went to the threshold to look out upon the terror of the storm, and the aeolian harp was filling the air with strains that rang out even above the clamor of the tempest. It needed the tempest to bring out the music!

And have we not known men whose lives have not given out any entrancing music in the day of a calm prosperity, but who, when the tempest drove against them have astonished their fellows by the power and strength of their music?

 >How an old harper dotes on his harp! How he fondles and caresses it, as a child resting on his bosom! His life is bound up in it. But, see him tuning it. He grasps it firmly, strikes a chord with a sharp, quick blow; and while it quivers as if in pain, he leans over intently to catch the first note that rises. The note, as he feared, is false and harsh. He strains the chord with the torturing thumbscrew; and though it seems ready to snap with the tension, he strikes it again, bending down to listen softly as before, till at length you see a smile on his face as the first true tone trembles upward.

So it may be that God is dealing with you. Loving you better than any harper loves his harp. He finds you a mass of jarring discords. He wrings your heartstrings with some torturing anguish; He bends over you tenderly, striking and listening; and, hearing only a harsh murmur, strikes you again, while His heart bleeds for you, anxiously waiting for that strain--'Not my will, but thine be done'--which is melody sweet to His ear as angels' songs. Nor will He cease to strike until your chastened soul shall blend with all the pure and infinite harmonies of His own being. --Selected.