On almost any sea beach you may see lying together smooth white
pebbles, and ragged sponges, both drying in the sun and waiting
the return of the tide. But when the tide comes and strikes the
pebbles not a drop of the water enters them, thousands of years
they have rolled up and down there, wearing smoother and growing
more impervious all the time. But at the first touch of the
incoming tide the sponges drink themselves full.
There is the same difference in men. Tides of spiritual influence flow
around some men and they keep growing harder--the same tides fill and
transform others.
(1557)
See TESTIMONY OF NATURE.