The following illustration is from a sermon by Dr. Henry Van Dyke;
The portrait of Dante is painted on the walls of the Bargello,
at Florence. For many years it was supposed that the picture had
utterly perished. Men had heard of it but no one living had ever
seen it. But presently came an artist who was determined to find
it again. He went into the place where tradition said that it
had been painted. The room was used as a storeroom for lumber
and straw. The walls were covered with dirty whitewash. He had
the heaps of rubbish carried away, and patiently and carefully
removed the whitewash from the wall. Lines and colors long
hidden began to appear, and at last the grave, lofty, noble face
of the great poet looked out again upon the world of light.
“That was wonderful,” you say; “that was beautiful!” Not half so
wonderful as the work which Christ came to do in the heart of
man--to restore the forgotten image of God and bring the divine
image to the light.
(2747)
* * * * *
The blood of Christ is a symbol under which is often described the
vitality of divine life restoring the image of God in the soul of the
sinner. An illustration from nature of this process may be found in
this extract:
A valuable discovery has been made whereby the faded ink on
old parchments may be so restored as to render the writing
perfectly legible. The process consists in moistening the paper
with water, and then passing over the lines in writing a brush
which has been wet in a solution of ammonia. The writing will
immediately appear quite dark in color; and this color, in the
case of parchment, it will preserve. On paper, however, the
color gradually fades again; but it may be restored at pleasure
by the application of the sulfid. The explanation of the action
of this substance is very simple. The iron which enters into the
composition of the ink is transformed by the reaction into black
sulfid.--_Electrical Review._
(2748)
See NATURE’S RECUPERATIVE POWERS.