Do you know the lovely fact about the opal: that, in the first place, it is made of desert dust, sand and silica, and owes its beauty and preciousness to a defect? It is a stone with a broken heart. It is full of minute fissures, which admit air, and the air refracts the light. Hence, its lovely hues and that sweet “lamp of fire” that ever burns at its heart, for the breath of the Lord is in it. You are only conscious of the cracks and desert sand, but so He makes His precious opals.

We must be broken in ourselves before we can give back the lovely hues of His light, and the lamp of the Temple can burn in us and never go out. E LLICE HOPKINS

Then hush! oh, hush! for the Father knows what thou knowest not, The need and the thorn and the shadow linked with the fairest lot; Knows the wisest exemption from many an unseen snare, Knows what will keep thee nearest, knows what thou could’st not bear.

Hush! oh, hush! for the Father portioneth as He will, To all His beloved children, and shall they not be still? Is not His will the wisest, is not His choice the best? And in perfect acquiescence is there not perfect rest?

Hush! oh, hush! for the Father, whose ways are true and just, Knoweth and careth and loveth, and waits for thy perfect trust; The cup He is slowly filling shall soon be full to the brim, And infinite compensations for ever be found in Him.

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL