The Prized Treasures

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  “Will the prized treasures of today always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house? . . . .   The “sampler” that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as “tapestry of the Victorian era,” and be almost priceless. The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the “Presents from Ramsgate,” and “Souvenirs of Margate,” that may have escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.” Jerome K. Jerome, “T...

Invasion

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“The most effective prayer for a heart-hungry believer is an Old Testament petition found in the Psalms of David (Psalms 139:23-24):

'Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my thoughts;
And see if there be a way of grief in me,
And lead me in the way of eternity.'

I never fully understood the significance of this prayer until I heard the verse translated into the Scandinavian tongues. There the word “search” is rendered “ransack”. It takes little imagination to picture the thoroughness of a job of ransacking as compared to mere searching. Ransacking turns things upside down and brings to light things that are hidden or forgotten. In time of backsliding, the Spirit is quenched, and as life goes on the natural tendency is for a convicted person to forget the unpleasant episode. In conviction of sin, the debris of ordinary living is swept aside and the offending thing is brought to attention. Hence, if the believers are to avoid superficiality in confession, a thorough ransacking of the heart is necessary.”

J. Edwin Orr, Chapter 4, “The Searching of the Heart,” Full Surrender.

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