“I have seen the characters of the writing remain on paper that the flames had turned into a film of buoyant coal; I have seen the thread that had passed through the fire retain, in the cold gray ashes, the twist it had got in spinning; I have found every shivered splinter of the flint as hard as the unbroken stone; and, let trials come, in providence, sharp as the fire, and ponderous as the crushing hammer, unless God send with these something else than these, bruised, broken, bleeding as the heart may be, it remains the same.”—GUTHRIE.
