Antonio Strativari and His Magnificent Violin:

    Antonio Strativari: (1644-1737) was no musician, but he contributed more than most musicians to the production of  classical music. He made the most sought-after violins of all time. If we could compare the matter to the spiritual, great music could be likened to the Word, and the instrument (violin) to the gentle influences of the Holy Spirit. F.B. Meyer remarks of Stradivari's violin by writing:

UNITY OF A VIOLIN. — "Take the Stradivarius violin. He went out

in the forests, around about him, and selected more than forty different kinds of wood ; he had trained himself by the eye and touch so that he could detect the density of the wood, its age, and fiber, and estimate its resonant faculty, so that he knew just where to put each of those different kinds of wood in the violin. The belly and back, the sides, the bridge, the bottom, the neck and head, the keys, all made of different kinds of wood, so that the proper equilibrium might be maintained in all parts of the violin, and the most perfect harmony and responsiveness. I have no hesitation in saying that the violin is the most perfect instrument ever made." — F. B. Meyer.

 Separating the Wheat from the Chaff:

"He will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 

 Matthew 3:12

While living in Korea, I observed often the grains of rice being separated from the chaff. The rice, husks and all, would be piled onto a smooth surface. The process required a windy day to be beneficial. The grains were thrown up into the air with a device called, in the Latin, a tribulatim. The wind would carry the husks away and the pure grains would fall back to the earth. 

I compare this process to the work of the Holy Spirit in separating the elect of God from the chaff of the world. Tribulation is often the tool, and the Winds of the Holy Spirit the means, by which God discerns the difference between the two.

 PRESIDENTIAL QUOTES - GERALD R. FORD:

 Preambles to Constitutions of the Satets of the Union: KANSAS

THE FAMILY ALTAR

May 27.

But deliver us from evil. Matt. 6, 18.

"We pray in this petition, as the sum of all, that our Father

in heaven would deliver us from every evil of body and soul,

property and honor, and, finally, when our last hour has come,

grant us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this vale of

tears to Himself in heaven." What a warm response this touching

explanation of Luther finds in our hearts when long illness con-

fines us to a bed of suffering, or when old age comes upon us, and

the shadows grow longer and darker, and we long to lay down

the weary burden ! Then we often grow homesick for heaven and

sigh with old Valerius Herberger: "Farewell! I say with glad-

ness, False, evil world, farewell! Thy life is sin and sadness,

With thee I would not dwell; In heaven are better pleasures,

I long for that bright sphere Where God grants endless treasures

To those that served Him here." It is true, we still have the

journey through the dark valley of death before us, and our poor

flesh shrinks from its gloomy aspect. But we also have the sure

promise: "He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven"

— the last, in death — "there shall no evil touch thee." Dying

grace will be given us for our dying day that we can confidently

say with David j "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow

of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod

and Thy staff, they comfort me." "Verily, verily, I say unto you,

If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death," says our

faithful Savior.

Dear heavenly Father, we are Thy pilgrims and strangers here, as

our fathers were before us. But we thank Thy great mercy in which Thou

hast prepared also for us a rest in Thy blessed home above. O we pray

Thee, Take Thou our hands and lead us O'er life's rough way, With heavenly

manna feed us From day to day. And: When our last hour cometh,

Fraught with strife and pain, When our dust re'turneth To the dust again;

On Thy truth relying, Through that mortal strife, Father, take us, dying,

To eternal life, for Jesus' sake. Amen.