A “BURNING-GLASS” is a glass of high magnifying power. You hold it within your thumb and finger, and let the rays of the sun pass through it, and collect in a bright spot upon a piece of paper, and very quickly the paper will smoke and kindle into a flame. A gentleman in London once tried it upon a very large scale. He had a large glass made, and the heat produced by it was so great that iron plates were melted in a few seconds.
Pieces of ice may be broken off from an iceberg as pure and clear as the most beautiful crystals. Captain Scoresby did so one day in the frozen regions, and he amused and astonished his men by using a piece of ice as a sort of burning-glass, firing gunpowder, burning wood, melting lead, and lighting the sailors’ pipes, the ice remaining clear and firm and solid all the time.
You see that the rays of the sun may be collected by, and passed through, even a piece of ice; may burn and melt other substances, and the ice remain ice still. This is a remarkable fact. Something like it is not uncommon in the present day. Many persons are very diligent in collecting money for Bibles and missionaries. Glad should I be if all my readers were working for the glory of God. But the danger is, lest, while we labor for the souls of others, we neglect our own salvation. It is very easy to collect money from others; but it is quite another thing to believe in Jesus, to pray to Him in secret, to keep our own heart with diligence.
Is it not sad to think that we may be the means of doing great good to the heathen, and that, through our exertions, many a heart may be kindled with the flame of a Saviour’s love, and, yet, before God, we may be cold and hard as a piece of ice?