Waiting blindly in its bed, the clay comforted itself with high hopes. My time will come, “it said. “I was not made to be hidden forever.”
One day the clay felt itself taken from the place where it had waited so long. A flat blade of iron passed beneath it, and tossed it into a cart, and it was carried far away over a rough, rock, road. The clay was not afraid or discouraged, for it said to itself, “This is necessary. The path to glory is always rugged.”
But the hard journey was nothing compared with the suffering and distress that came after it. The clay was put into a trough and mixed and beaten and stirred. Then it was put upon a swiftly turning wheel and whirled around. A strange power pressed and molded it. Then it was put into an oven: fires were kindled under it. Through all, the clay held itself together and endured its trials, in the hope of a great future. “Surely,” it thought,“I am intended for something very fine. Perhaps I am being fashion as the ornament of a temple or as a beautiful vase for the table of a king."
As last the baking was finished. The clay was taken from the oven and set down upon a board in the cool air under the blue sky. The suffering was past; the reward was at hand.