1 Sermon Illustrations on Overcoming

I once took a nugget to a gold-melter to be assayed. A friend in the trade explained to me that it was not enough to subject the metal in the crucible to the greatest heat from under the pot: this would only heat the gold to the furnace-heat, but could not melt it into fluid, until the charcoal was put on the top of the crucible as well as under it; and then it would be molten. "Thus," said he, "the Christian is bidden to soften down and subdue his hardest adversary in the scriptural metaphor taken from our trade,—'If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for, in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head,' i.e., effectually melt and overcome him."

— J. B. Owen