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Writing for the Herald and Presbyter over a century ago, African-American Presbyterian poet and preacher Samuel Jackson Fisher contributed a Pauline (echoing Rom. 9:21) composition worthy of highlighting today.
Coarse is the clay in the hands of the potter,
Clay often trodden by beast or by man;
Yet on his wheel he molds it to beauty,
Shaping it lovely by skill to his plan.
Then with the charm of the great artist's power,
Slender the vase — completed by fire —
Stands in its loveliness, exquisite, pure;
But the clay is forgot in the vase we admire.Out of the sand from the pits of the hillside,
Swept by the tempest and drenched by the rain
Man can create the goblet so precious
Or mirror for beauty to answer again.
The pebbles we crush in our footsteps so careless
Genius can change into lenses of light.
Who will consider, when stars grow the clearer
The sand which has given the visions so bright?Rude are the souls born in slavery's shadow,
Dull the black faces unlighted by God,
Clay from the meadow and sand from the desert,
Image of lives long by earth's passions trod.
Truth is the potter and love is the fire,
Changing the beastlike to beauty and grace,
Souls made translucent, or polished like brass,
Fitted for heaven, reflecting God's face.
