Potter's field

“ A little farther on is a potter spinning a wheel with his feet, while the soft lump of dull-coloured clay takes shape beneath his clever thumb as it races round. It seems to grow and swell and curve exquisitely as if it were a living thing. There are few sights more fascinating than a potter at work. ”

“ There he dwells and there they mould him to their own fashion, as the potter moulds his clay, though whatever the shape he seems to take beneath their fingers, still he remains the god infinite and unalterable. ”

“ His craft was not beyond that of a very clever potter, capable of kneading clay beings in the manner of pots, such as we men are now. What I say is not to slight him, because such work is still much beyond human power. ”

“ We broke down innumerable times in the dismal recesses of the forests, were sheltered and fed by the kind Samaritans who inhabited the wilderness, where snow and ice-clothed field and dell, and where Winter seemed too firmly established ever again to yield to Spring's soft influences.
The day was dark and dreary upon our arrival at Pittsburg. Smoke hung like a pall over town and country, and but for the sociability and hospitality that reigns within doors, Pittsburg would be the gloomiest of places. ”

“ Therefore, in less than an hour, he would know all, since the day was dying down quickly; smothered in a hot haze-like smoke. There was not a shadow anywhere; only a dull darkness growing momentarily as the dull darkness had grown upon her mind day by day. For all that she had the power; the potter might mould the clay, the palace folk might plot and plan, but she, the woman with the evil eye, was stronger than they! ”

“ The spirits of the Saints will be gathered in one, that is, of all who are worthy; and those who are not just will be left where they will be scourged, tormented, and afflicted, until they can bring their spirits into subjection and be like clay in the hands of the potter, that the potter may have power to mould and fashion them into any kind of vessel, as he is directed by the Master Potter. ”

“ The modern potter is, if less patient, more fortunate in that the course has been marked out with more or less accuracy and, if the landmarks of science be heeded, a certain degree of success may be attained. ”

“ A potter, you know, children, is a man who makes all sorts of things, dishes and tiles and vases, out of china and porcelain and clay. So the family had always called the stove Hirschvogel, after the potter, just as if it were alive. ”

“ We should be like the clay in the hands of the potter. Bless your souls, that is just as true a figure as can be presented before a people, if they ever saw a potter work; but if they never saw one work, they do not know what course he takes, any more than a person knows about a mill that never saw one. ”

“ Yet some people who have it not are happy; for instance, the two hundred and odd millions of India--but then to them Birth and Death are alike the pivot on which the wheel of life spins.
So thought the potter of Hodinuggur. So had thought his fathers who lay buried in the dust beside him, and though the old man had no son to step on to the treadles when his feet slipped from them, the wheel span steadily, and the women of the village, as they rung the temper of the water-jars before they bought them, nodded their heads saying--'Fuzl is a good potter. Look you, it comes with a man's birth. ”

“ It is an admitted canon of the road-making art, that a road ought to be so hard and smooth that wheels will roll easily over it and not sink into it, so dry and compact that rain will not affect it beyond making it dirty, and its component parts so firmly moulded together that the sun cannot convert them into deep dust. Therefore the travelled part of an earth-road should not be composed of loam fertile enough for a corn-field, nor of sand deep enough for a beach. If the road runs through sandy land, it can be greatly and cheaply improved by covering it with a few inches of clayish soil ”

“ Well, this is the course for us to take, to be like clay in the hands of the potter. Who is the potter? God our Father is the great potter, the head potter, and brother Brigham is one of His servants, to preside over this pottery here in the flesh; and his word is the word of God to this people, and to those that he has called to assist him in this great work. ”

“ He made His voice to sound, and the deities came into being, and the gods sprang into existence after He had spoken with His mouth. He formed mankind and fashioned the gods. He is the great Master, the primeval Potter Who turned men and gods out of His hands, and He formed men and gods upon a potter's table.
"The heavens rest upon His head, and the earth supporteth His feet; heaven hideth His spirit, the earth hideth His form, and the underworld shutteth up the mystery of Him within it. ”

“ The aptitude of the potter’s clay for a display of skill, alike in modelling and in tracing on the surface imitative designs and ornamental patterns, renders the fictile ware of widely different eras a ready test of æsthetic feeling, as well as a trustworthy guide to the age and race of its artificers. ”

“ Nay, it is as if the clay should be in such a heat and passion with the potter as to tell him that he has no hands, or that he works as awkwardly as if he had none. "Shall the clay pretend to be wiser than the potter and therefore to advise him, or mightier than the potter and therefore to control him?" ”

“ Steadily, swiftly it sped to take its place as sentinel at those high gates; to bar the roads of the sky; to ride the clouds a challenger, a champion, a winged guardian, steadfast, courageous, eagerly dauntless....
Potter felt the splendor of it; it uplifted him. Soaring there above the lake, he knew a strange sense of detachment from the fetters of the flesh. He felt, not like a man, liable to weaknesses, ills, death, but like an immortal upon a mission for Olympus. ”

“ Lighter than it had been, however, because of the suggestion of a moon low down in the heat-haze. And there was the potter's lamp twinkling like a star above the domed shadow of the Hodinuggur mound. Queer old chap--queer start the whole thing--if one came to think of it. A crazy, irresponsible creator! as Dan had called him. Why not he as well as another? ”

“ An hour passed, and the white light of the moon crept slowly over the shepherd's head into the far corners of the room. Charmides lay with closed eyes and lips compressed, the vision growing clearer and his task more intricate. Mere words began to be inadequate. How many men, how many women, how many lifeless things, even, have been extolled in matchless syllables? ”

“ It is for them to provide for their household, and watch over them, and govern and control them; they are potters to mould you, and when you are sent forth to the nations of the earth, you go to gather the clay, and bring it here to the great potter, to be ground and moulded until it becomes passive, and then be taken and formed into vessels, according to the dictation of the presiding potter. ”

“ If man is relatively to God as an earthen vase, this vase owes neither thanks nor adoration to the potter who gave him so insignificant a form. If this power is displeased with his own vessel because he formed it badly, or because it is not fit for the uses he intended, the potter, if he is not an [Pg 109] irrational being, can only blame himself for the defects which appear. ”

“ As the clay is in the potter's hand to be moulded and shaped as he pleases, so are you in my hand. This intimates, 1. That God has an incontestable sovereignty over us, is not debtor to us, may dispose of us as he thinks fit, and is not accountable to us, and that it would be as absurd for us to dispute this as for the clay to quarrel with the potter. 2. That it is a very easy thing with God to make what use he pleases of us and what changes he pleases with us, and that we cannot resist him. ”

“ THE POTTER
Once a potter was journeying on his road with his goods and dozed off. The Tsar Iván Vasílgevich came driving by in his carriage and said, "Peace be to you!"
The potter looked up and said, "I thank you very much and wish you the same."
"Have you been asleep?"
"Yes, my lord. Do not fear a man who sings songs; but fear a man who slumbers!"
"You are a bold fellow, potter: I have seen very few such, and I like them. Coachman, slower! Potter, tell me, have you been long at your trade?" ”

“ The great Master Potter dictates His servants, and it is for them to carry out His purposes, and make vessels according to His designs; and when they have done the work, they deliver it up to the Master for His acceptance; and if their works are not good, He does not accept them; the only works He accepts, are those that are prepared according to the design He gave. God will not be trifled with; neither will His servants; their words have got to be fulfilled, and they are the men that are to mould you, and tell you what shape to move in. ”

“ That the potter should be angry with his pots is certainly inconceivable; but when you once attempt to trace the supernatural in life, it undoubtedly follows that God is not only weak with the creatures he has made, but punishes the innocent for the guilty. ”

“ Indeed, paradoxical as it may sound to say so, one may reasonably doubt whether there was ever actually any one single man on whom one could definitely lay one's finger, and say with confidence, Here we have the first potter. Pottery, no doubt, like most other things, grew by imperceptible degrees from wholly vague and rudimentary beginnings. ”

“ It made me think of the way God evolved this beautiful world out of chaos at first. There is this difference, that the potter uses mechanical power, and he uses his hands, whereas God uses only His word and will. ”

“ That man or woman who will not learn the principle of subjection, and become like clay in the hands of the potter, will be led astray by these spirits; and if not by these spirits, something will come by and by with more power. ”

“ Potter conceived at once a humorous opposition to the artistic enthusiasm of the critic, and, plunging into the garden, took a mischievous delight in its wildness and the victorious struggle of nature with the formality of art. ”

“ The story he left behind him, of his own struggles and sufferings in seeking and finding the arts of the potter, has been intensified by his admirers; they have added to its intrinsic interest by telling of his patience, his endurance, his suffering, and his final success—that which can be imparted by the glow of admiring souls, who see in him a hero such as they would themselves wish to be, but are not. ”

“ While ever in a thoughtful mood He sang his ditty, and at times Whistled a tune between the rhymes, As a melodious interlude.
Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change To something new, to something strange; Nothing that is can pause or stay; The moon will wax, the moon will wane, The mist and cloud will turn to rain, The rain to mist and cloud again, To-morrow be to-day.
Thus still the Potter sang, and still, By some unconscious act of will, The melody and even the words Were intermingled with my thought As bits of colored thread are caught And woven into nests of birds. ”

“ If we are only as the potter's clay Made to be fashioned as the artist wills, And broken into shards if we offend The eye of Him who made us, it is well; ”

“ Why, Greek, thou art the wonder of my heart! 'Home'—to thy 'wife'! Who may she be? Thou hast not won the goddess over?"
Charmides flushed, but did not lose his temper. "Come you home and eat of my bread, and behold the light of Ramûa's eyes."
"Oh, ay. Give you thanks. I will in happiness break bread with you. Then, later, come you out with me where I am going—to the temple of the false Istar. Let us behold the witches who wander abroad; the vultures that snatch at the bodies of the fallen in the pale beams of Sin; and the vampires and ghouls that haunt the Great City by night. ”

“ And as the potter knows the use of every vessel he fashions, so the Lord knows the body of His creature, unto what point it will be steadfast in the good, and at what point it will fall into evil ways. ”

“ The short of the story is this, that you three men have been born under one asterism, one conjunction, and in one moment. You took birth in a king’s house; the second was an oilman’s (child) ; the third, the devotee, was born in a potter’s house. You still govern here, while the oilman’s son was the ruler of the infernal regions; but that potter, bringing his religious meditations to thorough perfection, has killed the oilman, turned him into a demon in a burning-ground and placed him hanging head-downwards on a siris-tree, and is intent on killing you. If you escape him, you will rule. ”

“ Arab. Al-Fákhir. No wonder that the First Hand who moulded the Man-mud is a lieu commun in Eastern thought. The Pot and the Potter began with the old Egyptians. "Sitting as a potter at the wheel, god Cneph (in Philæ) moulds clay, and gives the spirit of life (the Genesitic "breath") to the nostrils of Osiris." Then we meet him in the Vedas, the Being, "by whom the fictile vase is formed; the clay out of which it is fabricated." We find him next in Jeremiah (xviii. 2) "Arise and go down unto the Potter's house," etc., and in Romans (ix. 20) , "Hath not the Potter power over the clay?" ”

“ Life here, at Hodinuggur, was so simple, so confusing in its simplicity. To live and to die. Was that all?
He spent the remainder of the evening in writing to Mrs. Boynton, putting his heart into reserved, half-jesting hints at his own puzzles. And as he wrote, the potter, standing at the door of his hut, was listening to a murmur coming from the darkness within. ”