The alchemist only sought to add a few more years to human life; but Jesus gives life for evermore. And is not his grace the true "philosopher’s stone," transmuting by miraculous agency leaden afflictions into golden consolations, earthly miseries into heavenly mercies, legal curses into gospel blessings, and vile sinners into precious saints? Thus the delusive dreams of the alchemists have become solid realities, and as far exceeding what they toiled and toiled in vain to find, as eternity excels time, and heaven surpasses earth.
—J.C. Philpot
