The Silversmith and some Colchester

I came across this recently and liked it

The Silversmith



There was a group of women in a Bible study on the Book of Malachi. In Chapter 3 verse 3 it says: ‘He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver’. This puzzled the women and one of them offered to find out all about the process of refining silver and report back to the group next time. She tracked down a silversmith and made an appointment to visit his workshop to watch him at his craft. She didn’t mention the reason for her interest.


She watched as the silversmith held a piece of silver in a flame and let it heat up. He explained that to refine silver one needed to hold the metal right in the centre of the fire where it was hottest so as to burn away all impurities. The woman thought of God holding us in such a hotspot from time to time but wondered again at the words of the verse ‘He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver’. When she asked the silversmith if he really had to stay sitting there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined, he answered that yes, he not only must sit there holding the silver steady but he needed to keep his eyes on it every second it was in there. For if the silver was left a moment too long in the heat it would be destroyed.


The woman asked one final question. ‘How do you know when the silver is fully pure?’ He smiled at her. ‘That’s easy! It’s refined when I can see my reflection in it like a mirror.’

Did you?

Thought I would post these last few photos of Colchester. You may remember my post on Colchester Castle and it's history.

Colchester is Britain's oldest recorded town.

The Emperor Claudius spent just sixteen days in Britain, long enough to lead his troops into Camulodunum and receive the submission of several British kings. The Roman army then built a legionary fortress on the highest ground inside Camulodunum, the site of the present town centre.

By AD49 the fortress at Camulodunum had been turned into a civilian settlement named Colonia Claudia after the Emperor, and this became the first capital of the new Roman province of Britainnia

Here we have just left the castle and are walking up the high street.

The Town Hall

An old coaching in from the front

and from the back

Speciality Sausages

Would like to have tried but we did not have a cool/ice box with us

Waterstones book shop

and a selection of other shops and such a mixture of the old and new