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In one of the old cathedrals in Europe the guide bids the visitor watch a certain spot, until the light from a window falls upon it. There he sees, carved on a rafter, a face of such marvelous beauty that it is the very gem of the great building. The legend is, that, when the architect and masters were planning the adornment of the cathedral, an old man came in and begged leave to do some work. They felt that his tottering steps and trembling hands unfitted him for any great service; so they sent him up to the roof, and gave him permission to carve upon one of the rafters. He went his way, and day by day he wrought there in the darkness. One day he was not seen to come down, and going up they found him lying lifeless on the scaffolding, with his sightless eyes turned upward. And there they saw a face carved on the rafter, a face of such exceeding beauty, that architects and great men bared their heads as they looked upon it, and recognized the master in him who lay there still in death.
In the church of the living God we are all set to carve the beauty of the face of Christ, not on the rafters or walls of any cathedral, but on our own heart and life. Be it ours to do this work with such care and skill that when our eyes are closed in death, men may look with reverence upon the beauty of the face our hands have fashioned. Some of us may feel ourselves too feeble, or too unskilled, to do any great work in this world for Christ; but none are too feeble or too unskilled to carve the beauty of Christ on our life. And it may be that in the time of great revealing, it shall appear that some trembling disciple among us, timid and shrinking, whose voice is not heard in our meetings, whose work is in some quiet corner, out of sight, has wrought the beauty of Christ likeness in an exquisiteness which shall outshine all that any even of the greatest of us have done.