| Making the Most of Life |
Chapter 9 |
Page 3 |
Again, keeping the eye upon the likeness of Christ transfigures the life. The old monks intently gazed upon the crucifix, and they said that the prints of the nails would come in their hands and feet, and the thorn scars in their brow as they beheld. It was but a gross fancy, yet in the fancy there is a spiritual truth gazing by faith upon Christ, the lines of his beauty indeed print themselves on our hearts. This is the meaning of St. Paul’s word: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a morrow the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image.” The gospel is the mirror. There we see the image of Christ. If we earnestly, continually, and lovingly behold it, the effect will be the changing of our own lives into the same likeness. The transformation is wrought by the divine Spirit, and our part is only to behold, to continue beholding, the blessed beauty. We sit before the camera, and our own picture is printed on the prepared glass. We sit before Christ, and we become the camera, and his image is printed on our soul.
There is a pathetic story of a French sculptor, which illustrates the sacredness with which life’s ideal should be cherished and guarded. He was a genius, and was at work on his masterpiece. But he was a poor man, and lived in a small garret, which was studio, workshop, and bedroom to him. He had his statue almost finished, in clay, when one night there came suddenly a great frost over the city. The sculptor lay on his bed, with his statue before him in the centre of the fireless room. As the chill air came down upon him, he knew that in the intense cold there was danger that the water in the interstices of the clay would freeze and destroy his precious work. So the old man arose from his bed, and took the clothes that had covered him in his sleep, and reverently wrapped them about his statue to save it, and then lay down himself in the cold, uncovered. In the morning, when his friend came in they found the old sculptor dead; but the image was preserved unharmed.
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