| The Golden Gate of Prayer |
Chapter 4 |
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There is a beautiful legend from the story of the later days of Greece which illustrates this lesson. The religious spirit had waned among the people and the old enthusiastic belief in the gods had almost died out. A prize was offered to the sculptors of the land for the best marble statue of a certain god. A country lad heard of the offer of the prize. He believed in this god with all his heart and in his passionate love desired to make the statue.
Choosing a block of marble, he hewed away manfully. He had in his mind a noble ideal of the grace, majesty, and strength of the god he loved, and wrought with great ardor and earnestness. But he lacked the artist’s skill and experience, and though he did his best, his statue, when finished, was crude, lacking beauty and grace.
Then the legend relates that this god, seeing the lad’s endeavor to honor him and worthily represent him before men, helped him, turning his poor failure into perfect success. When the day of trial came and the different statues were passed upon, while other competitors were laughing at the crude thing which the boy had shaped with unskilled hand but believing heart, the god himself entered into that pathetic marble failure, glorifying it with his own beauty. Instantly the harsh, uncomely lines flowed into faultless symmetry, the awkward head was lifted in proud dignity, and the whole form of the rudely cut stone glowed with the matchless grace of life.
It is only a heathen legend. No deity of human fancy ever had power to work such a miracle for any of his devotees. But the legend interprets and illustrates what the true God does for all who live for him and with loyal heart and diligent hand faithfully seek to glorify him. “Them that honor me, I will honor,” is his promise. Poor indeed may be the work we do, with no beauty in men’s eyes; but if it is wrought in pure love and with a sincere desire to do honor to our Lord, he will take the endeavor of our clumsy hands and give it the grace it lacks, transforming it into a loveliness which will really honor him whom we so earnestly sought to glorify.
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