le-light activities for that supreme hour, may be set aside. But,
remember, it is but for an hour. The wise man will be he who quickest
lights his candle, the wisest he who never lets it out. Tomorrow, the
next moment, he, a poor, darkened, blurred soul, may need it again to
focus the Image better, to take a mote off the lens, to clear the
mirror from a breath with which the world has dulled it.

No readjustment is ever required on behalf of the Star. That is one
great fixed point in this shifting universe. But _the world moves_.
And each day, each hour, demands a further motion and readjustment for
the soul. A telescope in an observatory follows a star by clockwork,
but the clockwork of the soul is called _the Will_. Hence, while the
soul in passivity reflects the Image of the Lord, the Will in intense
activity holds the mirror in position lest the drifting motion of the
world bear it beyond the line of vision. To "follow Christ" is largely
to keep the soul in such position as will allow for the motion of the
earth. And this calculated counteracting of the movements of the
world, this holding of the mirror exactly opposite to the Mirrored,
this steadying of the faculties unerringly through cloud and
earthquake, fire and sword, is the stupendous co-operating labor of
the Will. It is all man's work. It is all Christ's work. In practice
it is both; in theory it is both. But the wise man will say in
practice, "It depends upon myself."

In the Gallerie des Beaux Arts in Paris there stands a famous statue.
It was the last work of a great genius, who, like many a genius, was
very poor and lived in a garret, which served as a studio and
sleeping-room alike. When the statue was all but finished, one
midnight a sudden frost fell upon Paris. The sculptor lay awake in the
fireless room and thought of the still moist clay, thought how the
water would freeze in the pores and destroy in an hour the dream of
his life. So the old man rose from his couch and heaped the
bed-clothes reverently round his work. In the morning when the
neighbors entered the room the sculptor was dead, but the statue was
saved!

The Image of Christ that is forming within us--that is life's one
charge. Let every project stand aside for that. The spirit of God who
brooded upon the waters thousands of years ago, is busy now creating
men, within these commonplace lives of ours, in the image of God.
"Till Christ be formed," no man's work is finished, no religio