_was_ a wonderful builder in Cologne, and the Archbishop went
to him with his purpose, and asked him to attempt the design.

"It must not only surpass anything in the past, but anything that
may arise in the future."

The architect was awed in view of such a stupendous undertaking.

"It will carry my name down the ages," he thought; "I will sacrifice
everything to success."

He dreamed; he fasted and prayed.

He made sketch after sketch and plan after plan, but they all
proved unworthy of a temple that should be one of the grandest
monuments of the piety of the time, and one of the glories of future
ages.

In his dreams an exquisite image of a temple rose dimly before him.
When he awoke, he could vaguely recall it, but could not reproduce
it. The ideal haunted him and yet eluded him.

He became disheartened. He wandered in the fields, absorbed in
thought. The beautiful apparition of the temple would suddenly fill
him with delight; then it would vanish, as if it were a mockery.

One day he was wandering along the Rhine, absorbed in thought.

"Oh," he said, "that the phantom temple would appear to me, and
linger but for a moment, that I could grasp the design."

He sat down on the shore, and began to draw a plan with a stick on
the sand.

"That is it," he cried with joy.

"Yes, that is it, indeed," said a mocking voice behind him.

He looked around, and beheld an old man.

"That is it," the stranger hissed; "that is the Cathedral of
Strasburg."

He was shocked. He effaced the design on the sand.

He began again.

"There it is," he again exclaimed with delight.

"Yes," chuckled the old man. "That is the Cathedral of Amiens."

The architect effaced the picture on the sand, and produced another.

"Metz," said the old man.

He made yet another effort.

"Antwerp!"

"O my master," said the despairing architect, "you mock me. Produce
a design for me yourself."

"On one condition."

"Name it."

"You shall give me yourself, soul and body!"

The affrighted architect began to say his prayers, and the old man
suddenly disappeared.

The next day he wandered into a forest of the Seven Mountains, still
thinking of his plan. He chanced to look up the mountain side, when
he beheld the queer old man again; he was now leaning on a staff on
a rocky wall.

He lifted his staff and began to draw a picture on a roc