that it could be one of the stones in God's great Temple of Heaven.

One day, after the forty years, he had a great longing to know how far
along he had got with his work,--how it looked to the Heavenly Father.
And he prayed that he might be shown a man--

"Whose soul in the heavenly grace had grown
To the selfsame measure as his own;
Whose treasure on the celestial shore
Could neither be less than his nor more."

As he looked up from his prayer, a white-robed angel stood in the path
before him. The hermit bowed before the messenger with great gladness,
for he knew that his wish was answered. "Go to the nearest town," the
angel said, "and there, in the public square, you will find a mountebank
(a clown) making the people laugh for money. He is the man you seek; his
soul has grown to the selfsame stature as your own; his treasure on the
celestial shore is neither less than yours nor more."

When the angel had faded from sight, the hermit bowed his head again,
but this time with great sorrow and fear. Had his forty years of prayer
been a terrible mistake, and was his soul indeed like a clown, fooling
in the market-place? He knew not what to think. Almost he hoped he
should not find the man, and could believe that he had dreamed the angel
vision. But when he came, after a long, tiring walk to the village, and
the square, alas! there was the clown, doing his silly tricks for the
crowd.

The hermit stood and looked at him with terror and sadness, for he felt
that he was looking at his own soul. The face he saw was thin and tired,
and though it kept a smile or a grin for the people, it seemed very sad
to the hermit. Soon the man felt the hermit's eyes; he could not go on
with his tricks. And when he had stopped and the crowd had left, the
hermit went and drew the man aside to a place where they could rest; for
he wanted more than anything else on earth to know what the man's soul
was like, because what it was, his was.

So, after a little, he asked the clown, very gently, what his life was,
what it had been. And the clown answered, very sadly, that it was just
as it looked,--a life of foolish tricks, for that was the only way of
earning his bread that he knew.

"But have you never been anything different?" asked the hermit,
painfully.

The clown's head sank in his hands. "Yes, holy father," he said, "I have
been something else. I was a thief! I once belonged to the most wicked
band of mounta