WORSHIP AND TOIL


One day about one hundred years ago a little boy named Jean stood by his
father's side watching the setting sun sink into the waves of the sea.
The glory of the scene stirred his boyish enthusiasm and he poured out
his heart in an ecstasy of joy. The father reverently took off his cap
and said, "My son, it is God." The boy never forgot that word, "It is
God."

Jean came of a peasant family, so he had to take his place in the field
and earn his bread "by the sweat of his brow." On Sundays the fields
were forsaken and the family went to the village church where the father
was the leader of the choir. After church friends and relatives
sometimes came home to spend the afternoon with the family. One Sunday,
soon after the return from church, the bent figure of an aged peasant
slowly made his way along the road. There was something about the figure
that struck the boy Jean. He took a piece of charcoal and hurriedly drew
a sketch upon the wall. Every movement and attitude was so perfectly
depicted that everybody laughed--everybody but the father. He sensed the
gift possessed by his boy, whose growing talent he had been watching.
"My Jean," he said, "I will no longer hinder you from learning that
which you are so anxious to know."

Jean Francis Millet, for such is his full name, became the artist of
peasantry. He never made any other boast. His character was of the
highest. He had a firm faith in God. He believed in the Bible as the
Word of God. He looked upon his use of the brush as preaching upon