beautiful house was in my heart before a stone of it was reared. God
put it in my heart. I planned it all. I remember this place a heap of
poor cottages as small as thine, and now it is a glorious house of
God. And I was what they called the master-builder. Yet no man knows
me, or says, 'Look at him!' They look at the cathedral, God's house;
and that makes me glad in my inmost soul. I prayed that I might be
nothing, and all the glory be His; and He has granted my prayer. And I
am as little and as free in this house which I built as in His own
forests, or under His own stars; for it is His only, as they are His.
And I am nothing but His own little child, as thou art. And He has my
hand and thine in His, and will not let us go."

The child looked up, nearly certain now that it must be an angel. To
have lived longer than the cathedral seemed like living when the
morning stars were made, and all the angels shouted for joy.

"Then God will let me sing here next Easter!" he said, looking
confidingly in the old man's face.

"Thou shalt sing, and I shall see, and I shall hear thee, but thou wilt
not hear or see me!" said the old man, taking both the dimpled hands in
one of his. "And the blessed Lord will listen, as to the little
children in Jerusalem of old. And we shall be His dear, happy children
for evermore."

Gottlieb went home and told his mother. And they both agreed, that if
not an angel, the old man was as good as an angel, and was certainly a
messenger of God.

To have been the master-builder of the cathedral of which it was