ns and sceptres, but a niche over the central portal was empty and
this the Prince Bishop intended to fill with a statue of himself. It was
to be a very small simple statue, as became one who prized lowliness of
heart, but as he looked up at the vacant place it gave him pleasure to
think that hundreds of years after he was dead people would pause before
his effigy and praise him and his work. And this, too, was vainglory.

As the Prince Bishop lay asleep that night a mighty six-winged Angel stood
beside him and bade him rise. "Come," he said, "and I will show thee some
of those who have worked with thee in building the great church, and whose
service in God's eyes has been more worthy than thine." And the Angel led
him past the Cathedral and down the steep street of the ancient city, and
though it was midday, the people going to and fro did not seem to see
them. Beyond the gates they followed the shelving road till they came to
green level fields, and there in the middle of the road, between grassy
banks covered white with cherry blossom, two great white oxen, yoked to a
huge block of stone, stood resting before they began the toilsome ascent.

"Look!" said the Angel; and the Prince Bishop saw a little blue-winged
bird which perched on the stout yoke beam fastened to the horns of the
oxen, and sang such a heavenly song of rest and contentment that the big
shaggy creatures ceased to blow stormily through their nostrils, and drew
long tranquil breaths instead.

"Look again!" said the Angel. And from a hut of wattles and clay a little
peasant girl came with a bundle of hay in her arms, and gave first one of
the oxen and then the other a wisp. Then she stroked their black muzzles,
and laid her rosy face against their white cheeks. Then the Prince Bishop
saw the rude teamster rise from his rest on the bank and cry to his
cattle, and the oxen strained against the beam and the thick ropes
tightened, and the huge block of stone was once more set in motion.

And when the Prince Bishop saw that it was these fellow-workers whose
service was more worthy in God's eyes than his own, he was abashed and
sorrowful for his sin, and the tears of his own weeping awoke him. So he
sent for the master of the sculptors and bade him fill the little niche
over the middle portal, not with his own effigy but with an image of the
child; and he bade him make two colossal figures of the white oxen; and to
the great wonderment of the people these wer