A faint ray of gray light crept in through the window of the cell, and the mocking voices died away among the chill morning winds.
But the Architect lay on his bed in a rapture of gratitude and content.
"Father," he said in his heart, "can this be true? Shall this thing for which I have thought and toiled indeed grow up into a holy place, wherein men shall adore Thee for centuries after I am gone—even Thee? Shall this offering of mine be indeed so accepted on Thine altar? First me, and then it?—Wilt Thou indeed accept both altogether thus? Wilt Thou indeed let me be altogether hidden in this thing I have thought, in it and in Thee?"
Then from all the churches of the city rang forth the Easter bells.
And through the victorious peal of the Resurrection music, through the slow dawning of the newly-risen light, through the chirping and carolling of the waking birds, there came to the patient sufferer voices, and white visions of glory—white so as no fuller on earth can white them.
And the voices spoke thus into his heart:—
"Thine offering is altogether accepted. Thou and it. Thy work shall live on earth, faithfully fulfilled according to the thought of thine heart. Thy name shall be written in Heaven, in the Temple not made with hands.
"Thy work shall live where thou no longer art, to help men for ages, to be bread to the eater and seed to the sower of the generations to come. Thy name shall live where thou shalt be; among the great multitude which no man can number, yet each one of which is graven on One divine and human Heart.
"For ages to come, whilst thou art blessed and at rest, men and women, still toiling and struggling on this earth, and children, shall praise God in this beautiful place of thy building, with such praise as toiling, sinning, repenting, human creatures can give.
"The voice of the great River shall be heard no more beside it, for the ebb and flow of the great tide of human life which shall surge round it on every side.