'The Great Stone Face!

The Great Stone Face!

One of Hawthorne's short stories tells of the Great Stone Face . The rocks on a mountain were so grouped that, looked at from a certain point, there was the appearance of a human face. There was a tradition among the people, that some day a man would come to the valley with the same gracious features which this stone face bore, a man who would have the noble character and personality represented by these features.

A boy, Ernest , listened one evening to this tradition from his mother's lips, and the tradition sank into the boy's heart and stayed there. He would look up at the noble stone face and wonder when the man would come who should fulfill the old prophecy.

Through days and years, while the boy grew to manhood , and the man into old age — he continued to look at the stone face, pondering its noble beauty and unconsciously growing himself all the while into the beauty which his soul had idealized in that image on the mountain. He grew into wisdom and strength, and became a friend of the people and their teacher.

By and by a poet, listening one day to Ernest's words as he spoke to his neighbors, discovered the resemblance and exclaimed, "Why, Ernest himself is like the great stone face!" Looking at that gracious face all the years, pondering its features — he had been transformed into its image!

Just so, those who look intently at the face of Christ, entering into the spirit of His life, walking in daily fellowship with Him, bearing His cross, loving Him and doing His will — take His image upon their own lives, grow like Him, until neighbors and friends begin to see the resemblance and say, "Why, they are like the blessed Lord Jesus Christ!"

"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord — are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory!" 2 Corinthians 3:18

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