Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/383

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Letters from New Zealand
347

to receive the capstone, a wooden platform, just four feet square, was fixed, mid-air, without any protection at its sides. A ladder led up to it. The foreman and a mason went up, and I followed. We stood there, the three of us, with just room for foothold, and together lifted the heavy cap, a fleur de lys, and placed it in position. "Don't look up," said the foreman to me, "nor look round; we never do at a height; look at the work." It was a ticklish position, but I felt fairly secure with my two supporters. Then, with a few words of prayer and benediction, I laid the stone, the assembly below responding; and came down. There are four minor pinnacles clustering round the lower part of the main one; arrangements had been made also for these, and their capstones were laid by Mr. J. Craigie, the Mayor of Timaru, Mr. M. J. Knubley, churchwarden, Mr. R. W. Simpson, vestryman, the Secretary of the Building Committee, and Mr. W. Panton. A large number of people below watched the proceedings. As I stood there in mid-air, and, as happens on any great occasion in one's life, when in a moment long years of work pass in monotonous review and challenge your own verdict on them, and as I was uttering the formal words of benediction on what we were doing there, it was as it were, I believe, a direct inspiration, in assurance that the work had been and would be Divinely ordered, which stirred in my heart the echo of the words we had sung at the laying of the foundation stone of the church, years ago:

"The heads that guide endue with skill,
The hands that work preserve from ill,
That we who these foundations la
May raise the topstone in its day."