“God is my high tower.”
I want to tell you something about one of the most beautiful towers in the world—the Campanile, or Bell Tower, which stands beside the Cathedral of Santa Maria at Florence, and was designed by the great painter, Giotto.
But, first of all, who was Giotto? He was the son of a peasant, so poor that, when Giotto was a boy, there was nothing better that his father could think of giving him to do but to look after sheep. But Giotto was happy enough, because he was a busy little fellow, and could always amuse himself in betweenwhiles by drawing pictures of everything he saw around him. One day, a painter from Florence, named Cimabue, found a boy, about ten years old, sitting near the road and drawing with a piece of charcoal on a piece of tile. It was Giotto. Cimabue took the tile into his hands, and looked at it, and saw the picture of a sheep. He was so pleased with the boy’s skill that he went with him to his home, and asked permission to make him one of his pupils. The father delightedly gave his consent, and so it came about that Giotto got his training in the painter’s art.
As the long years went by, and Giotto grew up to be a man, picture after picture came from his brush, which made his name famous. But there was nothing that he did which brought him so much fame as the design of the Bell Tower at Florence, and of the west front of the Cathedral. Unhappily, the Cathedral front no longer remains as he designed it, but the Tower is there still, and those who understand such things tell us that nothing more beautiful has ever been made by the hands of man.
I shall never forget the day, the only day on which I saw it. It was Easter Monday, in the year 1902. I had just spent my Sunday morning in the great Church of St. Peter’s at Rome, and, after a part of the night in the train, had arrived in Florence, in time to see the Cathedral outlined against the stars.
When I climbed up the long flights of steps of Giotto’s Tower, I stopped now and again at the little windows to peer out upon the city. Before I reached the belfry, the bells struck the hour, and the whole tower seemed to shake with the sound. People on their way down the steps, stopped and held on to the rail and listened. When I at length reached the top, I was rewarded with a grand view of distant hills and blue river, and the gardened roofs of houses, and the roof and dome of the Cathedral; while down at the foot of the tower the people looked like dwarfs, and the carriages like doll’s perambulators.
After feasting my eyes on such things, I came down again to study at my leisure the sculptured stones at the base. It seemed as if Giotto had tried to represent the art of every worker. There were builders, and potters, and weavers, and fishers, and hunters, and traders of every kind. There was Jubal, the father of all who play on trumpet or harp or organ. There was Tubal Cain with his anvil in front of him, and a wedge of bronze, the father of all who toil at the forge. But, really, I have forgotten the names of the others. Two impressions remain with me, however; that nothing is more beautiful than white marble stones covered with sunshine, and that nothing is more interesting or more necessary in this world of ours than Work.
And as we think of Giotto’s Tower, so strong and lovely, it is good to remember another shepherd-boy, who, long before Giotto’s day, found out the truth that God is a high Tower, stronger and lovelier than anything that man has made.
If I were to see Giotto’s Tower every day in the week, and every week in the year, I should grow so used to it that I should not admire it. The more we know of man’s work, the less we think of it. But we never get tired of God’s work, and never come to the end of our wonder about it.
God is a high Tower which we have to climb.
Beginning at the bottom with work and obedience, we learn more of Him the higher we go, and love Him more with every step’s ascent. I think we shall never really reach the top, but we may go up high enough to have grand far views of the world which is the work of His hands, and to see His face, and to be sure that His heart is kind.