He wandered over to two workers to ask what they were working on.

The first grumbled back, "I'm cutting out stones, it's monotonous". The second cheerfully exclaimed, "I'm helping to build a Cathedral!"

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There are times when the bigger picture of life shapes how we go about the small things.

One example is found in the life of William Wilberforce.

On May 12, 1789, 233 years ago from Thursday, a young Wilberforce delivered the first speech to the British parliament in which he would call for the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire.

Wilberforce grew up at a time when Christian faith was socially acceptable so long as it was not taken too seriously.

Sure you could believe it if you wanted. But polite society would turn on you if you actually believed what the Bible said, or let your faith shape your life beyond the going to church on Sunday morning.

Indeed, many Christian people in parliament found themselves the target of ridicule.

No wonder then, that when Wilberforce had a conversion experience around 1795, he considered quitting his political career.

However friend, spiritual mentor, and reformed slave trader, John Newton, convinced him to persevere with his political career.

It was at this point that Wilberforce turned his attention to the slave trade.

Unashamedly open about his faith, Wilberforce began to consider how his convictions should shape his legislative efforts.

He would conclude that "God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners." (By manners, Wilberforce means moral values.)

Today we take it as a simple and indisputable fact that slavery is immoral, but not everyone in Wilberforce's own time would have agreed.

A 1791 effort to pass laws to abolish the slave trade was overwhelmingly defeated 163 to 88.

However Wilberforce would not be deterred and he continued to throw as much time and energy as he could into his great goal of ending the slave trade.

He persevered and by 1807 he had changed enough minds that a bill to abolish the Caribbean slave trade passed the Commons by 283 votes to 16!

Yet even this was not the end of his fight.

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Slaves could no longer be stolen from their homes and sold but those already held in bondage remained the property of their owners.

Wilberforce and his growing band of supporters persisted. In 1814 they collected about 1 million signatures in support of their cause, a number representing roughly one tenth of the population.

Yet even with such popular support, no law would be passed which freed those already held in slavery until July 26, 1833.

Only three days later, on July 29, 1833, a 73-year-old Wilberforce breathed his last.

I am sure that those who laboured with Wilberforce were joyous that their friend had seen the passage of a law which would end slavery and free those in bondage.

Perhaps there was a tinge of sadness that Wilberforce would die before a time when those he'd fought to emancipate would actually experience their freedom.

Yet I suspect that what mattered to the man himself was to know that from the time he had taken up his cause, until quite literally his dying breath, he had pursued the task God had laid upon him.

As he would explain, "Life as we know it, with all its ups and downs, will soon be over. We all will give an accounting to God of how we have lived."

Like the worker who saw his small role in the building of a great Cathedral, Wilberforce saw clearly the bigger picture of the life God had called him to live.

And it was this which transformed his every labour in this world.