Giant Hours With Poet Preachers | Page 4

nothing can I, But drone in the sun as a drowsy fly."
The Shoes of Happiness.
Then came a thought that leaped like flame over his being, and an hour later the monks found him, kneeling in the sacred altar place. What he was doing chagrined them. They were shocked just as many people of this day, to see a man worshiping with a different bend of the knee than that to which they had been accustomed. How prone we are to judge those who do not worship just as we have worshiped! This seems such a common human weakness that Alfred Noyes, with a touch of kindly indignation, speaks a word in "The Forest of Wild Thyme" that may be interjected just here in this study of Barnabas the juggler, whom the monks indignantly found worshiping the Virgin by juggling his colored balls in the air, and speaking thus as he juggled:
"'Lady,' he cried again, 'look, I entreat: I worship with fingers, and body, and feet!"
"And they heard him cry at Our Lady's shrine: 'All that I am, Madame, all is thine! Again I come with spangle and ball To lay at your altar my little, my all!'"
The Shoes of Happiness.
But the poor old monks were indignant. They, and some others of more modern days, had never caught the real gist of the "Judge not" of the New Testament; nor had they read Noyes:
"How foolish, then, you will agree, Are those who think that all must see The world alike, or those who scorn Another, who perchance, was born Where--in a different dream from theirs-- What they called sins to him are prayers! We cannot judge; we cannot know; All things mingle, all things flow; There's only one thing constant here-- Love--that untranscended sphere: Love, that while all ages run Holds the wheeling worlds in one; Love, that, as your sages tell, Soars to heaven and sinks to hell."
The Shoes of Happiness.
No, we have no right to judge one another. The monks condemned poor Barnabas because he was not worshiping as they had always worshiped. They too forgot the real spirit of worship as they condemned him:
"'Nothing like this do the rules provide! This is scandal, this is a shame, This madcap prank in Our Lady's name. Out of the doors with him; back to the street: He has no place at Our Lady's feet!'"
The Shoes of Happiness.
However, then, as now, men are not the final judges:
"But why do the elders suddenly quake, Their eyes a-stare and their knees a-shake? Down from the rafters arching high, Her blowing mantle blue with the sky-- Lightly down from the dark descends The Lady of Beauty and lightly bends Over Barnabas stretched in the altar place, And wipes the dew from his shining face; Then touching his hair with a look of light, Passes again from the mortal sight. An odor of lilies hallows the air, And sounds as of harpings are everywhere.
"'Ah,' cry the elders, beating the breast, 'So the lowly deed is the lofty test! And whatever is done from the heart to Him Is done from the height of the Seraphim!'"
The Shoes of Happiness.
"HOW THE GREAT GUEST CAME"
A STUDY OF COMPLETE HAPPINESS IN SERVICE
I have never found a poem which more truly pictures the Christ and how he comes to human beings than this one of Markham's. Conrad the cobbler had a dream, when he had grown old, that the Master would come "His guest to be." He arose at dawn on that day of great expectations, decorated his simple shop with boughs of green and waited:
"His friends went home; and his face grew still As he watched for the shadow across the sill; He lived all the moments o'er and o'er, When the Lord should enter the lowly door-- The knock, the call, the latch pulled up, The lighted face, the offered cup. He would wash the feet where the spikes had been; He would kiss the hands where the nails went in; And then at last he would sit with him And break the bread as the day grew dim."
The Shoes of Happiness.
But the Master did not come. Instead came a beggar and the cobbler gave him shoes; instead came an old crone with a heavy load of faggots. He gave her a lift with her load and some of the food that he had prepared for the Christ when he should come. Finally a little child came, crying along the streets, lost. He pitied the child and left his shop to take it to its mother; such was his great heart of love. He hurried back that he might not miss the Great Guest when he came. But the Great Guest did not come. As the evening came and the shadows were falling through the window of his