Giant Hours With Poet Preachers | Page 5

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 shop, more and more the truth, with all its
weight of sadness, bore in upon him, that the dream was not to come
true; that he had made a mistake; that Christ was not to come to his
humble shop. His heart was broken and he cried out in his

disappointment:
"Why is it, Lord, that your feet delay? Did you forget that this was the
day?"
The Shoes of Happiness.
Then what sweeter scene in all the lines of the poetry of the world than
this that follows? Where is Christ more wonderfully and simply
summed up; his spirit of love, and care?
"Then soft in the silence a voice he heard: 'Lift up your heart, for I kept
my word. Three times I came to your friendly door; Three times my
shadow was on your floor. I was the beggar with bruised feet; I was the
woman you gave to eat; I was the child on the homeless street!'"
The Shoes of Happiness.
One is reminded here of Masefield's "The Everlasting Mercy," wherein
he speaks as Markham speaks about the child:
"And he who gives a child a treat Makes joy-bells ring in Heaven's
street; And he who gives a child a home Builds palaces in Kingdom
Come; And she who gives a baby birth Brings Saviour Christ again to
earth."
The Shoes of Happiness.
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of one of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me," another great-hearted Poet once said; and
these words Markham, in "How the Great Guest Came," has made real.
"SCRIPT FOR THE JOURNEY"
"Script for the Journey" is all that it claims to be. Markham is not doing
what Lindsay did. Lindsay started out on a long journey with only his
poems for money. He meant to make his way buying his food with a
verse. And he did that very thing. But Markham had a different idea, an
idea that all of us need script for that larger journey, script that is not
money and script that does not buy mere material food, but food for the
soul. He means it to be script that will help us along the hard way. And
he who has this script is rich indeed, in his inner life.
"THE PLACE OF PEACE"
One would pay much for peace at any time, but especially when one on
the journey of life is wearied unto death with sin, and bickering, and
trouble and hurt and pain. Life holds so much heartache and heartbreak.
Markham has herein the answer:
"At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky, And flinging the clouds

and the towers by, Is a place of central calm; So here in the roar of
mortal things, I have a place where my spirit sings, In the hollow of
God's palm."
The Shoes of Happiness.
And when we learn to put our business ventures there as Abbey has his
Sir Galahad do in the Vigil panel of "The Search for the Holy Grail," in
Boston Library; and when we have learned to put our homes, and our
children, and our souls "In the hollow of God's palm," there will be
peace on the journey of life. Yes, that is good script.
"ANCHORED TO THE INFINITE"
What a lesson the poet brings us from the great swinging bridge at
Niagara, as he tells of the tiny thread that was flown from a kite from
shore to shore; and then a larger string, and then a heavy cord, and then
a rope, and finally the great cable, and the mighty bridge. And this he
applies to life!
"So we may send our little timid thought Across the void out to God's
reaching hands--Send out our love and faith to thread the deep--
Thought after thought until the little cord Has greatened to a chain no
chance can break, And--we are anchored to the Infinite."
The Shoes of Happiness.
Who does not need to know how simple a thing will lead to