Giant Hours with Poet Preachers by William LeRoy Stidger
page 14 of 119 (11%)
page 14 of 119 (11%)
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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-- |
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