Barnabas was
happy for a time; but after a while, as he saw everybody else
worshiping the Beautiful Mother with lute and brush, viol, drum,
talent, and prayer, he began to feel that his talents were
worthless:
"But I, poor Barnabas, 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.
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