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.
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