NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 37, 20 September 1923, Page 30

NOTES

A Bush Philosopher

In conversations with a certain bush philosopher who still flaunts his seventy odd years of illiterate life in the face of miseducated New Zealand and protests that he is better off than his neighbors, there was much to be learned, even by Ministers of Education and such people. One day, a priest whose name does not matter, took the philosopher into his car, somewhere within view of Mount Egmont. After a casual conversation, the sagart asked the philosopher whether or no he regretted not being able to read. The answer was prompt: "Yerra. no, Father, why would I? I escape the lies of the newspapers and am able to laugh at the fools who often take weeks to find out that they have been taking, lies for truth. Thirty years ago, Father — — , who lived here—he was me namesake, too, but no relation— asked me the same question, and says I to him: ' Wisha, Father avic, don't you read for us every Sunday that when we keep the Ten Commandments we have every blessing, even Heaven itself, and where would I be worrying about reading, then?'" ■ It was on another occasion, when he became involved in some litigation with a neighbor—presumably an Orangeman—that to' all questions put by a hostile lawyer he presented a Gorgon-like front and spake no word. The lawyer appealed to the Court. - The Court remonstrated gently. The philosopher then said : "For Hivens sake, yer Honor, will you tell the good man to get on with the case and not to be putt-in' tin-pot questions to a man of my intelligence." K It was in the same locality that, a non-Catholic doctor, who wanted to have a joke at the philosopher's expense, said to him: "I say, digger, was it you sent me a copy of a book called Faith of Our Fathers ?" The person addressed replied solemnly: "Doctor dear, did I ever do anything to make you think I am a' fool ?" "No," said the doctor. "Well it is only when I become a fool I will send such a book to a man of no intelligence," was the retort. * '

"I can't read and I can't write, but I can contradict any man in this country," he remarked to a friend one day. Once he put it in another form- "I don t read or write, but I think all the more for that." To this scribe he once came, when in spite of his age he had failed to get the old-age pension. Times were bad: the winter was wet; and, as he explained, the little bit c> money would be a godsend to him "I was born in the parish of Mullinivat, in the Co. Sligo•■ so, please Father, see if you can o- e t my baptismal certificate for me,' It was considered that the best thing to do would be to write to Father Muldoon, of Omaha who was at the time on a holiday in Ireland. In due time the reply came back that as the book was chock full ot names corresponding with the one about which inquiry was made, it was impossible, without further data, to say which was which. To the philosopher this was m due time explained. "Who wrote that news to you? quoth he "Father Muldoon, who went to see the P.P. at Mullinivat in the Co. Antrim (or was it Sligo we said last time?)" "Write home to them men and tell them they have no brains," said the philosopher Why, manalive,_ didn't they know that it did not matter a dump to me if 'twas my thirty-first cousin's name they took so long as the date was right." *

The Holy Grail v'V The ancient legend of the quest of the Holy Grail has been the inspiration of so many poets that an account of this beautiful old Christian legend will interest our readers who are admirers of Tennyson ' ■<- The Holy Grail was the cup that Christ drank out ot at the Last Supper. It was brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea shortly after Christ’s crucifixion. It .was to be kept by his lineal descendants as long as they were pure in thought, word, and deed. One of his descendants broke the commandment and

the Holy Grail disappeared. It was the object of search of the knights of King Arthur's court for many years. Sir Launfal, the proudest knight in the land,, vowed that never.would he lie in a bed and that never a pillow should be placed under his head until he had begun his search for the Holy Grail. So he threw himself down on the rushes. There a wonderful vision came to him. * It was a beautiful June morning. The birds were singing, the cattle grazing, and every living thing was rejoicing-, when Sir Launfal rode forth on his black charger. It seemed from all the sunshine that the old castle ever held was now put into Sir Launfal's armor. He rode but a short distance when he beheld a leper, crouching by a gate in the last stages of the disease. Sir Launfal shrank from him in terror, and as the leper asked for alms, he threw him a piece of gold in scorn. The leper would not pick up the piece of gold, but said :

"Better to me the poor man's crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door, That is not true alms which the hand can't hold, He gives nothing but worthless gold: Who gives from a sense of duty alone, But he who gives but a slender mite And gives to that which is out of The thread of all sustaining beauty, Which runs through all and doth unite— The hand can not clutch the whole of his alms, The heart outstretches its eager palms, For a god goes out with it and makes a store To the soul that was starving in darkness before."

Sir Launfal was absent on a fruitless quest for the Grail for many years. When he returned he was penniless, his hair was white, and his body was bent and spare. In his absence another earl had taken possession of his earldom, because the courts had declared him legally dead. The seneschal (servant) ordered him away from his own porch. So he went out by the castle gate, and from that place he could see the Yule-log burning on the hearth in the great chamber of the castle. He sat down by the gate and mused of sunnier climes in which he had travelled, that he might forget his miserable surrounding's. Soon he realised that an awfullooking being stood near him, who said "For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms." Sir Launfal said:

"I behold in thee

An image of Him Who died on the tree; Thou also has had thy (world's) crown of thorns Thou also has had the world's buffets and scorns, And to thy life were not denied, The wound in the hand, and the feet, and the side, Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me, Behold through him I give to Thee!"

Sir Launfal divided his only crust of mouldy brown bread and went to the streamlet and broke the ice and gave the leper this plain refreshment. But it was given in such a kindly spirit that it seemed to the poor outcast like fine wheaten bread and rich, red wine. Then a light shone round the place, and the leper stood up glorified, and in a voice softer than silence said : .

"Lo, it is I, be not afraid; In many climes and- without avail Thou has spent thy, life for the Holy Grail, Behold it is here—this cup wliich thou Didst fill at : the streamlet for Me but now; This crust is My body broken for thee, This water His blood that died on the tree, The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatever we share with another in need ; Not what we give, but what we share— For the gift without the giver is bare. - Who gives himself with his alms feeds three Himself, his hungry neighbor, and Me." 4 ~.',

Sir Launfal then ' awoke* and found that he had been dreaming. But he had learned a. lesson: that he could do more good by staying at home and doing kind deeds than by spending his life searching for the Holy Grail. Thenceforward. the meanest serf on Sir LaunfaFs land had hall and bower at his command, and found a friend when he needed one, for the poor, were as welcome as the lords and ladies of high degree.