The Hermit and the Householder

In long past days when there were no books to
teach men learning, but when men lived close to
Nature and heard the Word of God from all the
creation of Ood, when their ears wore opened to
His love and greatness; when their eyes looked
into His face and saw therein the things that were
made for them to see; in those dajrs when men
looked into their own hearts and saw there the
law that was to guide their lives and lead their
footsteps in the paths that He had made for them;
in those days when men sought by the light from
within what their relation was to God and what
God's relation was to them, when they sought to
read the laws of Nature and thereby learn the laws
that ruled them; in those dajrs there dwelt a King,
rich, arrogant and puffed up by the idea of his
great wisdom which, in reality, was not great at
all, but much exaggerated because of his position.
Nevertheless, he prided himself on his supposed
wisdom and would summon to his court all the
savants, pundits and holy men who were accorded
great in wisdom, and woe to the man whose opin-
ion differed from this fool who called himself wise,
for his freedom was no longer his and often he
died an ignoble death because his wisdom failed
to coincide with this haughty, arrogant King.

hands. Before her, in measured tread, walked an
array of princes of high birth and great prowess,
each gazing on her beauty, but each fearful that
he pleased not the eye of the only daughter of the
King, who stood thus waiting to find her choice
of husband among the worthy princes who had
been invited by her father, and who now passed
her by in that procession of wooing.

One by one they passed her and still the garland
failed to fall about the neck of the chosen one who
was to be her husband and rule with her the land
of her fathers. Proud and peerless she stood, smiL
ing on one and all who passed, but finding in none
of these the lover she sought, the lover who would
be her lord and master, who would rule her and
her kingdom, and not like these wooers who al-
ready had become captives and fallen slaves to her
beauty and her power.

Then from out the crowd issued a young hermit,
a youth with the radiance of innocence and faith
in God gleaming in his eyes and on his face. And
following the procession, he stood and gazed wide-
eyed and boldly right in the lady's face. He saw
her not as a woman, nor as princess, but as one of
the beautiful things created by God whom he wor-
shipped all his life. And thus he looked upon
her, and she, seeing him without fear of her power
and bowing not low to her beauty, threw the gar-
land round his head and she, the King's daughter,
the future queen of a kingdom, thereby made him,
by the law of the land, her husband nntil death
would them part and after.

Quick the ministers of state hurried to the
young husband and bowed before him. But the
youthful hermit heeded them not and strode on as
if to leave the throng.

''Thou must to the palace/' spoke the minister.

''Nay, I must about my business/' quoth the
hermit.

"The princess, thy wife, awaits thee/' the min-
ister urged.

' 'Wife ! Palace ! I know not of them, ' ' exclaim-
ed the hermit, ' 'but yonder in the green is my pal-
ace, and I wish no wife. Since childhood I have
lived there in the wilderness and there will I die.
I asked not to be wedded, so farewell, King's
daughter ! I fly from thee and thy palace to live
and die a Sanyasi. "

And so he left her, she so newly wed and forever
widowed.

"See," said the onlooking disguised King in tri-
umph to the old hermit, his prisoner and compan-
ion, "see the greatness of this Sanyasi, who is not
tempted by so fair a wife nor yet by the great
honor put upon him. The greed of wealth and
rank disturbs him not and he knows not the desire
of pomp and glory. Rather would he dwell in for-
est glades and seek the wisdom of God in Nature's
cloistered aisles than dwell among men honored
and great. Was I not right? The Sany&si is
greater than a householder."

''Judge not yet, King," smiled the old San-
yasi in reply, ''but let us on."

As they left the wailing wife, the city of merry-
making suddenly grew full of woe by the calamity
that had come upon their loved princess. But the
royal and holy searchers of the solution of the
problem went toward the forest where night soon
overtook them.

An hour later, cold and hungry, the King, sitting
under a tree, said to the hermit who leaned against
its trunk, as if in sleep, "I was a fool, hermit, to
follow thee in quest of wisdom. Surely, I would
have shown wisdom to have remained in my pal-
ace where my bed awaits me and my food is ready.
This is not to my liking."

But receiving no reply from the hermit, he gath-
ered such dry leaves as he could find and made for
himself a bed, and then searched about in vain to
find a light to build a fire complaining all the
while of the cold and hunger that overtook him.

Above them in the tree, two little parrots, as big
as the clenched fist of a dainty maiden, sat and
looked upon the intruders, and this is what they
said in the language that birds use when they solve
the philosophy of life :

' ' little wife, ' ' said the one to the other, ' 'thou,
the best part of my home, awake, for wayfaring
guests are below and one complained loudly of the
cold. Oh sad am I that I cannot offer the warmth
of hospitality ! Grievous is the sin of my inability
to make them comfortable. It is no doubt the ful-
fillment of my bad Karma that leaver me helpless
in the face of my guest's discomfort ! ' '

"Wait," chirped the little wife, '*see, yonder is
a light, perhaps a bonfire made by some wayfarer.
I will go and bring a light."

And away she flew, returning with a tiny light-
ed twig. Deftly she dropped it upon the heap of
dry leaves that the King had made.

"Hullo! Here is a fire!" exclaimed the King in
delight and in a short time a blazing fire was
warming his cold-nipped hands.

But soon again the King complained to the ap-
parently sleeping hermit, "I cannot sleep while
thou seemest to sleep so well. My hunger is too
great for sleep. Would I were home so I might eat
what is awaiting me. ' '

"Hearest thou," said the husband-bird, "he, my
guest, is hungry and there is nothing to feed him.
What shall I do? Great is the punishment that
awaits those who feed not the hungry at their door
and sad is the plight that has overtaken my house
when a guest is ahungered and is not fed."

Long they reasoned and bemoaned their lot
when all at once the little husband-bird said unto
the wife,

" It is the only way. Thou hast been a good and
'true wife to me. Thy presence has ever brought
joy to my heart and luck to my house. Thou hast
been all a wife should be. Farewell, and may thou
be my wife in my next birth!"

And lo, the little bird plunged himself down-
ward into the bonfire so that his guest that was
hungry might be fed!

' ' Oh ! " cried the King ' ' this is luck. Some bird
dazzled by the flame has fallen into it. It will
make a sweet morsel for my hungry self. * *

And depleting the little maina of its feathers, he
roasted it over the fire and ate it.

''But/' said he, when he had gulped it down in
a moment, '"tis but enough to whet the appetite,
not to satisfy it. Would my hunger might be ap-
peased.''

And the lonely little wife-bird sat overhead and
saw her husband disappear and heard the King
grumble still in his hunger.

"0 husband," she cried with plaintive chirp,
ing, ''his hunger is not satisfied even by thy sweet
self. I shall make thy sacrifice complete and ful-
fill the law of hospitality of this household."

And so saying, she drew her wings about her
quivering little body and fell into the fire at the
feet of the King.

' ' The gods smile upon me, ' ' cried the King again
as he picked the feathers from the faithful breast
of the little housewife. And roasting her over the
fire, he ate the bird and fell into a sleep beside the
still burning fire, an uninvited guest in the house
of those who had given their lives for him.

With the waking dawn the King opened his eyes
to find the hermit still leaning against the trunk of
the tree, but his eyes were fixed upon him.

'* Come/ 'he said, ''the day breaks. I will put
you on your way toward your home.*'

*'Why," said the King, "with the problem still
unsolved, that we set out to settle?"

''It is solved," replied the holy man.

"Wherein," asked the King, "lies the solution
of it?"

The holy one, who had dwelt in the jungle and
had learned the laws of love and life on Nature's
breast, told him of the little drama that had been
enacted above their heads that night and the re-
sult of it. He, the holy one, at one with Nature
and at one with Ood, had also been at one with the
understanding of the little feathered householders.

"And I thought," said the King, with wonder-
widened eyes, "pure chance had lighted the leaves
at my feet for my warming and that better chance
had thrust those two wee birds into the fire to stop
my hunger."

"There is no chance, all is law," answered the
wise one. "There was merit, King," he contin-
ued, "in the young Sanyasi thrusting the great
honor of being a ruler of a kingdom and a King's
wealth aside to go into the vnldemess as a humble
worshipper of God; yet he had from childhood
thus lived, seeking wisdom and through wisdom
he found happiness in renunciation and realiza-
tion. But greater than he are those two house-
holders whom these wee creatures represented to
thee last night. Blessed, many times blessed, and
of greater merit is the householder who, in the
midst of turmoil and temptation, finds his at-one-
ment with his Father and through that at-one-ment
does his duty of a householder even to the giving
up of his life to serve that duty. So, King, thou
seest that the householder and the saint are alike
in spirit. One gives up worldly gain and retires'
into the wilderness to love his God undisturbed;
the other, in the midst of worldly temptations,
gives up the world to fulfill the duties of the
householder."