Gavarni, who spoke the bitter phrase, “Partout Dieu n’est et n’a été que l’enseigne d’une boutique,” made bold in one of his lithographs of “Scènes de la vie intime” (1837) to inscribe over the gates of Paradise, from which the “tenants” were flying: “Au pommier sans pareil.” Schiller tells us that the world loves to smirch shining things and bring down the lofty to the dust. This need not deter us from reading in the old Paradise signs a reminder of the journey of our first parents, and to enjoy thankfully the blessings of ordered hospitality to-day.
Until this ordered hospitality prevailed, however, many centuries had to elapse, and for the long interval every man who ventured out into the hostile wilderness resembled Carlyle’s traveler, “overtaken by Night and its tempests and rain deluges, but refusing to pause; who is wetted to the bone, and does not care further for rain. A traveler grown familiar with howling solitudes, aware that the storm winds do not pity, that Darkness is the dead earth’s shadow.” Only the strong and bold could dare to defy wild nature, especially when there was need to cross desolate places, inhospitable mountains like the Alps. So the ancients celebrated Hercules as a hero, because he was the pioneer who made a road through their rough mountain world.
A still longer time had to elapse ere the traveler could rejoice in the beauties of nature which surrounded him. The civilizing work of insuring safe highways had to be done before what Macaulay names “the sense of the wilder beauties of nature” could be developed. “It was not till roads had been cut out of the rocks, till bridges had been flung over the courses of the rivulets, till inns had succeeded to dens of robbers ... that strangers could be enchanted by the blue dimples of the lakes and by the rainbow which overhung the waterfalls, and could derive a solemn pleasure even from the clouds and tempests which lowered on the mountain-tops.”
No wonder, then, that the literature of olden times, when traveling was so dangerous an occupation, is filled with admonitions to hospitality. The finest example of it, perhaps, is preserved in the Bible story of the visit of the angels to Abraham, and later to Lot. This story deserves to be read again and again as the typical account of hospitality. As is the custom to speak in the most modest terms of a meal to which one invites a guest, calling it “a bite” or “a cup of tea,” so Abraham spoke to the angels, “I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts.” Then Abraham told his wife to bake a great loaf, while he himself went out to kill a fatted calf and bring butter and milk. In like fashion Lot extends his hospitality, providing the strangers with water to refresh their tired feet, and in the night even risking his life against the attacking Sodomites, to protect the guests who have come for shelter beneath his roof.
The feeling that a guest might be a divine messenger, nay, even Deity itself, continued into the New Testament times, as St. Paul’s advice to the Hebrews shows: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” And did not the disciples, too, at times, receive their Master as a guest in their homes, the Son of Man, the Son of God? William Allen Knight has dwelt on this thought very beautifully in his little book called “Peter in the Firelight”: “The people of Capernaum slept that night with glowings of peace lighting their dreams. But in no house where loved ones freed from pain were sleeping was there gladness like in Simon’s; for the Master himself was sleeping there.”
Murrhardt
A later type of legend pictures the angels, not as guests, but as benefactors, preparing a wonderful meal for starving monks who in their charity have given away all their possessions to the poor, and have no bread to eat. The tourist, walking through the seemingly endless galleries of the Louvre, will pause a moment before the beautiful canvas on which Murillo has depicted this story. The French call it “la cuisine des anges.” It is a historical fact that many cloisters were reduced to poverty in the Middle Ages on account of their generous almsgiving. Not all of them could lay claim to the holy Diego of Murillo’s painting, who could pray with such perfect trust in Him who feeds the sparrows that angels came down from heaven into the cloister kitchen to prepare the meal. The widespread popularity of these Biblical stories and holy legends need cause no wonder that the angel was a favorite subject for tavern signs in the Middle Ages, and that even at this day he takes so many an old inn under the patronage of his benevolent wings. It has been asserted that the angel sign originated in the age of the Reformation, simply by leaving out the figure of the Virgin Mary from the portrayal of the scene of the Annunciation. But against this theory stands the fact that there were simple angel signs in the Middle Ages as well as Annunciation signs. We learn that the students of Paris in the year 1380 assembled for their revels in the tavern “in angelo.” The records of these same Parisian students tell us how they lingered over their cups in the tavern “in duobus angelis,” in the year of grace 1449.
We may remark here in passing that the linen drapers’ guild in London had as its escutcheon the three angels of Abraham. One need only to recall the full, flowing garments of Botticelli’s angels to understand in what great respect the linen merchant would hold the angels as good customers of the drapery trade.
An angel in beggar’s form brought St. Julian the good news of the pardon of the sins of his youth. In a wild fit of anger the headstrong young Julian had killed his parents. As atonement for his dreadful crime he had done penance and built a refuge in which for many long years he freely cared for all travelers who came his way. At last the angel’s reward of hospitality was vouchsafed to him, and in memory of his good works tavern-keepers chose him as their patron saint.