Some of the men applauded.
Father Honoré turned from the screen and faced the men; his eyes flashed. The audience loved to see him in this mood, for they knew by experience that he was generally able to meet his adversary, and no odds given or taken.
"That's you, is it, Szchenetzy?"
"Yes, it's me."
"Do you remember in last month's talk that I showed you the Dolomites—the curious mountains of the Tyrol?—and in connection with those the Brenner Pass?"
"Yes."
"Well, something like seven hundred years ago a poor man, a poet and travelling musician, was riding over that pass and down into that very region of the Dolomites. He made his living by stopping at the stronghold-castles of those times and entertaining the powerful of the earth by singing his poems set to music of his own making. Sometimes he got a suit of cast-off clothes in payment; sometimes only bed and board for a time. But he kept on singing his little poems and making more of them as he grew rich in experience of men and things; for he never grew rich in gold—money was the last thing they ever gave him. So he continued long his wandering life, singing his songs in courtyard and castle hall until they sang their way into the hearts of the men of his generation. And while he wandered, he gained a wonderful knowledge of life and its ways among rich and poor, high and low; and, pondering the things he had seen and the many ways of this world, he said to himself, that day when he was riding over the Brenner Pass, the same thing that you have just said—in almost the same words:—'Many a man calls God "Father" who won't acknowledge me for a brother.'
"I don't know how he reconciled facts—for your fact seems plain enough—nor do I know how you can reconcile them; but what I do know is this:—that man, poor in this world's goods, but rich in experience and in a natural endowment of poetic thought and musical ability, kept on making poems, kept on singing them, despite that fact to which he had given expression as he fared over the Brenner; despite the fact that a suit of cast-off clothes was all he got for his entertainment of those who would not call him 'brother.' Discouraged at times—for he was very human—he kept on giving the best that was in him, doing the work appointed for him in this world—and doing it with a whole heart Godwards and Christwards, despite his poverty, despite the broken promises of the great to reward him pecuniarily, despite the world, despite facts, Szchenetzy! He sang when he was young of earthly love and in middle age of heavenly love, and his songs are cherished, for their beauty of wisdom and love, in the hearts of men to this day."
He smiled genially across the sea of faces to Szchenetzy.
"Come up some night with your violin, Szchenetzy, and we will try over some of those very songs that the Germans have set to music of their own, those words of Walter of the Bird-Meadow—so they called him then, and men keep on calling him that even to this day."