The lasting world is full of your fame,
Far and wide you have wandered on every track:
If every day we followed your ways,
We should come safe into the presence of dread God.
You leave an example and a bequest
To every one in this world,
You have taught us by your life:
Earnest prayer to God is no fallacy.
Then may God grant us peace and happiness!
May the countenance of the King
Shine brightly upon us
When we leave behind us our withered bodies.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] A name for Ireland.
THE DEVIL'S TRIBUTE TO MOLING
Once as Moling was praying in his church he saw a man coming in to him. Purple raiment he wore and a distinguished form had he. 'Well met, cleric!' says he. 'Amen!' says Moling. 'Why dost thou not salute me?' says the man. 'Who art thou?' says Moling. 'I am Christ, the Son of God,' he answers. 'I do not know that,' says Moling. 'When Christ used to come to converse with God's servants, 'twas not in purple or with royal pomp he would come, but in the shape of a leper.' 'Then dost thou not believe in me?' says the man. 'Whom dost thou suppose to be here?' 'I suppose,' says Moling, 'that it is the Devil for my hurt.' 'Thy unbelief will be ill for thee,' says the man. 'Well,' says Moling, raising the Gospel, 'here is thy successor, the Gospel of Christ.' 'Raise it not, cleric!' says the Devil; 'it is as thou thinkest: I am the man of tribulations.' 'Wherefore hast thou come?' says Moling. 'That thou mayst bestow a blessing upon me.' 'I will not bestow it,' says Moling, 'for thou dost not deserve it. Besides, what good could it do thee?' 'If,' says the Devil, 'thou shouldst go into a tub of honey and bathe therein with thy raiment on, its odour would remain upon thee unless the raiment were washed.' 'How would that affect thee?' asks Moling. 'Because, though thy blessing do nought else to me, its good luck and its virtue and its blossom will be on me externally.' 'Thou shalt not have it,' says Moling, 'for thou deservest it not.' 'Well,' said the Devil, 'then bestow the full of a curse on me.' 'What good were that to thee?' asks Moling. 'The venom and the hurt of the curse will be on the lips from which it will come.' 'Go,' says Moling; 'thou hast no right to a blessing.' 'Better were it for me that I had. How shall I earn it?' 'By service to God,' says Moling. 'Woe is me!' says the Devil, 'I cannot bring it.' 'Even a trifle of study.' 'Thine own study is not greater, and yet it helps me not.' 'Fasting, then,' says Moling. 'I have been fasting since the beginning of the world, and not the better thereof am I.' 'Making genuflexions,' says Moling. 'I cannot bend forward,' says the Devil, 'for backwards are my knees.' 'Go forth,' says Moling; 'I cannot teach thee nor help thee.' Then the Devil said: