12 BIRDS AND MAN 



forth again and repeated the performance, and 

 then again, until the traveller approached and 

 asked him what he was doing. " I am lighting 

 the church," said the old man ; and he then went 

 on to explain that it was a large and a fine 

 church, fuU of rich ornaments, but very dark 

 inside — so dark that when people came to service 

 the greatest confusion prevailed, and they could 

 not see each other or the priest, nor the priest 

 them. It had always been so, he continued, and 

 it was a great mystery; he had been engaged 

 by the fathers of the village a long time back, 

 when he was a young man, to carry sunlight in 

 to light the interior; but though he had grown 

 old at his task, and had carried in many, many 

 thousands of sackfuls of sunlight every year, it 

 stUl remained dark, and no one could say why 

 it was so. 



It is not necessary to relate the sequel : the 

 reader knows by now that in the end the dark 

 church was fiUed with hght, that the traveller 

 was feasted and honoured by aU the people of 

 the village, and that he left them loaded with 

 gifts. 



Parables of this kind as a rule can have no 



