Now, this beggar wanted to attend the high holiday services at the neighboring temple, but hesitated to go because he might not be welcome.

 

At last, he set up his offerings before his own tiny altar and resolved to celebrate the Holy day alone. Came the night of the feast- day, the temple on the hill was brightly lit, and the villagers in their finest clothes were streaming to the sanctuary.

 

In his shack beneath the bridge, the beggar was feeling sad that he had not been able to invite a cleric to officiate in his home, when there was suddenly the sound of someone at the door. The beggar opened it to find a man in a tattered koromo and kesa.

 

The stranger asked if he might come in out of the chill, and our beggar was overjoyed and explained that he was about to celebrate the feast of Thanksgiving and Gratitude. The beggar then asked the stranger if he would officiate. Together they chanted the scriptures and then talked of the Buddha’s teachings. When the service was done, the strange clergyman said he must be on his way. The beggar explained that he had nothing with which to pay for the service, but he hesitatingly offered a single flower from his altar.

 

The stranger accepted it gratefully, and the beggar watched sadly as he saw the strangers tattered habit go slowly up the road and finally enter the now darkened temple on the hill.

Later in the day, the beggar decided he wanted again to thank the strange clergyman, who had so mysteriously appeared to celebrate the Feast of Thanksgiving and Gratitude with him.

 

The beggar went up the hill to the temple and asked to see the stranger in the tattered koromo, but the maid said that there was no such person there. The beggar insisted that he had seen the man enter the temple, and finally the rector was called. The rector, too, denied the mysterious stranger was in the temple. When the beggar persisted, however, the rector in exasperation, said: Well, look around for yourself!

 

When the beggar had carefully searched the ante-chambers and the rectory, he came back into the sanctuary where the annoyed rector

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