Church Bells

In an expanse of bare land, there stood a beautiful chapel. On entering it, one could feel that every pew and aisle was full of prayer. It was here that a kind priest served. His faith in God and in his fellow beings afforded him that rare kindness, a little of which he had for everyone.

One fine day, there came at his doorstep a little orphan boy, poor and hungry. The priest fed and watered him and told him that he could stay and work at the church if he liked. And so the boy did. He would ring the church bell after every mass and at every fourth hour. Many such happy years passed. The once little boy was now a young man who knew nothing else but to ring the church bell as he had done in days of yore.

The priest, now old and weary, retired from his services to the lord. His successor, on finding an uneducated young man in residence ordered him to leave the church at once. He had no place for people who couldn’t read and write. Giving the young man a small sum to live off, he bid him farewell.

Having been turned out of the only job he knew, he wandered in search of something to do. Soon, he felt pangs of hunger. Looking around, he saw miles and miles of dusty, brown land but not a place he could rest his tired self and have a spot of lunch. And so he walked until he came to a wayward village bakery. While eating, he mused that it was indeed a tiresome task for churchgoers to walk this enormous distance and back without refreshment.

It struck him that he might buy some stuff from the bakery and start shop at a reasonable distance from the church. This enterprise of his turned into a flourishing business. Soon he expanded his little shop and in time he was a prosperous restaurateur and owner of a chain of eateries. Being somewhat a noteworthy public figure, banks soon flocked to him in search of prospective patronage.

During one such rendezvous, a banker expressed his absolute shock at the fact that such a vastly successful man was uneducated. He said, “Sir! If you are this successful without any education, imagine what you would’ve be doing if you were learned!”

The man said nothing. At the sound of distant church bells ringing, he just smiled and said, “I would’ve been ringing church bells.”