Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
So they were all gathered together in prayer, both men and women,
for eight days and eight nights. And whilst they were thus engaged
in prayer it was revealed in a vision by a Holy Angel of Heaven to a
certain Bishop who was a very good Christian, that he should desire
a certain Christian Cobler,{1} who had but one eye, to pray to God;
and that God in His goodness would grant such prayer because of the
Cobler’s holy life.
Now I must tell you what manner of man this Cobler was. He was one who
led a life of great uprightness and chastity, and who fasted and kept
from all sin, and went daily to church to hear Mass, and gave daily a
portion of his gains to God. And the way how he came to have but one
eye was this. It happened one day that a certain woman came to him to
have a pair of shoes made, and she showed him her foot that he might
take her measure. Now she had a very beautiful foot and leg; and the
Cobler in taking her measure was conscious of sinful thoughts. And he
had often heard it said in the Holy Evangel, that if thine eye offend
thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, rather than sin. So, as soon
as the woman had departed, he took the awl that he used in stitching,
and drove it into his eye and destroyed it. And this is the way he came
to lose his eye. So you can judge what a holy, just, and righteous man
he was.
NOTE 1.—Here the G. T. uses a strange word: “_Or te vais a tel_
cralantur.” It does not occur again, being replaced by _chabitier_
(savetier). It has an Oriental look, but I can make no satisfactory
suggestion as to what the word meant.
CHAPTER IX.
HOW THE ONE-EYED COBLER WAS DESIRED TO PRAY FOR THE
CHRISTIANS.
Now when this vision had visited the Bishop several times, he related
the whole matter to the Christians, and they agreed with one consent to
call the Cobler before them. And when he had come they told him it was
their wish that he should pray, and that God had promised to accomplish
the matter by his means. On hearing their request he made many excuses,
declaring that he was not at all so good a man as they represented. But
they persisted in their request with so much sweetness, that at last he
said he would not tarry, but do what they desired.
CHAPTER X.
HOW THE PRAYER OF THE ONE-EYED COBLER CAUSED THE
MOUNTAIN TO MOVE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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