Helter-skelter they went, those pesky rats – big ones, small ones, fat ones, lean ones. They all followed the piper. A town that was enduring an infestation seemed to be on the way to better things. What could be better than a town with no rats? They were about to find out. It came the turn of the populace. The children followed the piper, pell-mell. Now it was different. The town seemed to have no future.
There is a likeness between this mass movement of Hamelin people and the speed of it, and the rapid growth of Christianity in the generation following the words and works of Jesus. What started as plausible off-shoot of the main religion in the eastern Mediterranean found itself moving in government offices, in education, in the law courts. The coercion and deference that defined the Roman Empire was outflanked by a movement that was on its way to Spain and claiming a place in the Empire that was like nothing before.
In Hamelin it was all because of one man. A man in a parti-coloured outfit but a man with a pipe. (a musical implement). The pipe signified a message. In the larger scheme of things this was about the way the Empire and organised life in the Mediterranean would be heading.
Browning may have been reticent about the Christian faith but with his word-play and sensitive ear he attracted an audience. The poem ‘How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix’ lodged in people’s minds. We cannot afford to ignore such gifts as these.
On the face of it Browning is offering us a poem for children, a narrative like ‘Goldilocks’. As is often the case, there is more to it than that. Nursery rhymes are often answers to question that children ask rather than questions that we think they ought to ask. If we can start our evangelism by gaining their attention we shall be using our time wisely.
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