Character Index | Proverb Index
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| Character Index | Proverb Index |
In the old days men used to worship stocks and stones and idols, and prayed to them to give them luck. It happened that a Man had often prayed to a wooden idol he had received from his father, but his luck never seemed to change. He prayed and he prayed, but still he remained as unlucky as ever. One day in the greatest rage he went to the Wooden God, and with one blow swept it down from its pedestal. The idol broke in two, and what did he see? An immense number of coins flying all over the place.
Townsend version (The Image of Mercury and The Carpenter)
A very poor man, a Carpenter by trade, had a wooden image of Mercury, before which he made offerings day by day, and begged the idol to make him rich, but in spite of his entreaties he became poorer and poorer. At last, being very angry, he took his image down from its pedestal and dashed it against the wall. When its head was knocked off, out came a stream of gold, which the Carpenter quickly picked up and said, "Well, I think thou art altogether contradictory and unreasonable; for when I paid you honor, I reaped no benefits: but now that I maltreat you I am loaded with an abundance of riches."
L'Estrange version
A man that had a great veneration for an image he had in his house, found, that the more he pray'd to't to prosper him in the world, the more he went down the wind still. This put him into such a rage, to lye dogging at his prayers so much, and so long, to so little purpose, that at last he dasht the head on't to pieces against the wall; and out comes a considerable quantity of gold. Why this 'tis, says he, to adore a perverse and insensible deity, that will do more for blowes than for worship.
Moral
Most people, clergy as well as laity, accommodate their religion to their profit, and reckon that to be the best church that there's most to be got by.
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Tom Simondi, All Rights Reserved