Character Index | Proverb Index
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| Character Index | Proverb Index |
L'Estrange version
One that was just entring upon a long journey, took up a fancy of putting a trick upon Mercury. He say'd him a short prayer for the bon voyage, with a promise, that the god should go halfe with him in whatever he found. Some body had lost a bag of dates and almonds, it seems, and it was his fortune to find it. He fell to work upon 'em immediately, and when he had eaten up the kernels, and all that was good of them, himself, he lay'd the stones, and the shells upon an altar; and desir'd Mercury to take notice that he had perform'd his vow. For, says he, here are the outsides of the one, and the insides of the other, and there's the moiety I promis'd ye.
Moral
Men talk as if they believe in God, but they live as if they thought there were none; for their very prayers are mockeries, and their vows and promises are no more then words of course, which they never intended to make good.
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Tom Simondi, All Rights Reserved