It is dead, and the other has gained possession of the parchment. I will seize him, and examine the lot, which has busied these two competitors. It says that the successful lover is to be poisoned by his wife two years after marriage. Now you see that those are often the happiest whose emissary finds no prize for them in the urn. Let us hear the next suitor.
PRAYER.
Oh God, restore to me my property, or who will praise thy justice upon earth?
MAHOMET.
That is a very reproachful prayer.
ANGEL.
Yes; the Supreme Being is often required to interpose on pain of losing all reputation for equity. See how the bird pecks the net, and struggles to reach the urn. You may observe, that each bird in behaviour and importunity corresponds with the words of the prayer it sprung from. I will let him out: he finds no parchment; then Providence must undergo the imputation that has been threatened. The prayer dies in great anger.
But as you have now learned something of the management of these prayers, you shall hear some petitions of a different kind. The prayers that you have heard were all sincere, and offered with a desire of accomplishment; but there are also hypocritical prayers, the success of which is not wished by those who utter them; they come to this other door. The contrivance of the bird and the urn is not practised with them, but they are let in, and very soon perish.
MAHOMET.
But do men ever pray for what they do not wish to have?