“Why these tears?” his master asked.
“My heart is grieved at the plight of this unfortunate old man,” the slave replied. “Once was he the owner of much wealth, and I his slave.”
The master smiled and said: “This is not cause for grief, O son. Time, in its revolutions, is not unjust. Was not that indigent man formerly a merchant who carried his head high in the air through pride? I am he whom that day he drove from his door. Fate has now put him in the place that I then occupied. Heaven befriended me and washed the dust of sorrow from my face. Though God, in His wisdom, closed one door, another, in His mercy, did He open.”
Many a needy one has become filled, and many a Plutos has gone empty.
Story of a Fool and a Fox
Some one saw a fox that was bereft of the use of its legs. He was wondering how the animal managed to live in this condition when a tiger drew near with a jackal in its claws. The tiger ate the jackal, and the fox finished the remains. The next day also did the Omnipotent Provider send the fox its daily meal.
The eyes of the man were thus opened to the light of true knowledge. “After this,” he reflected, “I will sit in a corner like an ant, for the elephant’s portion is not gained by reason of its strength.”
So did he sit in silence, waiting for his daily food to come from the Invisible. No one heeded him, and soon was he reduced to skin and bones. When, at last, his senses had almost gone through weakness, a voice came out from the wall of a mosque, saying:
“Go, O false one! Be the rending tiger, and pose not as a paralytic fox. Exert thyself like the tiger, so that something may remain from thy spoil. Why, like the fox, appease thy hunger with leavings? Eat of the fruits of thine own endeavours; strive like a man, and relieve the wants of the needy.”
Seize, O youth, the hand of the aged; fall not thyself, saying, “Hold my hand.” In the two worlds does he obtain reward who does good to the people of God.