THE MAN AND THE IMAGE

A poor Man had a wooden Image of a god, to which he used to pray daily for riches. He did this for a long time, but remained as poor as ever, till one day he caught up the Image in disgust and hurled it with all his strength against the wall. The force of the blow split open the head and a quantity of gold coins fell out upon the floor. The Man gathered them up greedily, and said, “O you old fraud, you! When I honoured you, you did me no good whatever: but no sooner do I treat you to insults and violence than you make a rich man of me!”

人和神像

有一个穷人，他有一尊木头神像，他每天都向神像祈祷，希望自己能富裕起来。他坚持了很长一段时间，可是依然一贫如洗，有一天，他恼恨地抓起神像，用尽力气砸向了墙壁。这一下猛击，将神像的头给砸开了，很多金币从里面滚出来落在地板上。那人贪婪地将金币收集起来，说：“哎呀，你这个老骗子！我敬你的时候，你什么好处都不给我，可是我一以羞辱、暴力待你，你便让我做了有钱人。”