Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable XCVII

by Roger L'Estrange

Fab. XCVII.

Mercury and a Traveller.

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 loft 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.

The MORAL.

Men Talk as if they Believ'd 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.

REFLEXION.

This is to Reprchend the False and Covetous Humour of Those that for Mony and Profit, will not Stick at putting Shams even upon God Himself; Prophaning his Altars, and Ridiculing his very Omnifcicnce and Power, Here’s the Wickedness of a Libertine Naturally enough set forth, only the Punishment is Wanting that should have Completed the Moral. What Opinion have These Religious Banterers, of the Divine Power and Justice; Or what have they to say for themselves in This Audacious Habit of Mockery and Contempt; but that they Believe in their Hearts that there is No God? Not but that more or less, we are all Jugglers in Secret betwixt Heaven, and our Own Souls: Only they Cover and Meditate Abuses under the Masque and Pretence of Conscience, and Religion and make God Almighty Privy to a Thousand False and Cozcning Contrivances, that we keep as the Greatest Privacies in the World, from the Knowledge of our Neighbours. Nay, when we are Most in Earnest, our Vows and Promises are more then Half Broken in the very making of them; and if we can but secure our Selves a Retreat, by some Cleanly Evasion, Distinction, or Mental Reservation, it serves our Purpose e'en as Well as if it were a Casuistical Resolution. In One Word, we find the Moral of Mercury and the Traveller in the very Secrcts of our Hearts, betwixt Heaven, and our own Souls.