An eternity in which to repent
Let me tell a story. I did not read it in a devotional book but in what would be called entertaining literature. Yet I feel no hesitancy in making use of it, and I remark upon this only lest anyone might be disturbed by it, if by chance he knows the source of the story or should subsequently learn where I found it.62 I would not have him think that I conceal this.
Somewhere in the Orient there lived a poor old couple, husband and wife. They possessed, as I have said, nothing but poverty; and naturally anxiety about the future increased with the prospect of old age. They did not assail heaven with their prayers, for they were too pious for that; but nevertheless they continually cried to heaven for help.
Then it chanced one morning that the wife, going out to the oven, found upon the hearth a precious stone of great size, which at once she made haste to show to her husband, who, having knowledge of such matters, saw at once that they were well provisioned for the rest of their life.
A bright future for this old couple — what joy! Yet, God-fearing as they were, and content with little, they resolved that, having enough to live upon for still another day, they would not sell the jewel that day. But on the morrow it should be sold, and on the morrow a new life would begin.
That night, the night before the morrow, the woman dreamed that she was transported into paradise. An angel conducted her around and showed her all the glories an oriental imagination could invent. Then the angel led her also into a hall where there were long rows of armchairs completely adorned with pearls and precious stones, which, as the angel explained, were for the pious. Finally he showed her also one which was intended for her. Looking more closely she saw that on the back of the seat there was lacking a very large jewel. She asked the angel how that had come about. He———
Now be alert, here comes the story! The angel answered, "That was the precious stone you found on the hearth. That you received in advance, and it cannot be inserted again."
In the morning the woman related the dream to her husband, and her opinion was that it would be better to hold out the few years longer they might have to live, rather than that the precious stone should be lacking throughout all eternity. And her pious husband was of the same opinion.
So that evening they laid the stone again upon the hearth and prayed God that evening that He would take it back. In the morning, sure enough, it was gone. Where it had gone the old couple knew: it was now in its right place.
Truly this man was happily married, his wife was a sensible woman. If it be true, as is often said, that there are wives who make their husbands forget the eternal, yet nevertheless, though all were unmarried, everyone has within himself something which more artfully and more urgently and more persistently than any woman is able to make a man forget the eternal and lead him to measure falsely, as if a few years, or ten years, or forty years, were a prodigiously long time, so that even eternity becomes something very short in comparison, whereas on the contrary these years are a very short time, and eternity prodigiously long.
Oh, remember this well! Thou canst perhaps by shrewdness avoid what it has pleased God once for all to unite with being a Christian, namely, suffering and adversity. Thou canst perhaps, by shrewdly evading this to thine own ruin, attain what God has eternally separated from being a Christian, namely, enjoyment and all earthly goods. Thou canst perhaps, befooled by thy shrewdness, be totally lost at last in the vain delusion that it is precisely the right path thou art on, because thou dost win the earthly — and then an eternity in which to repent! An eternity in which to repent, that is, to repent that thou didst not employ time upon that which can be eternally remembered: to love God in truth, with the consequence that in this life thou wilt suffer at the hands of men.
Therefore deceive not thyself, of all deceivers fear most thyself! Even if it were possible in relation to the eternal to take something in advance, thou wouldst yet be deceiving thyself by...something in advance — and then an eternity in which to repent.
Translator's Footnotes
62In the Thousand and One Nights.