fish, "to flee from our enemies, and avoid the many nets and snares which they have prepared for us." "Oh! oh!" said the cunning fox, "if that be all,—I can tell you an easy way how to secure your safety. Come along with me on dry land, where we may dwell together in tranquillity, in the same manner as our ancestors did before us." The fish perceiving the treachery of their insidious adviser, said to him, "Fox! fox! art thou he who is considered as the most sagacious of animals! surely thy counsel proves thee a very great fool. If, even in our own native element, we are beset with so many dangers, what security can we expect to find on an element so repugnant to our nature, and so contrary to our habits?"
"It is even so with us," continued the pious Rabbi;[1] "if, even by partially following that
- ↑ This truly great man was not permitted to exert his pious endeavors long. He was thrown into prison, and, at last, publicly executed under the greatest torments, by the order of the Emperor Hadrian.The Talmudists tell us, that after he had been some time imprisoned, it so happened that Pappos was thrown in the same dungeon. When Akiba beheld him, he asked him, "Pappos, what has brought thee hither?"—as much as to say, how comes it that thy time-serving policy did not protect thee? To which Pappos replied: "Happy art thou, Akiba, who sufferest for the law—woe to me, who suffer for vain things." Thus retracting his former opinion, and acknowledging that, when our religion is in danger, it becomes our bounden duty cheerfully to lay down our lives for its preservation.
