'It is only pearls!

It is only pearls!

An Arab once lost his way in the desert. His provisions were soon exhausted. For two days and two nights he had not a morsel to eat. He began to fear that he would die of hunger. He looked eagerly, but in vain, along the level sand for some caravan of travelers from whom he might beg some food and water.

At last he came to a place where there was a little water in a well, and around the well the marks of an encampment. Some people had lately pitched their tents there, and gathered them up and gone away again. The starving Arab looked around in the hope of finding some food that the travelers might have left behind.

After searching awhile, he came upon a little bag tied at the mouth, and full of something that felt hard and round. He opened the bag with great joy, thinking it contained either dates or nuts, and expecting that with them he should be able to satisfy his hunger.

But as soon as he saw what the sack contained he threw it on the ground in bitter disappointment, and cried out in despair, " It is only pearls! " falling down in the desert to die.

Just so, in the great crises of life, this world's most prized things are only mockeries. If we cannot have bread, the bread of life, we shall perish!

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