Alexander of Macedon

p. 19 country?' 'Surely,' replied Alexander. 'And you possess also animals and fowls?' 'Why not?' asked the Macedonian. 'Then,' remarked the judge, I must suppose that the purpose of the rain and sunshine in your land is to sustain those harmless creatures; for you, the human inhabitants, judging by your perverseness and injustice, are unworthy of such blessed gifts of nature.' One day they arrived at a river, and as his servants were washing off the salt of the fish, which they carried with them for their august master, in the water of the river, they saw that life was returning to the fishes. When the marvellous event was reported to Alexander, he determined to find the source of that river. He pursued his way, and at last found a gate, where he demanded admittance. The answer he received to his demand was: 'This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter therein,' and he concluded that it must be the gate of Paradise. As all his pleadings did not gain him admittance, he asked for some article from the place as a token of his having arrived there. A lump of gold in the shape of a human eye was handed out to him, and on putting it in the scales to ascertain its remarkable weight, he found that whatever weight he might put on the opposite scale, it would not turn the scale on which the golden eye was put. As soon as he met with the Rabbis again, he asked them to unriddle this remarkable thing. The Rabbis told him to put a little earth over the eye, and its weight would vanish. They explained that the eye was a perfect type of the human eye, which, as the wise king tells us (Prov. 27.), is never satisfied, until a little earth is put over it (in death), and its everlasting hunger ceases. 1