LESSON VI

RESIGNATION

Rabbi Meir, the great teacher, sat one Sabbath day in the school of the
holy law, and taught the people. The rabbi had two sons, who were
youths of great promise and well instructed in the law. On that
Sabbath day they both died.

Tenderly their mother bore them to an upper chamber, laid them on her
bed, and spread a white sheet over their bodies.

In the evening Rabbi Meir came home. "Where are my sons," asked he,
"that I may give them my blessing?"

"They are gone into the school of the law," was his wife's reply.

"I looked around me," said he, "and I did not see them."

She set before him a cup; he praised the Lord for the close of the
Sabbath, drank, and then asked again, "Where are my sons, that they may
also drink of the wine of blessing?"

"They cannot be far off," said his wife, as she placed food before him
and begged him to eat.

When he had given thanks after the meal, she said, "Rabbi, allow me a
question."