About prayer and chanterelle. Parable of prudence

In Egypt, where in the great Christian antiquity there were many great monasteries, one monk was friends with an unlearned ingenuous pell-fellah. Once a peasant told a monk:
- I also worship God, who created this world! Every evening I pour goat milk into a bowl and put it under a palm tree. At night, God comes and drinks my milk. He really likes it! Never once was there anything left in the bowl.

Having heard these words, the monk could not help laughing. He kindly and intelligibly explained to his friend that God does not need goat milk. However, the peasant stubbornly insisted on his. And then the monk offered to secretly follow the next night what happens after the bowl of milk remains under a palm tree.

No sooner said than done: at night the monk and the peasant hid nearby and under the moonlight soon saw the chanterelle crept up to the bowl and vylakal all the milk of the peasant.

“Yes,” he admitted distressedly, “now I see that it was not God!”

The monk tried to console the peasant and began to explain that God is the Spirit, that He is completely different from our world, that people would know Him in a special way ... But the peasant just stood in front of him with his head down, and then he cried and went to his shack.

The monk also went to his cell. But, approaching her, he was amazed to see an angel blocking his path at the door. The monk fell on his knees in fear, and the angel said:

- This simple man had neither education, nor wisdom, nor bookliness to honor God differently than he did. And you, with your wisdom and bookishness, took away this opportunity from him. You will say that, without a doubt, reasoned correctly? But one thing you do not know, o sage: God, looking at the sincere heart of this peasant, sent a chanterelle to the palm tree every night to console him and accept his sacrifice.

From the book "Unholy saints" and other stories of Archimandrite Tikhon