The Cardinal, Toad and Shepherd

Two cardinals were riding in the field (sometime around 1414 to 1418) when they saw a shepherd standing and weeping. The first cardinal, a compassionate man, refused to pass by, but wished to console the man. So he rode over to him and asked him the cause of his affliction. The shepherd was so sorrowful that for a long time he could not speak a word. Finally, he looked up, pointed at an ugly toad, and said, “I am weeping because God did not make me as ugly as this creature, and because I never realized it, much less thanked and praised Him for it.” The cardinal, startled at these words, fainted and fell off of his mule so that he had to be carried back to town, whereupon he cried, “O St. Augustine! how true it was when you said, ‘We learned men wallow in our flesh and blood while the uninstructed come and pull heaven out from under our noses.’”

Herberger, Valerius The Great Works of God: Parts One and Two: The Mysteries of Christ in the Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-15 116-117