VERSES

Found one Morning pinned to a Lady's" Cabinet Pianoforte

Ir, through music, outward sense
May be purg'd of its offence,
And from shame of gross desire
Heav'n-wise taught, to heav'n aspire;
If to stir when rest is sloth,-
And to still when thought is ruth,—
If these objects be indeed

Like heav'n's bounty and our need;
Precious boon of man must dwell
In this curtain'd* citadel.

If that boon may be betray'd,
And a thing of danger made,-
Glutton, with insatiate pow'rs,
Of our answerable hours,—
Sensual science deified,
Feeding vanity and pride ;-
Let us guard the precious prize
With a Christian's ears and eyes.

Let the song that lightens care,

The song that strengthens love, be there;
Skill, with numerous motion charming,-
Passion, with high impulse warming,
And the mystery profound

Lock'd in twin and triple sound;

Where, though varying notes pursue

Each its different channel true,
But one current seems to roll
On the updividing soul,

Touching graces ! joys divine!
Love without, and peace within!
Charter'd pleasure! health of art!
Social sympathies of heart!
In these cells your vigils keep,
On these strings expectant sleep :
There true concord meet and make,
And when my sister strikes, awake!

CORRESPONDENCE.

The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opiniona
of his Correspondents.

ON PARABOLICAL SCRIPTURE.

To the Editor of the British Magazine,

SIR,-Of all the modes of construing Holy Writ, there is none so dangerous, or which furnishes so convenient a cloak for total irreligion, as the indefinite, and therefore unlimited right assumed of accepting

The author's sister.

† Alluding to the fashion after which this sort of instrument is made.

its words in an allegorical sense, that is to say, of accepting them as words of explicit falsehood, but of an implicit and subjacent truth. If the word of Scripture was never so modified, that dangerous vice could never have found its way into theology, because it is always the foundation of reality which upholds the edifice of fiction; and if such modes of speech were in all cases as inconsistent with pure veracity, as, by the very terms of the case, they are with explicit truth, none such could be found in inspired writings, or in the writings of inspired men. It is undeniable that they are often used.

The great, and perhaps the only class of such passages, is the predictive, or, in the vulgar, false, and limited use of that word, prophetic. The use of prophecy, as applied to events remotely future, was to furnish to anterior generations such an incomplete and general foreknowledge of those events which God had in store, as might suffice to keep alive among them that hope which is the sister of faith, and those fears which are a corrective to our evil desires; but, to subsequent generations, it was so framed as to furnish the means of clear and full recognition, such as delights the mind upon attaining to the solution of a well-constructed enigma, to evince the divine origin of our religion, and to shew that the events of the world had all been calculated and ordained beforehand by Omniscience. But the imparting of a previous knowledge of future events, as minute as the recognition of the past and fulfilled, would disturb the good order of human affairs, and often tend to defeat the very end which Providence had determined to accomplish. Predictive declarations are therefore petually offered to us in language which has only moral and spiritual veracity, and not natural truth, and by which, being well aware of its nature, we are not deceived; just, if I may use that example, as we receive for an unknown number, but 4 or 5 for real numbers, by which, if they are false ones, we are deceived in our reckoning.

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The only other class of scriptural affirmations that requires to be considered, in this point of view, is the parabolic.

Parables, apologues, or (in the Esopic sense of the word) fables, were early made use of to illustrate moral truths, and impress them on the memory by exercising the mind of the hearer, who in such case is not a passive recipient, but has to make some effort of his own wit. A narrative of facts which might have occurred, or of facts which might be supposed to have occurred, was delivered, and the inference to which that state of facts would lead the hearer's mind is called their moral.

No dispute could arise upon the point of veracity, where the facts were of the class secondly above mentioned, which could only exist in hypothesis. For that reason the purest parable or fable is that in which human affairs are illustrated by the supposed words and actions of brute animals or plants; because that, of which the natural truth is an obvious impossibility, cannot be a moral falsehood. The most remarkable instance of such a parable in Scripture is that which was delivered by Jotham, son of Gideon, "The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them," &c.-Judges ix. 8.

But the case of a narrative illustrating human affairs by human

affairs, and forming a little romance or novel instead of a pure Æsopian fable, is materially different. It may be questioned whether such a narrative can be delivered falsely, and yet salvá fide. The use and custom of resorting to such illustrations in any given country, as in Syria, does not solve that difficulty; because all that such use and custom could enable the hearer to conclude would be, that it either might be a parable, or might be a real circumstance :—

"O Laertiade quicquid dico aut fuit aut non."

The easy, obvious, and proper conduct to pursue in such a case is, to declare that the facts are parabolical, and composed for the sake of practical illustration, when they are so. Such was the conduct of Nathan, when he followed up his romance of the pet lamb and cruel landlord with adding, "Thou art the man," and that of the Lord, when he said, I will liken him to a wise man which built his house, &c., and when he said, "Hear ye the parable of the sower," and "the kingdom of heaven is likened to a certain king," and so forth. For in all these cases, the very words, or the idiom of them, signify the nature of the story. It is right that I should add, that whenever the evangelist says " he spake by a parable," his meaning is, that Jesus himself, when he spake it, gave it out as and for a parable, and that we are not to understand that he explains the truth to us, but that Jesus left his audience in a state of ignorance or deception.

It is obvious, that divine wisdom and human experience may inculcate their precepts effectually, either by stating hypothetical cases, or by citing real instances of what has happened. And it is no less so, that the latter is by far the stronger, and more cogent method of appealing to the minds of men. It is a strong thing to be able to say, "beware of evil courses, and remember the fate of John Hodges, who was hanged last assizes." But if the same admonition were offered as a parable, relating to sins and punishment of an imaginary character, it would be much enfeebled. The omnipotence of the parabolist may have convicted and hanged the hero of the parable; but yet, the hearer may suppose, since the whole is supposition, a very different result, arising from the clemency of judges, the defeat of witnesses, and the like. Since, therefore, the real instance is superior to the hypothetical, there can be no reason for assuming any statement of the Lord or his prophets to be fiction, where it is not asserted or insinuated to be such. The only reason which might raise up such a probability in other cases, namely, the danger and absence of worldly-minded discretion in adverting to the faults of real people, fails in this; for the Lord fears no man, and is a respecter of no person. This reasoning would become irresistible, if we should think that any declaration of facts untrue, without a consistent declaration that they are such, would detract from the divine verity.

If an audience were informed, that the labourers upon a nobleman's estate had revolted, and massacred, first the bailiffs, and ultimately the son and heir, of their master, no such circumstances having taken place, and were left by the speaker in the uncertainty whether it had

really happened or not, and in the suspicion that it had, they would be deceived and led into error by his tongue. It would be a poor excuse to say, that in such cases the moral of the tale is useful, and its fictitiousness productive of no ill effects, even if it were or could be thus inoffensive; because such a doctrine is at variance with one of the fundamental attributes of God. The mercies of God are immense, and the love from which they proceed is pure of all selfishness, and they admit of no comparison with those qualities and feelings in created beings. But vengeance also belongs to Him alone, and the severities of Him who treads the wine-press of wrath exceed those of any subordinate power. His marvellous works of mercy and of justice are measured out according to the Lesbian rule of right, which never errs, but bends to the shape of every circumstance. What then is the rule, what is—

The perfect witness of all-judging Jove,

upon which all other attributes of perfection are in a manner dependent? It is that perfect spirit of verity, in which veracity and truth (things that are quite distinct in created intelligences) are eternally and necessarily united; inasmuch as fallibility is their only point of separation. God, therefore, although He be forgiving, is not forgiveness, and although he be severe, He is not vengeance, but GOD IS TRUTH. It is, in my opinion, some blasphemy to say that a false belief of facts could arise from the plain and direct, but false, affirmation of those facts by Christ.

But it is nearly impossible for anecdotes of mankind to be related without truth, and erroneously believed as true, without being positively mischievous. We know what effect is produced, and intentionally produced, upon the character and popularity of our clergy, by the diligence of their enemies, in dragging forth and exaggerating every instance of their real misconduct, and in the frequent invention of calumnies against them. Every such scandalous tale that is circulated has its effect. If it were published in our papers, that a poor man was lying cruelly wounded on the highway, and that the bishop of the diocese, and the parson of the parish, had passed by him without listening to his groans or relieving his affliction, we know well the impression it would produce. It seems therefore to me, that whoever used this phrase "the parable of the good Samaritan," would make the Lord his God a calumniator. If Jesus had made the multitude believe that labourers had risen up against their master, and murdered his upper servants, and his son, with no other consequence, than the probability of some future retaliation on his part, I say, if such a tale had gone abroad upon his high authority, what must people have thought of the police and government of the country? What opinion would the severe Tiberius have conceived of Pilate's administration? He who vainly alleges facts against society in general, or any of its order, calumniates both it and them, and can hardly fail to serve the interested or malicious designs of some faction or other. Jesus therefore could only allege them as avowed parables or as positive truths, and there remains no middle term.

The

woman of Tekoah may here be cited: it has been said that she delivered a parable, but she did no such thing: she told a lie. It deceived the king for a little while, but his great sagacity detected it, and traced it to its original author.

The upshot of this is the historical truth of all the Lord's illustrative anecdotes, being possible in themselves, and not presented to us as parables. Those anecdotes which I consider myself required to believe on the above grounds, are also such as possess the most striking air of truth and nature. The benevolence of the good Samaritan, and the misfortunes and penitence of the prodigal son, are authentic traits of the age and country in which our Saviour lived; and we may presume, that the tale, which contains those very curious words" and the lord commended the unjust steward," derives its peculiarities from the character and remarkable behaviour of real agents. But the most extraordinary and interesting of these narrations is that, whereof the scene is laid in the valley of the shadow of death, and which has made us in some sort Epopts of those mysteries which are between this world and the next, of the abode of saints and the abode of sinners, whom novies styx interfusa coercet. Besides the general reasons relied upon, the express mention of the proper name Lazarus avouches to us that this relation is historical. If there be one thing more than another which distinguishes a parable from a poem or novel, it is the absence of proper names. Certain circumstances strongly lead us to the persuasion that he was the brother of Mary and Martha. If one Lazarus was the person in whose history the secrets of the prison-house are partly revealed to us, and another was the person who actually returned from the mansions of death, to tell those secrets, the coincidence would be wonderful. But there is also another. Dives was of the Pharisees, by this token, that his brothers had Moses and the Prophets, that is to say, believed in them, although they did not profit by their percepts; but the Sadducees had only Moses. He prayed Abraham to send Lazarus from the elysium of death, to his father's house, to admonish his brethren; and Abraham (whose power to do this was probably assumed without reason by the pharisee) replied, "if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." Lazarus was sent back from the grave, and lived again among his former acquaintance, and the pharisees were not persuaded though one had risen out of the corruption of the charnel-house, and they "consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death;" and the words of father Abraham were made good. Is it not manifest, that we are reading of one man, and one transaction, and that the account given by John explains that which is given by Luke? I think he must be a little credulous, or much prejudiced, who will suppose one Lazarus whose unavailing resurrection was talked of, and another Lazarus whose resurrection actually occurred. The following is the only difficulty I have ever felt. Lazarus was a beggar (Twxos), and at one time lay at the rich man's gate, yet Mary and Martha were in no great poverty, and were also fond of their brother. But I do not think it a serious one.