have grown out of the former, owing more nearly or more remotely their existence to them, and in those also where they are independent of them,-so far, that is, as anything true can be independent of the absolute Truth. Some of those which follow evidently belong to one of these classes, some to the other. Thus Solomon has said: "It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house;" (Prov. xxi. 9;) and again: "Better a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife." (Prov. xvii. 1.) With these compare the two proverbs, a Latin and Spanish, adduced below.* The Psalmist has said: "As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him." (Ps. cix. 17.) The Turks express their faith in this same law of the divine retaliations: Curses, like chickens, always come home to roost: they return, that is, to those from whom they went forth. In the Yoruba language there is a proverb to the same effect: Ashes always fly back in the face of him that throws them; while our own, Harm watch, harm catch, and the Spanish, Who sows thorns, let him not walk barefoot, are utterances of very nearly the same conviction. Our Lord declares, that without his Father there falls no single sparrow to the ground, that

* Non quam late sed quam læte habites, refert.-Mas vale un pedazo de pan con amor, que gallinas con dolor.

Quien siembra abrojos, no ande descalzo. Compare the Latin: Si vultur es, cadaver expecta; and the French: Maudissons sont feuilles ; qui les seme, il les recueille.

"not one of them is forgotten before God." (Luke xii. 6.) The same truth of a providentia specialissima, (between which and no providence at all there is indeed no tenable position,) is asserted in the Catalan proverb: No leaf moves, but God wills it.* Again, He has said: "No man can serve two masters." (Matt. vi. 24.) And the Spanish proverb: He who has to serve two masters, has to lie to one,† Or compare with Matt. xix. 29, this remarkable Arabic proverb: Purchase the next world with this; so shalt thou win both. He has spoken of "mammon of unrighteousness"-indicating hereby, in Leighton's words, "that iniquity is so involved in the notion of riches, that it can very hardly be separated from them;" and this phrase Jerome illustrates by a proverb that would not otherwise have reached us; "that saying," he says, "appears true to me: A rich man is either himself an unjust one, or the heir of one." Again, the Lord has said: "Many be called, but few chosen;" (Matt. xx. 16;) many have the outward marks of a Christian profession, few the inner substance. Some early Christian Fathers loved much to bring into comparison with this a Greek proverb, spoken indeed quite

* No se mou la fulla, que Deu no ha vulla. This is one of the proverbs of which the peculiar grace and charm nearly disappears in the rendering.

+ Quien à dos señores ha de servir, al uno ha de mentir. Verum mihi videtur illud: Dives aut iniquus, aut iniqui hæres. Out of a sense of the same, as I take it, the striking Italian proverb had its rise: Mai diventò fiume grande, chi non v' entrasse acqua torbida.

independently of it, and long previously; and the parallel certainly is a singularly happy one: The thyrsus-bearers are many, but the bacchants few ;' many assume the signs and outward tokens of inspiration, whirling the thyrsus aloft; but those whom the god indeed fills with his spirit are few all the while.+

It has been sometimes a matter of consideration to me whether we of the clergy might not make arger use, though of course it would be only occasional, of proverbs in our public teaching than we do. Great popular preachers of time past, or, seeing that this phrase has now so questionable a sound, great preachers for the people, such as have found their way to the universal heart of their fellows, addressing themselves not to that which some men had different from others, but to that rather which each had in common with all, have

* Πολλοί τοι ναρθηκοφόροι, παῦροι δέ τε βάκχοι.

The fact which this proverb proclaims, of a great gulf existing between what men profess and what they are, is one too frequently repeating itself and thrusting itself on the notice of all, not to have found its utterance in an infinite variety of forms, although none perhaps so deep and poetical as this. Thus there is another Greek line, fairly represented by this Latin:

Qui tauros stimulent multi, sed rarus arator; and there is the classical Roman proverb: Non omnes qui habent citharam, sunt citharœdi; and the medieval rhyming verse:

Non est venator quivis per cornua flator; and this Eastern word: Hast thou mounted the pulpit, thou art not therefore a preacher; with many more.

been ever great employers of proverbs. Thus he who would know the riches of those in the German tongue, with the vigorous manifold employment of which they are capable, will find no richer mine to dig in than the works of Luther. And such. employment of them would, I believe, with our country congregations, be especially valuable. Any one, who by after investigation has sought to discover how much our rustic hearers carry away, even from the sermons to which they have attentively listened, will find that it is hardly ever the course and tenor of the argument, supposing the discourse to have contained such; but if anything was uttered, as it used so often to be by the best puritan preachers, tersely, pointedly, epigrammatically, this will have stayed by them, while all beside has passed away. Now, the merits of terseness and point, which have caused other words to be remembered, are exactly those which signalize the proverb, and generally in a yet higher degree.

It need scarcely be observed, that, if thus used, they will have to be employed with prudence and discretion, and with a careful selection. Thus, even with the example of so grave a divine as Bishop Sanderson before me, I should hesitate to employ in a sermon such a proverb as Over shoes, over boots-one which he declares to be the motto of some, who having advanced a certain way in sin, presently become utterly wretchless, caring not, and counting it wholly indifferent, how much further in evil they advance. Nor would I exactly recommend such use of a proverb as St. Bernard makes,

who, in a sermon on the angels, desiring to shew à priori the extreme probability of their active and loving ministries in the service of men, adduces the Latin proverb: Who loves me, loves my dog;* and proceeds to argue thus; We are the dogs under Christ's table; the angels love Him, they therefore love us.

But, although not exactly thus, the thing, I am persuaded, might be done, and with profit. Thus, in a discourse warning against sins of the tongue, there are many words which we might produce of our own to describe the mischief it inflicts that would be flatter, duller, less likely to be remembered than the old proverb: The tongue is not steel, but it cuts. On God's faithfulness in sustaining, upholding, rewarding his servants, there are feebler things which we might bring out of our own treasure-house, than to remind our hearers of that word: He who serves God, serves a good Master. And this one might sink deep, telling of the enemy whom every one of us has the most to fear: No man has a worse friend than he brings with him from home. It stands in striking agreement with Augustine's remarkable prayer "Deliver me from the evil man, from myself."+ Or again: Ill weeds grow apace; with how lively an image does this set forth to us the rank luxuriant up-growth of sinful lusts and desires in the garden of an uncared

* Qui me amat, amat et canem meum. (In Fest. S. Mich. Serm. 1, § 3.)

+ Libera me ab homine malo, a meipso.