I sought, as best I could, in my last lecture to furnish you with some
helps for estimating the ethical worth of proverbs. Their theology
alone remains; the aspects, that is, under which they contemplate, not
now any more man’s relations with his fellow-man, but those on which
in the end all other must depend, his relations with God. Between the
subject matter, indeed, of that lecture and of this I have found it
nearly impossible to draw any very accurate line of distinction. Much
which was there might nearly as fitly have been here; some which I
have reserved for this might already have found its place there. It
is this, however, which I propose more directly to consider, namely,
what proverbs have to say concerning the moral government of the world,
and, more important still, concerning its Governor? How does all this
present itself to the popular mind and conscience, as attested by
these? What, in short, is their theology? for such, good or bad, it is
evident that abundantly they have.
Here, as everywhere else, their testimony is a mingled one. The
darkness, the error, the confusion of man’s heart, out of which he
oftentimes sees distortedly, and sometimes sees not at all, have all
embodied themselves in his word. Yet still, as it is the very nature of
the false, in its separate manifestations, to resolve into nothingness,
though only to be succeeded by new births in a like kind, while the
true abides and continues, it has thus come to pass that we have
generally in those utterances on which the stamp of permanence has been
set, the nobler voices, the truer faith of humanity, in respect of its
own destinies and of Him by whom those destinies are ordered.
I would not hesitate to say that the great glory of proverbs in this
their highest aspect, and that which makes many of them so full of
blessing to those who cordially accept them, is the conviction of
which they are full, that, despite all appearances to the contrary,
this world is God’s world, and not the world of the devil, or of those
wicked men who may be prospering for an hour; there is nothing in them
so precious as their faith that in the long run it will approve itself
to be such: which being so, that it must be well in the end with the
doer of the right, the speaker of the truth; no blind “whirligig of
time,” but the hand of the living God, in due time “bringing round its
revenges.” It is impossible to estimate too highly their bold and clear
proclamation of this conviction; for it is, after all, the belief of
this or the denial of this, on which everything in the life of each one
of us turns. On this depends whether we shall separate ourselves from
the world’s falsehood and evil, and do vigorous battle against them;
or acquiesce in, and be ourselves absorbed by, them.
[Sidenote: A lie has no legs.]
Listen to proverbs such as these; surely they are penetrated with the
assurance that one who, Himself being The Truth, will make truth in
small and in great to triumph at the last, is ruling over all: and
first, hear a proverb of our own: _A lie has no legs_; it is one true
alike in its humblest application and its highest; be the lie the
miserable petty falsehood which disturbs a family or a neighbourhood
for a day; or one of the larger frauds, the falsehoods not in word
only but in act, to which a longer date and a far larger sphere are
assigned, which for a time seem to fill the world, and to carry
everything in triumph before them. Still the lie, in that it is a
lie, always carries within itself the germs of its own dissolution.
It is sure to destroy itself at last. Its priests may prop it up from
without, may set it on its feet again, after it has once fallen before
the presence of the truth, yet this all will be labour in vain; it
will only be, like Dagon, again to fall, and more shamefully and more
irretrievably than before.[182] On the other hand, the vivacity of the
truth, as contrasted with this short-lived character of the lie, is
well expressed in a Swiss proverb: _It takes a good many shovelfuls of
earth to bury the truth_. For, bury it as deep as men may, it will have
a resurrection notwithstanding. They may roll a great stone, and seal
the sepulchre in which it is laid, and set a watch upon it, yet still,
like its Lord, it comes forth again at its appointed hour. It cannot
die, being of an immortal race; for, as the Spanish proverb nobly
declares, _The truth is daughter of God_.[183]
Again, consider this proverb: _Tell the truth, and shame the devil_. It
is one which will well repay a few thoughtful moments bestowed on it,
and the more so, because, even while we instinctively feel its truth,
the deep moral basis on which it rests may yet not reveal itself to us
at once. Nay, the saying may seem to contradict the actual experience
of things; for how often telling the truth—confessing, that is,
some great fault, taking home to ourselves, it may be, some grievous
sin—would appear anything rather than shaming the devil; shaming
indeed ourselves, but rather bringing glory to him, whose glory, such
as it is, is in the sin and shame of men. And yet the word is true,
and deeply true, notwithstanding. The element of lies is that in which
alone he who is “the father of them” lives and thrives. So long then
as a wrong-doer presents to himself, or seeks to present to others,
the actual facts of his conduct different from what they really are,
conceals, palliates, denies them,—so long, in regard of that man,
Satan’s kingdom stands. But so soon as the things concerning himself
are seen and owned by a man as they indeed exist in God’s sight, as
they are when weighed in the balances of the eternal righteousness;
when once a man has brought himself to tell the truth to himself, and,
where need requires, to others also, then having done, and in so far
as he has done this, he has abandoned the devil’s standard, he belongs
to the kingdom of the truth; and as belonging to it he may rebuke, and
does rebuke and put to shame, all makers and lovers of a lie, even to
the very prince of them all. “Give glory to God,” was what Joshua said
to Achan, when he would lead him to confess his guilt. This is but the
other and fairer side of the tapestry; this is but _shame the devil_,
on its more blessed side.
[Sidenote: Vox populi, vox Dei.]
Once more;—the Latin proverb, _The voice of the people, the voice of
God_,[184] is one which it is well worth our while to understand. If
it were affirmed in this that every outcry of the multitude, supposing
only it be loud enough and wide enough, ought to be accepted as the
voice of God speaking through them, no proposition more foolish or
more impious could well be imagined. But _the voice of the people_ is
something very different from this. The proverb rests on the assumption
that the foundations of man’s being are laid in the truth; from which
it will follow, that no conviction which is really a conviction of
the universal humanity, but reposes on a true ground; no faith, which
is indeed the faith of mankind, but has a reality corresponding to
it: for, as Jeremy Taylor has said: “It is not a vain noise, when
many nations join their voices in the attestation or detestation of
an action;” and Hooker: “The general and perpetual voice of men is
as the sentence of God Himself. For that which all men have at all
times learned, nature herself must needs have taught; and God being
the author of nature, her voice is but his instrument.” (_Eccles.
Pol._, b. i. § 8.) The task and difficulty, of course, must ever be to
discover what this faith and what these convictions are; and this can
only be done by an induction from a sufficient number of facts, and
in sufficiently different times, to enable us to feel confident that
we have indeed seized that which is the constant quantity of truth in
them all, and separated this from the inconstant one of falsehood and
error, evermore offering itself in its room; that we have not taken
some momentary cry, wrung out by interest, by passion, or by pain, for
_the voice of God_; but claimed this august title only for that true
voice of humanity, which, unless everything be false, we have a right
to assume an echo of the voice of God.
Thus, to take an example, the natural horror everywhere felt in regard
of marriages contracted between those very near in blood, has been
always and with right appealed to as a potent argument against such
unions. The induction is so large, that is, the nations who have
agreed in entertaining this horror are so many, oftentimes nations
disagreeing in almost everything besides; the times during which
this instinctive revolt against such unions has been felt, extend
through such long ages; that the few exceptions, even where they are
of civilized nations, as of the Egyptians who married their sisters,
or of the Persians, among whom marriages more dreadful still were
permitted, cannot be allowed any weight; and of course still less the
exception of any savage tribe, in which all that constitutes the human
in humanity has now disappeared. These exceptions can only be regarded
as violations of the divine order of man’s life; not as evidences that
we have falsely imagined an order where there was none. Here is a true
_voice of the people_; and on the grounds laid down above, we have a
right to assume this to be a _voice of God_ as well. And so too, with
respect to the existence of a First Cause, Creator and Upholder of
all things, the universal consent and conviction of all people, the
_consensus gentium_, must be considered of itself a mighty evidence
in its favour; a testimony which God is pleased to render to Himself
through his creatures. This man or that, this generation or the other,
might be deceived, but all men and all generations could not; the _vox
populi_ makes itself felt as a _vox Dei_. The existence here and there
of an atheist no more disturbs our conclusion that it is of the essence
of man’s nature to believe in a God, than do such monstrous births as
from time to time find place, children with two heads or with no arms,
shake our assurance that it is the normal condition of man to have one
head and two arms.
This last is one of the proverbs which may be said to belong to the
Apology for Natural Religion. There are others, of which it would not
be far-fetched to affirm that they belong to the Apology for Revealed.
Thus it was very usual with Voltaire and other infidels of his time
to appeal to the present barrenness and desolation of Palestine, in
proof that it could never have supported the vast population which the
Scripture everywhere assumes or affirms. A proverb in the language
of the arch-scoffer himself might, if he had given heed to it, have
put him on the right track, had he wished to be put upon it, for
understanding how this could have been: _As the man is worth, his
land is worth_.[185] Man is lord of his outward condition to a far
greater extent than is commonly assumed; even climate, which seems at
first sight so completely out of his reach, it is his immensely to
modify; and if nature stamps herself on him, he stamps himself yet more
powerfully on nature. It is not a mere figure of speech, that of the
Psalmist, “A fruitful land maketh He barren for the wickedness of them
that dwell therein.” (Ps. cvii. 34.) God makes it barren, and ever less
capable of nourishing its inhabitants; but He makes it so through the
sloth, the indolence, the short-sightedness of those that should have
dressed and kept it. In the condition of a land may be found the echo,
the reflection, the transcript of the moral and spiritual condition
of those that should cultivate it: where one is waste, the other will
be waste also. Under the desolating curse of Mohammedan domination
the fairest portions of the earth have gone back from a garden to a
wilderness: but only let that people for whom Palestine is yet destined
return to it again, and return a righteous nation, and in a little
while all the descriptions of its earlier fertility will be more than
borne out by its later, and it will easily sustain its millions again.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Proverb of Pythagoras.]
How many proverbs, which cannot be affirmed to have been originally
made for the kingdom of heaven, do yet in their highest fulfilment
manifestly belong to it, so that it seems as of right to claim that for
its own, even as it claims, or rather reclaims, whatever else is good
or true in the world, the seeds of truth wherever dispersed abroad, as
belonging rightfully to itself. Thus there is that beautiful proverb,
of which Pythagoras is reputed the author: _The things of friends are
in common_.[186] Where does this find its exhaustive fulfilment, but in
the communion of saints, their communion not with one another merely,
though indeed this is a part of its fulfilment, but in their communion
with Him, who is the friend of all good men? That such a conclusion lay
legitimately in the words Socrates plainly saw; who argued from it,
that since good men were the friends of the gods, therefore whatever
things were the gods’, were also theirs; being, when he thus concluded,
as near as one who had not the highest light of all, could be to that
great word of the Apostle’s, “All things are yours.”
Nor can I otherwise than esteem the ancient proverb as a very fine one,
and one which we may gladly claim for our own: _Many meet the gods,
but few salute them_. How often do _the gods_, (for I will keep in the
language which this proverb suggests and supplies,) _meet_ men in the
shape of a sorrow which might be a purifying one, of a joy which might
elevate their hearts to thankfulness and praise; in a sickness or a
recovery, a disappointment or a success; and yet how few, as it must be
sadly owned, _salute_ them; how few recognise their august presences
in this joy or this sorrow, this blessing added, or this blessing
taken away. As this proverb has reference to men’s failing to _see_
the Divine presences, so let me observe by the way, there is a very
grand French one which expresses the same truth, under the image of a
failing to _hear_ the divine voices, those voices being drowned by the
deafening hubbub of the world: _The noise is so great, one cannot hear
God thunder_.[187]
[Sidenote: One man, no man]
Here is another proverb which the Church has long since claimed, at
least in its import, for her own: _One man, no man_.[188] I should
find it very hard indeed to persuade myself that whoever uttered it
first, attached to it no deeper meaning than Erasmus gives him credit
for—namely, that nothing important can be effected by a single man,
destitute of the help of his fellows.[189] The word is a far more
profound one than this, and rests on that great truth upon which the
deeper thinkers of antiquity laid so much stress—namely, that _in
the idea_ the state precedes the individual, man not being merely
accidentally _gregarious_, but essentially _social_. The solitary
man, it would say, is a monstrous conception, so utterly maimed and
crippled must he be; the condition of solitariness involving so entire
a suppression of all which belongs to the development of that wherein
the true idea of humanity resides, of all which differences man from
the beasts of the field; and in this sense _One man_ is _no man_; and
this, I am sure, the proverb from the first intended. Nor may we stop
here. This word is capable of, and seems to demand, a still higher
application to man, as a destined member of the kingdom of heaven. But
he can only be in training for this, when he is, and regards himself,
as not alone, but the member of a family. As _one man_ he is _no
man_; and the strength and value of what is called Church teaching is
greatly this, that it does recognise and realize this fact, that it
contemplates and deals with the faithful man, not as isolated, but as
one of an organic body, with duties which flow as moral necessities
from his position therein; rather than by himself, and as one whose
duties to others are indeed only the exercise of private graces for his
own benefit. And all that are called Church doctrines, when they really
understand themselves, have their root and their real strength in that
great truth which this proverb declares, that _One man is no man_, that
only in a fellowship and communion is or can any man be aught.
And then there is another proverb, which Plato so loved to quote
against the sophists, the men who flattered and corrupted the nobler
youth of Athens, promising to impart to them easy short cuts to the
attainment of wisdom and knowledge and philosophy; and this, without
demanding the exercise of any labour or patience or self-denial on
their parts. But with the proverb, _Good things are hard_,[190] he
continually rebuked their empty pretensions; with this he made at least
suspicious their promises; and this proverb, true in the sense wherein
Plato used it, and that sense was earnest and serious enough, yet
surely reappears, glorified and transfigured, but recognisable still,
in the Saviour’s words: “The kingdom of heaven is taken by violence,
and the violent take it by force.”[191]
[Sidenote: Witnesses for the truth.]
This method of looking in proverbs for an higher meaning than any
which lies on their surface, or which they seem to bear on their
fronts; or rather of searching out their highest intention, and
claiming that as their truest, even though it should not be that
perceived in them by most, or that which lay nearest to them at their
first generation, is one that will lead us in many interesting paths.
And it is not merely those of heathen antiquity which shall thus be
persuaded often, and that without any forcing, to render up a Christian
meaning; but (as was indeed to be expected) still more often those of
a later time, even those which the world had seemed to claim for its
own, shall be found to move in a spiritual sphere as their truest. Let
me offer in evidence of this these four or five, which come to us from
Italy: _He who has love in his heart, has spurs in his sides_;—_Love
rules without law_;—_Love rules his kingdom without a sword_;—_Love
knows nothing of labour_;—_Love is the master of all arts_.[192] Take
these, even with the necessary drawbacks of my English translation; but
still more, in their original beauty; and how exquisitely do they set
forth, in whatever light you regard them, the free creative impulses of
love, its delight to labour and to serve; how worthily do they glorify
the kingdom of love as the only kingdom of a free and joyful obedience.
While yet at the same time, if we would appreciate them at _all_
their worth, is it possible to stop short of an application of them
to that kingdom of love, which, because it is in the highest sense
such, is also a kingdom of heaven? And then, what precious witness do
these utterances contain, the more precious as current among a people
nursed in the theology of Rome, against the shameless assertion that
selfishness is the only motive sufficient to produce good (?) works:
for in such an assertion the Romish impugners of a free justification
constantly deal; evermore charging this that we hold, of our
justification by faith only, (which, when translated into the language
of ethics, is at least as important in the province of morality as it
is in that of theology,) with being an immoral doctrine, and not so
fruitful in deeds of love as one which should connect these deeds with
a selfish thought of promoting our own safety thereby.
[Sidenote: Christian proverbs.]
There are proverbs which reach the height of evangelical morality.
“Little gospels”[193] the Spaniard has somewhat too boldly entitled
his; and certainly there are many which at once we feel could nowhere
have arisen or obtained circulation but under the influence of
Christian faith, being in spirit, and often in form no less than in
spirit, the outbirths of it. Thus is it with that exquisitely beautiful
proverb of our own: _The way to heaven is by Weeping-Cross_;[194] nor
otherwise with the Spanish: _God never wounds with both hands_;[195]
not with _both_, for He ever reserves one with which to bind up
and to heal. And another Spanish, evidently intended to give the
sum and substance of all which in life is to be desired the most,
_Peace and patience, and death with penitence_,[196] gives this sum
certainly only as it presents itself to the Christian eye. And this of
ours is Christian both in form and in spirit: _Every cross hath its
inscription_;—the name, that is, inscribed upon it, of the person for
whom it was shaped; it was intended for those shoulders upon which it
is laid, and will adapt itself to them; that fearful word is never true
which a spirit greatly vexed spake in the hour of its impatience: “I
have little faith in the paternal love which I need; so ruthless, or so
negligent seems the government of this earth.”[197]
So too is it with that ancient German proverb: _When God loathes aught,
men presently loathe it too_.[198] He who first uttered this must have
been one who had watched long the ways by which shame and honour travel
in this world; and in this watching must have noted how it ever came
to pass that even worldly honour tarried not long with them from whom
the true honour which cometh from God had departed. For the worldly
honour is but a shadow and reflex that waits upon the heavenly; it may
indeed linger for a little, but it will be only for a little, after
it is divorced from its substance. Where the honour from Him has been
withdrawn, he causes in one way or another the honour from men ere long
to be withdrawn too. When He loathes, presently man loathes also. The
saltless salt is not merely cast out by Him, but is trodden under foot
of _men_. (Matt. v. 13.) A Louis the Fifteenth’s death-bed is in its
way as hideous to the natural as it is to the spiritual eye.[199]
[Sidenote: Sir Matthew Hale’s proverb.]
We are told of the good Sir Matthew Hale who was animated with a true
zeal for holiness, an earnest desire to walk close to God, that he
had continually in his mouth the modern Latin proverb, _We perish by
permitted things_.[200] Assuredly it is one very well worthy to be of
all remembered, searching as it does into the innermost secrets of
men’s lives. It is no doubt true that nearly as much danger threatens
the soul from things permitted as from things unpermitted; in some
respects more danger; for these being disallowed altogether, do
not make the insidious approaches of those, which, coming in under
allowance, do yet so easily slip into dangerous excess.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Proverbs and Scripture.]
It would be interesting to collect, as with reverence one might,
variations on scriptural proverbs or sayings, which the proverbs of
this world supply; and this, both in those cases where the latter 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.[201] 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, while 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_,[202]
are utterances of very nearly the same conviction. Our Lord declares,
that without his Father there falls no single sparrow to the ground,
that “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_.[203] Again,
He has said: “No man can serve two masters.” (Matt. vi. 24.) And the
Spanish proverb: _He who must serve two masters, must lie to one_.[204]
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_.”[205] 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 independently of it, and long
previously; and the parallel certainly is a singularly happy one: _The
thyrsus-bearers are many, but the bacchants few_;[206] 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.[207] With our Lord’s words concerning the mote and the beam
(Matt. vii. 3, 5) compare this Chinese proverb: _Sweep away the snow
from thine own door, and heed not the frost upon thy neighbour’s
tiles_.
[Sidenote: Proverbs in sermons.]
It has been sometimes a matter of consideration to me whether we of
the clergy might not make larger 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 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_;[208] 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.”[209] 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-for, untended heart. I know not whether we might presume
sufficient quickness of apprehension on the part of our hearers to
venture on the following: _The horse which draws its halter is not
quite escaped_; but I can hardly imagine an happier illustration of
the fact, that so long as any remnant of a sinful habit is retained
by us, so long as we draw this halter, we make but an idle boast of
our liberty; we may, by means of that which we still drag with us, be
at any moment again entangled altogether in the bondage from which we
seemed to have entirely escaped.
In every language some of its noblest proverbs, such as oftentimes
are admirably adapted for this application of which I am speaking,
are those embodying men’s confidence in God’s moral government of the
world, in his avenging righteousness, however much there may be in
the confusions of the present evil time to provoke a doubt or even a
denial of this. Thus, _Punishment is lame, but it comes_, which, if not
old, yet rests on an image derived from antiquity, is good; although
inferior in every way, in energy of expression, as in fulness of sense,
to the ancient Greek one: _The mill of God grinds late, but grinds
to powder_;[210] for this brings in the further thought, that his
judgments, however long they tarry, yet, when they arrive, are crushing
ones. There is indeed another of our own, not unworthy to be set beside
this, announcing, though with quite another image, the same fact of the
tardy but terrible arrivals of judgment: _God comes with leaden feet,
but strikes with iron hands_. And then, how awfully sublime another
which has come down to us as part of the wisdom of the ancient heathen
world; I mean the following: _The feet of the (avenging) deities are
shod with wool_.[211] Here a new thought is introduced,—the noiseless
approach and advance of these judgments, as noiseless as the steps of
one whose feet were wrapped in wool,—the manner in which they overtake
secure sinners even in the hour of their utmost security. Who that has
studied the history of the great crimes and criminals of the world, but
will with a shuddering awe set his seal to the truth of this proverb?
Indeed, meditating on such and on the source from which we have derived
them, one is sometimes tempted to believe that the faith in a divine
retribution evermore making itself felt in the world, this sense of a
Nemesis, as men used to call it, was stronger and deeper in the earlier
and better days of heathendom, than alas! it is in a sunken Christendom
now.
[Sidenote: Proverbs not profane.]
But to resume. Even those proverbs which have acquired an use which
seems to unite at once the trivial and the profane, may yet on closer
inspection be found to be very far from having either triviality or
profaneness cleaving to them. There is one, for instance, often taken
lightly enough upon the lips: _Talk of the devil, and he is sure to
appear_; or as it used to be: _Talk of the devil, and his imps will
appear_; or as in German it is: _Paint the devil on the wall, and
he will shew himself anon_;—which yet contains truth serious and
important enough, if we would only give heed to it: it contains, in
fact, a very solemn warning against a very dangerous sin, I mean,
curiosity about evil. It has been often noticed, and is a very curious
psychological fact, that there is a tendency in a great crime to
reproduce itself, to call forth, that is, other crimes of the same
character: and there is a fearful response which the evil we may hear
or read about, is in danger of finding in our own hearts. This danger,
then, assuredly makes it true wisdom, and a piece of moral prudence
on the part of all to whom this is permitted, to avoid knowing or
learning about the evil; especially when neither duty nor necessity
oblige them thereto. It is men’s wisdom to talk as little about the
devil, either with themselves or with others, as they can; lest he
appear to them. “I agree with you,” says Niebuhr very profoundly in
one of his letters,[212] “that it is better not to read books in which
you make the acquaintance of the devil.” And certainly there is a
remarkable commentary on this proverb, so interpreted, in the earnest
warning given to the children of Israel, that they should not so much
as _inquire_ how the nations which were before them in Canaan, served
their gods, with what cruelties, with what abominable impurities, lest
through this inquiry they should be themselves entangled in the same.
(Deut. xii. 29, 30.) They were not to talk about the devil, lest he
should appear to them.
And other proverbs, too, which at first sight may seem over-familiar
with the name of the great enemy of mankind, yet contain lessons
which it would be an infinite pity to lose; as this German: _Where
the devil cannot come, he will send_;[213] a proverb of very serious
import, which excellently sets out to us the _penetrative_ character
of temptations, and the certainty that they will follow and find men
out in their secretest retreats. It rebukes the absurdity of supposing
that by any outward arrangements, cloistral retirements, flights
into the wilderness, sin can be kept at a distance. So far from this,
temptations will inevitably overleap all these outward and merely
artificial barriers which may be raised up against them; for our great
enemy is as formidable from a seeming distance as in close combat;
_where he cannot come, he will send_. There are others of the same
family, as the following: _The devil’s meal is half bran_; or _all
bran_, as the Italians still more boldly proclaim it;[214] unrighteous
gains are sure to disappoint the getter; the pleasures of sin, even in
this present time, are largely dashed with its pains. And this: _He had
need of a long spoon that eats with the devil_;—men fancy they can
cheat the arch-cheater, can advance in partnership with him up to a
certain point, and then, whenever the connexion becomes too dangerous,
break it off at their will; being sure in this to be miserably
deceived; for, to quote another in the same tone: _He who has shipped
the devil, must carry him over the water_. Granting these and the like
to have been often carelessly uttered, yet they all rest upon a true
moral basis in the main. This last series of proverbs I will close
with an Arabic one, to which not even this appearance of levity can be
ascribed; for it is as solemn and sublime in form as it is profoundly
deep in substance: _The blessings of the evil Genii are curses_. How
deep a meaning the story of Fortunatus acquires, when taken as a
commentary on this.
But I am warned to draw my lecture to an end. I have adduced in the
course of these lectures no inconsiderable number of proverbs, and
have sought for the most part to deduce from them lessons, which were
lessons in common for us all. There is one, however, which I must not
pass over, for I feel that it contains an especial lesson for myself,
and a lesson which I should do wisely and well at this present time
to lay to heart. When the Spaniards would describe a tedious writer,
one who possesses the art of exhausting the patience of his readers,
they say of him: _He leaves nothing in his inkstand_. The phrase is
a singularly happy one, for assuredly there is no such secret of
tediousness, no such certain means of wearing out the attention of our
readers or our hearers, as the attempt to say everything ourselves,
instead of leaving something to be filled up by their intelligence;
while the merits of a composition are often displayed as really, if
not so prominently, in what is passed over as in what is set down; in
nothing more than in the just measure of the confidence which it shows
in the capacities and powers of those to whom it is addressed. I would
not willingly come under the condemnation, which waits on them who thus
_leave nothing in their inkstand_; and lest I should do so, I will
bring now this my final lecture to its close, and ask you to draw out
for yourselves those further lessons from proverbs, which I am sure
they are abundantly capable of yielding.