{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39546/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39546","id":"gutenberg_39546","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39546","summary":null,"tags":["Bible as literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Humour","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was\nproduced from scanned images of public domain material\nfrom the Google Print project and from images generously\nmade available by The Internet Archive.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  WIT AND HUMOR\n  OF THE\n  BIBLE.\n\n  A LITERARY STUDY.\n\n\n  BY\n  REV. MARION D. SHUTTER, D. D.\n\n\n  \"Bibles laid open; millions of surprises.\"--_Herbert._\n\n\n  BOSTON, MASS.,\n  Arena Publishing Company,\n  COPLEY SQUARE.\n  1893.\n\n\n\n\n  COPYRIGHT, 1892,\n  BY\n  MARION D. SHUTTER.\n\n  _All rights reserved._\n\n\n\n\n  Dedication.\n\n  TO MY WIFE,\n  MARY WILKINSON SHUTTER.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nWhile \"many have taken in hand to set forth in order\" the pathos and\nsublimity of the Bible, those literary elements comprised under the title\nof this book have rarely been mentioned. Feeling that here was a field\nuntraversed, the author of this little volume began an investigation whose\nresults were originally embodied in an article published some years ago in\nan Eastern review. That article is given in \"Poole's Index\" as the only\none extant upon the subject. Since its publication, additional study has\nbrought to light other examples of the use of Wit and Humor by the writers\nof the Bible. These later results were embodied in a course of lectures\ndelivered last winter before the students of Lombard University,\nGalesburg, Ill. They are now given to the public in the present volume. It\nwould be presumptuous to claim that these few pages exhaust the subject.\nSuch a claim the author does not wish to make. Further research would no\ndoubt bring to light instances that have escaped him. It is hoped,\nhowever, that these studies may be sufficiently complete to awaken\ninterest in a long-neglected side of our sacred literature.\n\nMARION D. SHUTTER.\n\n  Minneapolis, Minn., Dec. 24, 1892.\n    First Universalist Church.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\n\"There is still one question before us. If humor be what we have claimed\nfor it, not a mere farce, but the depicting of the whole of human life,\nthen we should expect that the highest literature should be found to\ncontain it. We should expect to find it everywhere; that it should satisfy\nall that desire which a reading in theology, or philosophy, or science, or\nhistory, or a study in art, has created in man. Are there, then, any great\nbooks, or still more any great forces in human life which seem devoid of\nit? Is there any humor in the gospels? This is a dilemma that must be\nfaced; for if humor be life itself, how can human life in its highest\ndevelopment dispense with it?\"--_Shorthouse._\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n    \"Even St. Paul could invent and enjoy a humorous pun; the proof of\n    which see Galatians V:12, in the original; so there is high authority\n    for jesting.\"--_Kirke._\n\n\nThe title of this book will no doubt affect many persons unpleasantly at\nfirst. \"Flat blasphemy!\" I can hear some one exclaim, \"We have already had\nthe authority of the Bible undermined by critics, and here is a flippant\nrogue who goes still farther, and assures us that it is nothing more than\na jest-book! This is the very climax and culmination of godless folly.\"\n\nThe author makes haste, therefore, to disclaim any intention of\nirreverence. To cheapen or degrade sacred things, to \"depreciate the moral\ncurrency,\" is at the farthest remove from his intention. It is easy enough\nto take the language of Scripture and use it for coarse and vulgar\npurposes, and such use deserves the severest censure. It is not to be\ntolerated. Passages that have been light and guidance to multitudes, that\nhave brought strength to the tempted, certainty to the doubting and\nconsolation to the bereaved; that have been bread of life to those who\nhave hungered for righteousness, inspiration to the purposeless and help\nto the needy,--have been turned into sources of merriment to freshen\nexhausted wit, and season the insipid discourse of stupidity. Persons\nwhose brains are barren of pleasant conceits find no difficulty in so\nperverting a Scriptural expression as to make the \"groundlings\" laugh. In\nno such motives has this volume originated. The title has been chosen and\nthe work which it covers has been done in the spirit of one who loves the\nGreat Book, and who would secure for it an additional claim upon human\naffection. The studies of the writer have led him into fresh fields and\npastures green, where he has gathered many things out of the ordinary that\nhave given the Bible a larger place in his own heart.\n\nNo; the Bible is not a collection of jests; nor do we characterize it as a\njest-book when we say that it contains Wit and Humor. These elements are\nin the Bible, and with good reason. They are not introduced to amuse. They\nare not intended to dissipate the weariness of an idle hour. They are not\ndesigned to produce convulsions of laughter. They are subsidiary to the\nmain theme. They are incidental to the development of religious history\nand religious thought. They help reveal in their true light the characters\nwho from time to time appear; they show the absurdity of the opposing\nerror and sharpen the arrows with which folly is transfixed. They enhance\nin many ways the value and power of our Sacred Book.\n\n\nI.\n\nThe Scripture documents may be viewed from several\nstandpoints;--historical, exegetical, theological and literary. One may,\nfor example, study the book of Job to find out the actual basis of fact\nthat underlies it, or for the purpose of ascertaining and systematizing\nits doctrines, or he may read it as a great dramatic poem, and criticize\nit by the rules that would apply to any other dramatic poem. He may go\nthrough the Apocalypse, grammar and lexicon in hand, or he may study its\nflashing imagery as he would that of any other magnificent work of genius.\nHe may read the Psalms as he would the odes of Horace. In these pages the\nScriptures are considered simply as Literature. The question of\ninspiration or authority does not enter. Doctrinal inquiries are set\naside. \"To understand,\" says Matthew Arnold, \"that the language of the\nBible is fluid, passing, literary, is the first step towards a right\nunderstanding of the Bible.\"\n\nThe literary character of the Bible is admirably set forth in the\nfollowing paragraph from a recent critic:\n\n    \"As a particular book, the Bible is an unequaled source of literary\n    inspiration. As a book of religious truth, it is supreme; but\n    religious truth, without any impairment of its value or obscurity of\n    its meaning, may be studied from the literary standpoint; in fact, in\n    the light of literary criticism, or tested by the usual canons of the\n    scholar, it will appear more sacred, more beautiful, more divine.\n    Never forgetting that it is our manual of religion, it is also the\n    vehicle of the most wonderful literature in human annals, and precedes\n    in importance all others. There is no book so composite in character\n    and yet so harmonious in plan, so multiplex in styles and yet so\n    educational in rhetoric and logic, so varied in contents and yet so\n    progressive in its philosophy and religion, as the Bible. Taken as a\n    whole, it is massive, comprehensive, a revelation of the Infinite.\n    Studied in its parts, it stimulates single faculties while it\n    ministers nourishment to the whole frame. Its histories are more\n    compact than those of Herodotus, Gibbon or Macaulay; its poetry, whose\n    key is a mystery, quiets Homer, Shakespeare and Tennyson; its\n    prophecies are unique climaxes of wisdom, both in drapery and\n    substance; its biographies excel those of Plutarch, Irving, Carlyle\n    and Boswell; its chronicles of wars are superior to those of Julius\n    Caesar, Wellington, Napoleon, and Ulysses Grant; its epistles eclipse\n    those of Pliny, Madame Sevigne and Francis Bacon; its laws, in their\n    ethical and spiritual import, are quite beyond Justinian, Blackstone\n    and the English Parliament. Every phasis of literature, every norm of\n    wisdom, is in the Bible. It ministers to all tastes and arouses the\n    slumbering intellects of all who can comprehend the difference between\n    reality and fiction, and who incline to virtue rather than vice.\n    Ruskin confesses his indebtedness to the Bible, Homer and Sir Walter\n    Scott, for his mental discipline; Charles Reade pronounces the\n    characters in Scripture a literary marvel. Matthew Arnold daily read\n    the New Testament in Greek for its style; Milton could not have\n    written Paradise Lost without Genesis; Renan's witchery of style is\n    traceable to the New Testament. Job has taught the poets the art of\n    construction, and David has sung an undying melody into the ears of\n    the race. The Book of Ruth is the model idyl, and the Books of Esther\n    and Daniel abound in incomparable dramatic elements; Isaiah has plumed\n    the statesman for oratorical flights; Jeremiah has opened the\n    fountains of pathos and sentiment in pathetic souls; Ezekiel has\n    furnished a usable style of judicial denunciation for the criminal\n    lawyer. Of all books, whether rhetoric, logic, vocabulary, poetry,\n    philosophy, history, or whatever be the end, the Bible should be first\n    and most carefully studied, its literary spirit and form should be\n    closely traced and discerned, and its truth should be reverently\n    incorporated into the daily speech, thought and life.\"\n\nBut in this summary there is no mention made of the literary qualities\nwhich it is here proposed to consider. They are as completely ignored as\nif the very suggestion of their presence were profanation.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe presumption is that in such a book, or rather collection of books as\nthe Bible, the elements of Wit and Humor would be found. We have here the\nbest historical, poetical, and moral works of a whole people. These\ndocuments cover in time more than a millennium and a half. It is more than\nprobable that during that time amusing incidents occurred, even in\nconnection with the religious trend of the history, some of which would be\nreported; that grotesque and odd characters existed, some of whom would be\ndescribed, and their sayings and doings noted; that among the moral\nteachers of the people, there were some at least, who would point their\nprecepts with wit and edge their rebukes with sarcasm. We should expect to\nfind all these things, as we should expect to find pathos or sublimity.\nThe humorous is just as legitimate in literature and quite as much an\nelement of influence. It glows in all the other great books which have\nshaped the life and thought of mankind; and it is only fair to presume\nthat we shall find its light shining from those pages that have been most\npotent of all.\n\nBut is not \"the volume of this book\" a serious one? Is it not profoundly\nin earnest? Are not its themes most solemn? Is not its purpose the highest\nunder heaven, the most important to the inhabitants of earth? The\nconclusion, however, that the questioner has in mind is by no means\ninevitable. It is a mistake to suppose that humor is incompatible with\nseriousness, earnestness and solemnity. \"As in one of my lectures,\" says\nHenry Reed, \"I spoke of attempting to draw too precise a line around\nsacred literature, making it too much a thing apart, so in regard to the\nliterature of wit and humor. I shall be very sorry, if such a title as\nthat which I have been obliged to use, led any one to think of it as of a\nmore distinctive existence than is the case, instead of regarding those\nfaculties as pervading the literature in various degrees, and thus forming\nsome of the elements of its life. I shall have occasion to trace these\nelements in close connection with elements of tragedy, and to show how the\nprocesses we generalize under the names of wit and humor are kindred with\nthe most intense passion and the deepest feeling.\"\n\nIn human nature, the sources of laughter and tears lie close together, and\nthe highest literature must express that nature in its entirety. \"It is\nan understood fact,\" says Whipple, \"that mirth is as innate in the mind as\nany other original faculty. The absence of it in individuals or\ncommunities is a defect.\" \"He who laughs,\" says the mother of Goethe, \"can\ncommit no deadly sin.\" If it be true as Whipple says, that the absence of\nmirth in individuals or communities is a defect, then is the absence of it\nin literature likewise a defect. It is a defect because the literature\nwhich omits it fails to set forth all that there is in man. It leaves an\nimportant territory unexplored.\n\nOn the other hand, the literature which is designed to move and mold men\nmust be addressed to human nature in its completeness. Freighted with\ndestiny, charged with eternity as are the messages of the Bible, they are\nyet intended to impress men; they are addressed to human faculties in\nhuman speech. Whatever the capacities of language for touching the heart\nand operating upon the will, they may all be employed, though the theme\nsoar to heaven or take hold on hell. The Bible is not an instrument of a\nsingle string; it gives forth a thousand harmonies. It is attuned to every\nnote in human nature.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThus far we have simply dealt with the presumption. The considerations\nadvanced show us what we might expect to find. When we proceed from\npresumption to actual investigation, our conjectures are verified. There\nare certainly passages in the Bible which in any other writings we should\ncall Wit and Humor. Since this is the case, our discussion is legitimate,\nhowever repugnant the very suggestion may be to the feelings with which we\nare accustomed to regard the Bible.\n\nLet us take some examples. If we found in any other book such a saying as\nthis, \"Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a\nstinking savor, so doth a little folly him that is in great reputation for\nwisdom and honor,\" should we not call it witty? Is it not witty as the\nRussian proverb \"A spoonful of tar in a barrel of honey?\"\n\nOr consider such sentences as the following: \"All the labor of a man is\nfor his mouth, and yet his appetite is not filled.\" \"As he that taketh\naway a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that\nsingeth songs to a heavy heart.\" \"Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, but\nafterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.\" \"He that answereth a\nmatter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.\" \"A man of\ngreat wrath shall suffer punishment; for if thou deliver him, yet must\nthou do it again.\" In other words, a man of violent temper is always\ngetting into difficulties; you have no sooner helped him out of one than\nhe madly plunges into another. Like the irascible person in the old\nnursery rhyme, who jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his\neyes, he is no sooner extricated, than \"with all his might and main, he\njumps into another bush and puts them out again.\" \"Can a man take fire in\nhis bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can he go upon hot coals and his\nfeet not be burned?\" \"Wealth makes many friends, but the poor is\nseparated from his neighbor.\" \"He that passeth by and meddleth with strife\nbelonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.\" If we\ncame upon such sentences in Johnson or Goldsmith, we should say in a\nmoment that they were instances of genuine wit. Let us not hesitate to\ncarry the same frankness of literary judgment to the Bible. When Isaiah\ncharacterizes certain ones as \"mighty to drink wine and men of strength to\nmingle strong drink,\" does he not use essentially the same reproach that\nPrince Hal fastened upon Falstaff, \"Wherein is he good but to taste sack\nand drink it?\" Who shall say that the earlier satire did not suggest the\nlater? Much has been written about Shakespeare's indebtedness to the\nBible.\n\nHere is a passage of biting sarcasm from Job. We should surely call it\nsarcasm if we found it in the pages of Robert South. Job is expressing his\nscorn for those who affect to look down upon him in his adversities: \"But\nnow they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I\nwould have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.\" They are \"the\nchildren of fools, yea, children of base men; they were viler than the\nearth.\" (We have an equivalent expression in \"meaner than dirt.\") They are\nmembers of the long-eared fraternity. He does not say so in the bluntest\nform of expression that can be used, and that any one less skillful would\nhave used. Job puts it much more effectively: \"Among the bushes they\n_brayed_; under the _nettles_ they were gathered together.\" \"If that is\nnot wit,\" says one, \"there is no such thing as wit. And yet the\ncommentators do not see it, or will not see it. They are perfectly wooden\nwhen they come to any such gleam of humor.\"\n\nThere is a bit of ridicule in Jeremiah that we should be quick to call\nridicule, if we came upon it elsewhere. He is describing the disasters\nthat fell upon the allies of the King of Egypt. \"Why are the strong ones\nswept away? They stood not because the Lord did thrust them down. He made\nthem to stumble, yea they fell one upon another; and they said, Arise, and\nlet us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from\nthe oppressing sword.\" They are defeated in spite of all the promises of\nthe King of Egypt. He does not seem to avail them. His boasts are\nineffectual. His disgusted allies depart, flinging at him the withering\nreproach, \"_Pharoah, King of Egypt, is but a noise_; he hath let the\nappointed time pass by.\" That is to say, according to one paraphrase,\n\"Pharoah is of no account now, he has had his chance and lost it; he has\noutlived his influence; his day is over; he is not a sovereign any longer;\nhe is only a noise.\" Or as Matthew Henry puts it, \"Pharoah can hector and\ntalk big; but that is all; all his promises vanish into smoke.\" In the\nsame spirit, Queen Catherine says of the dead Wolsey,\n\n    \"His promise was as he then was, mighty;\n    But his performance, as he now is, nothing.\"\n\nIf we found a little sketch like the following in Thackeray, we should,\nbeyond doubt, pronounce it humorous: \"All the brethren of the poor do hate\nhim; how much more do his friends go far from him. He pursueth them with\nwords, yet are they wanting to him.\" The words of a poor man can not\ntravel fast enough to overtake his rich friends and neighbors. Indeed,\nThackeray has drawn such a picture in his more elaborate description of\nHarry Warrington in the sponging-house, making vain appeals for help to\nhis rich relatives and friends. \"He pursued them with words, yet were they\nwanting to him.\" His aunt,--\"a member of the great and always established\nChurch of the Pharisees, sent him her blessing,--and a tract!\"\n\nIf we found, in any modern literature, a sketch of the ruling deacon in a\nchurch, like John's description of Diotrephus, we should say it was tinged\nwith satire. \"I wrote unto the Church, but Diotrephus, _who loveth to have\nthe pre-eminence among them_, receiveth us not. Wherefore if I come, I\nwill remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious\nwords; and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the\nbrethren, and forbiddeth them that would, _and casteth them out of the\nChurch_.\" Evidently there was a deacon in one of the apostolic churches,\nwho always had to be consulted. Everything must go as he dictated. He did\nnot even stand in awe of an accredited apostle. The minister must preach\naccording to his views of theology, or signify his willingness to accept a\ncall to a new field. Those members of the church who upheld a minister\nwhom Diotrephus did not like, found their connection with the body severed\nwithout the formality of asking their consent. In the matter of having a\nDiotrephus within their borders, some churches to-day find themselves in\nthe direct line of apostolic succession.\n\nIn the book of Acts, there is an account of Paul's reception at Athens.\n\"And they took him and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know\nwhat this new doctrine is, whereof thou speakest? For thou bringest\ncertain strange things to our ears; we would know, therefore, what these\nthings mean.\" In the comment which follows this account, the writer\nindulges in a touch of ridicule upon the Athenian gossips and curiosity\nmongers. We should say it was a touch of ridicule if we found it in\nAddison. \"For all the Athenians and strangers which were there, _spent\ntheir time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new\nthing_.\" Indeed there is a sketch in Addison of which this might easily\nhave been the ground-work. \"There is no humor of my countrymen which I am\nmore inclined to wonder at than _their general thirst after news_. A\nvictory or defeat is equally agreeable to them. The shutting of a\ncardinal's mouth pleaseth them one post, and the opening of it another.\nThey are delighted to hear the French Court is removed to Marli, and are\nafterwards as much delighted with its return to Versailles. They read the\nadvertisements with the same curiosity as the articles of public news; and\nare as pleased to hear of a pye-bald horse that is strayed out of a field\nnear Islington, as of a whole troop that has been engaged in any foreign\nadventure. In short, _they have a relish for anything that is news_, let\nthe matter of it be what it will. _They are men of a voracious appetite._\"\nIs not the comment of the Scriptural writer upon the Athenians in the\nsame vein with Addison's comment upon the English?\n\nIsaiah rebukes those \"who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness\nfor light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for\nbitter,\"--thus confusing moral distinctions. This is the same sort of\nsophistry that Addison exposes, in his gentle way, by proposing the\nfollowing form of agreement: \"We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do\nsolemnly declare that we do in our consciences believe that two and two\nmake four; and that we shall adjudge any man whatever to be our enemy who\nendeavors to persuade us to the contrary. We are likewise ready to\nmaintain, with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us, that six is\nless than seven in all times and at all places; and that ten will not be\nmore three years hence than it is at present. We do also firmly declare\nthat it is our resolution as long as we live to call Black black and White\nwhite. _And we shall upon all occasions oppose such persons that upon any\nday of the year shall call Black white or White black, with the utmost of\nour lives and fortunes._\" The rebuke, in both cases, is the same.\n\n\nIV.\n\nWhat do these illustrations show? \"That the Bible is, on the whole, a\nhumorous book? Far from it. That religion is a humorous subject? that we\nare to throw all the wit we can into the treatment of it? No. But they\nshow that the sense of the ludicrous is put into man by his Maker; that it\nhas its uses; that we are not to be ashamed of it;\" that we are not to be\nhorrified at the mention of it in connection with things we deem most\nsacred. They show that the literature of the Bible contains the same\nelements that in any other literature we call Wit and Humor. They show us,\nalso, that wit and humor do not of necessity produce hearty laughter or\nboisterous mirth; not always do they manifest themselves in \"gibes and\ngambols and flashes of merriment that set the table in a roar.\" Those,\ntherefore, who may expect something in these chapters that will shake\none's sides with jollity, or make him \"laugh till his face be like a wet\ncloak ill laid up,\" will doubtless be disappointed. Wit and humor often\nlie too deep for laughter, as pathos often lies too deep for tears.\n\nNo attempt is here made at exact definition of the two words that are\nprominent in the general title of this book. Perhaps after they have\npassed through their final analysis we shall not be any wiser than before\nwe cast them into the alembic. Barrow says of Humor: \"It is a thing so\nversatile and multiform that it seems no less hard to settle a clear and\ncertain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus or to define\nthe figure of the fleeting air.\" We usually include under the general term\nall forms of pleasantry, grotesqueness, drollery, sarcasm, irony,\nridicule. Our common acceptation shall serve us in these studies.\n\n\"There are many things,\" says Prof. Matthews, \"that definition helps us to\nunderstand, but there are other things that we understand better than we\ncan any possible definition of them; among these are the cold, sparkling,\nmercurial thing we call wit, and that genial, juicy, unconscious thing we\ncall humor.\"\n\nWith these preliminary observations, we proceed to examine the subject in\ndetail:\n\n    \"Are there not two points in the adventure of the diver?\n    One when a beggar he prepares to plunge;\n    The other when a prince he rises with his pearl?\n    Festus, I plunge.\"\n\n\n\n\nII. CHARACTER SKETCHES.\n\n\n    \"----Now, by two-headed Janus,\n    Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time;\n    Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,\n    And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;\n    And other of such vinegar aspect,\n    That they'll not show their teeth by way of smile,\n    Tho' Nestor swore the jest were laughable.\"--\n                                        _Merchant of Venice._\n\n\n\n\nCHARACTER SKETCHES.\n\n    \"With what prudence does the Son of Sirach caution us in the choice of\n    our friends. And with what strokes of Nature, (I could almost say of\n    Humour,) has he described the behavior of a treacherous and\n    self-interested friend!\"--_Addison._\n\n\n\"The history of the ancient Hebrews,\" says George Eliot, \"gives the idea\nof a people who went about their business and their pleasures as gravely\nas a society of beavers; the smile and laugh are often mentioned\nmetaphorically; but the smile is one of complacency, the laugh of scorn.\"\n\nAgainst the authority of so illustrious a name, the writer of these pages\nconfesses a somewhat different impression. It is difficult to believe that\nsuch sentiments as the following could have arisen among a people whose\nonly smile was that of complacency, whose only laughter that of scorn:\n\n\"He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.\"\n\n\"A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.\"\n\n\"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.\"\n\n\"Go thy way; eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry\nheart.\"\n\n\"The voice of mirth,\" \"the voice of gladness\" are phrases of frequent\noccurrence. The ancient Hebrews believed that there was a \"time to laugh\"\nas well as a \"time to weep.\" Grave and serious as they were, there must\nhave been in them, after all, something sunny and pleasant. They did not\nfind the heavens forever black and the earth forever cheerless.\n\nWhen we turn to the historical and biographical portions of Scripture, we\nfind here and there a bit of quaintness and drollery in pictures of life\nand delineations of character that must have brought to the faces of those\nwho read them or heard them smiles other than those of complacency; that\nmust have been enjoyed with laughter other than that of scorn.\n\nMr. Shorthouse says, \"Nature and humor do not lie far apart; the source\nand spring of humor is human life.\" \"The essence of humor,\" Carlyle\nremarks, \"is sensibility; warm, tender fellow-feeling with all forms of\nexistence.\" \"The man of humor,\" writes another distinguished critic,\n\"seeing at one glance the majestic and the mean, the serious and the\nlaughable; indeed, interpreting what is little or ridiculous by light\nderived from its opposite idea, delineates character as he finds it in\nlife, without any impertinent intrusion of his own indignation or\napproval.\"\n\nThe writers of the Bible sketched manners and traits as they found them.\nTheir pencils were faithful to nature. They reported what they saw. The\nfeatures which provoke the smile, as well as those which move us to\nadmire, condemn or weep, are pictured on their canvas. They had an eye for\nthe ludicrous side of life, as well as for its more sober aspects. So,\ngenial is much of their--often unconscious--humor, so far removed from\nbitterness or scorn, that it should seem as if Addison and Irving might\nhave drawn some of their inspiration from these old Hebrews.\n\nIn this chapter we shall give some illustrations from their sketches of\ncharacter.\n\n\nI.--ABIMELECH.\n\nIn the time of the Judges the unprincipled Abimelech contrived to have\nhimself proclaimed king in Shechem. Knowing his unfitness for the throne,\nand vexed at his successful machinations, Jotham, a man of ready wit,\nridicules the pretensions of the monarch and the folly of the people, in\nan admirable fable. Addison says: \"Fables were the first pieces of wit\nthat made their appearance in the world, and have been still highly\nvalued, not only in times of the greatest simplicity, but among the most\npolite ages of mankind. Jotham's fable of the Trees is the oldest that is\nextant, and as beautiful as any that have been made since that time.\"\n\nPerching himself upon the top of a hill, that his parable may not be\nbrought to an untimely end, he speaks to the multitude: \"The Trees went\nforth on a time to anoint a king over them. And they said to the Olive\nTree, Reign thou over us. But the Olive Tree said unto them, Should I\nleave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and men, and go to be\npromoted over the Trees? Then said the Trees unto the Fig Tree, Come thou\nand reign over us. But the Fig Tree said unto them, Should I forsake my\nsweetness and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the Trees? Then\nsaid the Trees unto the Vine, Come thou and reign over us. And the Vine\nsaid unto them, Should I leave my wine which cheereth God and Man, and go\nto be promoted over the Trees?\" Thus far the Trees have been unsuccessful.\nThey have found among their fellows of the forest no available candidate\nwhose character and record are good. They anticipated a difficulty of more\nmodern times. But they are becoming desperate. They are determined to have\na king. In this extremity what step do they take? \"Then said all the Trees\nunto the _Bramble_, Come thou and reign over us.\" The Bramble cannot plead\nbusiness. It cannot say, as do the Olive and Fig and Vine, \"I am of some\nbetter use.\" There is no reason, so far as any beneficent occupation is\nconcerned, why it should not be king. The offer is eagerly accepted, and\nthe pompous bush delivers itself of this high and mighty coronation\naddress: \"If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your\ntrust in my shadow; and if not, let fire come out of the Bramble and\ndestroy the cedars of Lebanon!\"\n\nThis Bramble, Jotham explains, represents Abimelech, while the misguided\ntrees are the men of Shechem. Having made this application, Jotham became\nconvinced that his mission was ended, and abandoned Mount Gerezim for a\nplace of greater security. \"And Jotham ran away and fled, and went to Beer\nand dwelt there for fear of Abimelech his brother.\" He did not wait to see\nwhat impression he had made. He was willing to let his story, moral and\nall, take care of itself; for in that day, as in every subsequent age,\nthere was no room for a satirist in the kingdom of an incompetent ruler.\n\n\nII.--SAMSON.\n\nFarther on in the book of Judges, we have the portrait of Samson. How\nquaintly is the character drawn! A great lubberly, good-natured giant, but\nnow and then bursting out into fits of unreasoning and uncontrolled\nanger,--not unlike Ajax in the play. He is constantly making himself\nridiculous in his love affairs.\n\nIn _Love's Labor Lost_, the following dialogue occurs:--\n\n    \"ARMADO.--Comfort me, boy. What great men have been in love?\n\n    \"MOTH.--Hercules, Master.\n\n    \"ARM.--Most sweet Hercules! More authority dear boy, name more; and\n    sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.\n\n    \"MOTH.--Samson, Master; he was a man of good carriage, for he raised\n    the town gates on his back like a porter; and he was in love.\"\n\nHe tries to joke in clumsy riddles: \"Out of the eater came forth meat, out\nof the strong came forth sweetness.\" But his jokes were usually of a more\npractical and even more disastrous kind. L'Estrange, in his _History of\nHumor_, says: \"The first character in the records of antiquity that seems\nto have had anything quaint or droll about it is that of Samson. Standing\nout amid the confusion of legendary times, he gives us good specimens of\nthe fierce, wild kind of merriment relished in ancient days; and was very\nfond of making very sanguinary sport for the Philistines. He was an\nexaggeration of a not very uncommon type of man in which brute strength is\njoined to loose morals and whimsical fancy. People were more inclined to\nlaugh at sufferings formerly than now, because they were not keenly\nsensitive to pain, and also had less feeling and consideration for others.\nThat Samson found some malicious kind of pleasure and diversion in his\nreprisals on his enemies and made his misfortunes minister to his\namusement, is evident from the strange character of his exploits. 'He\ncaught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail,\nand put a firebrand in the midst between two tails, and when he had set\nthe brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the\nPhilistines, and burned up both the shocks and also the standing corn of\nthe Philistines, with the vineyards and olives.' On another occasion, he\nallowed himself to be bound with cords and thus apparently delivered\npowerless into the hands of his enemies; he then broke his bonds 'like\nflax that was burnt with fire,' and taking the jawbone of an ass which he\nfound, slew a thousand men with it. His account of this massacre shows\nthat he regarded it in a humorous light: 'With the jawbone of an ass,\nheaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass, I have slain a thousand\nmen.' We might also refer to his carrying away the gates of Gaza to the\ntop of a hill that is before Hebron, and to his duping Delilah about the\nseven green withes. * * * Samson was evidently regarded as a droll fellow\nin his day.\"\n\nWhat a touch of human nature there is in the scene between Samson and his\nwife, when she asks for the solution of that wretched riddle! \"Thou dost\nbut hate me,\" is her reproach, \"and lovest me not; thou hast put forth a\nriddle unto the children of my people, and hast not told it to me.\" What!\nis there a domestic storm already brewing? There is something of a\nthunderclap in the angry retort of the husband: \"Behold, I have not told\nit to my father and my mother,\" (as if that would make any difference to\nher!) \"and shall I tell it to thee?\" Comparisons of this sort are but\nlittle noted for their conciliatory tendencies, and so we are fully\nprepared for what follows: \"_And she wept before him_ the seven days while\nthe feast lasted.\" Poor Samson is not proof against woman's tears. He\ncould rend the lion as a kid, and carry off the gates of Gaza as easily as\na shepherd could bear a lamb upon his shoulders, but his superhuman\nstrength is of no avail against \"women's weapons, water-drops.\" We are not\nsurprised to find that \"it came to pass on the seventh day _he told her_.\"\nThus did conjugal quarrels end in the time of the Judges.\n\nBut if Samson was worsted in the encounter with his wife, he scored a\nvictory against the Philistines who had frightened her into telling them\nthe answer to the riddle. When they came with an air of insolent triumph\nand said: \"What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?\"\nhe rather impolitely retorted,--traces of gall and wormwood at his recent\nhumiliation by his wife still rankling in his mind,--\"If ye had not\nploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.\" But he paid the\ndebt of honor he owed them, the wager he had lost. \"He went down to\nAshkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil and gave\nchanges of raiment unto them which expounded the riddle.\" Thersites would\nhave said of him as he did of Achilles, \"His wit was his sinew.\" Samson\nhad wonderful muscular power of repartee.\n\nOn another occasion Samson amused himself by telling monstrous lies about\nthe secret of his strength: \"If they bind me with seven green withes that\nwere never dried, then shall I be weak and be as another man;\" \"if they\nbind me fast with new ropes;\" \"if thou weavest the seven locks of my head\nwith the web;\" and so on. As Prince Hal said of the stories of his boon\ncompanion, \"These lies are like the father that begets them; gross as a\nmountain, open, palpable.\" Delilah, wearied with these practical jokes,\nexclaims at last, \"How canst thou say 'I love thee,' when thine heart is\nnot with me? Thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me\nwherein thy great strength lieth.\" Then she began a course of teasing and\nentreaty that finally proved successful. \"It came to pass when she pressed\nhim daily with her words, _so that his soul was vexed unto death_, that he\ntold her all his heart.\" Samson was great physically, but so weak mentally\nand morally that he is continually reducing himself to an absurd\nspectacle. He could not resist Delilah's persistent importunities, nor had\nhe sufficient resolution to betake himself from the presence of\ntemptation. He had, no doubt, laughed loud and long at the victims of his\nhuge falsehoods, but he is finally harassed by a woman whose reproaches\nand entreaties are like \"a continual dropping on a rainy day,\" into\ntelling the fatal truth. Upon the whole, as we look upon the portrait of\nSamson, we find it impossible to respect him. We can only smile at his\nfolly. The one flash of genuine nobility comes at the last. \"Nothing in\nhis life became him like the leaving it.\" After all, that heroic death\nmore than half redeems the vacillating career it closes.\n\n\nIII.--NABAL.\n\nThere is quite a different character in the first book of Samuel. His name\nis Nabal. The word itself means \"fool;\" and the man's wife, Abigail,\nvolunteered the opinion that it was a very accurate description of her\nhusband: \"_As his name is, so is he: Nabal is his name and folly is with\nhim_.\" He is self-satisfied, hard-headed, irritable, obstinate. We are\ntold that he was \"churlish and evil in his doings.\" He is blunt in speech,\nrude, and even boorish in manners. He stands out of the story like an old,\ngnarled tree. It would not be a matter of marvel if he suggested to\nFielding the character of Squire Western. They have many points in common.\nThe servants of Nabal are afraid of him: \"He is such a son of Belial that\na man cannot speak to him!\" He is fond of wine, and sometimes falls\nasleep over his cups. When David asks a favor of him, he exclaims: \"Who is\nDavid? and who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants now-a-days that\nbreak away, every man from his own master!\" As much as to say, \"The\ncountry is full of runaways and tramps, and how do I know but this David\nis one of them?\" Then he goes on--\"Shall I take my bread and my water, and\nmy flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I\nknow not whence they be?\" Let this David look out for himself; it is all\nthat I can do to provide for my own family and servants! How exactly in\nthe Squire Western vein: \"It's well for un I could not get at un; I'd\nspoiled his caterwauling; I'd a taught un to meddle with meat for his\nmaster. He shan't ever have a morsel of meat of mine, or a varden to buy\nit with!\" Just the man, after he has stormed his life away, to die of\napoplexy! And Nabal _did_ die suddenly, a few days after he had been \"very\ndrunken.\"\n\n\nIV.--JONAH.\n\nThere are some elements of genuine humor in the story of Jonah. Whatever\nmay be thought of the miraculous portions of the narrative, the character\nof the shirking and whimpering prophet is faithfully drawn. He first tries\nto escape the command of the Lord by fleeing to Tarshish, but finds that\nhe who runs away from duty runs into danger. Thoroughly alarmed by the\ndisastrous outcome of his attempt to get away from responsibility, he\nfinally goes to Nineveh, but is not reconciled to his task. He did not go\nbecause he was anxious to serve the Ninevites, but because he wished to\navert further danger from himself. He is in just the mood to complain of\neverything, to snatch at any straw of justification for his former\nconduct. Contrary to his expectations, and even, it must be confessed, to\nhis secret wishes, the Ninevites were moved to repentance by his\nhalf-hearted preaching, with its undertone of grumbling, and God forgave\nthem and turned away the threatened destruction of their city. But when\nthe forty days expire, and the city does not fall, Jonah is angry, and he\ninsists that he does well to be angry. He has been obliged to trudge\nthrough the streets of the city day after day shouting his predictions of\ndoom, and now he is denied the poor satisfaction of seeing the bolts fall\nfrom heaven in vengeance. He has even gone so far as to prepare for\nhimself a booth in a safe place, under whose shadow he might sit and enjoy\nthe spectacle,--\"where he might see what would become of the city.\" And\nnow there is nothing to come of it all! \"It displeased Jonah exceedingly\nand he was very angry.\" Surely the Lord is not considerate of the feelings\nof his prophet. Jonah's pent-up displeasure breaks forth: \"I pray thee, O\nLord, was not this my saying while I was yet in mine own country?\" Did I\nnot tell you so? Did I not say then and there how this whole affair would\nturn out? \"Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish.\" Why should I blister\nunder the sun of Nineveh, when I might take mine ease in Tarshish? \"For I\nknew that Thou art a gracious God, slow to anger and of great kindness\nand repentest thee of the evil,\"--too good-natured to do this thing! And\nnow that I have come, my prophecy has failed and my mission is a farce.\nThese wretches are spared and the prophet of God is a laughing-stock! \"I\ndo well to be angry, even unto death!\" He goes farther: \"I beseech thee,\ntake away my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.\"\nIt is better to die than to be made ridiculous. Nothing could reconcile\nJonah, just then, to the thought of further existence. Like Mr. Mantilini,\nhe was determined to become a \"body.\"\n\n\nV.--ABSALOM.\n\nWe must not pass by that exquisite likeness of the demagogue in Second\nSamuel. \"Absalom rose up early and stood beside the way of the gate; and\nit was so that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for\njudgment, then Absalom called unto him and said, Of what city art thou?\nand he said, Thy servant is one of the tribes of Israel. And Absalom said\nunto him, See, thy matters are good and right, but there is no one deputed\nof the king to hear thee.\" Things are getting very loose in the\ngovernment; the country is going to the dogs. The present administration\nhas been so long in power, that it has grown careless of the interests of\nthe people. Absalom said, moreover, \"O that I were made Judge in the land;\nthat any man which hath any suit or any cause might come unto me, and I\nwould do him justice!\" We need a change. Put our party in power and see\nwhether the rights of the people will not be better regarded; see whether\nthere will not be reform in all departments of the government, and better\ntimes in the nation. \"And it was so that when any man came to him to do\nhim obeisance, he put forth his hand and took him and kissed him.\" Really,\nhere we have the origin of the hand shaking candidate of to-day. Here are\nthe beginnings of that cajolery of the \"poor laboring man,\" \"the honest\nfarmer,\" \"the oppressed people,\" which the modern aspirant to office so\nearnestly affects. \"And in this manner did Absalom to all Israel that\ncame unto the King for judgment; so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of\nIsrael.\" In one point the comparison between Absalom and his later\nimitators fails. Absalom, it will be remembered, closed his career by\ngetting hung upon a tree. It is greatly to be regretted that many of our\nmodern demagogues do not complete the parallel.\n\n\nVI.--SHIMEI.\n\nIf Absalom is a type of the demagogue, Shimei surely is a type of the\nsycophant. While David was in power, Shimei was devoted. When David was\nsupplanted by the scheming Absalom and went forth heart-broken and weary\nfrom the city where he had reigned, Shimei basely deserts him to become\nthe tool of Absalom, and heaps insults upon the head of the fallen\nmonarch. Here is a specimen of his conduct and language: \"He cast stones\nat David and at the servants of King David. * * * And thus said Shimei\nwhen he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man and thou man of\nBelial: the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of\nSaul in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the\nkingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son; and behold thou art taken in thy\nmischief because thou art a bloody man.\" This exhibition of meanness\nrouses the just wrath of Abishai, who wishes to put an effectual stop to\nthe miserable proceeding: \"Why should this dead dog curse my lord, the\nKing? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head.\" But David\nforbids, and Shimei secure in the continued possession of his head\nfollowed after David and his men and \"cursed as he went, and threw stones\nat him and cast dust.\" But the scene changes. Absalom lies dead under a\nheap of stones in the forest. David is returning to Jerusalem as king. A\nboat has carried him across the Jordan. Who is this that meets him as he\nlands and fawns upon him? The wretch who stoned and cursed him the other\nday. It is Shimei who forsook him and pelted him when he was unfortunate,\nbut who returns to offer, \"in a bondman's key,\" his humble services when\nDavid is restored to power. \"Let not my Lord impute iniquity unto me,\nneither do thou remember that which thy servant did, the day that my lord\nthe king went out of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to heart.\" Do\nnot grieve over it, do not take it too sorely. I admit that it was rather\nhasty and ill-advised. \"For thy servant doth know that I have sinned.\" To\nbe sure I threw some stones, and kicked up a little dust, and swore a few\noaths,--very inconsiderate it seems now; but I am willing to forget the\nwhole affair. And see what splendid atonement I offer! \"_Behold, I am come\nfirst this day of all the house of Joseph, to go down to meet my Lord, the\nKing._\" Think of that! Ah, it is \"my lord, the king\" to-day; no longer a\n\"man of Belial.\" My lord the king can grant favors. Any little trifle of\nan office for which he may want an incumbent would be considered.\nRemember, \"_I am come this day, the first of all the house of Joseph to go\ndown to meet my lord the king_.\"\n\nSterne says: \"The wheel turns round once more; Absalom is cast down, and\nDavid returns in peace. Shimei suits his behavior to the occasion, and is\nthe first man also who hastens to greet him; and had the wheel turned\nround a hundred times, Shimei, I dare say, in every period of its rotation\nwould have been uppermost.\" Then he adds: \"O Shimei, would to heaven when\nthou wast slain, that all thy family had been slain with thee and not one\nof thy resemblance left. But ye have multiplied exceedingly and\nreplenished the earth; and if I prophesy rightly, ye will in the end\nsubdue it. Go where you will, in every quarter, in every profession, you\nsee a Shimei following the wheels of the fortunate through thick mire and\nclay.\"\n\nIt is not claimed that the writers of the Bible drew these portraits for\nthe purpose of making ludicrous those whom they painted, but the features\nwere in the originals, and they who wrote were simply faithful to nature.\nThey portrayed what they saw. They did not blind themselves to facts; and\nnow worthless usurper, weak-willed giant, churlish country squire of\nPalestine, grumbling prophet, scheming demagogue and oily sycophant live\nforever on their canvas. \"Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature _hath_ framed\nstrange fellows in her time;\" and some of those \"strange fellows\" lived in\nJudea thousands of years ago.\n\n\n\n\nIII. \"TOUCHES OF NATURE.\"\n\n\n\"The ludicrous has its place in the Universe; it is not a human invention,\nbut one of the Divine ideas, illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens\nand monkeys, long before Aristophanes or Shakespeare.\"--HOLMES.\n\n\n\n\n\"TOUCHES OF NATURE.\"\n\n\n    \"To explain the nature of laughter and tears is to account for the\n    condition of human life; for it is in a manner compounded of these\n    two. It is tragedy or comedy, sad or merry, as it happens.\"--HAZLITT.\n\n\n\"One touch of nature,\" says Shakespeare, \"makes the whole world kin;\" but\nthe great dramatist did not define exactly what he meant by \"touch of\nnature,\" and the critics of many generations have been at war over the\nquestion. Perhaps he could not have told us, even if he had tried,--any\nmore than the critics can tell us. When Democritus was asked his\ndefinition of a man, his only reply was, \"A man is that which we all see\nand know.\" Further than this the philosopher could not proceed. But while\nShakespeare has not given us a definition, he has given us an\nillustration:\n\n    \"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,--\n    That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,\n    Tho' they are made and moulded of things past;\n    And give to dust that is a little gilt\n    More laud than gilt o'erdusted.\"\n\nThe whole world is kin in this, that all with one consent inexcusably\nforget the substantial past and praise the present folly, if that folly be\nwell tricked out. Humanity proves its oneness by its foibles as well as by\nits virtues. \"Foolery, sir, doth walk about the orb; like the sun it\nshineth everywhere.\" Things deserving of laughter and things intended to\nprovoke it have always been happening; and the faculties by which men\nperceive the foolish and ludicrous have always existed in human nature.\n\n    \"Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,\n    Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,\n    Sport that wrinkled care derides,\n    And laughter holding both his sides,\"--\n\nall these were in the past as well as in the present. They are \"touches of\nnature\" that \"make the whole world kin.\"\n\nThe statement was made in the preceding chapter that the writers of the\nBible, especially of the historical books, drew faithfully from real life,\nand sketched manners and traits as they found them. They neither smoothed\nover nor concealed anything. They were absolutely frank. This fidelity to\nnature made it inevitable that the writers should now and then depict the\nludicrous side of life and character, describe grotesque situations and\npaint amusing scenes. These are not uproariously funny, they will not\nprovoke boisterous merriment, any more than will a page of Addison; but\nthey are none the less specimens of genuine humor. Indeed, Carlyle reminds\nus that \"true humor springs not more from the head than from the heart; it\nissues not in laughter, but in smiles that lie far deeper.\"\n\nWe may be sure that all life from the very beginning has had its humorous\nno less than its serious side. If any record had been kept, we should no\ndoubt find that Adam and Eve had their jokes about the apples--it is\nuniversally assumed that they _were_ apples--on that forbidden tree, and\nthat they were quite as good as any jokes that have been made about those\nsame apples in more recent years. The masons and bricklayers on the tower\nof Babel no doubt poked their thumbs into each other's ribs and slapped\neach other on the back to emphasize their rude jokes about the late \"wet\nspell,\" and wondered how long it would take to get to Heaven with their\nbuilding. And we imagine that even during the flood itself there were\nsanguine souls who took the whole matter philosophically, declaring that\n'it never rained long when the clouds looked _that_ way and the wind was\nin _that_ direction.' The Israelites, we suspect, lightened their bondage\nin Egypt by mimicking the pompous manners of their hated taskmasters and\nridiculing the fools who thought that bricks could be made without straw.\nAnd the grimmest Egyptian mummy that now graces a museum or helps to\nfertilize the wheat-fields of the West once wore a smile or grin upon his\nleathern face as he related to a brother mummy how Pharoah made sport of\nthe Israelites by promising to \"let them go,\" and then when they were all\non tip-toe with expectation, countermanding the order. Then they would\nboth shake their heads and chuckle with delight over the pleasant humor of\ntheir monarch and declare that 'Pharoah was in high spirits to-day.' Thus\nthe world has rolled and chirruped and cackled on since the time when man\nemerged from the animal. And Holmes suggests, in our motto, that the sense\nof humor was in the animal before man.\n\n\nI.\n\nSometimes the humor of the Bible lies in the thing described,--the odd or\nawkward or absurd thing said or done.\n\n\"The Iliad,\" says Sidney Smith, \"would never have come down to these\ntimes, if Agamemnon had given Achilles a box on the ear. We should have\ntrembled for the AEneid, if some Trojan nobleman had kicked the pious AEneas\nin the fourth book. AEneas, may have deserved it, but he never could have\nfounded the Roman Empire after so distressing an accident.\" And yet\naccidents quite as distressing, if not of precisely the same nature, have\nhappened in the best families that ever lived upon this planet. The\nwriters of the Bible have not hesitated to give us a very frank account of\nsome of them.\n\nImagine the vacant look of the terrified Aaron, as he gave his imbecile\nexplanation of the golden calf! Moses and Joshua are coming down from the\nmountain. \"And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted,\nhe said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. And Moses\nanswered, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is\nit the voice of them that cry for being overcome; but the noise of them\nthat sing do I hear.\" Soon they draw near the camp and see \"the calf and\nthe dancing.\" Then does the anger of Moses wax hot. In his rage he flings\ndown and shatters the \"tables of stone.\" Like a whirlwind he descends upon\nthe camp, hurls the miserable calf into the fire, and demands an\nexplanation of his recreant brother. \"What did this people unto thee that\nthou hast brought so great a sin upon them?\" Aaron quails beneath the\nwrath of Moses and stammers: \"Thou knowest the people that they are set on\nmischief. For they said unto me, Make us gods which shall go before us:\nfor as for this Moses\"--think of that, _this Moses_--\"that brought us up\nout of the land of Egypt, we know not what has become of him.\" You see\nthey are set on mischief; they were disrespectful even unto you--_this\nMoses_. Something had to be done. \"And I said unto them, Whosoever hath\nany gold, let them break it off. So they gave it to me, and I cast it into\nthe fire, and\"--what do you suppose happened?--\"_there came out this\ncalf_!\" I was as much surprised as you are, but no one is responsible--_it\ndid itself_!\n\nIn quaint fashion did Saul make honest confession when smitten with\nremorse on account of his persecution of David: \"Behold I have played the\nfool!\" The regret of Prince Hal also--\"Thus do we play the fools with\ntime, while the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.\"\n\nWhat an odd--almost laughable--spectacle is the bombastic Nebuchadnezzar,\none moment proudly striding along the battlements of his palace, \"Is not\nthis great Babylon which I have builded?\"--the next eating grass like the\nbeasts of the field! As Carlyle says: \"A purple Nebuchadnezzar rejoices to\nfeel himself now veritably emperor of this great Babylon which he has\nbuilded; and _is_ a nondescript, biped-quadruped, on the eve of a seven\nyears' course of grazing.\"\n\nThere is a scene in the life of David in which that worthy is represented\nas cutting fantastic capers before high heaven. At one time, in order to\nkeep out of Saul's way, David went down to Gath. The servants of King\nAchish recognize him, and tell their royal master that this is the famous\nDavid over whose exploits the daughters of Israel sang. \"Is not this\nDavid, the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in\ndances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten\nthousands?\" But David does not wish his identity known and with\ncharacteristic shrewdness he feigns insanity. \"He feigned himself mad, and\nscrabbled on the doors of the gate and let his spittle fall down upon his\nbeard,\"--a sorry looking hero! So thinks the king Achish. What, this the\nman that slew the giant? this drivelling lunatic the victor that Israel's\ndaughters praised? His disgust knows no bounds. He is almost as grotesque\nin his anger as is David in his appearance and conduct. He turns upon his\ncourtiers in offended dignity and cries, \"Lo, ye see the man is mad;\nwherefore have ye brought him to me? _Have I need of madmen_, (are not ye\nmy own servants sufficient?) that ye have brought this fellow to play the\nmadman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?\" \"Fool me no\nfools,\" says King Achish. When King Achish asked, \"Have I need of madmen?\"\nhe evidently thought of his own servants and courtiers as did Christian\nI., of Denmark, in modern times, of those who graced _his_ Court. He\nsharply remarked, on a presentation to him of several court fools, that\n\"he was not in want of such things, and if he were, he had only to give\nlicense to his courtiers, who, to his certain knowledge, were capable of\nexhibiting themselves as the greatest fools in Europe!\"\n\nIn Nehemiah's account of building the walls of Jerusalem, he shows how\nsorely the Jews took the clumsy jibes of their foes and gives us a\nspecimen of Samaritan joking in that early day. Sanballat mocked the Jews\nand said, \"What do these feeble Jews? Will they fortify themselves? Will\nthey sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day? Will they revive the\nstones out of the heaps of rubbish which are burned?\" Tobiah, the Amorite,\nwas yet more caustic: \"Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he will\neven break down their stone wall.\" This ridicule, although the jests do\nnot seem very formidable to us, was harder to bear than attacks with sword\nand spear. It is so to-day. We can stand anything but laughter. One would\nrather be made to appear infamous than ridiculous. The only answer the\nbuilders could make was to pray for the destruction of their sarcastic\npersecutors. They wished that heaven's bolts of lightning might answer\nthese bolts of wit.\n\n\nII.\n\nSometimes the humor lies in the description itself rather than in the\nthing described. Dr. Barrow, in his famous essay, says of facetiousness,\n\"Sometimes it is wrapped up in a dress of humorous expression.\"\n\nAn excellent example is furnished in the account of the mob at Ephesus:\n\"Some, therefore, cried one thing and some another; for the assembly was\nconfused; _and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together_.\"\n\nWhen Sidney Smith speaks of \"distressing accidents,\" we are reminded that\nan exceedingly \"distressing accident\" happened in the very first family of\nwhich we have any record--the family that started in Eden. Aside from any\nquestion as to the literal truth of the story, nothing can exceed the\nsimplicity and naturalness with which the writer has described the\nculprits and their excuses. The first thing they did after their\ntransgression was to hide. The supreme and perpetual folly of guilt is to\nimagine that it can be hid when the voice of the Lord God is heard in the\ngarden. \"And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art\nthou?\" The culprit creeps forth from his hiding-place and stammers, \"I\nheard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I\nhid myself.\" \"Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the\ntree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?\" Now the guilty\nsecret is out and Adam pleads in extenuation, \"The woman that thou gavest\nto be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.\" It was no fault of\nmine. That _woman_ was to blame--the woman, O Lord, remember, that _thou_\ngavest to be with me. Is not a little of the responsibility thine also, O\nLord? A touch of nature! \"As it was in the beginning, is now and ever\nshall be!\" But Eve will not bear all the blame. She also is ready with her\nexcuse: \"The serpent beguiled me and I did eat.\" Another remove in the\nlocation of the responsibility. If we can forget all that theology has put\ninto this story and look on it simply as a bit of literature, it is a\ncharming description of the way in which we mortals disclaim\naccountability for our deeds.\n\n    \"And oftentimes excusing of a fault,\n    Doth make the fault worse by the excuse;\n    As patches set upon a little breach,\n    Discredit more in hiding of the fault,\n    Then did the fault before it was so patched.\"\n\nJob has expressed his contempt for Adam's conduct in Eden by invoking upon\nhimself even greater ills than he was then suffering, if he followed that\ndisgraceful example,--\"If I covered my transgression as Adam, by hiding my\niniquity in my bosom.\" In magnificent scorn of Adam's hiding from the Lord\nand laying his guilt upon another, Job exclaims, \"Behold, my desire is\nthat the Almighty _would_ answer me!\" and avows that \"he would declare\nunto him the number of his steps, and as a prince would go near unto\nhim,\"--not skulk away from his presence among trees and bushes. The low\nestimation in which Job holds Adam suggests that the old Hebrew who wrote\nthe story in Genesis, may have intended to hold up that primal man in a\nhumorous light.\n\nWhether the story of Balaam is literally correct in its details is one of\nthe questions this little volume is not intended to discuss. The writer of\nthat story tells his tale as naively as if conversations between men and\nanimals were of everyday occurrence. If we read it as we would any similar\npiece, any other fable in which men and beasts speak to each other, we\nshould say that there were some elements of the ludicrous in the picture\nof the prophet rebuked by his ass. \"And the ass saw the angel of the Lord\nstanding in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand; and the ass turned\naside out of the way and went into the field. And Balaam smote the ass to\nturn her into the way.\" Just what any one would do to a \"shying\" animal,\nupon impulse. \"But the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards,\na wall being on this side and a wall on that side. And when the ass saw\nthe angel of the Lord, she thrust herself unto the wall and crushed\nBalaam's foot against the wall; and he smote her again.\" Naturally enough!\n\"And the angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where\nthere was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left. And when\nthe ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam; and\nBalaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.\" The rising\nwrath of the prophet can no longer be controlled. The turning from the\nway, the crushing of his foot against the wall, and finally the falling\ndown under him and refusing to proceed further,--these indignities on the\npart of the ass at length exasperate the prophet beyond all measure, and\nhe right lustily lays on the cudgel. \"What have I done unto thee that thou\nhast smitten me these three times?\" meekly inquires the belabored ass.\n\"Because thou hast mocked me, I would that there were a sword in my hand,\nfor now I would kill thee,\" roars Balaam. Thou hast mocked me; thou hast\nplayed tricks upon thy master, the prophet of God. Thou hast done this on\npurpose to vex me and put me to shame. Thou hast made a sorry spectacle of\nme with thy pranks, and thou hast crushed my foot in the bargain. \"Am I\nnot thine ass upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this\nday? Was I ever wont to do so unto thee?\" Should you not have known there\nwas something unusual? These are touches of nature in a story which might\nillustrate the saying of Isaiah in which he attributes higher wisdom to\nbrutes than to men: \"The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's\ncrib, but Israel doth not know, my people will not consider.\" Was it this\nsaying that Shakespeare had in mind when he said, through the lips of\nMark Antony:\n\n    \"O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,\n    And men have lost their reason.\"\n\nAt one time the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and other cities,\nand put them into the cities of Samaria to take the places of the children\nof Israel; but the new inhabitants did not fear the Lord, so the writer\ntells us that the Lord sent lions among them and slew them. Some one spoke\nto the king of Assyria, saying, \"The nations which thou hast moved and\nplaced in the cities of Samaria know not the manner of the God of the\nland.\" They are not acquainted with his habits and methods, and have\ngotten themselves into great trouble. The God of the land has sent lions\namong them. The king, hearing this, is in great dismay. It will never\ndo--the ravages of those lions must be stopped. He evidently thought, as\ndid Nick Bottom, \"There is no more fearful wild-fowl than your lion\nliving, and we ought to look to it.\" \"Then the king of Assyria commanded,\nsaying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence, and\nlet him go there and dwell and teach them the manner of the God of the\nland.\" The priest went and taught the uninitiated people not to provoke a\nGod who could let hungry lions loose upon them at any moment. The people\nlistened in terror. The result of the instruction was that \"the people\n_feared_ the Lord,\"--with a side glance at the lions. They tried to\nrefrain from what would make him angry enough to order out the lions but\nafter all--and there must have been a twinkle in the eye of the scribe as\nhe recorded it--\"_they served their own gods_.\"\n\nWhen Queen Vashti refused to come into the presence of King Ahasuerus and\nhis drunken lords, she did something that was wholly unprecedented.\nNothing of the kind had ever before been heard of in the whole history of\nthe empire. The revellers are shocked sober. Consternation reigns supreme.\nWhen did a queen ever refuse to do the bidding of a king? a wife the\nbidding of a husband? Are all our ancient notions of propriety to be\noverturned? What will be the effect of Vashti's rebellion? The feelings of\nthe king are outraged because the queen declines to unveil her beauty\nbefore his roistering courtiers. Enraged, he demands, \"What shall be done\nunto Queen Vashti because she hath not performed the commandment of the\nKing Ahasuerus?\" It is a grave question. The lords themselves have a stake\nin this matter. They fear the result of this strong-minded example. The\ncontagion of disobedience may spread. If it should, whose authority as\nhusband is safe? And Memucan answered, \"Vashti, the queen, hath not done\nwrong to the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the people\nthat are in the province of the King Ahasuerus. For this deed of Queen\nVashti's shall come abroad to all women, to make their husbands\ncontemptible in their eyes, when it shall be reported that the King\nAhasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, _but she\ncame not_. And this day shall all the princesses of Persia and Media which\nhave heard of the deed of the queen, say the like unto all the king's\nprinces. So shall there arise too much contempt and wrath.\" Such a thought\ncould not be entertained. As Dogberry would put it, \"It is most tolerable\nand not to be endured.\" Memucan, therefore, advises: \"If it please the\nking let there go a royal commandment from him, and let it be written\namong the laws of the Persians and Medes, that it be not altered, that\nVashti come no more before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal\nestate unto another that is better than she.\" The penalty is severe, but\nthe case is one that demands heroic treatment. \"And when the king's decree\nwhich he shall make, shall be published throughout all his empire, _all\nthe wives shall give to their husbands honor, both great and small_.\" The\nadvice is accepted. \"The saying pleased the king and the princes; and the\nking did according to the word of Memucan; for he sent letters into all\nthe king's provinces, into every province according to the writing\nthereof, to every people after their language, that _every man should bear\nrule in his own house_.\" Thus perished the first recorded movement in the\ndirection of woman's rights!\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe humor of the Biblical writers is often shown in the way they pierce\nthrough outward actions and penetrate to the hidden motives of men. Before\ntheir keen vision external disguises are vain.\n\nLet us turn to the account of sending the demons from the maniac into the\nswine. Let us take the account that speaks of but one maniac. \"Then they\nthat fed the swine fled and told it in the city and in the country. And\nthey went out to see what it was that was done. And they came to Jesus and\nsee him that was possessed of the devil and had the legion, sitting\nclothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.\" It must have seemed\nabsurd to the evangelist that these Gadarenes should have been afraid of\nthe insane man after he had been restored. But the swineherds have not yet\ntold all their story. \"And when they that saw it told them how it befell\nto him that was possessed with the devils and _also concerning the\nswine_--\" \"Aye, there's the rub!\" \"when they heard _that, they began to\npray him to depart out of their coasts_.\" A man has been restored, but a\nherd of swine has been lost. This new prophet will ruin us all, if he\nstays here. Let him begone. Though he saved men, they prayed him to depart\nbecause he let the swine be drowned. Jesus himself said once that \"every\nman was of more value than many sparrows;\" but these Gadarenes seemed to\nthink that no man was worth \"two thousand swine.\"\n\nIn the preceding section of this chapter, Paul's description of a mob is\nnoted. It will be interesting to understand the occasion of that mob. When\nPaul preached at Ephesus, there was a marked decline in the demand for\nimages and silver shrines of Diana. The market became weak. One of the\nprincipal manufacturers, Demetrius, called together all who were in the\nsame business and said: \"Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our\nwealth. Moreover, ye see and hear that not alone in Ephesus, but almost\nthroughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much\npeople, saying that there be no gods which are made with hands: so that\nnot only _this our craft is in danger to be set at naught_, but that the\ntemple of the great goddess Diana should be despised and her magnificence\nshould be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth!\" Demetrius,\nthe unctuous hypocrite, seems to throw the real consideration into the\nbackground, and to be actuated mainly by concern for the honor of his\ngoddess. Ah, Demetrius, Demetrius, little do you, little do your fellow\ncraftsmen care for Diana and her worship, except as you get your gain\nthrough her devotees. But make the people think you are full of zeal for\nreligion, and under the mantle of this falsehood cloak your motives, as\nyou rush through the streets crying, \"Great is Diana of the Ephesians!\"\nRouse the populace, always ripe for mischief, and always more furious than\never when they think that religion, something of which they do not\nunderstand the first letter, and of which they are absolutely destitute,\nis in danger. Rouse the people, make a pious demonstration, O Demetrius,\nbut know that he who recorded it all for future ages, wrote down your\ninmost secret--\"_By this craft we have our wealth!_\"\n\nAnother instance of hypocrisy similar to that of Demetrius, occurred at\nPhilippi. Paul and his comrades had spoiled the business of certain ones\nwho had in charge a damsel who uttered prophecies and told fortunes, by\ncasting out her \"spirit of divination.\" \"_And when her masters saw that\nthe hope of their gains was gone_, they caught Paul and Silas and drew\nthem into the market-place unto the rulers, and brought them to the\nmagistrate, saying, These men being Jews do exceeding trouble our city,\nand teach customs which are not lawful for us to observe, being Romans.\"\nIt is patriotism that furnishes the cloak in this case. No allusion to\ntheir loss of money--surely not; what matters that? \"He who steals my\npurse steals trash.\" But we must do our duty by our fellow-citizens. We\nmust not let these Jewish notions corrupt our civilization. We are loyal\nRomans, let all the world know! Is there not something in this incident\nto suggest the truthfulness of Dr. Johnson's remark, \"Patriotism is the\nlast refuge of a scoundrel?\"\n\nThe result of the uproar was that the apostles were beaten and cast into\nprison. Somehow it was soon discovered that they themselves were Roman\ncitizens, \"and when it was day, the magistrates sent the sergeants,\nsaying, Let these men go. And the keeper of the prison told this saying to\nPaul, The magistrates have sent to let you go; now, therefore, depart and\ngo in peace.\" It is now Paul's turn to be indignant, and he is not the man\nto let the opportunity slip. Paul insisted, as he had a right to do, upon\nhis dignity as a Roman citizen. He tartly replied, \"They have taken us\nopenly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and do\nthey now thrust us out privily? Nay, verily; but _let them come themselves\nand fetch us_.\" A touch of nature there! \"And they came (meekly enough\nnow, those pompous magistrates) _and brought them out_.\"\n\nA man who never lacked courage was Paul. It had been told him that there\nwere certain ones among the Corinthians who had respect for his letters,\nbut something bordering on contempt for his person. \"For his letters, they\nsay, are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his\nspeech contemptible.\" This is his answer: \"Let such an one think this,\nthat such as we are in word by letters, when we are absent, such will we\nbe also in deed, when we are present.\" Let those scoffers look to\nthemselves!\n\nIn lighter and almost playful vein, is his remark about the church at\nCorinth, in his second letter: \"Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought\namong you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds.\" And yet\nthere was one point in which the Corinthian church was inferior to others:\n\"For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, _except it be\nthat I myself was not burdensome unto you_?\" Paul had allowed the other\nchurches with which he labored to support him, but to the Corinthian\nchurch he had not accorded the same privilege. He had favored it with no\nopportunity for benevolence. \"_Forgive me_,\" he exclaims, \"_this wrong_.\"\n\nPaul relates that on one occasion he had a dispute with Peter at Antioch,\nin which he \"withstood Peter to the face, because Peter was to blame.\" It\nis to be doubted whether Peter ever quite forgot this dispute. The memory\nof it may have lingered and been particularly active when he referred in\none of his own letters to \"our beloved brother Paul who, according to the\nwisdom given unto him, hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles\nspeaking of these things; _in which are some things hard to be understood,\nwhich they that are unstable and unlearned do wrest_, as they do also the\nother Scriptures, (pray do not think that I am making brother Paul's\nwritings an exception) _to their own destruction_.\"\n\nThere is another phase of this general subject that is reserved for\nseparate treatment in the following chapter. We pause here to say that the\npeople of Bible times have been removed from the people of to-day by a\nchasm too wide and deep. We have been accustomed to look upon them as\nbelonging to another race--almost to another world. It is difficult to\nbelieve that they were \"men of like passions with ourselves.\" It seems\nalmost like sacrilege to intimate that they had their follies and\nweaknesses; that they did things absurd and laughable, and sometimes went\nfarther and did things that were mean and wicked. There was a vast deal of\nhuman nature in those sublime characters. Gail Hamilton sums them up as\nfollows: \"Adam had dominion over the earth, but he attempted to shield\nhimself from the divine displeasure by laying the blame upon his wife,\nwhich no gentleman would ever do. Noah was a 'just man and perfect in his\ngeneration,' if you do not mind an occasional fit of drunkenness. Abraham\nwas a fine old sheik, a truly heroic figure, brave, generous, courteous,\nhospitable, magnanimous; no wonder the haughty Jews loved to remember and\nrepeat that they were Abraham's children. But Abraham had his weaknesses\nand fell before his temptations; and Isaac followed in his footsteps. Of\nJacob perhaps the least said the better, though he maintained his position\nas head of his family with unrelenting vigor, calling no man master,\neither son or king. There may have been other men whose life was 'without\nfear and without reproach'; but their history is unknown to us; their\nportrait is hardly more than a name.\"\n\n\n\n\nIV. THE SENSE OF HUMOR IN JESUS.\n\n\n\"When a child, with child-like apprehensions that dived not beneath the\nsurface of the matter, I read those parables--not guessing the involved\nwisdom--I had more yearnings toward that simple architect that built his\nhouse upon the sand, than I entertained for his more cautious neighbor; I\ngrudged at the harsh censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his\ntalent; and prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and to my\napprehension, somewhat _unfeminine_ wariness of their competitors, I felt\na kindness that amounted almost to a _tendre_ for those thoughtless\nvirgins. I have never made an acquaintance since that lasted, or a\nfriendship that answered, with any that had not some tincture of the\nabsurd in their characters.\"--_Charles Lamb._\n\n\n\n\nTHE SENSE OF HUMOR IN JESUS.\n\n    \"Amid the sorrow, disappointment, agony, and anguish of the\n    world,--our dark thoughts and tempestuous passions, the gloomy\n    exaggerations of self will, the enfeebling illusions of\n    melancholy,--wit and humor, light and lightning, shed their soft\n    radiance and dart their electric flash.\"--_Whipple._\n\n\n\"How curious it is,\" says the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, \"that we\nalways consider solemnity, and the absence of all gay surprises and\nencounters of wits, as essential to the idea of the future life of those\nwhom we thus deprive of half their faculties and then call _blessed_!\nThere are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be preparing\nthemselves for that smileless eternity by banishing all gayety from their\nhearts and all joyousness from their countenances.\" Rather than believe in\nthe \"smileless eternity\" of such as these, we should accept the conjecture\nof Soame Jennings, that \"a portion of the happiness of seraphim and just\nmen made perfect would be derived from an exquisite perception of the\nludicrous.\"\n\nTo that school of melancholy teachers who frown upon all pleasantry, and\nbuttress their gloomy position with the assertion that \"Jesus wept but\nnever smiled,\" the title of this chapter will be particularly offensive.\nIt will strike them as downright blasphemy to intimate that Jesus\npossessed and used the sense of humor so common to mankind. We assuredly\nappreciate the delicacy of the position, and shall endeavor to avoid, in\nour treatment of this subject, anything that might wound the most\nsensitive soul.\n\nThere are several considerations that will pave the way. We take it for\ngranted that Jesus was a complete human being, and that as such a being he\nmust have had all the human attributes and faculties,--the faculty of\nmirthfulness among them. He was a man, and lacked nothing that pertains to\nmen. Then, too, had he been without the sense of humor, much in the lives\nand characters of those with whom he had to deal, he never could have\nunderstood and reached. The full success of his mission depended upon his\nknowing all that there is in man, and upon being able to gain access to\nhim through every avenue of his nature.\n\nNor were the circumstances of his life unfavorable to the development of\nthis particular attribute. Theology and Art have conspired to produce upon\nthe world the impression that Jesus was an exceptionally wretched and\nsuffering man. They have taken one or two expressions in Isaiah, such as,\n\"his countenance was marred,\" \"he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with\ngrief,\" expressions which they misunderstood and misapplied, and with them\nhave laid the foundations of their house of woe. They have seized upon a\nfew of the sadder incidents of his career, and have exaggerated them into\nundue prominence,--have given them undue proportions. Especially have they\nmade much of his agony in the garden and his death upon the cross. These\nevents have been magnified into such mountains that all the rest of his\nlife seems to lie hidden beneath their shadows. It appears never to have\nentered the mind of either preacher or painter that the physical anguish\nof his death must have been even less than that which many martyrs at the\nstake or martyrs upon sickbeds have borne; and that before death came, he\nhad lived a life with many bright days and many happy experiences. His\nexistence upon earth was not a protracted sorrow, a monumental grief. Many\na rose had blossomed at his feet before the thorns were twisted into a\ncrown for his brow.\n\nWhat shall we say of the thirty peaceful years under his father's roof,\nwith his brothers and sisters? Did he not in boyhood have the amusements\nof other children? Is there not a memento of his youthful sports in what\nhe says of the games of the children in the marketplace, when they were\nplaying at weddings and funerals? Did he not, when a young man, delight in\nhis home and in his companions? Can we imagine that he moved among those\nwho were nearest and dearest to him, with a face to which a smile was as\nmuch a stranger as a tropic flower to the frozen zone?\n\nWhen, as a mature man, he entered upon his public ministry, although he\nwas exposed to frequent attacks from the representatives of the\nestablished religion, yet he was never without friends; never without a\nplace of refuge from the heat of battle. There were many homes in which a\nwelcome always awaited him, and whose hospitality he gladly accepted. Is\nit probable that he was accustomed to sit in these homes--to use\nShakespeare's phrase--\"like his grandsire cut in alabaster?\"\n\nMore than once we are directly told that \"he rejoiced in spirit;\" more\nthan once he spoke of his \"joy\" to his disciples. There is much evidence\nthat Jesus was not a wretched but a happy man. Did this happiness never\nexpress itself in words or countenance?\n\nThere are other considerations that go far to refute the dismal assertion\nthat \"Jesus wept but never smiled.\" Tired mothers brought their children\nto him and he rebuked the supercilious disciples who interfered. Can we\nthink that on this occasion he had a woe-begone look? We read of him often\nat feasts; would he have been invited if he had been accustomed to sit at\nthe table like the skeleton at an Egyptian banquet? Did he not by his\nfrequent attendance upon festive occasions incur the odium of being a\nwine-bibber and a glutton? He was also a favorite with the common people.\nThey heard him gladly. But there must have been something attractive in\nhis presence and manner, as well as in his words, and the words themselves\nmust have appealed to the shrewd, homely, common sense of his hearers. If\nhe had been the sad spirit he has been pictured, would the people have\nfollowed him and listened to him as they did?\n\nWhen we leave the outward circumstances and the presumption they furnish,\nand examine the fragments of his speech that have been preserved for us,\nmany of them certainly contain the element of humor. We should undoubtedly\ncall it humor if it came from any other lips than those of Jesus; if we\nfound it in any other book than the New Testament.\n\nThe purpose of this chapter will be grossly misapprehended, however, if\nany one shall suppose that we are trying to degrade Jesus to the level of\na professional joker. Nothing is further from our intention. The very\nthought is repulsive. One may have and use the sense of humor without\nputting on the cap and bells. He may use it with the highest motives and\nfor the noblest ends. It was said of Hosea Ballou, that \"it was no\nuncommon thing for him when preaching to excite a smile; but usually it\nwas done by some ingenious argument that would electrify every one\npresent.\" His biographer adds: \"It is not known that any person ever\nlistened to one of his sermons who was not so impressed with his\nsincerity, dignity and earnestness, that the recollection of his\noccasional humorous sayings was held subsidiary and helpful to his main\nserious purpose. His mother-wit was sanctified. It served a divine mission\nin diffusing cheerfulness and health.\" We must always remember that wit\nand humor do not mean buffoonery.\n\nIt is difficult to understand how any one can read many of the parables\nand other sayings of Jesus, and still believe the doleful tale that he\n\"wept but never smiled.\" He saw the dancing lights as well as the deep\nshadows, the more genial and even ludicrous aspects of life, as well as\nits various phases of sorrow and sin, and all these furnished subjects for\nhis discourse as well as illustrations for his teaching.\n\nLet us now consider some of the ways in which the sense of humor in Jesus\nmanifested itself.\n\n\nI.\n\nThe sense of humor often tempered his rebukes. There was often sunshine on\nthe cloud.\n\nThere were times, indeed, as we shall see, when he spoke with unmeasured\nseverity, when his words fell like fiery hail, beating and burning the\nheads of offenders; but anon he spoke half smiling, half pitying, as if\ndisposed to laugh at the very inconsistencies he censured. In this respect\nhis spirit has been caught by Addison and Goldsmith, by Irving and\nDickens. Richter says that \"no one has a right to laugh at men but he who\nmost heartily loves them.\" Taine says of Dickens, \"Before reading him we\ndid not know there was so much pity in the heart.\" Jesus loved men, he\npitied them, even while his eye detected and his words exposed their\nfaults and foibles.\n\nHe had looked with pleasure (remembering his own childhood), upon the\ngames of the boys and girls in the streets of Jerusalem; he thought of\ntheir whimsical complaints, as they played at weddings and funerals in the\nmarket-place. On one occasion, his severity mitigated by his sense of the\nludicrous, he exclaimed, \"Whereunto shall I liken this generation? and to\nwhat are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the\nmarket-places and calling to one another and saying, We have piped unto\nyou and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you and ye have not\nlamented.\" Everything had gone wrong. The others would not play fair. They\nwould not dance when we wanted to play wedding; they would not be mourners\nwhen we wanted to play funeral. We have done all we could to please them,\nbut they are \"too mean for anything.\" To the mind of Jesus, the people of\nthat generation appeared to be making the same complaint. They were\nchildishly dissatisfied with every divine messenger,--none could please\nthem. \"For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking\nwine,\"--solemn, gloomy, austere; but they would have none of him. He\nmourned unto them, but they would not lament. They would not \"play at\nfuneral\" with him. They turned away and said, \"He hath a devil.\" Then came\nthe Son of Man, bright and cheerful, \"eating and drinking,\" but they would\nnot dance to his piping. They pointed at him and said, \"Behold a\ngluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!\" It\nwas impossible to please that generation.\n\nIf we place this passage side by side with the following from Goldsmith,\nwe shall see at once that if there be humor in the latter, there must also\nbe humor in the former. The subject is the reception accorded the Chinese\nphilosopher who tried to please his friends by his demeanor upon the death\nof an English sovereign: \"I thought it at least my duty to appear\nsorrowful; to put on a melancholy aspect, or to set my face by that of the\npeople. The first company I came amongst after the news became general was\na set of jolly companions who were drinking prosperity to the ensuing\nreign. I entered the room with looks of despair, and even expected\napplause for the superlative misery of my countenance. Instead of that, I\nwas universally condemned by the company and desired to take away my\npenitential phiz to some other quarter. I now corrected my former mistake,\nand with the most sprightly air imaginable entered a company where they\nwere talking over the ceremonies of the approaching funeral. Here I sat\nfor some time with an air of pert vivacity, when one of the chief mourners\nimmediately observing my good humor desired me, if I pleased, to go and\ngrin somewhere else; they wanted no disaffected scoundrels there. Fum,\nthou son of Fo, what sort of people am I amongst?\" _Whereunto shall I\nliken this generation?_\n\nThere was a certain time when multitudes followed Jesus, not knowing what\nthey were about, but simply swept along by the enthusiasm of the moment.\nHe saw that they understood not, so he turned and gave them this gentle\ncaution: \"Which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first\nand counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest,\nhaply, after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all\nthat behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was\nnot able to finish.\" Whoever comes after me and does not count upon\nbearing his cross, is in the predicament of this foolish tower-builder,--a\nludicrous spectacle as he sits beside the unfinished structure, his\nmaterials exhausted, while all his neighbors, as they pass by, wag the\nhead and point the finger. Such a spectacle as that will each one of you\nbe who does not count the cost of discipleship. With such gentle strokes\nof humor did Jesus stay the thoughtless multitudes who imagined that their\nempty zeal was genuine loyalty. He set forth their conduct in terms that\nwould most effectually impress upon them its folly,--in terms that\nappealed to their sense of the ridiculous.\n\nIn a sarcastic paragraph of his _French Revolution_, Carlyle speaks of the\nwork of the National Convention thus: \"In fact, what can be more\nunprofitable than the sight of six hundred and forty-nine ingenious men\nstruggling with their whole force and industry, for a long course of\nweeks, to do at bottom this; to stretch out the old Formula and Law\nphraseology, so that it may cover the new, contradictory, entirely\nuncoverable thing? Whereby the poor formula does but _crack_ and one's\nhonesty along with it. The thing that is palpably _hot_, burning, wilt\nthou prove it by a syllogism to be a freezing mixture? This of stretching\nout formulas till they crack is, especially in times of swift change, one\nof the sorrowfullest tasks poor humanity has.\" Was it not this very\nformula-stretching that Jesus satirized in more playful vein,--this\nformula-stretching that existed in old times and that still exists,--when\nhe said: \"No man putteth a piece of new garment upon an old; if otherwise,\nthen, both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the\nnew agreeth not with the old\"? You can not patch up old terms with new\nmeanings. The new meaning agreeth not with the old term. \"And no man\nputteth new wine into old wine-skins; else the new wine will burst the\nwine-skins and be spilled, and the wine-skins shall perish. But new wine\nmust be put into new wine-skins, and both are preserved.\" The man who\ntries to put new senses into old words, new ideas into old formulas, is\nlike a man who cuts up a new garment to mend an old; like one who puts\nwine not yet done fermenting into a skin whose capacity admits no further\nstrain. He spoils his new coat and he loses his new wine.\n\nWith such illustrations as these, illustrations embodying a figure or\ncomparison or situation essentially amusing, was Jesus wont to temper his\nrebukes.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe sense of humor in Jesus enabled him to detect pretension, imposture,\nhypocrisy, and expose them to the derision of mankind.\n\nIf we should find in Dickens or Thackeray such pictures as Jesus has given\nof the Scribes and Pharisees, they would strike us at once as the very\nquintessence of humor. \"They go arrayed in long clothing, they love the\nuppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues.\" They are\nalways posturing to attract attention. \"They love greetings in the\nmarket-places, to be called of men Rabbi, Rabbi.\" In their way, they are\nas much given to \"deportment\" as Mr. Turveydrop, when he says, \"I suppose\nI must now go and show myself about town; it will be expected of me.\" When\nthey pray, they do it standing in the synagogues or at the corners of the\nstreets that all may see how pious they are; when they perform their deeds\nof righteousness, a trumpet is sounded before them, to make solemn\nproclamation; as who should say, \"Will the public please take notice; I am\nabout to drop a mite into this poor widow's hand.\" When they fast they put\non \"a sad countenance and disfigure their faces\" with fictitious woe and\nweeping, \"that they may appear unto men to fast.\" \"See how I lay the dust\nwith my tears,\" says Launce. Everything they did was done for effect;\nnothing came from the heart. Their religion was the veriest sham. They had\nwell-nigh reached the measure of South's ideal hypocrite, \"who never opens\nhis mouth in earnest, but when he eats or breathes.\" Well might Jesus say,\n\"The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat; _all things, therefore,\nwhatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, but do ye not\naccording to their works; for they say and do not_.\" Does not this remind\nus of Pecksniff, \"who was a most exemplary man, fuller of virtuous\nprecepts than a copy-book; but some people likened him to a direction-post\nwhich is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there.\"\n\n\nIII.\n\nNot only did the sense of humor in Jesus enable him to unmask pretentious\nhypocrites, but also to expose the absurdities that the multitudes\ncommonly practiced in the name of religion.\n\nThere are those, for example, who in prayer use \"vain repetitions,\"\nthinking that they shall be heard for their \"much speaking.\" They\nestimate the efficacy of prayer by its quantity and not by its quality.\nThey think that if they only keep at it long enough, if they only use\nmultitudes of words, they will surely attract attention on high.\n\nThere are others who think that religion consists in the \"washing of pots\nand cups and such like things\" and they \"lay aside the commandment of\nGod.\" One of their representatives in modern literature is Dolly Winthrop,\nwho tells Silas Marner about the letters \"I.H.S.\" pricked upon the\nChristmas cakes: \"I can't read 'em myself, and there's nobody, not Mr.\nMacey himself, rightly knows what they mean; but they've a good meaning,\nfor they're the same as is on the pulpit-cloth at Church; an' if there's\nany good, we've need of it in this world.\"\n\nIt is curious how the superstition of externalism has affected many, even\nnoble minds. Dr. Johnson once said of John Campbell, a political and\nphilosophical writer, \"Campbell is a good man, a pious man; I'm afraid he\nhas not been inside of a church for a good many years, but he never passes\na church without pulling off his hat. This shows he has good principles.\"\n\n\nIV.\n\nJesus perceived the blunders of the well-meaning, but ignorant and\nambitious,--such as the man who went to the wedding party without suitable\ngarments, and was unceremoniously shown to the door; such as the obtuse\npeople who, invited to a feast, always took the seats of honor and were as\noften courteously escorted to seats further down the table. When the \"more\nhonorable man\" came, the host would say, \"Give this man place,\" and the\nother would \"begin with shame to take the lowest seat.\" Jesus saw these\nblunders, and we cannot believe that he was blind to their comical side.\nHe must have felt that the mistake was a ludicrous one, even when he\nadvised the stupid people who made it, \"When thou art bidden, go and sit\ndown in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say,\nFriend, go up higher; and then thou shalt have worship in the presence of\nthem that sit at meat with thee.\"\n\n\nV.\n\nThe sense of humor in Jesus is still further shown by his selection of\ncharacters for his parables and illustrations. How many of them are what\nwe should call \"odd sticks\" to-day!\n\nCould any one devoid of humor, or opposed to its use, have described such\nodd or eccentric people as the fool who thought that sand was as good a\nfoundation for his house as rock; or the drowsy friend roused at midnight\nto lend his neighbor bread and scolding furiously at the annoyance? Then\nwe have the shepherd's coward hireling who ran away from his flock when he\nsaw the wolf coming; the foolish rich man; the unscrupulous steward who\nprovided for himself by cheating his master; the three fellows who made\nsuch puerile excuses for absenting themselves from the king's\nbanquet,--one was interested in a real estate transaction, another was\ndealing in stock, while the third had just \"married a wife.\" Perhaps the\ncharacterization of all these excuses as puerile, may be too sweeping.\nThis last case may be an exception. Having just entered the holy estate of\nmatrimony, any plans this man might have formed before that event were of\ncourse subject to revision. Let us not be too hard upon him. It may be\nthat he rests under too heavy a load of censure. He may even be deserving\nof sympathy. He said--was there a suggestion of desperation in his\nwords?--\"I have married a wife and therefore I _can not_ come.\" The king\nought very likely to have exempted this man from his wrath; for he seems\nto say, \"I should like to come, but--!\"\n\nThen there was the servant who, in his lord's absence, got above his\nbusiness, assumed the master, became drunken in the company of roisterers,\nand beat his fellow-servants; but was at last put to shame by the sudden\nand unexpected arrival of his master. This servant was a veritable Jaques\nwho, in the old play, assumed to be his master, the Duke, and who was\nlikewise brought to grief by his master's return: \"I must appear\nimportant; big as a country pedagogue when he enters the school-room with\na-hem, and terrifies the apple-munching urchins with the creaking of his\nshoes. I'll swell like a shirt bleaching in a high wind; and look as\nburly as a Sunday beadle when he has kicked down the unhallowed stall of a\nprofane old apple-woman. Bring my chair of state!\"\n\nThere are other characters, such as the shrewd laborer who, digging in a\nfield, finds a hidden treasure and secreting it goes and buys the field;\nthe unjust judge who finally, completely tired out, gives way in no very\namiable mood to the widow's unceasing petitions for justice; the timid\nsoul, who, fearing to use his talent, hid it in a napkin and buried it in\nthe earth; the self-righteous Pharisee who recounts his good deeds before\nthe Lord of the Temple and complacently congratulates himself that he is\nnot as other men! \"God, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men,\nextortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice\nin the week; I give tithes of all that I get!\" Mr. Pecksniff once\nmore!--so satisfied with himself, \"so radiant with ingenuous honesty that\nMrs. Lupin almost wondered not to see a stained-glass glory, such as the\nsaint wore in the church, shining about his head!\"\n\n\nVI.\n\nIn the introduction, reference was made to the words of Mr. Shorthouse\nwhich suggested this investigation. This seems a fitting place to present\nthe only example in which Mr. Shorthouse has carried out his own\nsuggestion,--the Parable of the Prodigal Son.\n\n\"But is it trite that there is no humor in the gospels? 'What strokes of\nnature, if not of humor,' to use Mr. Addison's words again, may we find in\nthe story, let us say, of the Prodigal Son? What, in the light of the\nmodern conception of humor, will come out of this?\n\nHere, surely, there is no want of real life, of low life, even. Here is a\nwild young scamp, as like Tom Jones as heart could wish. Here is\ningratitude, forgetfulness of parents, riotous living, taverns, harlots,\nwhat not? Then beggary, and feeding swine, and living upon husks. Then\nwhen evil living is found not to answer, penitence--like Tom Jones again.\n\nAnd 'when he was yet a great way off his father saw him,' along the stony\nroad beneath the vine-clad hills. Who can tell how often the father's eyes\nhad gazed longingly down the road since his son's figure, gay, reckless of\nthe benefits just bestowed, accompanied by servants, eager for the\npleasures of the world, had vanished from his sight? Now, at last, after\nso long waiting and looking, he sees in the far distance, a very different\nsight. He sees a solitary figure, worn and bent down, in rags, dragging on\nits weary steps; how could the old man's gaze expect such a sight as this?\nNevertheless, his father knew him, 'and ran and fell on his neck.' He did\nnot wait for any accents of repentance, nor did he enforce any moral\nprecepts which might advantage posterity. 'He fell on his neck and kissed\nhim.' Foolish old father!\n\nTom Jones is brought in. He goes to the bath. The familiar feeling of\nluxury comes over him once more. He is clothed in fine linen, and has a\ngold ring placed on his finger, the past seems an evil dream. Then the\nfatted calf is killed. The banquet is spread and there is festivity,\nmusic, and dancing-girls.\n\nBut suddenly, in the midst of his delight, some trouble passes over the\nold man's face; his eldest son is not in his place, and they bring him\nword that he is without and refuses to come in. Some perception of a\nneglected truth passes through the father's mind, and he rises and goes\nout. 'Therefore came his father out and entreated him.'\n\nThe eldest son has been out all day working in the vineyards; all his life\nhad been one long performance of duty, taken for granted, and therefore\nunpraised and unrecognized. In how many households will silent witness be\nborne that this is real life--the gentle and obedient service\noverlooked--nay, more than this, the cross word or hasty temper where\nthere is no fear that it will be returned.\n\n'All these years have I served thee * * * and yet thou never gavest me a\nkid that I might make merry with my friends.' I am a man like others,\ngayety and feasting are pleasant to me, as to them.\n\nA look of perplexed, but growing insight comes into the father's face.\n'Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.'\n\nThis is all very well, still he is conscious that there is something to be\nsaid for the eldest son, too. But his lost son--his wayward, and therefore\nloved son, is come again.\n\n'It is meet that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother\nwas dead and is alive again.' We can see the pitiful, pleading look in the\nold man's eyes,--'thy brother was dead.'\n\nYes, Addison must be right. Nature and humor cannot be far apart. The\nsource and spring of humor is human life. Its charm consists, not merely\nin laughter or even in joy, but in the stirring of those sympathies and\nassociations which exist invariably in the race; for we inherit a\nworld-life and a religion, the earth-springs of whose realities lie,\nperchance, too deep for laughter, but not, Heaven be praised, too deep for\ntears.\"\n\nSurely the examples given suggest an eye for the humorous in him who saw\nand described them. These illustrations were, indeed, used to convey moral\ntruths, but they show how wide was the acquaintance of Jesus with all\nsorts of characters, and how he loved to use such as were out of the\nordinary; such as, to-day, we should at least call \"peculiar.\" A\nrecognition of this fact will help us better to appreciate and more\nthoroughly to enjoy those simple, yet wonderful parables, out of which the\nheavy hand of a severely literal criticism would crush all \"touches of\nnature.\"\n\n\n\n\nV. PROVERBS AND EPIGRAMMATIC SAYINGS.\n\n\n\"Proverbs, must not be passed over in our enumeration,--proverbs, the\nphilosophy of the common people; short, pithy, homely sayings that embody\nthe concentrated essence of the common people's wisdom. It has been\ndifficult to give a perfect definition of a proverb, so crowded is it with\nthe life of shrewdness and experience; yet so easy and negligent is it,\nand saucy as it were. Its characteristic excellences are shortness, sense\nand salt. It is the wit of one man, the wisdom of thousands.\"--_Macbeth._\n\n\n\n\nPROVERBS AND EPIGRAMMATIC SAYINGS.\n\n\n    \"The proverbialists occupy themselves with life in all its aspects.\n    Sometimes they simply catch the expression of men, good or bad, or\n    photograph their actions or thoughts; more generally they pass a\n    verdict upon them and exhort or instruct men in regard to them. * * *\n    Some of the proverbs have a certain flavor of humor.\"--_Davidson._\n\n\n\"The wise men of old,\" says Whipple, \"have sent most of their morality\ndown the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram: and the\nproverbs of nations which embody the common sense of nations, have the\nbrisk concussion of the most sparkling wit. Almost every sensible remark\non folly is a witty remark. Wit is thus often but the natural language of\nwisdom, viewing life with a piercing and passionless eye.\" The object of\nthe present study is to consider those proverbs and other epigrammatic\nsayings which distinctly contain the element of wit in some form or other,\nand which are so liberally scattered over the pages of the Bible.\n\n\nI.--THE BOOK OF PROVERBS.\n\nIn such an investigation, we naturally turn, first of all, to that great\ncollection of proverbs, with which the name of Solomon has become\nidentified. They do not, however, represent his genius alone, although we\nshall frequently use his name as representative of the whole class of\nphilosophers. They are the productions of many wise men through many\ngenerations. They are, indeed, the outcome of the life of a whole people,\nput into definite shape by those who had insight sufficiently keen and\npower of expression sufficiently terse to formulate the lessons of human\nexperience. \"The wise men,\" says Canon Driver, \"took for granted the main\npostulates of Israel's creed, and applied themselves rather to the\nobservation of human nature as such, seeking to analyze character,\nstudying action in its consequences, and establishing morality upon the\nbasis of principles common to humanity at large. On account of their\nprevailing disregard of national points of view, and their tendency to\ncharacterize and estimate human nature under its most general aspects,\nthey have been termed, not inappropriately, the _Humanists_ of Israel.\nTheir teaching had a practical aim; not only do they formulate maxims of\nconduct, but they appear also as moral advisers, and as interested in the\neducation of the young.\"\n\nThe Book of Proverbs is a perfect mine of cunning and glittering\nsentences, many of which are witty as well as wise, and none the less wise\nbecause they are witty. There are swords that pierce the hidden motives of\nmen, and whips that lacerate the backs of their open follies and sins.\n\n\n_1. The Fool._\n\nThere is a personage, or more exactly, an assemblage of certain qualities,\nconstantly held up to ridicule under the general title of _The Fool_.\nRuskin says that \"folly and sin are to some extent synonymous.\" The Fool\nin the Book of Proverbs is one who combines mental stupidity with moral\nobtuseness. He has a hard time of it at the hands of the proverbialists.\n\"He that begetteth a fool doeth so to his sorrow; the father of a fool\nhath no joy.\"\n\nFoolish persons have always been noted for parading their folly, and\nsounding a trumpet to proclaim their lack of understanding. So Solomon\nsays: \"A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of\nhis soul.\" \"The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright; but the mouth\nof fools poureth out foolishness.\" \"When he that is a fool walketh in the\nway, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a\nfool,\"--his scanty supply of sense is not enough to last him to the end of\nhis journey. There is a modern proverb to the same effect: \"He has not wit\nenough to last him over night.\" Everything the fool undertakes comes to\ngrief. \"He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the\nfeet and drinketh damage.\" \"The labor of the fool wearieth every one,\nbecause he knoweth not how to go to the city.\" \"The simple believeth every\nword, but the prudent man looketh well to his going.\" \"Let a bear robbed\nof her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.\" No discipline\ncan be too severe for the fool. \"Judgments are prepared for scorners and\nstripes for the back of fools.\" \"A whip for the horse, a bridle for the\nass, and a rod for the fool's back.\" But Solomon is not sanguine that the\nmost rigorous course will produce extraordinary results. \"A reproof\nentereth more into a wise man than a hundred stripes into a fool.\" \"Wisdom\nis before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the\nends of the earth.\" \"Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to\nget wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?\" One can almost see that\npicture--the fool wandering about the city with money in his hand,\ninquiring where a person in need of it might purchase a commodity of good\ncommon sense. \"Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat\nwith a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.\" In many\nother proverbs is the fool gibbeted. \"As snow in summer, and as rain in\nharvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool.\" \"The legs of the lame are not\nequal; so is a parable in the mouth of fools.\" \"As he that bindeth a stone\nin a sling, making a dangerous weapon, so is he that giveth honor to a\nfool.\" \"As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable\nin the mouth of fools.\" \"It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than\nfor a man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under\na pot, so is the laughter of the fool.\" In one chapter Solomon describes a\ngroup of foolish persons. \"For three things the earth is disquieted and\nfor four which it can not bear; for a servant when he reigneth\"--the\nmodern instance is the \"beggar on horseback,\"--\"and a fool when he is\nfilled with meat; for an odious woman when she is married; and a handmaid\nthat is heir to her mistress.\" These four characters \"play such fantastic\ntricks before high heaven,\" that whether the \"angels weep\" or not, the\nearth groans and is \"disquieted.\" And yet Solomon seems to have found a\nmore grotesque and incorrigible character than the fool: \"Seest thou a man\nwise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.\" The\ncontempt of the proverbialists for the class of persons here described was\nquite as strong as that of Dr. Samuel Johnson. When some one hoped that\nthe good doctor might meet in heaven a certain person whose conduct had\naroused his ire, he retorted with some warmth, \"Madam, I am not fond of\nmeeting fools anywhere.\"\n\n\n_2. The Idler._\n\nHow these writers love to castigate laziness! They toss the sluggard on\nall manner of sharp-pointed epigrams. \"He that gathereth in summer is a\nwise son; he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.\" \"The\nway of a slothful man is as a hedge of thorns,\"--he walks as slowly and\npainfully as if avoiding thorns on either hand. \"As vinegar to the teeth\nand as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him.\" \"The\nslothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting.\" \"The sluggard\nwill not plough by reason of the cold, therefore he shall beg in harvest\nand have nothing.\" \"Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.\" \"He that\ntilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread; but he that followeth vain\npersons\"--those who teach him that there is any other way to success than\nhonest industry,--\"is void of understanding.\" \"The slothful man says,\nThere is a lion without; I shall be slain in the streets.\" \"As the door\nturneth upon its hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed.\" \"The slothful\nhideth his hand in his bosom; it grieveth him to bring it again to his\nmouth.\" Too lazy to eat! This is the very acme of indolence.\n\n\n_3. The Babbler._\n\nThese wise men recommend, in pithy terms, the judicious control of the\ntongue. They commend the value of silence. \"Whoso keepeth his mouth and\nhis tongue keepeth his soul from troubles.\" \"The beginning of strife is as\nwhen one letteth out water; therefore leave off contention before it be\nmeddled with.\" \"It is an honor to a man to cease from strife, but every\nfool will be meddling.\" \"Even a fool when he holdeth his peace is\naccounted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of\nunderstanding.\" This is the same idea which we find, in more elaborate\nform, in Shakespeare:\n\n    \"There are a sort of men, whose visages\n    Do cream and mantle like a standing pond;\n    And do a wilful stillness entertain,\n    With purpose to be drest in an opinion\n    Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;\n    As who should say, 'I am Sir Oracle,\n    And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!'\n    Oh, my Antonio, I do know of these,\n    That therefore only _are reputed wise\n    For saying nothing_: Who, I am very sure,\n    If they should speak, would almost damn these ears,\n    Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.\"\n\nIn point of condensation, the wit of the proverb has the advantage.\nColeridge relates an incident which illustrates that \"even a fool when he\nholdeth his peace is accounted wise, and he that shutteth his lips is\nesteemed a man of understanding.\" He once saw, at a dinner table, \"a\ndignified man with a face as wise as the moon's.\" The awful charm of his\nmanner was not broken until the muffins appeared, and then the imp of\ngluttony forced from him the exclamation--\"Them's the jockeys for me!\"\n\nThere is a passage concerning the tongue in the Book of James, full of\nsayings quite as terse and striking as any in the Book of Proverbs. \"If\nany man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to\nbridle the whole body.\" \"The tongue is a little member and boasteth great\nthings; behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth.\" \"Every kind of\nbeasts and birds and serpents is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind;\nbut the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly\npoison. * * * Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. * * *\nDoth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?\"\n\nThis passage from James may be placed side by side with the familiar story\nof AEsop. His master, Xanthus, sent him to market to procure the best\nthings it afforded. When the dinner hour arrived, Xanthus discovered that\nnothing but tongues had been provided. \"What,\" he exclaimed in a rage,\n\"did I not tell you to procure the best things the market afforded?\" \"And\nhave I not obeyed your orders? Is there anything better than a tongue? Is\nit not the bond of civil society, the organ of truth and reason, the\ninstrument of our praise and adoration of the gods?\" The next day AEsop was\ndirected to go to the market and purchase the worst things it afforded. He\ndid so and again purchased nothing but tongues. \"What!\" cried Xanthus,\n\"tongues again?\" \"Certainly; for the tongue is surely the worst thing in\nthe world; it is the instrument of all strife and contention, the inventor\nof law-suits, and the source of all division and wars; it is the organ of\nerrors, of lies, of calumnies, and blasphemies.\"\n\n\"Therewith bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men who\nare made after the likeness of God; out of the same mouth cometh forth\ncursing and blessing.\"\n\n\n_4. The Scold._\n\nTo return to the proverbs. Solomon had some unhappy domestic experiences,\nand such proverbs as these may have been the outcome: \"As a jewel of gold\nin a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion.\" \"A continual\ndropping in a very rainy day, and a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever\nhideth her, hideth the wind.\" \"It is better to dwell in the wilderness\nthan with a contentious and angry woman.\" \"Better is a dinner of herbs\nwhere love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.\" \"It is better to\ndwell in the corner of a house top than with a brawling woman in a large\nhouse.\"\n\n\n_5. The Power of Money._\n\nThe proverbialists had been close observers of human nature, and of the\nways of the world. \"Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of a\nman are never satisfied.\" \"A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh\nmerry; but money answereth all things.\" \"The rich ruleth over the poor,\nand the borrower is servant to the lender.\" These wise men had seen much\nto justify the sharp arrows they shot at those \"who crook the pregnant\nhinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning.\" \"The poor is hated\neven of his own neighbor, but the rich hath many friends.\" \"Many will\nentreat the favor of a prince, and every man is a friend to him that\ngiveth gifts.\" \"A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before\ngreat men.\" There is an incident in the second Book of Kings, that\nexemplifies, with touches of humor, the truth of these proverbs. \"And the\nking of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, (king of Israel,) for he had\nsent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and _brought no present to the king\nof Assyria_, as he had done year by year.\" The king of Assyria is greatly\nshocked at this sign of disrespect. His feelings are outraged and wounded\nat receiving no present. It is suspicious, very suspicious! Let this\nHoshea be looked to. The man who fails to bring the usual present is fit\nfor \"treasons, stratagems and spoils.\" There is no telling what evil he\nmay be plotting. Surely there is \"conspiracy in him.\" \"Therefore, the king\nof Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.\" Solomon was right--\"A\nman's gift bringeth him before great men,\" but the absence of it bringeth\nhim into prison as a traitor!\n\n\n_6. Miscellaneous._\n\nMany other examples of wit and wisdom might be given. Let us add a few\nmiscellaneous ones. Solomon advises against making long calls. Busy men\nwould do well to hang this motto up in their offices: \"Withdraw thy foot\nfrom thy neighbor's house, lest he weary of thee and so hate thee.\" In\nSolomon's wide and varied experiences, there had evidently been occasional\nencounters with \"bores.\"\n\nIt may sometimes be well to present a stern front to the slanderer: \"The\nNorth wind driveth away rain, so doth an angry countenance a back-biting\ntongue.\"\n\nExcellent advice this for those who indorse other people's notes: \"Be not\none of them that strike hands, or one of them that are sureties for debts;\nif thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under\nthee?\" \"He that hateth suretyship is sure.\"\n\nThere were those in that day, as well as in our own, who tried to beat\ndown the price of an article by depreciating its quality: \"It is naught,\nit is naught, saith the buyer; but when he hath gone his way, then he\nboasteth.\" Donald G. Mitchell, in his charming book, _My Farm at\nEdgewood_, has a chapter on \"Dickering\" which is, in effect, an\nelaboration of the proverb last quoted. \"Sometime or other, if a man enter\nupon farm life--and it holds in almost every kind of life--there will come\nto him a necessity for bargaining. It is a part of the curse, I think,\nentailed upon mankind at the expulsion from Eden, that they should sweat\nat a bargain. * * * If I were to take the opinions of my excellent\nfriends, the purchasers, for truth, I should be painfully conscious of\nhaving possessed the most mangy hogs, the most aged cows, the scrubbiest\nveal, and the most diseased and stunted growth of chestnuts and oaks with\nwhich a country-liver was ever afflicted. For a time, in the early period\nof my novitiate, I was not a little disturbed by these damaging\nstatements; but have been relieved by learning on further experience that\nthe urgence of such lively falsehoods is only an ingenious mercenary\ndevice for the sharpening of a bargain.\"\n\n\nII.--EPIGRAMMATIC SAYINGS FROM OTHER SOURCES.\n\nThe epigrammatic sayings of the Bible are not confined, as we have already\nseen, to the Book of Proverbs. We find them elsewhere. Hosea says of\nidolaters, \"They have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind.\"\nMicah declared of the mercenary prophets, \"He that putteth not into their\nmouth, they even declare war against him.\" At the same time princes and\njudges are so corrupt, that \"the best of them is as a briar; the most\nupright is sharper than a thorn hedge.\"\n\nJeremiah charges against the people, \"As a cage is full of birds, so are\ntheir houses of deceit.\" \"Can the Ethiopian,\" he asks, \"change his skin,\nor the leopard his spots?\" and adds, \"Then can ye also do right who are\naccustomed to do evil.\" This is equivalent to the proverb of another\npeople: \"Though you feed milk to a young snake, will it leave off its\nhabit of creeping under the hedge?\"\n\n\"Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire?\" asks Jeremiah;\n\"yet my people have forgotten me days without number.\" \"Yea, the stork in\nthe heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and\nthe swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the\njudgment of the Lord.\" \"As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them\nnot; so he that getteth riches and not by right, shall leave them in the\nmiddle of his days, and at the end shall be a fool.\"\n\nIsaiah admonishes the people, \"Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this\nbroken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and\npierce it; so is Pharoah, king of Egypt, to all who trust in him,\"--a\nsaying which calls to mind the message Jesus sent to Herod, \"Go, tell that\nfox.\" To those who trusted in the prowess of the Egyptians, Isaiah\ndeclares, \"Now, the Egyptians are men and not God; and their horses are\nflesh and not spirit.\" He assures the people that the time will come when\nnames shall be used with greater discrimination--\"The vile person shall no\nmore be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.\"\n\nJob says: \"For vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild\nass's colt.\" And it is Job who has given us the common expression, \"I am\nescaped with the skin of my teeth.\"\n\nDavid says of the hypocrite:--\"The words of his mouth were smoother than\nbutter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, but they\nwere drawn swords.\" \"Man that is in honor and understandeth not, is like\nthe beasts which perish.\" \"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no\nGod.\" Of the wicked the psalmist exclaims: \"Their poison is like the\npoison of a serpent; they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;\nwhich will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so\nwisely.\" Recalling an incident of Israel's journey through the wilderness,\nhe gives his opinion of the transaction Aaron tried to disclaim: \"They\nmade a calf in Horeb and worshipped the molten image. Thus they changed\ntheir glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass!\" \"Fools,\nbecause of their transgressions and because of their iniquities are\nafflicted.\" He says of those who gave him pain,--the \"ploughers who\nploughed upon his back and made long their furrows,\"--\"They shall be as\nthe grass upon the house-tops which withereth before it groweth up;\nwherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his\nbosom.\"\n\nPaul speaks of those \"whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their\nshame;\" and also of certain ones who \"speak lies in hypocrisy, having\ntheir conscience seared with a red-hot iron.\" \"Rulers,\" he says, \"are not\na terror to good works, but to evil.\" \"If a man thinketh himself to be\nsomething when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.\"\n\nThe Book of James has already been quoted in this chapter; but there is\nanother passage of the proverbial or epigrammatic character that must not\nbe omitted: \"Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your\nown selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is\nlike unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth\nhimself and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man\nhe was.\" The Veman proverb is very like this: \"Whatever he devoid of\nunderstanding may be reading, his virtue continues only so long as he is\nreading; even as a frog is dignified only so long as it is seated on a\nlotus leaf.\"\n\nOne of the best examples of the kind of wit we are now discussing is found\nin the account of King Asa's sickness and death. The writer of the Book of\nChronicles says: \"Yet in his disease he sought not unto the Lord, but to\nthe Physicians;\" and then adds with imperturbable gravity, \"And Asa slept\nwith his fathers.\" Referring to this passage, Professor Matthews\nsays:--\"It looks like a sarcasm on the medical practitioners of\nPalestine.\" There is something similar to this in Ecclesiastes: \"Wisdom is\ngood--with an inheritance,\" an ancient instance of \"the old flag--and an\nappropriation.\"\n\n\nIII.--THE SAYINGS OF JESUS.\n\nTo this chapter belong many of the sayings of Jesus. He spoke in proverbs\nas well as in parables.\n\n\"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a\nrich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.\"\n\n\"Many are called, but few are chosen.\"\n\n\"The first shall be last, and the last first.\"\n\n\"A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and among his\nfriends.\"\n\n\"He that humbleth himself shall be exalted; he that exalteth himself shall\nbe abased.\"\n\n\"Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.\"\n\n\"Physician, heal thyself.\"\n\n\"Ye are the light of the world; a city that is set on an hill can not be\nhid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a\ncandlestick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.\"\n\n\"Let the dead bury their dead.\"\n\n\"No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the\nkingdom of God.\"\n\n\"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but\nconsiderest not the beam that is in thine own eye?\" There are several\nproverbs in other literatures very like this. The Russian:--\"A pig came up\nto a horse and said, Your feet are crooked, and your hair is worth\nnothing.\" The Bengal:--\"The sieve said to the needle, You have a hole in\nyour tail.\" The Chinese:--\"Let every one sweep the snow before his own\ndoor, and not busy himself with the frost on his neighbor's tiles.\"\n\n\"Ye can not serve God and Mammon.\"\n\n\"A house divided against itself can not stand.\"\n\n\"Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but\ninwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know, them by their fruits. Do\nmen gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?\"\n\n\"For unto every one that hath to him shall be given and he shall have\nabundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which\nhe hath.\"\n\n\"Wheresoever the carcass is, there are the vultures gathered together.\"\n\n\"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls\nbefore swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn again and rend\nyou.\" Similar proverbs may be gathered from other sources. The Persian\nsays, \"It is folly to give comfits to a cow;\" the Veman, \"Though you\nanoint an ass all over with perfumes, it feels not your fondness, but\nwill turn again and kick you;\" the Telugu asks, \"What can a pig do with a\nrose-bottle?\" the Tamul says, \"Like reading a portion of the Veda to a cow\nabout to gore you;\" and again, \"Though religious instruction be whispered\ninto the ear of an ass, nothing will come of it but the accustomed\nbraying.\"\n\n\"They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.\" Such\nsayings of Jesus are true proverbs and instances of genuine wit.\n\nArchbishop Trench says, \"Any one who by after investigation, has sought to\ndiscover how much our rustic hearers carry away even from sermons to which\nthey have attentively listened, will find it is hardly ever the course or\ntenor of the argument, supposing the discourse to have contained such; but\nif anything is uttered, as it used so often to be by the best Puritan\npreachers, tersely, pointedly and epigrammatically, this will have stayed\nby them while all the rest has passed away. Great preachers to the people,\nsuch as have ever found their way to the universal heart of their\nfellows, have ever been great employers of proverbs.\" This principle helps\nto explain why, in the case of Jesus, \"the common people heard him\ngladly.\"\n\n\n\n\nVI. REPARTEE.\n\n\n\"He that can define, he that can answer a question so as to admit of no\nfurther answer, is the best man. Jesus spent his life conversing with\nhumble people on life and duty, in giving wise answers, showing that he\nsaw at a larger angle of vision, and at least silencing those who were not\ngenerous enough to accept his thoughts.\"--_Emerson._\n\n\n\n\nREPARTEE.\n\n    \"And no one was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from\n    that day forth ask him any more questions.\"--_Matthew._\n\n\nThe present chapter brings us to the subject of Repartee. Of this form of\nwit, Professor Matthews says, \"Nothing is more admirable, nothing more\nquickly enlists our sympathies, than this perfect command and quick,\ninstantaneous concentration of the faculties, when a man is taken at a\ndisadvantage and has to repel an insinuation or an insult at a moment's\nwarning. That felicity of instantaneous analysis which we call readiness,\nhas saved thousands of men from mortification or contempt. The dextrous\nleap of thought by which the mind escapes from a seemingly hopeless\ndilemma is worth more than all the logic and learning of the world.\" \"The\nimpromptu reply,\" says Moliere, \"is precisely the touchstone of wit.\"\n\nThe pages of the Bible are sometimes enlivened by sharp repartees. The men\nof old time, the men of the Hebrew nation, understood the power of the\nquick and flashing answer, as well as more modern generations. Johnson and\nFoote and Sheridan might have found it by no means easy to hold their own\nin Judea. It is very likely that their powers would have been put to the\nseverest test.\n\n\nI.\n\nTurning to the pages of the old Testament, we find many striking examples.\n\nBen-hadad sends word to the king of Israel, threatening to destroy his\narmy. The king of Israel replies, \"Tell him, Let not him that girdeth on\nhis harness, boast himself as he that putteth it off.\"\n\nAmaziah desired war with Jehoash. He sends to him saying, \"Come, let us\nlook one another in the face.\" Jehoash simply responds to the presumptuous\nchallenge, \"The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in\nLebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife. And there passed by\na wild beast that was in Lebanon and trod down the thistle.\"\n\nJob retorts upon Zophar, after a wearisome recital of dreary commonplaces\nintended for comfort, \"No doubt but ye are _the_ people, and wisdom will\ndie with you. But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior\nto you; yea, who knoweth not such things as these?\" To the speech\nintroduced by these words, Eliphaz sharply replies, \"Art thou the first\nman that was born? or wast thou made before the hills? Hast thou heard the\nsecret of God, and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? What knowest thou\nthat we know not? What understandest thou which is not in us? With us are\nboth the gray-headed and very aged men, much elder than thy father.\" Upon\nthis latter sentiment Elihu expresses himself when he finds opportunity to\nput in a word; \"Great men are not always wise, neither do the aged\nunderstand judgment.\"\n\nIndeed the Book of Job abounds in sharp speeches and replies as cutting as\nthe speeches they answer. The sufferer obstinately refuses to accept\ntheir theory of his affliction or to adopt the remedies his friends\npropose. \"Ye are forgers of lies,\" he exclaims, \"ye are physicians of no\nvalue. O that ye would altogether hold your peace, and it should be your\nwisdom.\" In response to this appeal, Eliphaz becoming piqued proceeds to\nadminister consolation with the lash: \"Shall a wise man utter vain\nknowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind? Should he reason with\nunprofitable talk or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?\" \"I have\nheard many such things,\" cries the wretched Job, \"miserable comforters are\nye all. If your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words\nagainst you, and shake mine head at you; but I would strengthen you with\nmy mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief.\"\n\nThere were some word-battles between Sanballat and Nehemiah while the\nlatter was trying to build the walls of Jerusalem, and the former was\ndoing his best to hinder the enterprise. \"Come,\" says Sanballat, \"let us\nmeet together in one of the villages in the plain of Ono,\"--let us be\nfriendly, let us have a pleasant visit together,--\"but he thought to do me\nmischief.\" The crafty Sanballat did not take the builder of Jerusalem\nnapping. Nehemiah replies, \"I am doing a great work so that I can not come\ndown; why should the work cease whilst I leave it to come down to you?\"\nAre your wishes of such mighty importance, O Sanballat that I should leave\nthe Lord's work? Must the building cease that I may gratify your whim? Go\nto, Sanballat, go to; I can not come down. My work is great and noble;\nthou art a trifler and hypocrite! In precisely this vein was Spurgeon's\nreply to the pious bore who sent up word, \"Tell him a servant of the Lord\nwishes to see him.\" It was Saturday afternoon, and Spurgeon replied, \"Tell\nhim I am busy with his Master!\"\n\nSanballat will have at him again: \"It is reported among the heathen, and\nGashmu said it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel; for which cause\nthou buildest the wall that thou mayest be their king, according to these\nwords. And thou hast appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem,\nsaying, There is a king in Judah; and now shall it be reported to the king\naccording to these words. Come now, therefore, and let us take counsel\ntogether.\" To this tissue of falsehoods manufactured by the mendacious\nGashmu, Nehemiah flashes back with indignation, \"There are no such things\nas thou sayest, but thou feignest it out of thine own heart.\" Nehemiah\ncomes very near giving what Touchstone would call the \"lie direct,\" and he\ngives it without the qualifying \"If.\"\n\nRobert Collyer has the following comment upon Gashmu, who was quoted by\nSanballat as authority for the charge that Nehemiah was going to set up\nfor a king: \"This only, this one thing is left: A good man was doing a\ngood work with all his might, and bad men tried to hinder him. They tried\nto hurt his person. Gashmu was above that. He was none of your common\nrowdies. Sanballat and Tobiah might do that, but not Gashmu; yet Gashmu\nwill sit there and nurse his dislike, and be glad to hear the petty\nstories that float like thistledown through the neighborhood against the\ninnocent man; words are twisted and turned to meanings Nehemiah never\nthought of, and Gashmu hopes they are true; he wishes they were true; the\nwish is father to the thought, and he believes them. * * * So Gashmu has\npermitted his prejudices to grow into a lie. Gashmu is to live thousands\nof years for one purely false assertion, and to be the representative man\nof unprincipled gossips and narrow bigots as long as the world stands.\"\n\nAnother illustration. When the woman, in time of famine, appealed to the\nKing of Israel as he passed by, \"Help, my lord, O King,\" he turned upon\nher with the somewhat grim rejoinder, \"If the Lord do not help thee,\nwhence shall I help thee?\" Her case was hopeless, if the Lord could do\nnothing.\n\nAlthough the resemblance is not very strong, this incident suggests a\nstory of Michael Angelo. It calls to mind the way in which he took revenge\nupon Biagio di Cesena. This courtier ventured to criticise his Last\nJudgment. With a swift stroke he turned the Minos of the fresco into a\nlikeness of his critic. Biagio complained to the Pope. \"Where has he\nplaced you?\" inquired the Pontiff. \"In Hell,\" said Biagio. \"I am sorry,\"\nreplied the Pope; \"If it had been in Purgatory, something might have been\ndone, but in Hell I have no jurisdiction.\"\n\n\nII.\n\nExamples of prompt and keen retort are not confined to the Old Testament.\nWhen we turn to the New Testament, we find additional illustrations.\n\nWhen Paul was making his defence before the Council, he said, \"Men and\nbrethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.\"\nThis declaration of innocence offended the High Priest Ananias, and he\ncommanded those who stood by, to smite the speaker on the mouth. This\nraised the indignation of Paul, and with the swiftness of an arrow he\ntransfixed the Priest, \"God shall smite thee, thou whited wall; for\nsittest thou to judge me after the law and commandest me to be smitten\ncontrary to the law?\" This was understood as a bolt of invective by those\nwho heard it, for they asked in alarm, \"Revilest thou God's High Priest?\"\nThe answer of Paul was a still more subtle sarcasm: \"_I wist not,\nbrethren, that he was the High Priest_.\" There was nothing in the conduct\nof the man to betoken the dignity of his office. God's High Priest must\nsurely be fair and impartial. God's High Priest would never counsel\nviolence. The mistake, Paul would imply, was perfectly natural and\nexcusable.\n\nThere is a story of John Randolph not unlike this. Indeed, the sarcasm is\nthe same in spirit and purpose. Paul admitted that \"one must not revile\nGod's High Priest,\" but _he did not perceive that the High Priest was\npresent_. The coarse, loud, ill-tempered person who commanded to smite him\non the mouth could not be High Priest! The following was the occasion of\nRandolph's sarcasm: During the winter of 1834 a member of the House, to\nwhom he was much attached, died. His place was taken by a young man, vain\nand ambitious, who began his career by making a bitter attack on Mr.\nRandolph. No reply was made by the latter. Several days passed, when a\nquestion came up in which he was deeply interested, and he delivered a\nvery earnest and impressive speech. As he closed, he said, \"I should not,\nMr. Speaker, have returned to press this matter with so much earnestness,\nhad not my views possessed the sanction and concurrence of my late\ndeparted friend, _whose seat, I lament, is now unhappily vacant_.\"\n\nHow skillfully, in the story of the young man who had been healed of his\nblindness, does the subject of the cure parry the thrusts of the synagogue\nauthorities! \"Give God the praise,\" they exhort, \"we know that this man is\na sinner!\" \"Whether he be a sinner or no,\" says the young man, \"I can not\ntell; one thing I know that whereas I was blind, now I see.\" Thus\nrepulsed, they begin again. \"What did he to thee? How opened he thine\neyes?\" He replies, \"I have told you already, and ye did not hear;\nwherefore would ye hear it again? Will ye also be his disciples?\" Stung to\nthe quick, they revile him, \"Thou art his disciple, but we are Moses'\ndisciples. We know that God spake unto Moses, but as for this fellow we\nknow not from whence he is!\" Thoroughly aroused, the young man sends home\nto them a final thrust: \"Why herein is a marvelous thing that ye know not\nfrom whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes? Now we know that God\nheareth not sinners; but if any man be a worshipper of God and doeth his\nwill, him he heareth. Since the world began, was it not heard that any man\nopened the eyes of one born blind. If this man were not of God, he could\ndo nothing!\" Abuse and excision alone remain to the rulers of the\nsynagogue. \"Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?\"\nAnd they cast him out. Excommunication is the sole answer of priest-craft\nand bigotry to reason.\n\n\nIII.\n\nTo many readers it may seem impious to say that under the head of Repartee\nwe must classify many of those words of Jesus with which he cuts through\nthe sophistry of opponents and disentangles himself from the webs that are\nwoven about him. Let it be remembered, however, that we are dealing with\nhis utterances simply as literature; with their religious significance, we\nare not now concerned. We are discussing the sayings of Jesus as we would\nthe sayings of Johnson or Goldsmith.\n\nOne of the most striking instances is found in the controversy over\nexorcism. When the scribes who came down from Jerusalem charged, \"He hath\nBeelzebub and by the prince of the devils casts he out devils,\" he quickly\nreduced the accusation to an absurdity: \"How can Satan cast out Satan? If\nhe rise up against himself and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an\nend.\" He goes further--\"If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your\nchildren cast them out?\"\n\nThere was one occasion, however, when Jesus himself seems to have been\nvanquished by a swift rejoinder. When the Syro-Phenician woman came to him\nin behalf of her daughter, in order to test her faith he said,--\"Let the\nchildren first be filled, for it is not meet to take the children's bread\nand to cast it unto the dogs.\" \"Yes, Lord,\" she answered, \"yet the dogs\nunder the table eat of the children's crumbs.\" These words came from a\nbright intellect as well as from a trusting heart. Jesus appreciated the\nkeenness of the reply no less than the confidence it expressed. \"_For this\nsaying_ go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.\" \"For once,\"\nsays Macbeth, \"Jesus was refuted and that by his own figure; and he wished\nto be refuted.\"\n\nHow we enjoy such a dilemma as the one in which he placed the chief\npriests and the scribes and the elders! They asked him, \"By what authority\ndoest thou these things? And who gave thee authority to do these things?\"\n\"I will also ask of you one question,\" says Jesus, \"and answer me, and I\nwill tell you by what authority I do these things--the baptism of John,\nwas it from heaven, or of men? answer me.\" \"And they reasoned with\nthemselves, saying, If we shall say from heaven, he will say, Why then did\nye not believe him? But if we shall say of men,--they feared the people;\nfor all men counted John that he was a prophet, indeed. And they answered\nand said unto Jesus, We can not tell.\" \"And Jesus answered and said unto\nthem, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.\"\n\nAnother time \"came to Jesus Scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem,\nsaying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the Elders? for\nthey wash not their hands when they eat bread?\" How quick and effective\nthe reply: \"Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your\ntradition?\" Nothing could be said in response. The question was absolutely\nclosed. The disciples violate your tradition? Very good; but what does\nyour tradition violate? Can we not see his opponents, falling back beaten,\nknitting their brows, taking counsel together, planning some overwhelming\ndefeat for this impudent young heretic? What Thersites said of Ajax would\nwell apply to them: \"He bites his lips with a politic regard, as who\nshould say, There were wit in this head an' 'twould out; and so there is,\nbut it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show\nwithout knocking.\"\n\nWhen the woman poured the spikenard on the head of Jesus, Judas, the\nvirtuous Judas, forsooth! made objection. \"Why was not this ointment sold\nfor three hundred pence _and given to the poor_?\" Why not, indeed,--for\nJudas is custodian of the poor fund. \"Judas,\" returns his Master,--and\nthere was pathos as well as rebuke in the words,--\"Judas, the poor ye have\nwith you always, and whenever ye will, ye may do them good.\" This was the\nfirst time Judas had ever manifested any solicitude for the poor. \"But me,\nye have not always.\" Judas was silenced; but he began to brood revenge.\nSoon he stole out and went to the chief priests. He had not secured the\nprice of the spikenard, but he would indemnify himself by selling his\nMaster!\n\nWith what relish do we read the trenchant replies of Jesus to the Scribes\nand Pharisees and Herodians who had leagued to \"entangle him in his talk.\"\nEasily as Samson broke the green withes, did he break the verbal fetters\nthey forged. \"In the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in\nmarriage!\" \"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God\nthe things that are God's.\" What can be more admirable viewed simply as\nrepartee,--as illustrations of the \"dexterous leap of thought by which the\nmind escapes from a seemingly hopeless dilemma?\" If one were to read such\nfragments of Gospel history for the first time, without the idea that he\nmust attach a solemn and awful meaning to every word, how would he delight\nin these intellectual contests and hail the genius of the victor!\n\nAfter the besiegers, in the preceding incident, had exhausted their\nfruitless ingenuity, Jesus turns upon them with the question, \"What think\nye of Christ? Whose Son is he?\" \"The Son of David,\" they feebly mutter.\n\"How then doth David call him Lord? If David call him Lord, how is he his\nson?\" That ended the controversy. The combined forces of theology and\npolitics retired in confusion, evidently looking, as Dickens said of the\nportraits of the Dedlock family, \"as if they did not know what to make of\nit.\" They had lost the battle. One can imagine the evangelist who\nafterwards wrote the account, almost chuckling with inward satisfaction,\nas he recalled the scene and recorded the result: \"And no man was able to\nanswer him a word, neither durst any man from that day ask him any more\nquestions.\"\n\n\n\n\nVII. Wit and Logic.\n\n\n\"Who would say that truth ought to stand disarmed against falsehood, or\nthat the enemies of the faith shall be at liberty to frighten the faithful\nwith hard words or jeer at them with lively sallies of wit, while the\nChristians ought never to write except with a coldness of style enough to\nset the reader asleep?\"--_Augustine._\n\n\n\n\nWIT AND LOGIC.\n\n\n    \"I was not gone far before I heard the sound of trumpets and alarms,\n    which seemed to proclaim the march of an Enemy; and as I afterwards\n    found was in reality what I apprehended it. There appeared at a great\n    distance a very shining light, and in the midst of it a person of most\n    beautiful aspect; her name was _Truth_. On her right hand, there\n    marched a male deity, who bore several quivers on his shoulders, and\n    grasped several arrows in his hand. His name was Wit.\"--_Addison._\n\n\nIn her essay on Heine, George Eliot writes: \"Every one who has had the\nopportunity of making the comparison, will remember that the effect\nproduced on him by some witticisms is closely akin to the effect produced\non him by subtle reasoning which lays open a fallacy or absurdity; and\nthere are persons whose delight in such reasoning always manifests itself\nin laughter. This affinity of wit with ratiocination is the more obvious\nin proportion as the species of wit is higher and deals less with words\nand with superficialities than with the essential qualities of things.\nSome of Dr. Johnson's most admirable witticisms consist in the suggestion\nof an analogy which immediately exposes the absurdity of an action or\nproposition; and it is only their ingenuity, condensation and\ninstantaneousness which lift them from reasoning into wit.\" The opinion of\nGeorge Eliot has been shared by others. Pitt declared that \"all wit is\ntrue reasoning,\" and Rogers says that \"wit is truth.\" A French writer has\nobserved that \"reason needs to be armed with the terrible epigram.\" And\neven solemn John Milton writes of Plato's dialogues, \"There is scarce one\nof them, especially wherein some notable sophister lies sweating and\nturmoiling under the inevitable and merciless dilemmas of Socrates, but he\nthat reads, were it Saturn himself, would be robbed of more than a smile.\"\n\nThere are in literature abundant examples of the condensed logic of\nwit,--the logic that exposes a fallacy, answers an objection and\ndemolishes an argument, without resorting to major and minor premise and\nformal conclusion. One or two of these may pave the way to the main\npurpose of this chapter. \"Where was your Protestant Church before Luther?\"\nasked a Catholic of Wilkes. \"Did you wash your face this morning?\" said\nWilkes. \"I did, sir.\" \"Where was your face before you washed it?\" The\nlogic of wit as employed by Dr. Johnson, is referred to by George Eliot.\nOn one occasion it was debated whether a clergyman who had five years\nbefore been guilty of some grave sin should be reinstated. Johnson\ninquired whether the man had repented. It was admitted that he had.\n\"Then,\" said Johnson, \"if he has repented, is he not good enough to go to\nheaven?\" \"Certainly.\" \"Why, sir, then there is no objection. A man who is\ngood enough to go to heaven is good enough to be a clergyman.\" Johnson\ndenounced Lord Bolingbroke in the following immortal analogy: \"Sir, he was\na scoundrel and a coward; a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against\nreligion and morality, a coward because he had not resolution enough to\nfire it off himself, but left half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw\nthe trigger after his death.\"\n\nA certain clergyman who had been addicted to bawling and roaring in the\npulpit said, \"I once thought it was the thunder that killed, and know now\nthat it is the lightning that does the execution. I mean to thunder less\nand lighten more.\" Sir Thomas Overbury punctures certain pretensions thus:\n\"The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors,\nis like a potato--the only good belonging to him is underground.\"\nThompson, of the _Westminster Review_, defended the Radicals against the\nattacks of the Whigs in this manner: \"Noah was a Radical when, hearing the\nworld was to be drowned, he went about such a commonsense proceeding as\nmaking for himself a ship to swim in. An antediluvian Whig would have laid\ntogether half-a-dozen sticks for an ark and called it a 'virtual\nrepresentation.'\"\n\nThe principle that underlies these instances is obvious. The form may vary\nbut in every case there is an analogy that serves all the purposes of\nformal logic,--\"an analogy which immediately exposes the absurdity of an\naction or proposition.\" The writers of the Bible understood and employed\nthe same principle.\n\n\nI.\n\nOne of the best examples of its use is found in Nathan's parable. He goes\nto David and tells him: \"There were two men in our city; the one rich, the\nother poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds; but the poor\nman had nothing save one little ewe lamb, which he had brought and\nnourished up; and it grew up together with him and with his children; and\nit did eat of his own meat and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom,\nand was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich\nman, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd to dress\nit for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's\nlamb and dressed it for the man that was come unto him.\" Such an action is\nso atrocious that it kindles David's wrath. He little suspects the purpose\nof the wily prophet. \"As the Lord liveth,\" he cries, \"the man that hath\ndone this thing shall surely die! And he shall restore the lamb four-fold\nbecause he did this thing, and because he had no pity.\" Beware, David,\nbeware! This Nestor-prophet, this Nathan of the subtle wit and keen-edged\ntongue hath digged a pit for thee and thou hast fallen into it. Swiftly\nthe prophet smites the bewildered king with the conclusion, \"_Thou art the\nman!_\" Could a volume of reasoning have so impressed David with the\nenormity of his crime as this simple \"analogy\" of Nathan?\n\nA similar instance is found in the first book of Kings. Ahab the king of\nIsrael had allowed the Syrian general, Ben-hadad, to escape. One of the\nprophets, determined to rebuke him, disguised himself and sat by the\nwayside, waiting until the king should pass by. \"And as the king passed\nby, he cried unto the king and said: Thy servant went out into the midst\nof the battle, and behold a man turned aside and brought a man unto me and\nsaid, Keep this man; if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be\nfor his life or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy\nservant was busy here and there he was gone.\" Ahab does not suspect the\nsnare of the prophet. What would my lord, the king, decide? Shall thy\nservant pay the forfeit? \"And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall\nthy judgment be; thyself hath decided it.\" And he made haste, removed his\ndisguise, and said to the king: \"Thus saith the Lord: _Because thou hast\nlet go out of thine hand a man whom I had appointed to utter destruction,\ntherefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people_.\"\nAhab has judged himself. No wonder he was vexed. \"And the king of Israel\nwent to the house heavy and displeased.\" Nothing so disconcerts one as the\nrecoil of his own logic.\n\nLet us place side by side with these illustrations one or two pieces of\nthe same kind of reasoning from Shakespeare. The Court Fool endeavors to\nshow Lear his own pitiful lack of wisdom in giving away his kingdom to his\ndaughters:--\n\n    \"FOOL.--Nuncle, give me an egg, and I'll give thee two crowns.\n\n    \"LEAR.--What two crowns shall they be?\n\n    \"FOOL.--Why, after I have clove the egg i' the middle and eat up the\n    meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i' the\n    middle and gavest away both parts, thou borest thine ass on thy back\n    o'er the dirt; thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou\n    gavest thy golden one away.\"\n\nUpon another occasion the following dialogue occurs:--\n\n    \"FOOL.--Canst thou tell how an oyster makes his shell?\n\n    \"LEAR.--No.\n\n    \"FOOL.--Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.\n\n    \"LEAR.--Why?\n\n    \"FOOL.--Why to put his head in; not to give it away to his daughters\n    and leave his horns without a case.\"\n\nLear is so stung with the sense of his folly by these \"analogies\" of his\njester that he exclaims in rage and bitterness, \"I shall forget my\nnature!\" It is the argument of Nathan, \"Thou art the man.\"\n\nUpon the same principle, but in a different way, the Psalmist reasons with\nthose who \"slay the widow and the stranger and murder the fatherless,\" and\nwho say, \"The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard\nit.\" Thus he argues: \"Understand, ye brutish among the people; and ye\nfools, when will ye be wise? _He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?\nhe that formed the eye, shall he not see?_\"\n\nUnder this head must we also place the judgment of Solomon, when the two\nwomen came before him, each claiming the living child. \"Then said the\nking, The one saith, This is my son that liveth and thy son is dead; and\nthe other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead and mine is the living one.\nAnd the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the\nking. And the king said, Divide the living child in two and give half to\none and half to the other. Then spoke the woman whose the living child was\nunto the king, for her heart yearned upon her son, and she said, O my\nLord, give her the living child and in no wise slay it. But the other\nsaid, Let it be neither thine nor mine, but divide it. Then the king\nanswered and said, Give her (the first) the living child, and in no wise\nslay it; she is the mother thereof.\" Solomon had to use a sharp argument,\nbut he settled the controversy.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe \"suggestion of an analogy that immediately exposes the absurdity of an\naction or proposition,\" was the favorite method of argument with Jesus.\n\nHe spun no metaphysical cobwebs, he used no long chains of linked\npropositions; it is no irreverence to say that his quick wit was his main\nreliance. In a sentence or two, with a simple, homely figure, he reduced\nto an absurdity the conduct he censured and the proposition he opposed.\n\nOn one occasion he was asked, \"Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?\"\n\"What man shall there be among you,\" he answered, \"that shall have one\nsheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold\non it and bring it out? _How much more, then, is a man better than a\nsheep?_ Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day.\"\n\nAt another time the same subject came up. Because Jesus had healed on the\nSabbath day, the ruler of the synagogue was filled with indignation and\nmade a very grotesque spectacle of himself. He stormed, scolded, and\nroared to the people, \"There are six days in which men ought to work; in\nthem therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.\" Jesus\nanswered: \"Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose\nhis ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away to watering? And ought\nnot this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo,\nthese eighteen years, _be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day_?\" The\nindignant ruler had to smother his wrath. \"And when he (Jesus) had said\nthese things, all his adversaries were ashamed.\" The people enjoyed their\nconfusion, and evidently applauded the sharp-witted young prophet who had\nsilenced the fault-finding tongues of the rulers. \"All the people rejoiced\nfor the glorious things that were done by him!\"\n\nThe Scribes and Pharisees were once murmuring and complaining that he\nmingled with publicans and sinners, and even condescended to eat with\nthem. \"And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a\nphysician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but\nsinners to repentance!\"\n\nWhen the Pharisees and Sadducees desired that he would show them a sign\nfrom heaven, he answered and said unto them, \"When it is evening, ye say\nthat it will be fair weather for the sky is red. And in the morning, It\nwill be foul weather to-day; for the sky is red and lowering. O, ye\nhypocrites, _ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern\nthe signs of the times?_\" He uses essentially the same argument for a\nsimilar request: \"When ye see a cloud rise out of the West, straightway ye\nsay, There cometh a shower, and so it is. And when ye see the South wind\nblow, ye say, There will be heat, and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites,\n_ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that\nye do not discern this time?_\" Says Geike, \"With biting irony, he turned\non them in a few brief, incisive sentences. * * * An evil and adulterous\ngeneration seeks after a sign of the approach of the Kingdom of God, while\nit is blind to the signs around that the Messiah must come, if the nation\nis not to perish.\"\n\nIn a similar manner he shows how ridiculous are the doubts of those who\nfear that God will not answer prayer. \"If a son ask bread of any of you\nthat is a father, will ye give him a stone?\" How this must have arrested\nthe attention of his auditors; how they began to listen, curious to know\nwhat was coming next. \"Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a\nserpent?\" Now they exchange glances as much as to say, \"No, no; surely we\nwould not do that!\" But only for a moment. The expectant faces are again\nturned upon the Great Teacher. \"Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer\nhim a scorpion?\" \"No, no!\" and now they are eager for the conclusion: \"_If\nye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how\nmuch more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask\nhim?_\" It is the climax of absurdity for you to think that you are better\nthan God, and will do more for your children than the Great Father will do\nfor his children!\n\nThe disciples of Jesus came to tell him that the Pharisees are offended at\nsome of his sayings. His only reply is, \"Let them alone; they be blind\nleaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall\ninto the ditch.\"\n\nWhen he charges the Pharisees with tithing mint, anise, and cummin, while\nneglecting judgment, mercy and faith, he stamps their conduct with an\n\"analogy\" that makes them ludicrous forever, \"Ye blind guides _which\nstrain out a gnat and swallow a camel_.\"\n\nAt dinner, he was rebuked by his host for permitting a penitent woman to\nwash his feet with her tears and wipe them with the hairs of her head.\n\"Simon,\" calmly returned the guest, \"I have somewhat to say to thee.\"\n\"Master, Say on.\" Jesus then proceeds to impale him upon the following\nquestion: \"There was a certain creditor which had two debtors; the one\nowed him five hundred pence, the other fifty. And when they had nothing to\npay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will\nlove him most?\" Simon understands whither the question tends, and slowly\nand reluctantly comes his answer: \"I--suppose--that--he--to--whom--he--\nforgave most.\" \"Thou hast rightly judged.\" Yes, Simon, but thou hast\ncondemned thyself and justified the woman.\n\nThe story of the vineyard and its application are similar to Nathan's\nparable. \"There was a certain householder which planted a vineyard, and\nhedged it round about and digged a wine-press in it, and built a tower,\nand let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. And when the\ntime of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that\nthey might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants,\nand beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other\nservants, more than the first; and they did unto them likewise. But last\nof all, he sent unto them his Son; saying, They will reverence my Son. But\nwhen the husbandmen saw the Son, they said among themselves, This is the\nheir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on the inheritance. And they\ncaught him and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.\"\n\nThis is the story. Jesus turns to the Pharisees: \"When the Lord,\ntherefore, of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto these husbandmen?\"\nPriests and Pharisees are moved with indignation. This is horrible; it\nalmost exceeds belief. Those husbandmen were monsters of ingratitude and\nwickedness! The Pharisees answer: \"He will miserably destroy those wicked\nmen, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall\nrender him the fruits in their seasons.\"\n\nFatal answer for you, O Scribes and Pharisees! \"Therefore I say unto you,\n_the Kingdom of God shall be taken from_ YOU, and given to a nation\nbringing forth the fruits thereof.\" There is a touch of humor in Matthew's\ndescription of the manner in which the real object of this story dawned\nupon the minds of the hearers. \"And when the Pharisees had heard his\nparable, _they perceived that he spake of them_.\" Are we not irresistibly\nreminded of Falstaff, when the fairies in the forest turned out to be\nflesh and blood, \"I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass?\" Do we not\nfeel about many of these condensed arguments of Jesus, as Milton did\nabout the \"sophist sweating and turmoiling under the inevitable and\nmerciless dilemmas of Socrates,\" that \"he who reads, were it Saturn\nhimself, would be robbed of more than a smile?\"\n\nLet us add by way of comparison, a passage from the Athenian Master. Here\nis a fragment of dialogue upon the enslaving power of money.\n\n\"Come, now, and let us reason with the unjust who is not intentionally in\nerror. 'Sweet sir,' we will say to him, 'what think you of things esteemed\nnoble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the\nman, or rather to the god in man? and the ignoble that which subjects the\nman to the beast?' He can hardly avoid saying Yes,--can he now?\"\n\n\"Not if he has any regard for my opinion.\"\n\n\"But if he admit this, we may ask him another question,--How would a man\nprofit if he received gold and silver on condition that he was to enslave\nthe noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold\nhis son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them\ninto the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large\nmight be the sum which he received? And will any one say that he is not a\nmiserable caitiff who sells his own divine being to that which is most\natheistical and detestable, and has no pity?\"\n\nThis selection will enable us to see that the method commonly used by\nSocrates was essentially the method that Jesus so frequently employed.\n\n\nIII.\n\nWhen we pass on to other portions of the New Testament, we find examples\nof the same kind of reasoning in James and Paul.\n\nMost admirably does James show the futility of faith without works. \"What\nshall it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and hath not\nworks? Can faith save him? If a brother and sister be naked and destitute\nof daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed\nand filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are\nneedful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not\nworks, is dead, being alone.\"\n\nThe class of people referred to by James are aptly described by Fielding\nin the character of Peter Pounce. \"Sir,\" said Adams, \"my definition of\ncharity is a generous disposition to relieve the distressed.\" \"There is\nsomething in that definition,\" answered Peter, \"which I like well enough;\nit is, as you say, a disposition to do it, and does not so much consist in\nthe act as in the disposition to do it. But, alas! Mr. Adams, who are\nmeant by the distressed? Believe me, the distresses of mankind are mostly\nimaginary, and it would be rather folly than goodness to relieve them.\"\n\"Sure, sir,\" replied Adams, \"hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, and\nother distresses which attend the poor, can never be said to be imaginary\nevils.\" \"How can any man complain of hunger,\" said Peter, \"in a country\nwhere such excellent salads are to be gathered in almost every field? or\nof thirst, where every river and stream produce such delicious potations?\nAnd as for cold and nakedness, they are evils introduced by luxury and\ncustom. A man naturally wants clothes no more than a horse or any other\nanimal; and there are whole nations who go without them.\" Peter Pounce\nwould have said to the \"brother or sister naked and destitute of daily\nfood,\" \"_Depart in peace; be ye warmed and filled._\"\n\nThe declaration of James that \"faith without works is dead,\" is\nillustrated in the sayings of others also:\n\n    \"Sweet words, empty hands.\"--_Telugu._\n\n    \"Kindness, but no milk.\"--_Urdu._\n\n    \"Though they are brothers, their pockets are not sisters.\"--_Turk._\n\n    \"It is not by saying Honey, Honey, that sweetness comes into the\n    mouth.\"--_Ib._\n\n    \"His words leap over forts, his feet do not cross the\n    threshold.\"--_Telugu._\n\n    \"If you do not ask me for food and raiment, I will care for you as my\n    own child.\"--_Ib._\n\nEqually admirable is that comparison of Paul in which he likens the Church\nto the human body and shows the folly of jealousy and schism: \"If the foot\nshall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it\ntherefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the\nhearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?\"\n\nVery pleasantly, but very effectually, does he remind those who professed\nto \"speak with tongues\" a sort of supernatural language, in the early\nChristian assemblies, that it was \"better to speak five words with the\nunderstanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.\" An\nillustration serves his purpose. \"Even things without life, giving sound,\nwhether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in sound, how shall\nit be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain\nsound, who shall prepare himself for battle? So likewise ye, except ye\nutter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known\nwhat is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.\"\n\nPaul maintains the right of those who establish and teach churches, to be\nsupported by those churches. It was a right upon which he did not always\ninsist in his own case; but he fought for it as a great principle. \"Mine\nanswer to them that do examine me is this: Have we not the power (the\nright) to eat and drink?\" The objector would admit this. Very well! \"Who\ngoeth a warfare any time at his own charges? Who planteth a vineyard and\neateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of\nthe milk of the flock? * * * If we have sown unto you in spiritual things,\nis it a great thing if we shall reap of your carnal things? * * * Do ye\nnot know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of\nthe temple? They which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?\nEven so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should\nlive of the gospel.\" There is no gainsaying this argument. The \"analogy\"\nis unanswerable.\n\nAlready once or twice in this chapter, reference has been made to Socrates\nand his method. Much of the following passage would apply equally well to\nJesus or James or Paul: \"He generally begins with some question,\napparently so simple, so stupidly simple, and at such a distance from the\nfield of discussion, that his opponent often hesitates whether most to\nadmire the docility or wonder at the stupidity of the querist, and with a\ncomplacent smile, half of pity, half of contempt, promptly replies. Other\nquestions succeed faster and faster, more and more difficult, and\ngradually approaching, in one long spiral of interrogations, the central\nposition in which the unhappy sophist's argument stands. He now finds it\nimpossible to escape, and confounded, perplexed and irritated, discovers\nthat he is compelled to admit some palpable contradiction to his original\nassertions, and this too by means of those simple and innocent premises\nwhich he had so unsuspectingly granted. He feels himself within the coils\nof a great logical boa-constrictor who binds his folds together tighter\nand tighter till the poor sophist is absolutely strangled.\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII. THE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.\n\n\n\"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth\nin the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates; in the city\nshe uttereth her words, saying, How long ye simple ones will ye love\nsimplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate\nknowledge? Turn you at my reproof!\"--_Solomon._\n\n\n\n\nTHE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.\n\n    \"The oldest jibe in literature is the ridicule of false\n    religion.\"--_Emerson._\n\n    \"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall hold them\n    in derision.\"--_Psalms._\n\n\nIn the Bible, the elements of wit and humor are effectively employed in\ndealing with the sins of men. Evil doing, in its various motives and\nmanifestations, is denounced, rendered repulsive, made ghastly and\nterrible, and when everything else has been done, it is exhibited as\ngrotesque and ludicrous. Sin is the great absurdity of the universe. Were\nit not so tragic, it would shake the very heavens with laughter.\n\nOne of the old English poets has these lines:--\n\n    \"He who does not tremble at the sword,\n    Who quails not with his head upon the block,\n    Turn but a jest against him, loses heart;\n    The shafts of wit slip thro' the stoutest mail.\n    There is no man alive that can live down\n    The inextinguishable laughter of mankind.\"\n\nWith this fact the writers of the Bible were quite as well acquainted as\nare the writers of modern times. They took advantage of it for the same\npurpose.\n\n\"Of this we may be sure,\" says Hazlitt, \"that ridicule fastens on the\nvulnerable points of a cause, and finds out the weak sides of an argument;\nif those who resort to it sometimes rely too much on its success, those\nwho are chiefly annoyed by it almost always are so with reason, and can\nnot be too much upon their guard against deserving it.\"\n\nInto hearts impervious to all else, the writers of the Bible drove the\njavelins of ridicule.\n\n\n_The Sluggard._\n\n\nIf anything could make a lazy man feel uncomfortable, it would be such\nthorns as those Solomon has planted in his pillow:--\n\n    \"I went by the field of the slothful,\n    And by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;\n    And lo! it was all grown over with thorns,\n    The face thereof was covered with nettles,\n    And the stone wall thereof was broken down.\n    Then I beheld and considered well,\n    I saw and received instruction:\n    'A little sleep, a little slumber,\n    A little folding of the hands to sleep.'\n    So shall thy poverty come as a robber,\n    And thy want as an armed man.\n\n      *       *       *       *       *\n\n    How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard,\n    When wilt thou rouse thee out of thy sleep?\"\n\n\n_The Unfaithful Friend._\n\nIf anything could make an unfaithful and deceitful friend, one who\nprofesses much in times of prosperity and performs nothing in times of\nneed, ashamed of himself, it would be such a comparison as we find in the\nbook of Job:--\n\n    \"My brethren are deceitful, like the brook\n    As the channel of brooks that pass away,\n    They become turbid from ice,\n    The snow hides itself in them.\n    At the time they are poured off, they fail;\n    When it is hot they are consumed from their place.\n    The caravans along their way turn aside;\n    They go up into the wastes and perish.\n    The caravans of Tema looked,\n    The companies of Sheba hoped for them;\n    They were ashamed that they had trusted,\n    They came thither and were confounded.\"\n\nThe friends of Job were like streams in the early spring, when melting ice\nand snow filled their channels, and the waters were not needed; but in\nthe heat of summer, when fainting caravans looked for refreshment, dry and\ndusty.\n\n\n_The Drunkard._\n\nIf anything could move a drunkard to forswear his cups and lead a sober\nlife, it would be such a sarcastic description of him as that which\nfollows:--\n\n    \"Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contention?\n    Who hath complaining? Who hath wounds without cause?\n    Who hath redness of eyes?\n    They that tarry long at the wine,\n    They that go to try mixed wine.\n\n      *       *       *       *       *\n\n    Thine eyes shall behold strange things,\n    And thy heart shall utter froward things,\n    Yea thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea,\n    Or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.\"\n\nThe poem closes with a terrible thrust. After the folly of the drunkard\nhas been described, his physical and mental condition pointed out--the red\neyes, the strange things seen in delirium, the incoherent babbling, the\nunsteady gait, the surrounding perils,--the devotee of strong drink is\nmade to exclaim, \"_When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again!_\" Knowing\nits effects, suffering in mind and body from his potations, such is the\nincorrigible stupidity of the wine-bibber that he no sooner wakens from\nhis drunken slumber than he goes forth to seek again the source of his\nwretchedness!\n\n\n_The Idolater._\n\nNowhere is the use of ridicule by the writers of the Old Testament\ndisplayed to better advantage than in their treatment of idolatry. Against\nthis sin they brought to bear the most potent weapons of their wit. None\nof the resources of expression were left untried. Witness the withering\nirony with which Elijah mocked the frantic priests of Baal: \"And it came\nto pass that at noon Elijah mocked them and said, Cry aloud, for he is a\ngod; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or\nperadventure he sleepeth and must be awaked.\" No finer bit of irony can\nbe found in any literature. Indeed, we may regard it as the most perfect\nspecimen extant of this species of wit.\n\nJeremiah exclaims, \"As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the\nhouse of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes and their\npriests, and their prophets, _saying to a stock, Thou art my father, and\nto a stone, Thou hast brought me forth_.\"\n\nThe Psalmist thus speaks of the gods of the heathen:\n\n    \"They have mouths, but they speak not;\n    Eyes have they, but they see not;\n    Noses have they, but they smell not;\n    They have hands, but they handle not;\n    Feet have they, but they walk not;\n    Neither speak they thro' their throat.\"\n\nHaving thus described the senselessness and impotence of the gods of the\nheathen, he adds:\n\n    \"They that make them are like unto them,\n    So is everyone that trusteth in them.\"\n\nIn a similar vein Jeremiah ridicules the idols: \"For the customs of the\npeople are vain; for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the\nhands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with\ngold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers that it move not. They\nare upright as the palm tree, but speak not; they must needs be borne,\nbecause they can not go. _Be not afraid of them; for they can not do evil,\nneither also is it in them to do good._ * * * The stock is a doctrine of\nvanities.\"\n\nIsaiah satirizes the idolaters in this fashion: \"They shall be turned\nback, they shall be greatly ashamed that trust in graven images, they that\nsay to the molten images, Ye are our gods. Hear ye deaf, and look ye blind\nthat ye may see. Who is blind but my servant? or deaf as my messenger that\nI sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect (in his own estimation), and\nblind as is the Lord's servant? Seeing many things, but thou observest\nnot; opening the ears, but he heareth not. * * * Who among you will give\near to this and hearken and hear for time to come?\"\n\nEzekiel declares that, on account of their idolatries, the people have\nbecome as worthless as a withered vine. Nothing useful can be made out of\nit. It is only fit for the fire. \"What is the vine tree more than any\ntree, or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest? Shall wood\nbe taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any\nvessel thereon? Behold it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire\ndevoureth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned. Is it meet\nfor any work? Behold, when it was whole, it was meet for no work; how much\nless shall it be meet yet for any work, when the fire hath devoured it,\nand it is burned? Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: As the vine tree\namong the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so\nwill I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.\"\n\nThere is an elaborate piece of sarcasm in the forty-fourth chapter of\nIsaiah: \"He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak\nwhich he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest; he\nplanteth an ash and the rain doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man\nto burn; for he will take thereof and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it\nand baketh bread.\" The tree which this idolater takes has grown up as any\nother tree, and after it is cut down, it is devoted to the same ordinary\nuses. Yet out of that very tree, \"he maketh a god and worshippeth it; he\nmaketh a graven image, and falleth down thereto.\"\n\nThe prophet repeats and amplifies, \"He burneth part thereof in the fire;\nwith part thereof he eateth flesh, he roasteth roast and is satisfied;\nyea, he warmeth himself and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire;\nand the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image; he falleth\ndown unto it and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it and saith, Deliver\nme, for thou art my God.\"\n\nThen he concludes: \"And none considereth in his heart, neither is there\nknowledge nor understanding to say, _I have burned part of it in the fire;\nyea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh\nand eaten it; and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? Shall I\nfall down to the stock of a tree?_\" The idolater does not see, does not\n\"consider\" what an abject simpleton he is to make a god out of the same\nmaterial with which he bakes bread and roasts meat. It is as if the\nprophet should say, \"What sort of a god is that, O Israel, with which you\ndo your broiling and baking?\"\n\nRobert South comments on this passage: \"With one part he furnishes his\nchimney, with the other his chapel. A strange thing that the fire must\nconsume this part and burn incense to that! As if there were more divinity\nin one end of the stick than in the other; or as if it could be painted\nand graven omnipotent, or the nails and hammer could give it an\napotheosis.\"\n\nThe fatalistic excuse which the people make for their idolatries and other\nsins, is thus disposed of by Jeremiah: \"Behold ye trust in lying words\nthat can not profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear\nfalsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye\nknow not; and come and stand before me in this house which is called by my\nname, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this\nhouse which is called by my name become a den of robbers in your eyes?\"\n\n\n_Refuges of Lies._\n\nIsaiah charges the rulers of the people with forsaking the word of the\nLord, and substituting for his truth false maxims and iniquitous precepts.\nThey refuse to obey the divine commands, and lead their subjects also into\nrebellion. They have adopted other rules of life than those delivered by\nthe prophets of Jehovah,--other national policy than that promulgated from\nabove. In their overweening pride and self-confidence, they look with\ndisdain upon the requirements of God. Isaiah represents them as saying,\n\"We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement;\nwhen the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto\nus; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid\nourselves.\" But the prophet warns them that their fancied security shall\nbe broken up. \"Judgment also will I lay to the line and righteousness to\nthe plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the\nwaters shall overflow the hiding-place. And your covenant with death\nshall be disannuled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand. When\nthe overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down\nby it.\" He pauses a moment, after this strain of invective, and then\nsarcastically describes the insufficiency of their refuges by another\nfigure, ludicrous enough, that of a man trying to stretch himself upon too\nshort a bed, and to cover himself with too narrow a blanket. \"For the bed\nis shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering\nnarrower than that he can wrap himself in it.\"\n\n\n_False Prophets._\n\nEzekiel tells us that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, \"Son of\nMan, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say unto\nthem that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the Lord.\nThus saith the Lord God: Woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their\nown spirit and have seen nothing. O Israel, thy prophets are like the\nfoxes in the desert. * * * They have seen vanity and lying divination,\nsaying, The Lord saith; and the Lord hath not sent them.\" These prophets\nwere endeavoring to soothe the people, to cover up their sins, to\ndissipate their fears of retribution. \"They have seduced my people,\nsaying, peace, when there is no peace.\" Then Ezekiel describes their work.\nThey are like foolish masons who build a wall with mortar that will not\nhold the stones together,--\"untempered mortar!\" Can such work last? Can\nsuch a structure stand? \"Say unto them which daub it with untempered\nmortar that it shall fall. There shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O\ngreat hail-stones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it. Lo! when\nthe wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing\nwherewith ye have daubed it?\" Did ye not boast of your mortar? Did ye not\npromise the people that it would hold? Alas for you, O prophets! Alas for\nyour work! \"The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it; to wit, the\nprophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see\nvisions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord.\"\n\nMost contemptuously does Isaiah speak of the false prophets: \"The Lord\nwill cut off from Israel, head and tail, branch and root, in one day. The\nancient and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies,\n_he is the tail_.\"\n\n\n_The King of Assyria._\n\nIsaiah ridicules the high and mighty pretensions of the King of Assyria.\nThat monarch boasts of his achievements. He takes the credit of all to\nhimself. He wears the glory alone. \"By the strength of my own hand, I have\ndone it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent; and I have removed the bounds\nof the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the\ninhabitants like a valiant man.\" Falstaff could not proclaim his own\nprowess, in more bombastic style. \"I am a rogue, if I were not at\nhalf-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have 'scaped by\nmiracle: I am eight times thrust through the doublet; four through the\nhose; my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked like a handsaw.\nI never dealt better since I was a man.\" Now let the Assyrian resume his\nparable: \"And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people; and\nas one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and\nthere was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.\"\nFalstaff will match him again: \"There is not a dangerous action can peep\nout his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I can not last for ever; but\nit was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good\nthing, to make it too common. * * * I would to God my name were not so\nterrible to the enemy as it is!\"\n\nThe prophet, after allowing the Assyrian to sound his brazen trumpet,\nturns upon him, and sarcastically reminds him that he is simply a tool, a\nrod, a staff, in the hands of the Lord, and that he has of himself\naccomplished nothing: \"_Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth\ntherewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it?_\nas if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if\nthe staff should lift itself up as if it were no wood!\"\n\n\n_The King of Babylon._\n\nOne of the most powerful passages of invective in any literature is that\nin which Isaiah pictures the fall of the King of Babylon.\n\nHe begins--\"How hath the oppressor ceased!\" Then he sets forth the joy of\nthe earth itself over the discomfiture of him who \"smote the people in\nwrath with a continual stroke.\" All creation is glad. \"The whole earth is\nat rest and is quiet; they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir-trees\nrejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid\ndown, no feller is come up against us.\" This is the state of things on\nearth.\n\nThere is commotion in the lower world, there is mockery of the humiliated\nmonarch as he descends among the shades. \"Hell from beneath is moved for\nthee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even\nall the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all\nthe kings of the nations.\"\n\nThe shadowy, ghostly company gather about the fallen potentate and taunt\nhim: \"Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy\npomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols; the worm is\nspread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from\nheaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground\nwhich did weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will\nascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will\nbe like the Most High! Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the\nsides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and\nconsider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble,\nthat did shake kingdoms, that made the world as a wilderness, and\ndestroyed the cities thereof?\"\n\nThen the prophet concludes: \"All the kings of the nations, even all of\nthem, lie in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast out of\nthy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are\nslain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit,\nas a carcass trodden under feet!\"\n\nIt is truthfully remarked that \"keen thrusts and tingling ironies will\nrouse the slumbering, startle the stolid, shame the profligate, and set\nthe thoughtless to thinking. While it is true that ridicule is not the\ntest of truth, it is equally certain that it is only by ridicule that many\ndull-witted and sin-steeped persons can be made to see and feel the truth.\nIt would be well for mankind in general, if all could be made to feel that\nwickedness is as contemptible as it is hateful. There is a stupidity in\nsin, a thick, rhinoceros skin of insensibility, which only the\nfeather-winged arrows of wit can pierce. Iniquity has a pachydermatous\nhide, and can feel only when coals of fiery ridicule are laid upon its\nback, and blown by the breath of laughter.\"\n\n\n\n\nIX. THE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.\n\n\n\"If our Savior himself never laughed, it is difficult to believe that the\nbystanders did not laugh, or at least smile, when he tore the mask from\nthe hypocritical pharisees who laid heavy burdens on men's shoulders which\nthey themselves would not move with their fingers, and devoured widows'\nhouses, even while for a pretence they made long prayers.\"--_Matthews._\n\n\n\n\nTHE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.\n\n    \"Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.\"--_Paul._\n\n\nThe writers of the Old Testament who used the glittering lances of wit\nagainst the foes of truth and righteousness, had worthy successors in\nevangelists and apostles, and in Jesus himself. These men were indignant\nat hypocrisy and wrong-doing; they looked with scorn upon the swelling\npretensions of the religious leaders; they expostulated with affectionate\nearnestness and severity with their own brethren who suffered themselves\nto be led astray. Indignation is not necessarily wrong or unchristian. The\nfaculty of indignation is an essential part of human nature, and when\naroused against evil its operations are beneficent. It in no wise\ndiminishes the reverence we feel for Jesus, that he made a scourge of\ncords and lashed the traders and money-changers from the temple!\n\nRuskin says, \"There is no black horse in the chariot of the soul. One of\nthe driver's worst faults is starving his horses; another is not breaking\nthem early enough; but they are all good. Take, for example, one usually\nthought of as wholly evil--that of anger, leading to vengeance. I believe\nit to be quite one of the crowning wickednesses of this age, that we have\nstarved and chilled our faculty of indignation, and neither desire nor\ndare to punish crimes justly.\"\n\nThis faculty of righteous wrath when it takes shape in irony, ridicule,\nsarcasm, invective, is the mightiest foe of vanity, hypocrisy, pretension,\ncorruption, and vice. By its sword do they perish. The teachers and\nwriters of New Testament times, did not disdain to use in their work every\ninstrument of power known to the human mind. From their own stand-point,\nat least, they had many false notions and customs to combat; they had the\nignorant, prejudiced, officious and fault-finding to deal with; they were\nharrassed by narrow and persistent opponents; they had to do battle at\nevery step. They might have exclaimed with a modern writer, \"Let us be\nthankful that we have in wit a power before which the pride of wealth, and\nthe insolence of office are abased; which can transfix bigotry and tyranny\nwith arrows of lightning; which can strike its object over thousands of\nmiles of space, across thousands of years of time; and which through its\nsway over an universal weakness of man, is an everlasting instrument to\nmake the bad tremble and the foolish wince.\"\n\n\n_The Choice of the Jews._\n\nThere is an excellent piece of quiet sarcasm in John's account of the\ntrial of Jesus. He first gives us Pilate's conclusion in these words: \"And\nwhen he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews and saith: I find\nno fault in him at all; but ye have a custom that I release unto you one\nat the passover; will ye therefore that I release unto you the king of the\nJews?\" Pilate is willing; he pronounces Jesus innocent; but the crowd\nclamor and refuse. \"Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but\nBarabbas.\" John closes the account with an inoffensive looking sentence,\nbut one so full of bitter satire, that we can not help thinking of the\ntime when he wished to call down fire from heaven. Jesus is an innocent\nman--so pronounced by the governor--but the Jews cry out for his blood.\nThey want Barabbas released. And who is Barabbas? Who is this popular\nidol? Who is the man that the people prefer to Jesus the upright and\nspotless? With a rapier-like thrust, John pierces the heart of that\niniquitous choice, \"_Now Barabbas was a robber_.\" It is a stroke worthy\nthe \"Son of thunder.\"\n\n\n_The Weakness of Pilate._\n\nBut think not, O Pilate, that thou shalt escape. The same hand that cast\nthe first javelin, will also send one to pierce thy heart. In the next\nchapter, John tells us how, up to a certain point, Pilate sought to\nrelease Jesus. He was convinced of his innocence, and did not wish him put\nto death. But there is a weak spot in Pilate's nature, and John points it\nout with infallible precision. Pilate is not the man to stand for the\nright at personal sacrifice. When his own interests are at stake, he will\npermit injustice and cruel wrong to others. Why does he deliver Jesus to\nthe cross? John is determined that all the world shall know. \"The Jews\ncried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend;\nwhosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar.\" My lord Pilate\nis not proof against this insinuation. He can not face the possibility of\nlosing his office. \"_When Pilate, therefore, heard that saying, he brought\nJesus forth._ * * * Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be\ncrucified.\" John has stamped Pilate as a weak, vacillating and selfish\nruler; and his portrait, marked with these features, has been transmitted\nto all ages.\n\n\n_Paul and his Detractors._\n\nPerhaps none of the great characters of New Testament times were so beset\nby foes of all kinds as was Paul. He has himself assured us that he was\noften in perils from his own countrymen, and in perils from false\nbrethren. He was denounced by priests and scribes, and opposed by upstarts\nin the very churches he had founded. In replying to arguments and meeting\nobjections he sometimes showed his mastery of more than one form of\nwit,--although the form he most frequently used was irony.\n\nBy many his preaching was characterized as \"foolishness.\" There was\nnothing in it to commend it to the Jews who \"required a sign,\" or to the\nGreeks, \"who sought after wisdom.\" \"Very well,\" is his reply, \"foolish it\nmay be, but after all it has accomplished more than either Jew or Greek\nhas been able to do for the world. 'Where is the wise? Where is the\nscribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the\nwisdom of this world?' What has it achieved? Where are its monuments? 'For\nafter that the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the\nfoolishness of (just such) preaching (as mine) to save them that believe.'\nThis foolishness has lifted men from vile and sinful lives into\nrighteousness and honor. Have your own way about it, O Greeks and Jews; I\nwill be accounted a fool if you will, and am willing to let my words be\nstigmatized as folly; but you will find that 'God hath chosen the foolish\nthings of the world to confound the wise; God hath chosen the weak things\nof the world to confound the things that are mighty; and base things of\nthe world, and things that are despised hath God chosen; yea, and things\nthat are not, to bring to nought things that are.' I accept the low\nestimate you put upon me and my work, but I triumph over you and your\nwork, however exalted. Results shall determine. This is glorious folly!\"\n\nIn writing to the Corinthians, he says of certain members of the church\nwho thought that in spiritual things they were superior to himself, \"Now\nsome are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. But I will come to\nyou shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, _not the speech of them\nwhich are puffed up, but the power_.\"\n\nTo those thus puffed up, he addresses himself in the following ironical\nstrain: \"Now ye are full, now ye are rich; ye have reigned as kings\nwithout us; and I would that ye did reign, that we also might reign with\nyou. For I think that God has set forth us the apostles last. * * * We are\nfools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye\nare strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised.\"\n\nHe denounces certain teachers who were sowing the seeds of discord among\nhis churches, as \"false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming\nthemselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is\ntransformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his\nministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end\nshall be according to their works.\" Such teachers as these pronounced Paul\na fool and did everything to bring his work into contempt. \"Very good,\"\nsays Paul to the Corinthians, \"receive me then as a fool,\" and then\nproceeding, with his favorite irony, \"For ye suffer fools gladly, _seeing\nye yourselves are wise_!\"\n\nHow scathing is his rebuke to those who misrepresented his doctrine: \"We\nbe slanderously reported, and some affirm that we say, Let us do evil\nthat good may come!--whose condemnation is just.\" This is his only answer\nto evil tongues.\n\nIt is conceded by the best authorities that Paul did not write the Epistle\nto the Hebrews, but there is a passage in that letter not unlike him,--the\nrebuke to those who ought to be strong, manly and intelligent Christians,\nbut who have not yet gotten out of their swaddling clothes: \"For when for\nthe time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again\nwhich be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such\nas have need of milk and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk\nis unskillful in the word of righteousness; for he is but a babe. But\n_strong meat belongeth to those that are of full age_, even those who by\nreason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.\"\n\nSimilar to this is Paul's treatment of the Corinthians when they were\ndivided in their allegiance, some claiming to belong to one teacher and\nsome to another. First Paul himself had been there and taught among them\nin that broad and liberal spirit which always characterized him. He made\nvery little of forms and ceremonies, and very much of charity and\nbrotherhood. Then came Peter who was always more narrow than Paul, but\nvery intense. Paul was a broad river, Peter a mountain torrent. Peter\nnever completely freed himself from the bondage of the Jewish system, and\nhe insisted upon some of the things that Paul discarded. Soon a party was\nformed. Some thought, no doubt, that Paul was too far away from the Jewish\ncreed, that he was not strict enough, that it was perhaps safer to take\nPeter as a guide; so while some said, \"I am of Paul,\" others said, \"I am\nof Cephas.\" Then came Apollos who is described as being \"very eloquent.\"\nWhen he stood up to speak, many said, \"He beats both Paul and Peter; I am\nof Apollos.\" So there were \"envyings and strifes and divisions.\" Paul\nridicules the Corinthians for these childish quarrels, and says that he\nmust still speak to them as to \"babes.\" \"I have fed you with milk and not\nwith meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, _neither yet now are\nye able_!\"\n\n\n_Examples from other Apostles._\n\nThe epistle of James that has furnished illustrations for some of the\npreceding chapters, shall yield one for this, in its notice of a grave\nabuse that existed in the early churches, and that has not entirely died\nout of modern churches.\n\n\"My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of\nglory, in respect of persons. For if there come into your assembly, a man\nwith a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in\nvile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing,\nand say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place (Take this high-priced and\nfashionable pew, where you can listen to the gospel in luxurious ease, and\nat the same time dazzle the eyes of those in neighboring pews with the\nlatest fashions), but say to the poor, Stand thou here, or sit here under\nmy foot-stool (or go up in the gallery), are ye not then partial in\nyourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?\"\n\nPeter silences certain ones who complained of persecution, by saying, \"If\nye are reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye (that is nothing to\ncomplain of), but let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or\nas an evil-doer, or as a busy-body in other men's matters (if any one of\nyou suffers in such a character, he deserves the lash).\" In either case,\nthere is nothing to justify your outcry.\n\nHe also denounces certain ones who have forsaken the right way and gone\nastray as \"wells without water, clouds without rain that are carried of a\ntempest.\" They \"speak great swelling words of vanity, promising liberty\nwhile they are themselves the slaves of corruption.\" And then he fastens\nthe reproach of their apostasy upon them with what Falstaff would call a\n\"most unsavory simile,\"--\"It is happened to them according to the true\nproverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was\nwashed to her wallowing in the mire.\" Such are those who turn back to\nerror from the paths of truth.\n\nIn much the same strain does Jude write to the same class: \"These are\nspots in your feasts of charity; clouds without water, carried about of\nthe winds; trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked\nup by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame;\nwandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever!\"\n\nJohn wrote to the Laodiceans: \"I know thy works that thou art neither cold\nnor hot; so then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I\nwill spew thee out of my mouth. Thou sayest, I am rich and increased with\ngoods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched\nand miserable and poor and blind and naked!\"\n\nThe Laodiceans needed the familiar prayer of Burns:\n\n    \"O wad some power the giftie gie us,\n      To see oursel's as ithers see us;\n    It would frae mony a blunder free us,\n      And foolish notion!\"\n\nThey needed a look into the glass of Lao, which revealed the blemishes of\nthe soul, how fair soever the exterior.\n\n\n_Christ's Use of Invective._\n\nEven more severe than his apostles in his use of denunciation, was the\nGreat Master himself. In his controversies with the recognized religious\nleaders of his day, he heaped coals of fire upon their claims and\nteachings and practices.\n\n\"Ye leave the commandment of God and hold fast to the tradition of men,\"\nhe says to the Scribes and Pharisees; and then adds, with terrible irony,\n\"Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your\ntradition.\" Surely, when the commandments of God were placed side by side\nwith rabbinical glosses, they were in an extremely cruel position!\n\nNo passage of invective, in any literature, is more crushing than this:\n\"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the\nkingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither\nsuffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, Scribes and\nPharisees, hypocrites! For ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte,\nand when he is made, ye make him two-fold more the child of hell than\nyourselves. * * * Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye\ndevour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers; therefore ye\nshall receive the greater damnation. * * * Woe unto you, Scribes and\nPharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and\nplatter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Blind\nPharisees! cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that\nthe outside of them may be clean also! Woe unto you, Scribes and\nPharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers which,\nindeed, appear beautiful outward, but within are full of dead men's bones\nand all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men,\nbut within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. * * * Woe unto you,\nScribes and Pharisees, for ye are as graves which appear not, and men walk\nover them and are not aware of them.\"\n\nBut not only the leaders, but the people also, fall under his lash. \"The\nmen of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall\ncondemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold a\ngreater than Jonas is here. The queen of the South shall rise up in the\njudgment with this generation and shall condemn it; for she came from the\nuttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold a\ngreater than Solomon is here! When the unclean spirit is gone out of a\nman, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and findeth none. Then he\nsaith, I will return to my house from whence I came out; and when he is\ncome, he findeth it empty, swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh\nwith him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in\nand dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.\nEven so shall it be also unto this wicked generation!\"\n\nUpon another occasion, he upbraided the cities in which he had wrought and\npreached. \"Woe unto thee, Chorazin; woe unto thee Bethsaida; for if the\nmighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in\nyou, they had a great while ago repented sitting in sackcloth and ashes.\nBut it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for\nyou. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust\ndown to hell!\"\n\nDoes it seem strange that such language should have come from the lips of\nJesus? Should we not rather have expected it from the stern Baptist, his\nforerunner, who denounced the \"brood of vipers\" that came to his baptism?\nIs it inconsistent with that spirit of love which we believe to have been\nthe distinguishing characteristic of Christ? But love is not mere\ninvertebral amiability or moon-faced complacency. By as much as love is\nstrong and true, by so much does it seek, at any cost and by any means, to\nremove the faults and follies of its object. If the lash be needed, the\nlash it will take. \"He who has never experienced the affectionate\nbitterness of love,\" says F. W. Robertson, \"who has never known how\n_earnest_ irony and passionate sarcasm may be the very language of love in\nits deepest, saddest moods is utterly incapable of even judging this\npassion!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere the writer's task ends. The subject may be capable of much more\nelaborate treatment; it would be claiming too much to suppose that these\nchapters exhaust it. The writer trusts, however, that he may have\nsuggested a line of study to others, as it was first suggested to him. The\npoetry, the dramatic portions, the oratory of the Scriptures, are\nunsurpassed. Viewed simply as a literary work, the Bible is the most\ninteresting in the whole realm of letters. It becomes increasingly\ninteresting, as its great human elements are recognized. Over history,\nbiography, and most serious discourse, play the soft gleams of healthful\nhumor and the lightning-like bolts of sarcasm and wit. The book touches\nhuman nature at all points. The more we view it as \"literature,\" the less\nas \"dogma,\" the firmer will become its hold upon the heart of man.\n\nThat these fragmentary studies may help some one to appreciate his Bible\nbetter and enjoy it more, is the writer's wish. He may also express, in\nclosing, the hope that whoever has taken the trouble to read these pages\nmay have found them free from that which he disclaimed at the\noutset--irreverence; as he believes them to be free from the other\nextreme, superstition.","title":"Wit and Humor of the Bible: A Literary Study","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":37041}