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+Project Gutenberg's Wit and Humor of the Bible, by Marion D. Shutter
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Wit and Humor of the Bible
+       A Literary Study
+
+Author: Marion D. Shutter
+
+Release Date: April 27, 2012 [EBook #39546]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIT AND HUMOR OF THE BIBLE ***
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+Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
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+
+  WIT AND HUMOR
+  OF THE
+  BIBLE.
+
+  A LITERARY STUDY.
+
+
+  BY
+  REV. MARION D. SHUTTER, D. D.
+
+
+  "Bibles laid open; millions of surprises."--_Herbert._
+
+
+  BOSTON, MASS.,
+  Arena Publishing Company,
+  COPLEY SQUARE.
+  1893.
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1892,
+  BY
+  MARION D. SHUTTER.
+
+  _All rights reserved._
+
+
+
+
+  Dedication.
+
+  TO MY WIFE,
+  MARY WILKINSON SHUTTER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+While "many have taken in hand to set forth in order" the pathos and
+sublimity of the Bible, those literary elements comprised under the title
+of this book have rarely been mentioned. Feeling that here was a field
+untraversed, the author of this little volume began an investigation whose
+results were originally embodied in an article published some years ago in
+an Eastern review. That article is given in "Poole's Index" as the only
+one extant upon the subject. Since its publication, additional study has
+brought to light other examples of the use of Wit and Humor by the writers
+of the Bible. These later results were embodied in a course of lectures
+delivered last winter before the students of Lombard University,
+Galesburg, Ill. They are now given to the public in the present volume. It
+would be presumptuous to claim that these few pages exhaust the subject.
+Such a claim the author does not wish to make. Further research would no
+doubt bring to light instances that have escaped him. It is hoped,
+however, that these studies may be sufficiently complete to awaken
+interest in a long-neglected side of our sacred literature.
+
+MARION D. SHUTTER.
+
+  Minneapolis, Minn., Dec. 24, 1892.
+    First Universalist Church.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+"There is still one question before us. If humor be what we have claimed
+for it, not a mere farce, but the depicting of the whole of human life,
+then we should expect that the highest literature should be found to
+contain it. We should expect to find it everywhere; that it should satisfy
+all that desire which a reading in theology, or philosophy, or science, or
+history, or a study in art, has created in man. Are there, then, any great
+books, or still more any great forces in human life which seem devoid of
+it? Is there any humor in the gospels? This is a dilemma that must be
+faced; for if humor be life itself, how can human life in its highest
+development dispense with it?"--_Shorthouse._
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+    "Even St. Paul could invent and enjoy a humorous pun; the proof of
+    which see Galatians V:12, in the original; so there is high authority
+    for jesting."--_Kirke._
+
+
+The title of this book will no doubt affect many persons unpleasantly at
+first. "Flat blasphemy!" I can hear some one exclaim, "We have already had
+the authority of the Bible undermined by critics, and here is a flippant
+rogue who goes still farther, and assures us that it is nothing more than
+a jest-book! This is the very climax and culmination of godless folly."
+
+The author makes haste, therefore, to disclaim any intention of
+irreverence. To cheapen or degrade sacred things, to "depreciate the moral
+currency," is at the farthest remove from his intention. It is easy enough
+to take the language of Scripture and use it for coarse and vulgar
+purposes, and such use deserves the severest censure. It is not to be
+tolerated. Passages that have been light and guidance to multitudes, that
+have brought strength to the tempted, certainty to the doubting and
+consolation to the bereaved; that have been bread of life to those who
+have hungered for righteousness, inspiration to the purposeless and help
+to the needy,--have been turned into sources of merriment to freshen
+exhausted wit, and season the insipid discourse of stupidity. Persons
+whose brains are barren of pleasant conceits find no difficulty in so
+perverting a Scriptural expression as to make the "groundlings" laugh. In
+no such motives has this volume originated. The title has been chosen and
+the work which it covers has been done in the spirit of one who loves the
+Great Book, and who would secure for it an additional claim upon human
+affection. The studies of the writer have led him into fresh fields and
+pastures green, where he has gathered many things out of the ordinary that
+have given the Bible a larger place in his own heart.
+
+No; the Bible is not a collection of jests; nor do we characterize it as a
+jest-book when we say that it contains Wit and Humor. These elements are
+in the Bible, and with good reason. They are not introduced to amuse. They
+are not intended to dissipate the weariness of an idle hour. They are not
+designed to produce convulsions of laughter. They are subsidiary to the
+main theme. They are incidental to the development of religious history
+and religious thought. They help reveal in their true light the characters
+who from time to time appear; they show the absurdity of the opposing
+error and sharpen the arrows with which folly is transfixed. They enhance
+in many ways the value and power of our Sacred Book.
+
+
+I.
+
+The Scripture documents may be viewed from several
+standpoints;--historical, exegetical, theological and literary. One may,
+for example, study the book of Job to find out the actual basis of fact
+that underlies it, or for the purpose of ascertaining and systematizing
+its doctrines, or he may read it as a great dramatic poem, and criticize
+it by the rules that would apply to any other dramatic poem. He may go
+through the Apocalypse, grammar and lexicon in hand, or he may study its
+flashing imagery as he would that of any other magnificent work of genius.
+He may read the Psalms as he would the odes of Horace. In these pages the
+Scriptures are considered simply as Literature. The question of
+inspiration or authority does not enter. Doctrinal inquiries are set
+aside. "To understand," says Matthew Arnold, "that the language of the
+Bible is fluid, passing, literary, is the first step towards a right
+understanding of the Bible."
+
+The literary character of the Bible is admirably set forth in the
+following paragraph from a recent critic:
+
+    "As a particular book, the Bible is an unequaled source of literary
+    inspiration. As a book of religious truth, it is supreme; but
+    religious truth, without any impairment of its value or obscurity of
+    its meaning, may be studied from the literary standpoint; in fact, in
+    the light of literary criticism, or tested by the usual canons of the
+    scholar, it will appear more sacred, more beautiful, more divine.
+    Never forgetting that it is our manual of religion, it is also the
+    vehicle of the most wonderful literature in human annals, and precedes
+    in importance all others. There is no book so composite in character
+    and yet so harmonious in plan, so multiplex in styles and yet so
+    educational in rhetoric and logic, so varied in contents and yet so
+    progressive in its philosophy and religion, as the Bible. Taken as a
+    whole, it is massive, comprehensive, a revelation of the Infinite.
+    Studied in its parts, it stimulates single faculties while it
+    ministers nourishment to the whole frame. Its histories are more
+    compact than those of Herodotus, Gibbon or Macaulay; its poetry, whose
+    key is a mystery, quiets Homer, Shakespeare and Tennyson; its
+    prophecies are unique climaxes of wisdom, both in drapery and
+    substance; its biographies excel those of Plutarch, Irving, Carlyle
+    and Boswell; its chronicles of wars are superior to those of Julius
+    Cæsar, Wellington, Napoleon, and Ulysses Grant; its epistles eclipse
+    those of Pliny, Madame Sevigne and Francis Bacon; its laws, in their
+    ethical and spiritual import, are quite beyond Justinian, Blackstone
+    and the English Parliament. Every phasis of literature, every norm of
+    wisdom, is in the Bible. It ministers to all tastes and arouses the
+    slumbering intellects of all who can comprehend the difference between
+    reality and fiction, and who incline to virtue rather than vice.
+    Ruskin confesses his indebtedness to the Bible, Homer and Sir Walter
+    Scott, for his mental discipline; Charles Reade pronounces the
+    characters in Scripture a literary marvel. Matthew Arnold daily read
+    the New Testament in Greek for its style; Milton could not have
+    written Paradise Lost without Genesis; Renan's witchery of style is
+    traceable to the New Testament. Job has taught the poets the art of
+    construction, and David has sung an undying melody into the ears of
+    the race. The Book of Ruth is the model idyl, and the Books of Esther
+    and Daniel abound in incomparable dramatic elements; Isaiah has plumed
+    the statesman for oratorical flights; Jeremiah has opened the
+    fountains of pathos and sentiment in pathetic souls; Ezekiel has
+    furnished a usable style of judicial denunciation for the criminal
+    lawyer. Of all books, whether rhetoric, logic, vocabulary, poetry,
+    philosophy, history, or whatever be the end, the Bible should be first
+    and most carefully studied, its literary spirit and form should be
+    closely traced and discerned, and its truth should be reverently
+    incorporated into the daily speech, thought and life."
+
+But in this summary there is no mention made of the literary qualities
+which it is here proposed to consider. They are as completely ignored as
+if the very suggestion of their presence were profanation.
+
+
+II.
+
+The presumption is that in such a book, or rather collection of books as
+the Bible, the elements of Wit and Humor would be found. We have here the
+best historical, poetical, and moral works of a whole people. These
+documents cover in time more than a millennium and a half. It is more than
+probable that during that time amusing incidents occurred, even in
+connection with the religious trend of the history, some of which would be
+reported; that grotesque and odd characters existed, some of whom would be
+described, and their sayings and doings noted; that among the moral
+teachers of the people, there were some at least, who would point their
+precepts with wit and edge their rebukes with sarcasm. We should expect to
+find all these things, as we should expect to find pathos or sublimity.
+The humorous is just as legitimate in literature and quite as much an
+element of influence. It glows in all the other great books which have
+shaped the life and thought of mankind; and it is only fair to presume
+that we shall find its light shining from those pages that have been most
+potent of all.
+
+But is not "the volume of this book" a serious one? Is it not profoundly
+in earnest? Are not its themes most solemn? Is not its purpose the highest
+under heaven, the most important to the inhabitants of earth? The
+conclusion, however, that the questioner has in mind is by no means
+inevitable. It is a mistake to suppose that humor is incompatible with
+seriousness, earnestness and solemnity. "As in one of my lectures," says
+Henry Reed, "I spoke of attempting to draw too precise a line around
+sacred literature, making it too much a thing apart, so in regard to the
+literature of wit and humor. I shall be very sorry, if such a title as
+that which I have been obliged to use, led any one to think of it as of a
+more distinctive existence than is the case, instead of regarding those
+faculties as pervading the literature in various degrees, and thus forming
+some of the elements of its life. I shall have occasion to trace these
+elements in close connection with elements of tragedy, and to show how the
+processes we generalize under the names of wit and humor are kindred with
+the most intense passion and the deepest feeling."
+
+In human nature, the sources of laughter and tears lie close together, and
+the highest literature must express that nature in its entirety. "It is
+an understood fact," says Whipple, "that mirth is as innate in the mind as
+any other original faculty. The absence of it in individuals or
+communities is a defect." "He who laughs," says the mother of Goethe, "can
+commit no deadly sin." If it be true as Whipple says, that the absence of
+mirth in individuals or communities is a defect, then is the absence of it
+in literature likewise a defect. It is a defect because the literature
+which omits it fails to set forth all that there is in man. It leaves an
+important territory unexplored.
+
+On the other hand, the literature which is designed to move and mold men
+must be addressed to human nature in its completeness. Freighted with
+destiny, charged with eternity as are the messages of the Bible, they are
+yet intended to impress men; they are addressed to human faculties in
+human speech. Whatever the capacities of language for touching the heart
+and operating upon the will, they may all be employed, though the theme
+soar to heaven or take hold on hell. The Bible is not an instrument of a
+single string; it gives forth a thousand harmonies. It is attuned to every
+note in human nature.
+
+
+III.
+
+Thus far we have simply dealt with the presumption. The considerations
+advanced show us what we might expect to find. When we proceed from
+presumption to actual investigation, our conjectures are verified. There
+are certainly passages in the Bible which in any other writings we should
+call Wit and Humor. Since this is the case, our discussion is legitimate,
+however repugnant the very suggestion may be to the feelings with which we
+are accustomed to regard the Bible.
+
+Let us take some examples. If we found in any other book such a saying as
+this, "Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a
+stinking savor, so doth a little folly him that is in great reputation for
+wisdom and honor," should we not call it witty? Is it not witty as the
+Russian proverb "A spoonful of tar in a barrel of honey?"
+
+Or consider such sentences as the following: "All the labor of a man is
+for his mouth, and yet his appetite is not filled." "As he that taketh
+away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that
+singeth songs to a heavy heart." "Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, but
+afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel." "He that answereth a
+matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him." "A man of
+great wrath shall suffer punishment; for if thou deliver him, yet must
+thou do it again." In other words, a man of violent temper is always
+getting into difficulties; you have no sooner helped him out of one than
+he madly plunges into another. Like the irascible person in the old
+nursery rhyme, who jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his
+eyes, he is no sooner extricated, than "with all his might and main, he
+jumps into another bush and puts them out again." "Can a man take fire in
+his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can he go upon hot coals and his
+feet not be burned?" "Wealth makes many friends, but the poor is
+separated from his neighbor." "He that passeth by and meddleth with strife
+belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears." If we
+came upon such sentences in Johnson or Goldsmith, we should say in a
+moment that they were instances of genuine wit. Let us not hesitate to
+carry the same frankness of literary judgment to the Bible. When Isaiah
+characterizes certain ones as "mighty to drink wine and men of strength to
+mingle strong drink," does he not use essentially the same reproach that
+Prince Hal fastened upon Falstaff, "Wherein is he good but to taste sack
+and drink it?" Who shall say that the earlier satire did not suggest the
+later? Much has been written about Shakespeare's indebtedness to the
+Bible.
+
+Here is a passage of biting sarcasm from Job. We should surely call it
+sarcasm if we found it in the pages of Robert South. Job is expressing his
+scorn for those who affect to look down upon him in his adversities: "But
+now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I
+would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock." They are "the
+children of fools, yea, children of base men; they were viler than the
+earth." (We have an equivalent expression in "meaner than dirt.") They are
+members of the long-eared fraternity. He does not say so in the bluntest
+form of expression that can be used, and that any one less skillful would
+have used. Job puts it much more effectively: "Among the bushes they
+_brayed_; under the _nettles_ they were gathered together." "If that is
+not wit," says one, "there is no such thing as wit. And yet the
+commentators do not see it, or will not see it. They are perfectly wooden
+when they come to any such gleam of humor."
+
+There is a bit of ridicule in Jeremiah that we should be quick to call
+ridicule, if we came upon it elsewhere. He is describing the disasters
+that fell upon the allies of the King of Egypt. "Why are the strong ones
+swept away? They stood not because the Lord did thrust them down. He made
+them to stumble, yea they fell one upon another; and they said, Arise, and
+let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from
+the oppressing sword." They are defeated in spite of all the promises of
+the King of Egypt. He does not seem to avail them. His boasts are
+ineffectual. His disgusted allies depart, flinging at him the withering
+reproach, "_Pharoah, King of Egypt, is but a noise_; he hath let the
+appointed time pass by." That is to say, according to one paraphrase,
+"Pharoah is of no account now, he has had his chance and lost it; he has
+outlived his influence; his day is over; he is not a sovereign any longer;
+he is only a noise." Or as Matthew Henry puts it, "Pharoah can hector and
+talk big; but that is all; all his promises vanish into smoke." In the
+same spirit, Queen Catherine says of the dead Wolsey,
+
+    "His promise was as he then was, mighty;
+    But his performance, as he now is, nothing."
+
+If we found a little sketch like the following in Thackeray, we should,
+beyond doubt, pronounce it humorous: "All the brethren of the poor do hate
+him; how much more do his friends go far from him. He pursueth them with
+words, yet are they wanting to him." The words of a poor man can not
+travel fast enough to overtake his rich friends and neighbors. Indeed,
+Thackeray has drawn such a picture in his more elaborate description of
+Harry Warrington in the sponging-house, making vain appeals for help to
+his rich relatives and friends. "He pursued them with words, yet were they
+wanting to him." His aunt,--"a member of the great and always established
+Church of the Pharisees, sent him her blessing,--and a tract!"
+
+If we found, in any modern literature, a sketch of the ruling deacon in a
+church, like John's description of Diotrephus, we should say it was tinged
+with satire. "I wrote unto the Church, but Diotrephus, _who loveth to have
+the pre-eminence among them_, receiveth us not. Wherefore if I come, I
+will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious
+words; and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the
+brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, _and casteth them out of the
+Church_." Evidently there was a deacon in one of the apostolic churches,
+who always had to be consulted. Everything must go as he dictated. He did
+not even stand in awe of an accredited apostle. The minister must preach
+according to his views of theology, or signify his willingness to accept a
+call to a new field. Those members of the church who upheld a minister
+whom Diotrephus did not like, found their connection with the body severed
+without the formality of asking their consent. In the matter of having a
+Diotrephus within their borders, some churches to-day find themselves in
+the direct line of apostolic succession.
+
+In the book of Acts, there is an account of Paul's reception at Athens.
+"And they took him and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know
+what this new doctrine is, whereof thou speakest? For thou bringest
+certain strange things to our ears; we would know, therefore, what these
+things mean." In the comment which follows this account, the writer
+indulges in a touch of ridicule upon the Athenian gossips and curiosity
+mongers. We should say it was a touch of ridicule if we found it in
+Addison. "For all the Athenians and strangers which were there, _spent
+their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new
+thing_." Indeed there is a sketch in Addison of which this might easily
+have been the ground-work. "There is no humor of my countrymen which I am
+more inclined to wonder at than _their general thirst after news_. A
+victory or defeat is equally agreeable to them. The shutting of a
+cardinal's mouth pleaseth them one post, and the opening of it another.
+They are delighted to hear the French Court is removed to Marli, and are
+afterwards as much delighted with its return to Versailles. They read the
+advertisements with the same curiosity as the articles of public news; and
+are as pleased to hear of a pye-bald horse that is strayed out of a field
+near Islington, as of a whole troop that has been engaged in any foreign
+adventure. In short, _they have a relish for anything that is news_, let
+the matter of it be what it will. _They are men of a voracious appetite._"
+Is not the comment of the Scriptural writer upon the Athenians in the
+same vein with Addison's comment upon the English?
+
+Isaiah rebukes those "who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness
+for light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for
+bitter,"--thus confusing moral distinctions. This is the same sort of
+sophistry that Addison exposes, in his gentle way, by proposing the
+following form of agreement: "We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do
+solemnly declare that we do in our consciences believe that two and two
+make four; and that we shall adjudge any man whatever to be our enemy who
+endeavors to persuade us to the contrary. We are likewise ready to
+maintain, with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us, that six is
+less than seven in all times and at all places; and that ten will not be
+more three years hence than it is at present. We do also firmly declare
+that it is our resolution as long as we live to call Black black and White
+white. _And we shall upon all occasions oppose such persons that upon any
+day of the year shall call Black white or White black, with the utmost of
+our lives and fortunes._" The rebuke, in both cases, is the same.
+
+
+IV.
+
+What do these illustrations show? "That the Bible is, on the whole, a
+humorous book? Far from it. That religion is a humorous subject? that we
+are to throw all the wit we can into the treatment of it? No. But they
+show that the sense of the ludicrous is put into man by his Maker; that it
+has its uses; that we are not to be ashamed of it;" that we are not to be
+horrified at the mention of it in connection with things we deem most
+sacred. They show that the literature of the Bible contains the same
+elements that in any other literature we call Wit and Humor. They show us,
+also, that wit and humor do not of necessity produce hearty laughter or
+boisterous mirth; not always do they manifest themselves in "gibes and
+gambols and flashes of merriment that set the table in a roar." Those,
+therefore, who may expect something in these chapters that will shake
+one's sides with jollity, or make him "laugh till his face be like a wet
+cloak ill laid up," will doubtless be disappointed. Wit and humor often
+lie too deep for laughter, as pathos often lies too deep for tears.
+
+No attempt is here made at exact definition of the two words that are
+prominent in the general title of this book. Perhaps after they have
+passed through their final analysis we shall not be any wiser than before
+we cast them into the alembic. Barrow says of Humor: "It is a thing so
+versatile and multiform that it seems no less hard to settle a clear and
+certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus or to define
+the figure of the fleeting air." We usually include under the general term
+all forms of pleasantry, grotesqueness, drollery, sarcasm, irony,
+ridicule. Our common acceptation shall serve us in these studies.
+
+"There are many things," says Prof. Matthews, "that definition helps us to
+understand, but there are other things that we understand better than we
+can any possible definition of them; among these are the cold, sparkling,
+mercurial thing we call wit, and that genial, juicy, unconscious thing we
+call humor."
+
+With these preliminary observations, we proceed to examine the subject in
+detail:
+
+    "Are there not two points in the adventure of the diver?
+    One when a beggar he prepares to plunge;
+    The other when a prince he rises with his pearl?
+    Festus, I plunge."
+
+
+
+
+II. CHARACTER SKETCHES.
+
+
+    "----Now, by two-headed Janus,
+    Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time;
+    Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
+    And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;
+    And other of such vinegar aspect,
+    That they'll not show their teeth by way of smile,
+    Tho' Nestor swore the jest were laughable."--
+                                        _Merchant of Venice._
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTER SKETCHES.
+
+    "With what prudence does the Son of Sirach caution us in the choice of
+    our friends. And with what strokes of Nature, (I could almost say of
+    Humour,) has he described the behavior of a treacherous and
+    self-interested friend!"--_Addison._
+
+
+"The history of the ancient Hebrews," says George Eliot, "gives the idea
+of a people who went about their business and their pleasures as gravely
+as a society of beavers; the smile and laugh are often mentioned
+metaphorically; but the smile is one of complacency, the laugh of scorn."
+
+Against the authority of so illustrious a name, the writer of these pages
+confesses a somewhat different impression. It is difficult to believe that
+such sentiments as the following could have arisen among a people whose
+only smile was that of complacency, whose only laughter that of scorn:
+
+"He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast."
+
+"A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance."
+
+"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine."
+
+"Go thy way; eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry
+heart."
+
+"The voice of mirth," "the voice of gladness" are phrases of frequent
+occurrence. The ancient Hebrews believed that there was a "time to laugh"
+as well as a "time to weep." Grave and serious as they were, there must
+have been in them, after all, something sunny and pleasant. They did not
+find the heavens forever black and the earth forever cheerless.
+
+When we turn to the historical and biographical portions of Scripture, we
+find here and there a bit of quaintness and drollery in pictures of life
+and delineations of character that must have brought to the faces of those
+who read them or heard them smiles other than those of complacency; that
+must have been enjoyed with laughter other than that of scorn.
+
+Mr. Shorthouse says, "Nature and humor do not lie far apart; the source
+and spring of humor is human life." "The essence of humor," Carlyle
+remarks, "is sensibility; warm, tender fellow-feeling with all forms of
+existence." "The man of humor," writes another distinguished critic,
+"seeing at one glance the majestic and the mean, the serious and the
+laughable; indeed, interpreting what is little or ridiculous by light
+derived from its opposite idea, delineates character as he finds it in
+life, without any impertinent intrusion of his own indignation or
+approval."
+
+The writers of the Bible sketched manners and traits as they found them.
+Their pencils were faithful to nature. They reported what they saw. The
+features which provoke the smile, as well as those which move us to
+admire, condemn or weep, are pictured on their canvas. They had an eye for
+the ludicrous side of life, as well as for its more sober aspects. So,
+genial is much of their--often unconscious--humor, so far removed from
+bitterness or scorn, that it should seem as if Addison and Irving might
+have drawn some of their inspiration from these old Hebrews.
+
+In this chapter we shall give some illustrations from their sketches of
+character.
+
+
+I.--ABIMELECH.
+
+In the time of the Judges the unprincipled Abimelech contrived to have
+himself proclaimed king in Shechem. Knowing his unfitness for the throne,
+and vexed at his successful machinations, Jotham, a man of ready wit,
+ridicules the pretensions of the monarch and the folly of the people, in
+an admirable fable. Addison says: "Fables were the first pieces of wit
+that made their appearance in the world, and have been still highly
+valued, not only in times of the greatest simplicity, but among the most
+polite ages of mankind. Jotham's fable of the Trees is the oldest that is
+extant, and as beautiful as any that have been made since that time."
+
+Perching himself upon the top of a hill, that his parable may not be
+brought to an untimely end, he speaks to the multitude: "The Trees went
+forth on a time to anoint a king over them. And they said to the Olive
+Tree, Reign thou over us. But the Olive Tree said unto them, Should I
+leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and men, and go to be
+promoted over the Trees? Then said the Trees unto the Fig Tree, Come thou
+and reign over us. But the Fig Tree said unto them, Should I forsake my
+sweetness and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the Trees? Then
+said the Trees unto the Vine, Come thou and reign over us. And the Vine
+said unto them, Should I leave my wine which cheereth God and Man, and go
+to be promoted over the Trees?" Thus far the Trees have been unsuccessful.
+They have found among their fellows of the forest no available candidate
+whose character and record are good. They anticipated a difficulty of more
+modern times. But they are becoming desperate. They are determined to have
+a king. In this extremity what step do they take? "Then said all the Trees
+unto the _Bramble_, Come thou and reign over us." The Bramble cannot plead
+business. It cannot say, as do the Olive and Fig and Vine, "I am of some
+better use." There is no reason, so far as any beneficent occupation is
+concerned, why it should not be king. The offer is eagerly accepted, and
+the pompous bush delivers itself of this high and mighty coronation
+address: "If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your
+trust in my shadow; and if not, let fire come out of the Bramble and
+destroy the cedars of Lebanon!"
+
+This Bramble, Jotham explains, represents Abimelech, while the misguided
+trees are the men of Shechem. Having made this application, Jotham became
+convinced that his mission was ended, and abandoned Mount Gerezim for a
+place of greater security. "And Jotham ran away and fled, and went to Beer
+and dwelt there for fear of Abimelech his brother." He did not wait to see
+what impression he had made. He was willing to let his story, moral and
+all, take care of itself; for in that day, as in every subsequent age,
+there was no room for a satirist in the kingdom of an incompetent ruler.
+
+
+II.--SAMSON.
+
+Farther on in the book of Judges, we have the portrait of Samson. How
+quaintly is the character drawn! A great lubberly, good-natured giant, but
+now and then bursting out into fits of unreasoning and uncontrolled
+anger,--not unlike Ajax in the play. He is constantly making himself
+ridiculous in his love affairs.
+
+In _Love's Labor Lost_, the following dialogue occurs:--
+
+    "ARMADO.--Comfort me, boy. What great men have been in love?
+
+    "MOTH.--Hercules, Master.
+
+    "ARM.--Most sweet Hercules! More authority dear boy, name more; and
+    sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.
+
+    "MOTH.--Samson, Master; he was a man of good carriage, for he raised
+    the town gates on his back like a porter; and he was in love."
+
+He tries to joke in clumsy riddles: "Out of the eater came forth meat, out
+of the strong came forth sweetness." But his jokes were usually of a more
+practical and even more disastrous kind. L'Estrange, in his _History of
+Humor_, says: "The first character in the records of antiquity that seems
+to have had anything quaint or droll about it is that of Samson. Standing
+out amid the confusion of legendary times, he gives us good specimens of
+the fierce, wild kind of merriment relished in ancient days; and was very
+fond of making very sanguinary sport for the Philistines. He was an
+exaggeration of a not very uncommon type of man in which brute strength is
+joined to loose morals and whimsical fancy. People were more inclined to
+laugh at sufferings formerly than now, because they were not keenly
+sensitive to pain, and also had less feeling and consideration for others.
+That Samson found some malicious kind of pleasure and diversion in his
+reprisals on his enemies and made his misfortunes minister to his
+amusement, is evident from the strange character of his exploits. 'He
+caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail,
+and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails, and when he had set
+the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the
+Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and also the standing corn of
+the Philistines, with the vineyards and olives.' On another occasion, he
+allowed himself to be bound with cords and thus apparently delivered
+powerless into the hands of his enemies; he then broke his bonds 'like
+flax that was burnt with fire,' and taking the jawbone of an ass which he
+found, slew a thousand men with it. His account of this massacre shows
+that he regarded it in a humorous light: 'With the jawbone of an ass,
+heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass, I have slain a thousand
+men.' We might also refer to his carrying away the gates of Gaza to the
+top of a hill that is before Hebron, and to his duping Delilah about the
+seven green withes. * * * Samson was evidently regarded as a droll fellow
+in his day."
+
+What a touch of human nature there is in the scene between Samson and his
+wife, when she asks for the solution of that wretched riddle! "Thou dost
+but hate me," is her reproach, "and lovest me not; thou hast put forth a
+riddle unto the children of my people, and hast not told it to me." What!
+is there a domestic storm already brewing? There is something of a
+thunderclap in the angry retort of the husband: "Behold, I have not told
+it to my father and my mother," (as if that would make any difference to
+her!) "and shall I tell it to thee?" Comparisons of this sort are but
+little noted for their conciliatory tendencies, and so we are fully
+prepared for what follows: "_And she wept before him_ the seven days while
+the feast lasted." Poor Samson is not proof against woman's tears. He
+could rend the lion as a kid, and carry off the gates of Gaza as easily as
+a shepherd could bear a lamb upon his shoulders, but his superhuman
+strength is of no avail against "women's weapons, water-drops." We are not
+surprised to find that "it came to pass on the seventh day _he told her_."
+Thus did conjugal quarrels end in the time of the Judges.
+
+But if Samson was worsted in the encounter with his wife, he scored a
+victory against the Philistines who had frightened her into telling them
+the answer to the riddle. When they came with an air of insolent triumph
+and said: "What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?"
+he rather impolitely retorted,--traces of gall and wormwood at his recent
+humiliation by his wife still rankling in his mind,--"If ye had not
+ploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle." But he paid the
+debt of honor he owed them, the wager he had lost. "He went down to
+Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil and gave
+changes of raiment unto them which expounded the riddle." Thersites would
+have said of him as he did of Achilles, "His wit was his sinew." Samson
+had wonderful muscular power of repartee.
+
+On another occasion Samson amused himself by telling monstrous lies about
+the secret of his strength: "If they bind me with seven green withes that
+were never dried, then shall I be weak and be as another man;" "if they
+bind me fast with new ropes;" "if thou weavest the seven locks of my head
+with the web;" and so on. As Prince Hal said of the stories of his boon
+companion, "These lies are like the father that begets them; gross as a
+mountain, open, palpable." Delilah, wearied with these practical jokes,
+exclaims at last, "How canst thou say 'I love thee,' when thine heart is
+not with me? Thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me
+wherein thy great strength lieth." Then she began a course of teasing and
+entreaty that finally proved successful. "It came to pass when she pressed
+him daily with her words, _so that his soul was vexed unto death_, that he
+told her all his heart." Samson was great physically, but so weak mentally
+and morally that he is continually reducing himself to an absurd
+spectacle. He could not resist Delilah's persistent importunities, nor had
+he sufficient resolution to betake himself from the presence of
+temptation. He had, no doubt, laughed loud and long at the victims of his
+huge falsehoods, but he is finally harassed by a woman whose reproaches
+and entreaties are like "a continual dropping on a rainy day," into
+telling the fatal truth. Upon the whole, as we look upon the portrait of
+Samson, we find it impossible to respect him. We can only smile at his
+folly. The one flash of genuine nobility comes at the last. "Nothing in
+his life became him like the leaving it." After all, that heroic death
+more than half redeems the vacillating career it closes.
+
+
+III.--NABAL.
+
+There is quite a different character in the first book of Samuel. His name
+is Nabal. The word itself means "fool;" and the man's wife, Abigail,
+volunteered the opinion that it was a very accurate description of her
+husband: "_As his name is, so is he: Nabal is his name and folly is with
+him_." He is self-satisfied, hard-headed, irritable, obstinate. We are
+told that he was "churlish and evil in his doings." He is blunt in speech,
+rude, and even boorish in manners. He stands out of the story like an old,
+gnarled tree. It would not be a matter of marvel if he suggested to
+Fielding the character of Squire Western. They have many points in common.
+The servants of Nabal are afraid of him: "He is such a son of Belial that
+a man cannot speak to him!" He is fond of wine, and sometimes falls
+asleep over his cups. When David asks a favor of him, he exclaims: "Who is
+David? and who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants now-a-days that
+break away, every man from his own master!" As much as to say, "The
+country is full of runaways and tramps, and how do I know but this David
+is one of them?" Then he goes on--"Shall I take my bread and my water, and
+my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I
+know not whence they be?" Let this David look out for himself; it is all
+that I can do to provide for my own family and servants! How exactly in
+the Squire Western vein: "It's well for un I could not get at un; I'd
+spoiled his caterwauling; I'd a taught un to meddle with meat for his
+master. He shan't ever have a morsel of meat of mine, or a varden to buy
+it with!" Just the man, after he has stormed his life away, to die of
+apoplexy! And Nabal _did_ die suddenly, a few days after he had been "very
+drunken."
+
+
+IV.--JONAH.
+
+There are some elements of genuine humor in the story of Jonah. Whatever
+may be thought of the miraculous portions of the narrative, the character
+of the shirking and whimpering prophet is faithfully drawn. He first tries
+to escape the command of the Lord by fleeing to Tarshish, but finds that
+he who runs away from duty runs into danger. Thoroughly alarmed by the
+disastrous outcome of his attempt to get away from responsibility, he
+finally goes to Nineveh, but is not reconciled to his task. He did not go
+because he was anxious to serve the Ninevites, but because he wished to
+avert further danger from himself. He is in just the mood to complain of
+everything, to snatch at any straw of justification for his former
+conduct. Contrary to his expectations, and even, it must be confessed, to
+his secret wishes, the Ninevites were moved to repentance by his
+half-hearted preaching, with its undertone of grumbling, and God forgave
+them and turned away the threatened destruction of their city. But when
+the forty days expire, and the city does not fall, Jonah is angry, and he
+insists that he does well to be angry. He has been obliged to trudge
+through the streets of the city day after day shouting his predictions of
+doom, and now he is denied the poor satisfaction of seeing the bolts fall
+from heaven in vengeance. He has even gone so far as to prepare for
+himself a booth in a safe place, under whose shadow he might sit and enjoy
+the spectacle,--"where he might see what would become of the city." And
+now there is nothing to come of it all! "It displeased Jonah exceedingly
+and he was very angry." Surely the Lord is not considerate of the feelings
+of his prophet. Jonah's pent-up displeasure breaks forth: "I pray thee, O
+Lord, was not this my saying while I was yet in mine own country?" Did I
+not tell you so? Did I not say then and there how this whole affair would
+turn out? "Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish." Why should I blister
+under the sun of Nineveh, when I might take mine ease in Tarshish? "For I
+knew that Thou art a gracious God, slow to anger and of great kindness
+and repentest thee of the evil,"--too good-natured to do this thing! And
+now that I have come, my prophecy has failed and my mission is a farce.
+These wretches are spared and the prophet of God is a laughing-stock! "I
+do well to be angry, even unto death!" He goes farther: "I beseech thee,
+take away my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live."
+It is better to die than to be made ridiculous. Nothing could reconcile
+Jonah, just then, to the thought of further existence. Like Mr. Mantilini,
+he was determined to become a "body."
+
+
+V.--ABSALOM.
+
+We must not pass by that exquisite likeness of the demagogue in Second
+Samuel. "Absalom rose up early and stood beside the way of the gate; and
+it was so that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for
+judgment, then Absalom called unto him and said, Of what city art thou?
+and he said, Thy servant is one of the tribes of Israel. And Absalom said
+unto him, See, thy matters are good and right, but there is no one deputed
+of the king to hear thee." Things are getting very loose in the
+government; the country is going to the dogs. The present administration
+has been so long in power, that it has grown careless of the interests of
+the people. Absalom said, moreover, "O that I were made Judge in the land;
+that any man which hath any suit or any cause might come unto me, and I
+would do him justice!" We need a change. Put our party in power and see
+whether the rights of the people will not be better regarded; see whether
+there will not be reform in all departments of the government, and better
+times in the nation. "And it was so that when any man came to him to do
+him obeisance, he put forth his hand and took him and kissed him." Really,
+here we have the origin of the hand shaking candidate of to-day. Here are
+the beginnings of that cajolery of the "poor laboring man," "the honest
+farmer," "the oppressed people," which the modern aspirant to office so
+earnestly affects. "And in this manner did Absalom to all Israel that
+came unto the King for judgment; so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of
+Israel." In one point the comparison between Absalom and his later
+imitators fails. Absalom, it will be remembered, closed his career by
+getting hung upon a tree. It is greatly to be regretted that many of our
+modern demagogues do not complete the parallel.
+
+
+VI.--SHIMEI.
+
+If Absalom is a type of the demagogue, Shimei surely is a type of the
+sycophant. While David was in power, Shimei was devoted. When David was
+supplanted by the scheming Absalom and went forth heart-broken and weary
+from the city where he had reigned, Shimei basely deserts him to become
+the tool of Absalom, and heaps insults upon the head of the fallen
+monarch. Here is a specimen of his conduct and language: "He cast stones
+at David and at the servants of King David. * * * And thus said Shimei
+when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man and thou man of
+Belial: the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of
+Saul in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the
+kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son; and behold thou art taken in thy
+mischief because thou art a bloody man." This exhibition of meanness
+rouses the just wrath of Abishai, who wishes to put an effectual stop to
+the miserable proceeding: "Why should this dead dog curse my lord, the
+King? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head." But David
+forbids, and Shimei secure in the continued possession of his head
+followed after David and his men and "cursed as he went, and threw stones
+at him and cast dust." But the scene changes. Absalom lies dead under a
+heap of stones in the forest. David is returning to Jerusalem as king. A
+boat has carried him across the Jordan. Who is this that meets him as he
+lands and fawns upon him? The wretch who stoned and cursed him the other
+day. It is Shimei who forsook him and pelted him when he was unfortunate,
+but who returns to offer, "in a bondman's key," his humble services when
+David is restored to power. "Let not my Lord impute iniquity unto me,
+neither do thou remember that which thy servant did, the day that my lord
+the king went out of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to heart." Do
+not grieve over it, do not take it too sorely. I admit that it was rather
+hasty and ill-advised. "For thy servant doth know that I have sinned." To
+be sure I threw some stones, and kicked up a little dust, and swore a few
+oaths,--very inconsiderate it seems now; but I am willing to forget the
+whole affair. And see what splendid atonement I offer! "_Behold, I am come
+first this day of all the house of Joseph, to go down to meet my Lord, the
+King._" Think of that! Ah, it is "my lord, the king" to-day; no longer a
+"man of Belial." My lord the king can grant favors. Any little trifle of
+an office for which he may want an incumbent would be considered.
+Remember, "_I am come this day, the first of all the house of Joseph to go
+down to meet my lord the king_."
+
+Sterne says: "The wheel turns round once more; Absalom is cast down, and
+David returns in peace. Shimei suits his behavior to the occasion, and is
+the first man also who hastens to greet him; and had the wheel turned
+round a hundred times, Shimei, I dare say, in every period of its rotation
+would have been uppermost." Then he adds: "O Shimei, would to heaven when
+thou wast slain, that all thy family had been slain with thee and not one
+of thy resemblance left. But ye have multiplied exceedingly and
+replenished the earth; and if I prophesy rightly, ye will in the end
+subdue it. Go where you will, in every quarter, in every profession, you
+see a Shimei following the wheels of the fortunate through thick mire and
+clay."
+
+It is not claimed that the writers of the Bible drew these portraits for
+the purpose of making ludicrous those whom they painted, but the features
+were in the originals, and they who wrote were simply faithful to nature.
+They portrayed what they saw. They did not blind themselves to facts; and
+now worthless usurper, weak-willed giant, churlish country squire of
+Palestine, grumbling prophet, scheming demagogue and oily sycophant live
+forever on their canvas. "Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature _hath_ framed
+strange fellows in her time;" and some of those "strange fellows" lived in
+Judea thousands of years ago.
+
+
+
+
+III. "TOUCHES OF NATURE."
+
+
+"The ludicrous has its place in the Universe; it is not a human invention,
+but one of the Divine ideas, illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens
+and monkeys, long before Aristophanes or Shakespeare."--HOLMES.
+
+
+
+
+"TOUCHES OF NATURE."
+
+
+    "To explain the nature of laughter and tears is to account for the
+    condition of human life; for it is in a manner compounded of these
+    two. It is tragedy or comedy, sad or merry, as it happens."--HAZLITT.
+
+
+"One touch of nature," says Shakespeare, "makes the whole world kin;" but
+the great dramatist did not define exactly what he meant by "touch of
+nature," and the critics of many generations have been at war over the
+question. Perhaps he could not have told us, even if he had tried,--any
+more than the critics can tell us. When Democritus was asked his
+definition of a man, his only reply was, "A man is that which we all see
+and know." Further than this the philosopher could not proceed. But while
+Shakespeare has not given us a definition, he has given us an
+illustration:
+
+    "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,--
+    That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,
+    Tho' they are made and moulded of things past;
+    And give to dust that is a little gilt
+    More laud than gilt o'erdusted."
+
+The whole world is kin in this, that all with one consent inexcusably
+forget the substantial past and praise the present folly, if that folly be
+well tricked out. Humanity proves its oneness by its foibles as well as by
+its virtues. "Foolery, sir, doth walk about the orb; like the sun it
+shineth everywhere." Things deserving of laughter and things intended to
+provoke it have always been happening; and the faculties by which men
+perceive the foolish and ludicrous have always existed in human nature.
+
+    "Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
+    Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
+    Sport that wrinkled care derides,
+    And laughter holding both his sides,"--
+
+all these were in the past as well as in the present. They are "touches of
+nature" that "make the whole world kin."
+
+The statement was made in the preceding chapter that the writers of the
+Bible, especially of the historical books, drew faithfully from real life,
+and sketched manners and traits as they found them. They neither smoothed
+over nor concealed anything. They were absolutely frank. This fidelity to
+nature made it inevitable that the writers should now and then depict the
+ludicrous side of life and character, describe grotesque situations and
+paint amusing scenes. These are not uproariously funny, they will not
+provoke boisterous merriment, any more than will a page of Addison; but
+they are none the less specimens of genuine humor. Indeed, Carlyle reminds
+us that "true humor springs not more from the head than from the heart; it
+issues not in laughter, but in smiles that lie far deeper."
+
+We may be sure that all life from the very beginning has had its humorous
+no less than its serious side. If any record had been kept, we should no
+doubt find that Adam and Eve had their jokes about the apples--it is
+universally assumed that they _were_ apples--on that forbidden tree, and
+that they were quite as good as any jokes that have been made about those
+same apples in more recent years. The masons and bricklayers on the tower
+of Babel no doubt poked their thumbs into each other's ribs and slapped
+each other on the back to emphasize their rude jokes about the late "wet
+spell," and wondered how long it would take to get to Heaven with their
+building. And we imagine that even during the flood itself there were
+sanguine souls who took the whole matter philosophically, declaring that
+'it never rained long when the clouds looked _that_ way and the wind was
+in _that_ direction.' The Israelites, we suspect, lightened their bondage
+in Egypt by mimicking the pompous manners of their hated taskmasters and
+ridiculing the fools who thought that bricks could be made without straw.
+And the grimmest Egyptian mummy that now graces a museum or helps to
+fertilize the wheat-fields of the West once wore a smile or grin upon his
+leathern face as he related to a brother mummy how Pharoah made sport of
+the Israelites by promising to "let them go," and then when they were all
+on tip-toe with expectation, countermanding the order. Then they would
+both shake their heads and chuckle with delight over the pleasant humor of
+their monarch and declare that 'Pharoah was in high spirits to-day.' Thus
+the world has rolled and chirruped and cackled on since the time when man
+emerged from the animal. And Holmes suggests, in our motto, that the sense
+of humor was in the animal before man.
+
+
+I.
+
+Sometimes the humor of the Bible lies in the thing described,--the odd or
+awkward or absurd thing said or done.
+
+"The Iliad," says Sidney Smith, "would never have come down to these
+times, if Agamemnon had given Achilles a box on the ear. We should have
+trembled for the Æneid, if some Trojan nobleman had kicked the pious Æneas
+in the fourth book. Æneas, may have deserved it, but he never could have
+founded the Roman Empire after so distressing an accident." And yet
+accidents quite as distressing, if not of precisely the same nature, have
+happened in the best families that ever lived upon this planet. The
+writers of the Bible have not hesitated to give us a very frank account of
+some of them.
+
+Imagine the vacant look of the terrified Aaron, as he gave his imbecile
+explanation of the golden calf! Moses and Joshua are coming down from the
+mountain. "And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted,
+he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. And Moses
+answered, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is
+it the voice of them that cry for being overcome; but the noise of them
+that sing do I hear." Soon they draw near the camp and see "the calf and
+the dancing." Then does the anger of Moses wax hot. In his rage he flings
+down and shatters the "tables of stone." Like a whirlwind he descends upon
+the camp, hurls the miserable calf into the fire, and demands an
+explanation of his recreant brother. "What did this people unto thee that
+thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?" Aaron quails beneath the
+wrath of Moses and stammers: "Thou knowest the people that they are set on
+mischief. For they said unto me, Make us gods which shall go before us:
+for as for this Moses"--think of that, _this Moses_--"that brought us up
+out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has become of him." You see
+they are set on mischief; they were disrespectful even unto you--_this
+Moses_. Something had to be done. "And I said unto them, Whosoever hath
+any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it to me, and I cast it into
+the fire, and"--what do you suppose happened?--"_there came out this
+calf_!" I was as much surprised as you are, but no one is responsible--_it
+did itself_!
+
+In quaint fashion did Saul make honest confession when smitten with
+remorse on account of his persecution of David: "Behold I have played the
+fool!" The regret of Prince Hal also--"Thus do we play the fools with
+time, while the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us."
+
+What an odd--almost laughable--spectacle is the bombastic Nebuchadnezzar,
+one moment proudly striding along the battlements of his palace, "Is not
+this great Babylon which I have builded?"--the next eating grass like the
+beasts of the field! As Carlyle says: "A purple Nebuchadnezzar rejoices to
+feel himself now veritably emperor of this great Babylon which he has
+builded; and _is_ a nondescript, biped-quadruped, on the eve of a seven
+years' course of grazing."
+
+There is a scene in the life of David in which that worthy is represented
+as cutting fantastic capers before high heaven. At one time, in order to
+keep out of Saul's way, David went down to Gath. The servants of King
+Achish recognize him, and tell their royal master that this is the famous
+David over whose exploits the daughters of Israel sang. "Is not this
+David, the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in
+dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten
+thousands?" But David does not wish his identity known and with
+characteristic shrewdness he feigns insanity. "He feigned himself mad, and
+scrabbled on the doors of the gate and let his spittle fall down upon his
+beard,"--a sorry looking hero! So thinks the king Achish. What, this the
+man that slew the giant? this drivelling lunatic the victor that Israel's
+daughters praised? His disgust knows no bounds. He is almost as grotesque
+in his anger as is David in his appearance and conduct. He turns upon his
+courtiers in offended dignity and cries, "Lo, ye see the man is mad;
+wherefore have ye brought him to me? _Have I need of madmen_, (are not ye
+my own servants sufficient?) that ye have brought this fellow to play the
+madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?" "Fool me no
+fools," says King Achish. When King Achish asked, "Have I need of madmen?"
+he evidently thought of his own servants and courtiers as did Christian
+I., of Denmark, in modern times, of those who graced _his_ Court. He
+sharply remarked, on a presentation to him of several court fools, that
+"he was not in want of such things, and if he were, he had only to give
+license to his courtiers, who, to his certain knowledge, were capable of
+exhibiting themselves as the greatest fools in Europe!"
+
+In Nehemiah's account of building the walls of Jerusalem, he shows how
+sorely the Jews took the clumsy jibes of their foes and gives us a
+specimen of Samaritan joking in that early day. Sanballat mocked the Jews
+and said, "What do these feeble Jews? Will they fortify themselves? Will
+they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day? Will they revive the
+stones out of the heaps of rubbish which are burned?" Tobiah, the Amorite,
+was yet more caustic: "Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he will
+even break down their stone wall." This ridicule, although the jests do
+not seem very formidable to us, was harder to bear than attacks with sword
+and spear. It is so to-day. We can stand anything but laughter. One would
+rather be made to appear infamous than ridiculous. The only answer the
+builders could make was to pray for the destruction of their sarcastic
+persecutors. They wished that heaven's bolts of lightning might answer
+these bolts of wit.
+
+
+II.
+
+Sometimes the humor lies in the description itself rather than in the
+thing described. Dr. Barrow, in his famous essay, says of facetiousness,
+"Sometimes it is wrapped up in a dress of humorous expression."
+
+An excellent example is furnished in the account of the mob at Ephesus:
+"Some, therefore, cried one thing and some another; for the assembly was
+confused; _and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together_."
+
+When Sidney Smith speaks of "distressing accidents," we are reminded that
+an exceedingly "distressing accident" happened in the very first family of
+which we have any record--the family that started in Eden. Aside from any
+question as to the literal truth of the story, nothing can exceed the
+simplicity and naturalness with which the writer has described the
+culprits and their excuses. The first thing they did after their
+transgression was to hide. The supreme and perpetual folly of guilt is to
+imagine that it can be hid when the voice of the Lord God is heard in the
+garden. "And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art
+thou?" The culprit creeps forth from his hiding-place and stammers, "I
+heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I
+hid myself." "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the
+tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?" Now the guilty
+secret is out and Adam pleads in extenuation, "The woman that thou gavest
+to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat." It was no fault of
+mine. That _woman_ was to blame--the woman, O Lord, remember, that _thou_
+gavest to be with me. Is not a little of the responsibility thine also, O
+Lord? A touch of nature! "As it was in the beginning, is now and ever
+shall be!" But Eve will not bear all the blame. She also is ready with her
+excuse: "The serpent beguiled me and I did eat." Another remove in the
+location of the responsibility. If we can forget all that theology has put
+into this story and look on it simply as a bit of literature, it is a
+charming description of the way in which we mortals disclaim
+accountability for our deeds.
+
+    "And oftentimes excusing of a fault,
+    Doth make the fault worse by the excuse;
+    As patches set upon a little breach,
+    Discredit more in hiding of the fault,
+    Then did the fault before it was so patched."
+
+Job has expressed his contempt for Adam's conduct in Eden by invoking upon
+himself even greater ills than he was then suffering, if he followed that
+disgraceful example,--"If I covered my transgression as Adam, by hiding my
+iniquity in my bosom." In magnificent scorn of Adam's hiding from the Lord
+and laying his guilt upon another, Job exclaims, "Behold, my desire is
+that the Almighty _would_ answer me!" and avows that "he would declare
+unto him the number of his steps, and as a prince would go near unto
+him,"--not skulk away from his presence among trees and bushes. The low
+estimation in which Job holds Adam suggests that the old Hebrew who wrote
+the story in Genesis, may have intended to hold up that primal man in a
+humorous light.
+
+Whether the story of Balaam is literally correct in its details is one of
+the questions this little volume is not intended to discuss. The writer of
+that story tells his tale as naïvely as if conversations between men and
+animals were of everyday occurrence. If we read it as we would any similar
+piece, any other fable in which men and beasts speak to each other, we
+should say that there were some elements of the ludicrous in the picture
+of the prophet rebuked by his ass. "And the ass saw the angel of the Lord
+standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand; and the ass turned
+aside out of the way and went into the field. And Balaam smote the ass to
+turn her into the way." Just what any one would do to a "shying" animal,
+upon impulse. "But the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards,
+a wall being on this side and a wall on that side. And when the ass saw
+the angel of the Lord, she thrust herself unto the wall and crushed
+Balaam's foot against the wall; and he smote her again." Naturally enough!
+"And the angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where
+there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left. And when
+the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam; and
+Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff." The rising
+wrath of the prophet can no longer be controlled. The turning from the
+way, the crushing of his foot against the wall, and finally the falling
+down under him and refusing to proceed further,--these indignities on the
+part of the ass at length exasperate the prophet beyond all measure, and
+he right lustily lays on the cudgel. "What have I done unto thee that thou
+hast smitten me these three times?" meekly inquires the belabored ass.
+"Because thou hast mocked me, I would that there were a sword in my hand,
+for now I would kill thee," roars Balaam. Thou hast mocked me; thou hast
+played tricks upon thy master, the prophet of God. Thou hast done this on
+purpose to vex me and put me to shame. Thou hast made a sorry spectacle of
+me with thy pranks, and thou hast crushed my foot in the bargain. "Am I
+not thine ass upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this
+day? Was I ever wont to do so unto thee?" Should you not have known there
+was something unusual? These are touches of nature in a story which might
+illustrate the saying of Isaiah in which he attributes higher wisdom to
+brutes than to men: "The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's
+crib, but Israel doth not know, my people will not consider." Was it this
+saying that Shakespeare had in mind when he said, through the lips of
+Mark Antony:
+
+    "O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
+    And men have lost their reason."
+
+At one time the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and other cities,
+and put them into the cities of Samaria to take the places of the children
+of Israel; but the new inhabitants did not fear the Lord, so the writer
+tells us that the Lord sent lions among them and slew them. Some one spoke
+to the king of Assyria, saying, "The nations which thou hast moved and
+placed in the cities of Samaria know not the manner of the God of the
+land." They are not acquainted with his habits and methods, and have
+gotten themselves into great trouble. The God of the land has sent lions
+among them. The king, hearing this, is in great dismay. It will never
+do--the ravages of those lions must be stopped. He evidently thought, as
+did Nick Bottom, "There is no more fearful wild-fowl than your lion
+living, and we ought to look to it." "Then the king of Assyria commanded,
+saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence, and
+let him go there and dwell and teach them the manner of the God of the
+land." The priest went and taught the uninitiated people not to provoke a
+God who could let hungry lions loose upon them at any moment. The people
+listened in terror. The result of the instruction was that "the people
+_feared_ the Lord,"--with a side glance at the lions. They tried to
+refrain from what would make him angry enough to order out the lions but
+after all--and there must have been a twinkle in the eye of the scribe as
+he recorded it--"_they served their own gods_."
+
+When Queen Vashti refused to come into the presence of King Ahasuerus and
+his drunken lords, she did something that was wholly unprecedented.
+Nothing of the kind had ever before been heard of in the whole history of
+the empire. The revellers are shocked sober. Consternation reigns supreme.
+When did a queen ever refuse to do the bidding of a king? a wife the
+bidding of a husband? Are all our ancient notions of propriety to be
+overturned? What will be the effect of Vashti's rebellion? The feelings of
+the king are outraged because the queen declines to unveil her beauty
+before his roistering courtiers. Enraged, he demands, "What shall be done
+unto Queen Vashti because she hath not performed the commandment of the
+King Ahasuerus?" It is a grave question. The lords themselves have a stake
+in this matter. They fear the result of this strong-minded example. The
+contagion of disobedience may spread. If it should, whose authority as
+husband is safe? And Memucan answered, "Vashti, the queen, hath not done
+wrong to the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the people
+that are in the province of the King Ahasuerus. For this deed of Queen
+Vashti's shall come abroad to all women, to make their husbands
+contemptible in their eyes, when it shall be reported that the King
+Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, _but she
+came not_. And this day shall all the princesses of Persia and Media which
+have heard of the deed of the queen, say the like unto all the king's
+princes. So shall there arise too much contempt and wrath." Such a thought
+could not be entertained. As Dogberry would put it, "It is most tolerable
+and not to be endured." Memucan, therefore, advises: "If it please the
+king let there go a royal commandment from him, and let it be written
+among the laws of the Persians and Medes, that it be not altered, that
+Vashti come no more before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal
+estate unto another that is better than she." The penalty is severe, but
+the case is one that demands heroic treatment. "And when the king's decree
+which he shall make, shall be published throughout all his empire, _all
+the wives shall give to their husbands honor, both great and small_." The
+advice is accepted. "The saying pleased the king and the princes; and the
+king did according to the word of Memucan; for he sent letters into all
+the king's provinces, into every province according to the writing
+thereof, to every people after their language, that _every man should bear
+rule in his own house_." Thus perished the first recorded movement in the
+direction of woman's rights!
+
+
+III.
+
+The humor of the Biblical writers is often shown in the way they pierce
+through outward actions and penetrate to the hidden motives of men. Before
+their keen vision external disguises are vain.
+
+Let us turn to the account of sending the demons from the maniac into the
+swine. Let us take the account that speaks of but one maniac. "Then they
+that fed the swine fled and told it in the city and in the country. And
+they went out to see what it was that was done. And they came to Jesus and
+see him that was possessed of the devil and had the legion, sitting
+clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid." It must have seemed
+absurd to the evangelist that these Gadarenes should have been afraid of
+the insane man after he had been restored. But the swineherds have not yet
+told all their story. "And when they that saw it told them how it befell
+to him that was possessed with the devils and _also concerning the
+swine_--" "Aye, there's the rub!" "when they heard _that, they began to
+pray him to depart out of their coasts_." A man has been restored, but a
+herd of swine has been lost. This new prophet will ruin us all, if he
+stays here. Let him begone. Though he saved men, they prayed him to depart
+because he let the swine be drowned. Jesus himself said once that "every
+man was of more value than many sparrows;" but these Gadarenes seemed to
+think that no man was worth "two thousand swine."
+
+In the preceding section of this chapter, Paul's description of a mob is
+noted. It will be interesting to understand the occasion of that mob. When
+Paul preached at Ephesus, there was a marked decline in the demand for
+images and silver shrines of Diana. The market became weak. One of the
+principal manufacturers, Demetrius, called together all who were in the
+same business and said: "Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our
+wealth. Moreover, ye see and hear that not alone in Ephesus, but almost
+throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much
+people, saying that there be no gods which are made with hands: so that
+not only _this our craft is in danger to be set at naught_, but that the
+temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised and her magnificence
+should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth!" Demetrius,
+the unctuous hypocrite, seems to throw the real consideration into the
+background, and to be actuated mainly by concern for the honor of his
+goddess. Ah, Demetrius, Demetrius, little do you, little do your fellow
+craftsmen care for Diana and her worship, except as you get your gain
+through her devotees. But make the people think you are full of zeal for
+religion, and under the mantle of this falsehood cloak your motives, as
+you rush through the streets crying, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!"
+Rouse the populace, always ripe for mischief, and always more furious than
+ever when they think that religion, something of which they do not
+understand the first letter, and of which they are absolutely destitute,
+is in danger. Rouse the people, make a pious demonstration, O Demetrius,
+but know that he who recorded it all for future ages, wrote down your
+inmost secret--"_By this craft we have our wealth!_"
+
+Another instance of hypocrisy similar to that of Demetrius, occurred at
+Philippi. Paul and his comrades had spoiled the business of certain ones
+who had in charge a damsel who uttered prophecies and told fortunes, by
+casting out her "spirit of divination." "_And when her masters saw that
+the hope of their gains was gone_, they caught Paul and Silas and drew
+them into the market-place unto the rulers, and brought them to the
+magistrate, saying, These men being Jews do exceeding trouble our city,
+and teach customs which are not lawful for us to observe, being Romans."
+It is patriotism that furnishes the cloak in this case. No allusion to
+their loss of money--surely not; what matters that? "He who steals my
+purse steals trash." But we must do our duty by our fellow-citizens. We
+must not let these Jewish notions corrupt our civilization. We are loyal
+Romans, let all the world know! Is there not something in this incident
+to suggest the truthfulness of Dr. Johnson's remark, "Patriotism is the
+last refuge of a scoundrel?"
+
+The result of the uproar was that the apostles were beaten and cast into
+prison. Somehow it was soon discovered that they themselves were Roman
+citizens, "and when it was day, the magistrates sent the sergeants,
+saying, Let these men go. And the keeper of the prison told this saying to
+Paul, The magistrates have sent to let you go; now, therefore, depart and
+go in peace." It is now Paul's turn to be indignant, and he is not the man
+to let the opportunity slip. Paul insisted, as he had a right to do, upon
+his dignity as a Roman citizen. He tartly replied, "They have taken us
+openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and do
+they now thrust us out privily? Nay, verily; but _let them come themselves
+and fetch us_." A touch of nature there! "And they came (meekly enough
+now, those pompous magistrates) _and brought them out_."
+
+A man who never lacked courage was Paul. It had been told him that there
+were certain ones among the Corinthians who had respect for his letters,
+but something bordering on contempt for his person. "For his letters, they
+say, are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his
+speech contemptible." This is his answer: "Let such an one think this,
+that such as we are in word by letters, when we are absent, such will we
+be also in deed, when we are present." Let those scoffers look to
+themselves!
+
+In lighter and almost playful vein, is his remark about the church at
+Corinth, in his second letter: "Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought
+among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds." And yet
+there was one point in which the Corinthian church was inferior to others:
+"For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, _except it be
+that I myself was not burdensome unto you_?" Paul had allowed the other
+churches with which he labored to support him, but to the Corinthian
+church he had not accorded the same privilege. He had favored it with no
+opportunity for benevolence. "_Forgive me_," he exclaims, "_this wrong_."
+
+Paul relates that on one occasion he had a dispute with Peter at Antioch,
+in which he "withstood Peter to the face, because Peter was to blame." It
+is to be doubted whether Peter ever quite forgot this dispute. The memory
+of it may have lingered and been particularly active when he referred in
+one of his own letters to "our beloved brother Paul who, according to the
+wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles
+speaking of these things; _in which are some things hard to be understood,
+which they that are unstable and unlearned do wrest_, as they do also the
+other Scriptures, (pray do not think that I am making brother Paul's
+writings an exception) _to their own destruction_."
+
+There is another phase of this general subject that is reserved for
+separate treatment in the following chapter. We pause here to say that the
+people of Bible times have been removed from the people of to-day by a
+chasm too wide and deep. We have been accustomed to look upon them as
+belonging to another race--almost to another world. It is difficult to
+believe that they were "men of like passions with ourselves." It seems
+almost like sacrilege to intimate that they had their follies and
+weaknesses; that they did things absurd and laughable, and sometimes went
+farther and did things that were mean and wicked. There was a vast deal of
+human nature in those sublime characters. Gail Hamilton sums them up as
+follows: "Adam had dominion over the earth, but he attempted to shield
+himself from the divine displeasure by laying the blame upon his wife,
+which no gentleman would ever do. Noah was a 'just man and perfect in his
+generation,' if you do not mind an occasional fit of drunkenness. Abraham
+was a fine old sheik, a truly heroic figure, brave, generous, courteous,
+hospitable, magnanimous; no wonder the haughty Jews loved to remember and
+repeat that they were Abraham's children. But Abraham had his weaknesses
+and fell before his temptations; and Isaac followed in his footsteps. Of
+Jacob perhaps the least said the better, though he maintained his position
+as head of his family with unrelenting vigor, calling no man master,
+either son or king. There may have been other men whose life was 'without
+fear and without reproach'; but their history is unknown to us; their
+portrait is hardly more than a name."
+
+
+
+
+IV. THE SENSE OF HUMOR IN JESUS.
+
+
+"When a child, with child-like apprehensions that dived not beneath the
+surface of the matter, I read those parables--not guessing the involved
+wisdom--I had more yearnings toward that simple architect that built his
+house upon the sand, than I entertained for his more cautious neighbor; I
+grudged at the harsh censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his
+talent; and prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and to my
+apprehension, somewhat _unfeminine_ wariness of their competitors, I felt
+a kindness that amounted almost to a _tendre_ for those thoughtless
+virgins. I have never made an acquaintance since that lasted, or a
+friendship that answered, with any that had not some tincture of the
+absurd in their characters."--_Charles Lamb._
+
+
+
+
+THE SENSE OF HUMOR IN JESUS.
+
+    "Amid the sorrow, disappointment, agony, and anguish of the
+    world,--our dark thoughts and tempestuous passions, the gloomy
+    exaggerations of self will, the enfeebling illusions of
+    melancholy,--wit and humor, light and lightning, shed their soft
+    radiance and dart their electric flash."--_Whipple._
+
+
+"How curious it is," says the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, "that we
+always consider solemnity, and the absence of all gay surprises and
+encounters of wits, as essential to the idea of the future life of those
+whom we thus deprive of half their faculties and then call _blessed_!
+There are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be preparing
+themselves for that smileless eternity by banishing all gayety from their
+hearts and all joyousness from their countenances." Rather than believe in
+the "smileless eternity" of such as these, we should accept the conjecture
+of Soame Jennings, that "a portion of the happiness of seraphim and just
+men made perfect would be derived from an exquisite perception of the
+ludicrous."
+
+To that school of melancholy teachers who frown upon all pleasantry, and
+buttress their gloomy position with the assertion that "Jesus wept but
+never smiled," the title of this chapter will be particularly offensive.
+It will strike them as downright blasphemy to intimate that Jesus
+possessed and used the sense of humor so common to mankind. We assuredly
+appreciate the delicacy of the position, and shall endeavor to avoid, in
+our treatment of this subject, anything that might wound the most
+sensitive soul.
+
+There are several considerations that will pave the way. We take it for
+granted that Jesus was a complete human being, and that as such a being he
+must have had all the human attributes and faculties,--the faculty of
+mirthfulness among them. He was a man, and lacked nothing that pertains to
+men. Then, too, had he been without the sense of humor, much in the lives
+and characters of those with whom he had to deal, he never could have
+understood and reached. The full success of his mission depended upon his
+knowing all that there is in man, and upon being able to gain access to
+him through every avenue of his nature.
+
+Nor were the circumstances of his life unfavorable to the development of
+this particular attribute. Theology and Art have conspired to produce upon
+the world the impression that Jesus was an exceptionally wretched and
+suffering man. They have taken one or two expressions in Isaiah, such as,
+"his countenance was marred," "he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with
+grief," expressions which they misunderstood and misapplied, and with them
+have laid the foundations of their house of woe. They have seized upon a
+few of the sadder incidents of his career, and have exaggerated them into
+undue prominence,--have given them undue proportions. Especially have they
+made much of his agony in the garden and his death upon the cross. These
+events have been magnified into such mountains that all the rest of his
+life seems to lie hidden beneath their shadows. It appears never to have
+entered the mind of either preacher or painter that the physical anguish
+of his death must have been even less than that which many martyrs at the
+stake or martyrs upon sickbeds have borne; and that before death came, he
+had lived a life with many bright days and many happy experiences. His
+existence upon earth was not a protracted sorrow, a monumental grief. Many
+a rose had blossomed at his feet before the thorns were twisted into a
+crown for his brow.
+
+What shall we say of the thirty peaceful years under his father's roof,
+with his brothers and sisters? Did he not in boyhood have the amusements
+of other children? Is there not a memento of his youthful sports in what
+he says of the games of the children in the marketplace, when they were
+playing at weddings and funerals? Did he not, when a young man, delight in
+his home and in his companions? Can we imagine that he moved among those
+who were nearest and dearest to him, with a face to which a smile was as
+much a stranger as a tropic flower to the frozen zone?
+
+When, as a mature man, he entered upon his public ministry, although he
+was exposed to frequent attacks from the representatives of the
+established religion, yet he was never without friends; never without a
+place of refuge from the heat of battle. There were many homes in which a
+welcome always awaited him, and whose hospitality he gladly accepted. Is
+it probable that he was accustomed to sit in these homes--to use
+Shakespeare's phrase--"like his grandsire cut in alabaster?"
+
+More than once we are directly told that "he rejoiced in spirit;" more
+than once he spoke of his "joy" to his disciples. There is much evidence
+that Jesus was not a wretched but a happy man. Did this happiness never
+express itself in words or countenance?
+
+There are other considerations that go far to refute the dismal assertion
+that "Jesus wept but never smiled." Tired mothers brought their children
+to him and he rebuked the supercilious disciples who interfered. Can we
+think that on this occasion he had a woe-begone look? We read of him often
+at feasts; would he have been invited if he had been accustomed to sit at
+the table like the skeleton at an Egyptian banquet? Did he not by his
+frequent attendance upon festive occasions incur the odium of being a
+wine-bibber and a glutton? He was also a favorite with the common people.
+They heard him gladly. But there must have been something attractive in
+his presence and manner, as well as in his words, and the words themselves
+must have appealed to the shrewd, homely, common sense of his hearers. If
+he had been the sad spirit he has been pictured, would the people have
+followed him and listened to him as they did?
+
+When we leave the outward circumstances and the presumption they furnish,
+and examine the fragments of his speech that have been preserved for us,
+many of them certainly contain the element of humor. We should undoubtedly
+call it humor if it came from any other lips than those of Jesus; if we
+found it in any other book than the New Testament.
+
+The purpose of this chapter will be grossly misapprehended, however, if
+any one shall suppose that we are trying to degrade Jesus to the level of
+a professional joker. Nothing is further from our intention. The very
+thought is repulsive. One may have and use the sense of humor without
+putting on the cap and bells. He may use it with the highest motives and
+for the noblest ends. It was said of Hosea Ballou, that "it was no
+uncommon thing for him when preaching to excite a smile; but usually it
+was done by some ingenious argument that would electrify every one
+present." His biographer adds: "It is not known that any person ever
+listened to one of his sermons who was not so impressed with his
+sincerity, dignity and earnestness, that the recollection of his
+occasional humorous sayings was held subsidiary and helpful to his main
+serious purpose. His mother-wit was sanctified. It served a divine mission
+in diffusing cheerfulness and health." We must always remember that wit
+and humor do not mean buffoonery.
+
+It is difficult to understand how any one can read many of the parables
+and other sayings of Jesus, and still believe the doleful tale that he
+"wept but never smiled." He saw the dancing lights as well as the deep
+shadows, the more genial and even ludicrous aspects of life, as well as
+its various phases of sorrow and sin, and all these furnished subjects for
+his discourse as well as illustrations for his teaching.
+
+Let us now consider some of the ways in which the sense of humor in Jesus
+manifested itself.
+
+
+I.
+
+The sense of humor often tempered his rebukes. There was often sunshine on
+the cloud.
+
+There were times, indeed, as we shall see, when he spoke with unmeasured
+severity, when his words fell like fiery hail, beating and burning the
+heads of offenders; but anon he spoke half smiling, half pitying, as if
+disposed to laugh at the very inconsistencies he censured. In this respect
+his spirit has been caught by Addison and Goldsmith, by Irving and
+Dickens. Richter says that "no one has a right to laugh at men but he who
+most heartily loves them." Taine says of Dickens, "Before reading him we
+did not know there was so much pity in the heart." Jesus loved men, he
+pitied them, even while his eye detected and his words exposed their
+faults and foibles.
+
+He had looked with pleasure (remembering his own childhood), upon the
+games of the boys and girls in the streets of Jerusalem; he thought of
+their whimsical complaints, as they played at weddings and funerals in the
+market-place. On one occasion, his severity mitigated by his sense of the
+ludicrous, he exclaimed, "Whereunto shall I liken this generation? and to
+what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the
+market-places and calling to one another and saying, We have piped unto
+you and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you and ye have not
+lamented." Everything had gone wrong. The others would not play fair. They
+would not dance when we wanted to play wedding; they would not be mourners
+when we wanted to play funeral. We have done all we could to please them,
+but they are "too mean for anything." To the mind of Jesus, the people of
+that generation appeared to be making the same complaint. They were
+childishly dissatisfied with every divine messenger,--none could please
+them. "For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking
+wine,"--solemn, gloomy, austere; but they would have none of him. He
+mourned unto them, but they would not lament. They would not "play at
+funeral" with him. They turned away and said, "He hath a devil." Then came
+the Son of Man, bright and cheerful, "eating and drinking," but they would
+not dance to his piping. They pointed at him and said, "Behold a
+gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!" It
+was impossible to please that generation.
+
+If we place this passage side by side with the following from Goldsmith,
+we shall see at once that if there be humor in the latter, there must also
+be humor in the former. The subject is the reception accorded the Chinese
+philosopher who tried to please his friends by his demeanor upon the death
+of an English sovereign: "I thought it at least my duty to appear
+sorrowful; to put on a melancholy aspect, or to set my face by that of the
+people. The first company I came amongst after the news became general was
+a set of jolly companions who were drinking prosperity to the ensuing
+reign. I entered the room with looks of despair, and even expected
+applause for the superlative misery of my countenance. Instead of that, I
+was universally condemned by the company and desired to take away my
+penitential phiz to some other quarter. I now corrected my former mistake,
+and with the most sprightly air imaginable entered a company where they
+were talking over the ceremonies of the approaching funeral. Here I sat
+for some time with an air of pert vivacity, when one of the chief mourners
+immediately observing my good humor desired me, if I pleased, to go and
+grin somewhere else; they wanted no disaffected scoundrels there. Fum,
+thou son of Fo, what sort of people am I amongst?" _Whereunto shall I
+liken this generation?_
+
+There was a certain time when multitudes followed Jesus, not knowing what
+they were about, but simply swept along by the enthusiasm of the moment.
+He saw that they understood not, so he turned and gave them this gentle
+caution: "Which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first
+and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest,
+haply, after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all
+that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was
+not able to finish." Whoever comes after me and does not count upon
+bearing his cross, is in the predicament of this foolish tower-builder,--a
+ludicrous spectacle as he sits beside the unfinished structure, his
+materials exhausted, while all his neighbors, as they pass by, wag the
+head and point the finger. Such a spectacle as that will each one of you
+be who does not count the cost of discipleship. With such gentle strokes
+of humor did Jesus stay the thoughtless multitudes who imagined that their
+empty zeal was genuine loyalty. He set forth their conduct in terms that
+would most effectually impress upon them its folly,--in terms that
+appealed to their sense of the ridiculous.
+
+In a sarcastic paragraph of his _French Revolution_, Carlyle speaks of the
+work of the National Convention thus: "In fact, what can be more
+unprofitable than the sight of six hundred and forty-nine ingenious men
+struggling with their whole force and industry, for a long course of
+weeks, to do at bottom this; to stretch out the old Formula and Law
+phraseology, so that it may cover the new, contradictory, entirely
+uncoverable thing? Whereby the poor formula does but _crack_ and one's
+honesty along with it. The thing that is palpably _hot_, burning, wilt
+thou prove it by a syllogism to be a freezing mixture? This of stretching
+out formulas till they crack is, especially in times of swift change, one
+of the sorrowfullest tasks poor humanity has." Was it not this very
+formula-stretching that Jesus satirized in more playful vein,--this
+formula-stretching that existed in old times and that still exists,--when
+he said: "No man putteth a piece of new garment upon an old; if otherwise,
+then, both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the
+new agreeth not with the old"? You can not patch up old terms with new
+meanings. The new meaning agreeth not with the old term. "And no man
+putteth new wine into old wine-skins; else the new wine will burst the
+wine-skins and be spilled, and the wine-skins shall perish. But new wine
+must be put into new wine-skins, and both are preserved." The man who
+tries to put new senses into old words, new ideas into old formulas, is
+like a man who cuts up a new garment to mend an old; like one who puts
+wine not yet done fermenting into a skin whose capacity admits no further
+strain. He spoils his new coat and he loses his new wine.
+
+With such illustrations as these, illustrations embodying a figure or
+comparison or situation essentially amusing, was Jesus wont to temper his
+rebukes.
+
+
+II.
+
+The sense of humor in Jesus enabled him to detect pretension, imposture,
+hypocrisy, and expose them to the derision of mankind.
+
+If we should find in Dickens or Thackeray such pictures as Jesus has given
+of the Scribes and Pharisees, they would strike us at once as the very
+quintessence of humor. "They go arrayed in long clothing, they love the
+uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues." They are
+always posturing to attract attention. "They love greetings in the
+market-places, to be called of men Rabbi, Rabbi." In their way, they are
+as much given to "deportment" as Mr. Turveydrop, when he says, "I suppose
+I must now go and show myself about town; it will be expected of me." When
+they pray, they do it standing in the synagogues or at the corners of the
+streets that all may see how pious they are; when they perform their deeds
+of righteousness, a trumpet is sounded before them, to make solemn
+proclamation; as who should say, "Will the public please take notice; I am
+about to drop a mite into this poor widow's hand." When they fast they put
+on "a sad countenance and disfigure their faces" with fictitious woe and
+weeping, "that they may appear unto men to fast." "See how I lay the dust
+with my tears," says Launce. Everything they did was done for effect;
+nothing came from the heart. Their religion was the veriest sham. They had
+well-nigh reached the measure of South's ideal hypocrite, "who never opens
+his mouth in earnest, but when he eats or breathes." Well might Jesus say,
+"The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat; _all things, therefore,
+whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, but do ye not
+according to their works; for they say and do not_." Does not this remind
+us of Pecksniff, "who was a most exemplary man, fuller of virtuous
+precepts than a copy-book; but some people likened him to a direction-post
+which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there."
+
+
+III.
+
+Not only did the sense of humor in Jesus enable him to unmask pretentious
+hypocrites, but also to expose the absurdities that the multitudes
+commonly practiced in the name of religion.
+
+There are those, for example, who in prayer use "vain repetitions,"
+thinking that they shall be heard for their "much speaking." They
+estimate the efficacy of prayer by its quantity and not by its quality.
+They think that if they only keep at it long enough, if they only use
+multitudes of words, they will surely attract attention on high.
+
+There are others who think that religion consists in the "washing of pots
+and cups and such like things" and they "lay aside the commandment of
+God." One of their representatives in modern literature is Dolly Winthrop,
+who tells Silas Marner about the letters "I.H.S." pricked upon the
+Christmas cakes: "I can't read 'em myself, and there's nobody, not Mr.
+Macey himself, rightly knows what they mean; but they've a good meaning,
+for they're the same as is on the pulpit-cloth at Church; an' if there's
+any good, we've need of it in this world."
+
+It is curious how the superstition of externalism has affected many, even
+noble minds. Dr. Johnson once said of John Campbell, a political and
+philosophical writer, "Campbell is a good man, a pious man; I'm afraid he
+has not been inside of a church for a good many years, but he never passes
+a church without pulling off his hat. This shows he has good principles."
+
+
+IV.
+
+Jesus perceived the blunders of the well-meaning, but ignorant and
+ambitious,--such as the man who went to the wedding party without suitable
+garments, and was unceremoniously shown to the door; such as the obtuse
+people who, invited to a feast, always took the seats of honor and were as
+often courteously escorted to seats further down the table. When the "more
+honorable man" came, the host would say, "Give this man place," and the
+other would "begin with shame to take the lowest seat." Jesus saw these
+blunders, and we cannot believe that he was blind to their comical side.
+He must have felt that the mistake was a ludicrous one, even when he
+advised the stupid people who made it, "When thou art bidden, go and sit
+down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say,
+Friend, go up higher; and then thou shalt have worship in the presence of
+them that sit at meat with thee."
+
+
+V.
+
+The sense of humor in Jesus is still further shown by his selection of
+characters for his parables and illustrations. How many of them are what
+we should call "odd sticks" to-day!
+
+Could any one devoid of humor, or opposed to its use, have described such
+odd or eccentric people as the fool who thought that sand was as good a
+foundation for his house as rock; or the drowsy friend roused at midnight
+to lend his neighbor bread and scolding furiously at the annoyance? Then
+we have the shepherd's coward hireling who ran away from his flock when he
+saw the wolf coming; the foolish rich man; the unscrupulous steward who
+provided for himself by cheating his master; the three fellows who made
+such puerile excuses for absenting themselves from the king's
+banquet,--one was interested in a real estate transaction, another was
+dealing in stock, while the third had just "married a wife." Perhaps the
+characterization of all these excuses as puerile, may be too sweeping.
+This last case may be an exception. Having just entered the holy estate of
+matrimony, any plans this man might have formed before that event were of
+course subject to revision. Let us not be too hard upon him. It may be
+that he rests under too heavy a load of censure. He may even be deserving
+of sympathy. He said--was there a suggestion of desperation in his
+words?--"I have married a wife and therefore I _can not_ come." The king
+ought very likely to have exempted this man from his wrath; for he seems
+to say, "I should like to come, but--!"
+
+Then there was the servant who, in his lord's absence, got above his
+business, assumed the master, became drunken in the company of roisterers,
+and beat his fellow-servants; but was at last put to shame by the sudden
+and unexpected arrival of his master. This servant was a veritable Jaques
+who, in the old play, assumed to be his master, the Duke, and who was
+likewise brought to grief by his master's return: "I must appear
+important; big as a country pedagogue when he enters the school-room with
+a-hem, and terrifies the apple-munching urchins with the creaking of his
+shoes. I'll swell like a shirt bleaching in a high wind; and look as
+burly as a Sunday beadle when he has kicked down the unhallowed stall of a
+profane old apple-woman. Bring my chair of state!"
+
+There are other characters, such as the shrewd laborer who, digging in a
+field, finds a hidden treasure and secreting it goes and buys the field;
+the unjust judge who finally, completely tired out, gives way in no very
+amiable mood to the widow's unceasing petitions for justice; the timid
+soul, who, fearing to use his talent, hid it in a napkin and buried it in
+the earth; the self-righteous Pharisee who recounts his good deeds before
+the Lord of the Temple and complacently congratulates himself that he is
+not as other men! "God, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men,
+extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice
+in the week; I give tithes of all that I get!" Mr. Pecksniff once
+more!--so satisfied with himself, "so radiant with ingenuous honesty that
+Mrs. Lupin almost wondered not to see a stained-glass glory, such as the
+saint wore in the church, shining about his head!"
+
+
+VI.
+
+In the introduction, reference was made to the words of Mr. Shorthouse
+which suggested this investigation. This seems a fitting place to present
+the only example in which Mr. Shorthouse has carried out his own
+suggestion,--the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
+
+"But is it trite that there is no humor in the gospels? 'What strokes of
+nature, if not of humor,' to use Mr. Addison's words again, may we find in
+the story, let us say, of the Prodigal Son? What, in the light of the
+modern conception of humor, will come out of this?
+
+Here, surely, there is no want of real life, of low life, even. Here is a
+wild young scamp, as like Tom Jones as heart could wish. Here is
+ingratitude, forgetfulness of parents, riotous living, taverns, harlots,
+what not? Then beggary, and feeding swine, and living upon husks. Then
+when evil living is found not to answer, penitence--like Tom Jones again.
+
+And 'when he was yet a great way off his father saw him,' along the stony
+road beneath the vine-clad hills. Who can tell how often the father's eyes
+had gazed longingly down the road since his son's figure, gay, reckless of
+the benefits just bestowed, accompanied by servants, eager for the
+pleasures of the world, had vanished from his sight? Now, at last, after
+so long waiting and looking, he sees in the far distance, a very different
+sight. He sees a solitary figure, worn and bent down, in rags, dragging on
+its weary steps; how could the old man's gaze expect such a sight as this?
+Nevertheless, his father knew him, 'and ran and fell on his neck.' He did
+not wait for any accents of repentance, nor did he enforce any moral
+precepts which might advantage posterity. 'He fell on his neck and kissed
+him.' Foolish old father!
+
+Tom Jones is brought in. He goes to the bath. The familiar feeling of
+luxury comes over him once more. He is clothed in fine linen, and has a
+gold ring placed on his finger, the past seems an evil dream. Then the
+fatted calf is killed. The banquet is spread and there is festivity,
+music, and dancing-girls.
+
+But suddenly, in the midst of his delight, some trouble passes over the
+old man's face; his eldest son is not in his place, and they bring him
+word that he is without and refuses to come in. Some perception of a
+neglected truth passes through the father's mind, and he rises and goes
+out. 'Therefore came his father out and entreated him.'
+
+The eldest son has been out all day working in the vineyards; all his life
+had been one long performance of duty, taken for granted, and therefore
+unpraised and unrecognized. In how many households will silent witness be
+borne that this is real life--the gentle and obedient service
+overlooked--nay, more than this, the cross word or hasty temper where
+there is no fear that it will be returned.
+
+'All these years have I served thee * * * and yet thou never gavest me a
+kid that I might make merry with my friends.' I am a man like others,
+gayety and feasting are pleasant to me, as to them.
+
+A look of perplexed, but growing insight comes into the father's face.
+'Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.'
+
+This is all very well, still he is conscious that there is something to be
+said for the eldest son, too. But his lost son--his wayward, and therefore
+loved son, is come again.
+
+'It is meet that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother
+was dead and is alive again.' We can see the pitiful, pleading look in the
+old man's eyes,--'thy brother was dead.'
+
+Yes, Addison must be right. Nature and humor cannot be far apart. The
+source and spring of humor is human life. Its charm consists, not merely
+in laughter or even in joy, but in the stirring of those sympathies and
+associations which exist invariably in the race; for we inherit a
+world-life and a religion, the earth-springs of whose realities lie,
+perchance, too deep for laughter, but not, Heaven be praised, too deep for
+tears."
+
+Surely the examples given suggest an eye for the humorous in him who saw
+and described them. These illustrations were, indeed, used to convey moral
+truths, but they show how wide was the acquaintance of Jesus with all
+sorts of characters, and how he loved to use such as were out of the
+ordinary; such as, to-day, we should at least call "peculiar." A
+recognition of this fact will help us better to appreciate and more
+thoroughly to enjoy those simple, yet wonderful parables, out of which the
+heavy hand of a severely literal criticism would crush all "touches of
+nature."
+
+
+
+
+V. PROVERBS AND EPIGRAMMATIC SAYINGS.
+
+
+"Proverbs, must not be passed over in our enumeration,--proverbs, the
+philosophy of the common people; short, pithy, homely sayings that embody
+the concentrated essence of the common people's wisdom. It has been
+difficult to give a perfect definition of a proverb, so crowded is it with
+the life of shrewdness and experience; yet so easy and negligent is it,
+and saucy as it were. Its characteristic excellences are shortness, sense
+and salt. It is the wit of one man, the wisdom of thousands."--_Macbeth._
+
+
+
+
+PROVERBS AND EPIGRAMMATIC SAYINGS.
+
+
+    "The proverbialists occupy themselves with life in all its aspects.
+    Sometimes they simply catch the expression of men, good or bad, or
+    photograph their actions or thoughts; more generally they pass a
+    verdict upon them and exhort or instruct men in regard to them. * * *
+    Some of the proverbs have a certain flavor of humor."--_Davidson._
+
+
+"The wise men of old," says Whipple, "have sent most of their morality
+down the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram: and the
+proverbs of nations which embody the common sense of nations, have the
+brisk concussion of the most sparkling wit. Almost every sensible remark
+on folly is a witty remark. Wit is thus often but the natural language of
+wisdom, viewing life with a piercing and passionless eye." The object of
+the present study is to consider those proverbs and other epigrammatic
+sayings which distinctly contain the element of wit in some form or other,
+and which are so liberally scattered over the pages of the Bible.
+
+
+I.--THE BOOK OF PROVERBS.
+
+In such an investigation, we naturally turn, first of all, to that great
+collection of proverbs, with which the name of Solomon has become
+identified. They do not, however, represent his genius alone, although we
+shall frequently use his name as representative of the whole class of
+philosophers. They are the productions of many wise men through many
+generations. They are, indeed, the outcome of the life of a whole people,
+put into definite shape by those who had insight sufficiently keen and
+power of expression sufficiently terse to formulate the lessons of human
+experience. "The wise men," says Canon Driver, "took for granted the main
+postulates of Israel's creed, and applied themselves rather to the
+observation of human nature as such, seeking to analyze character,
+studying action in its consequences, and establishing morality upon the
+basis of principles common to humanity at large. On account of their
+prevailing disregard of national points of view, and their tendency to
+characterize and estimate human nature under its most general aspects,
+they have been termed, not inappropriately, the _Humanists_ of Israel.
+Their teaching had a practical aim; not only do they formulate maxims of
+conduct, but they appear also as moral advisers, and as interested in the
+education of the young."
+
+The Book of Proverbs is a perfect mine of cunning and glittering
+sentences, many of which are witty as well as wise, and none the less wise
+because they are witty. There are swords that pierce the hidden motives of
+men, and whips that lacerate the backs of their open follies and sins.
+
+
+_1. The Fool._
+
+There is a personage, or more exactly, an assemblage of certain qualities,
+constantly held up to ridicule under the general title of _The Fool_.
+Ruskin says that "folly and sin are to some extent synonymous." The Fool
+in the Book of Proverbs is one who combines mental stupidity with moral
+obtuseness. He has a hard time of it at the hands of the proverbialists.
+"He that begetteth a fool doeth so to his sorrow; the father of a fool
+hath no joy."
+
+Foolish persons have always been noted for parading their folly, and
+sounding a trumpet to proclaim their lack of understanding. So Solomon
+says: "A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of
+his soul." "The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright; but the mouth
+of fools poureth out foolishness." "When he that is a fool walketh in the
+way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a
+fool,"--his scanty supply of sense is not enough to last him to the end of
+his journey. There is a modern proverb to the same effect: "He has not wit
+enough to last him over night." Everything the fool undertakes comes to
+grief. "He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the
+feet and drinketh damage." "The labor of the fool wearieth every one,
+because he knoweth not how to go to the city." "The simple believeth every
+word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going." "Let a bear robbed
+of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly." No discipline
+can be too severe for the fool. "Judgments are prepared for scorners and
+stripes for the back of fools." "A whip for the horse, a bridle for the
+ass, and a rod for the fool's back." But Solomon is not sanguine that the
+most rigorous course will produce extraordinary results. "A reproof
+entereth more into a wise man than a hundred stripes into a fool." "Wisdom
+is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the
+ends of the earth." "Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to
+get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?" One can almost see that
+picture--the fool wandering about the city with money in his hand,
+inquiring where a person in need of it might purchase a commodity of good
+common sense. "Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat
+with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." In many
+other proverbs is the fool gibbeted. "As snow in summer, and as rain in
+harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool." "The legs of the lame are not
+equal; so is a parable in the mouth of fools." "As he that bindeth a stone
+in a sling, making a dangerous weapon, so is he that giveth honor to a
+fool." "As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable
+in the mouth of fools." "It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than
+for a man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under
+a pot, so is the laughter of the fool." In one chapter Solomon describes a
+group of foolish persons. "For three things the earth is disquieted and
+for four which it can not bear; for a servant when he reigneth"--the
+modern instance is the "beggar on horseback,"--"and a fool when he is
+filled with meat; for an odious woman when she is married; and a handmaid
+that is heir to her mistress." These four characters "play such fantastic
+tricks before high heaven," that whether the "angels weep" or not, the
+earth groans and is "disquieted." And yet Solomon seems to have found a
+more grotesque and incorrigible character than the fool: "Seest thou a man
+wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him." The
+contempt of the proverbialists for the class of persons here described was
+quite as strong as that of Dr. Samuel Johnson. When some one hoped that
+the good doctor might meet in heaven a certain person whose conduct had
+aroused his ire, he retorted with some warmth, "Madam, I am not fond of
+meeting fools anywhere."
+
+
+_2. The Idler._
+
+How these writers love to castigate laziness! They toss the sluggard on
+all manner of sharp-pointed epigrams. "He that gathereth in summer is a
+wise son; he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame." "The
+way of a slothful man is as a hedge of thorns,"--he walks as slowly and
+painfully as if avoiding thorns on either hand. "As vinegar to the teeth
+and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him." "The
+slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting." "The sluggard
+will not plough by reason of the cold, therefore he shall beg in harvest
+and have nothing." "Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags." "He that
+tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread; but he that followeth vain
+persons"--those who teach him that there is any other way to success than
+honest industry,--"is void of understanding." "The slothful man says,
+There is a lion without; I shall be slain in the streets." "As the door
+turneth upon its hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed." "The slothful
+hideth his hand in his bosom; it grieveth him to bring it again to his
+mouth." Too lazy to eat! This is the very acme of indolence.
+
+
+_3. The Babbler._
+
+These wise men recommend, in pithy terms, the judicious control of the
+tongue. They commend the value of silence. "Whoso keepeth his mouth and
+his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles." "The beginning of strife is as
+when one letteth out water; therefore leave off contention before it be
+meddled with." "It is an honor to a man to cease from strife, but every
+fool will be meddling." "Even a fool when he holdeth his peace is
+accounted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of
+understanding." This is the same idea which we find, in more elaborate
+form, in Shakespeare:
+
+    "There are a sort of men, whose visages
+    Do cream and mantle like a standing pond;
+    And do a wilful stillness entertain,
+    With purpose to be drest in an opinion
+    Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
+    As who should say, 'I am Sir Oracle,
+    And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!'
+    Oh, my Antonio, I do know of these,
+    That therefore only _are reputed wise
+    For saying nothing_: Who, I am very sure,
+    If they should speak, would almost damn these ears,
+    Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools."
+
+In point of condensation, the wit of the proverb has the advantage.
+Coleridge relates an incident which illustrates that "even a fool when he
+holdeth his peace is accounted wise, and he that shutteth his lips is
+esteemed a man of understanding." He once saw, at a dinner table, "a
+dignified man with a face as wise as the moon's." The awful charm of his
+manner was not broken until the muffins appeared, and then the imp of
+gluttony forced from him the exclamation--"Them's the jockeys for me!"
+
+There is a passage concerning the tongue in the Book of James, full of
+sayings quite as terse and striking as any in the Book of Proverbs. "If
+any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to
+bridle the whole body." "The tongue is a little member and boasteth great
+things; behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth." "Every kind of
+beasts and birds and serpents is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind;
+but the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly
+poison. * * * Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. * * *
+Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?"
+
+This passage from James may be placed side by side with the familiar story
+of Æsop. His master, Xanthus, sent him to market to procure the best
+things it afforded. When the dinner hour arrived, Xanthus discovered that
+nothing but tongues had been provided. "What," he exclaimed in a rage,
+"did I not tell you to procure the best things the market afforded?" "And
+have I not obeyed your orders? Is there anything better than a tongue? Is
+it not the bond of civil society, the organ of truth and reason, the
+instrument of our praise and adoration of the gods?" The next day Æsop was
+directed to go to the market and purchase the worst things it afforded. He
+did so and again purchased nothing but tongues. "What!" cried Xanthus,
+"tongues again?" "Certainly; for the tongue is surely the worst thing in
+the world; it is the instrument of all strife and contention, the inventor
+of law-suits, and the source of all division and wars; it is the organ of
+errors, of lies, of calumnies, and blasphemies."
+
+"Therewith bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men who
+are made after the likeness of God; out of the same mouth cometh forth
+cursing and blessing."
+
+
+_4. The Scold._
+
+To return to the proverbs. Solomon had some unhappy domestic experiences,
+and such proverbs as these may have been the outcome: "As a jewel of gold
+in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion." "A continual
+dropping in a very rainy day, and a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever
+hideth her, hideth the wind." "It is better to dwell in the wilderness
+than with a contentious and angry woman." "Better is a dinner of herbs
+where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." "It is better to
+dwell in the corner of a house top than with a brawling woman in a large
+house."
+
+
+_5. The Power of Money._
+
+The proverbialists had been close observers of human nature, and of the
+ways of the world. "Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of a
+man are never satisfied." "A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh
+merry; but money answereth all things." "The rich ruleth over the poor,
+and the borrower is servant to the lender." These wise men had seen much
+to justify the sharp arrows they shot at those "who crook the pregnant
+hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning." "The poor is hated
+even of his own neighbor, but the rich hath many friends." "Many will
+entreat the favor of a prince, and every man is a friend to him that
+giveth gifts." "A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before
+great men." There is an incident in the second Book of Kings, that
+exemplifies, with touches of humor, the truth of these proverbs. "And the
+king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, (king of Israel,) for he had
+sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and _brought no present to the king
+of Assyria_, as he had done year by year." The king of Assyria is greatly
+shocked at this sign of disrespect. His feelings are outraged and wounded
+at receiving no present. It is suspicious, very suspicious! Let this
+Hoshea be looked to. The man who fails to bring the usual present is fit
+for "treasons, stratagems and spoils." There is no telling what evil he
+may be plotting. Surely there is "conspiracy in him." "Therefore, the king
+of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison." Solomon was right--"A
+man's gift bringeth him before great men," but the absence of it bringeth
+him into prison as a traitor!
+
+
+_6. Miscellaneous._
+
+Many other examples of wit and wisdom might be given. Let us add a few
+miscellaneous ones. Solomon advises against making long calls. Busy men
+would do well to hang this motto up in their offices: "Withdraw thy foot
+from thy neighbor's house, lest he weary of thee and so hate thee." In
+Solomon's wide and varied experiences, there had evidently been occasional
+encounters with "bores."
+
+It may sometimes be well to present a stern front to the slanderer: "The
+North wind driveth away rain, so doth an angry countenance a back-biting
+tongue."
+
+Excellent advice this for those who indorse other people's notes: "Be not
+one of them that strike hands, or one of them that are sureties for debts;
+if thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under
+thee?" "He that hateth suretyship is sure."
+
+There were those in that day, as well as in our own, who tried to beat
+down the price of an article by depreciating its quality: "It is naught,
+it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he hath gone his way, then he
+boasteth." Donald G. Mitchell, in his charming book, _My Farm at
+Edgewood_, has a chapter on "Dickering" which is, in effect, an
+elaboration of the proverb last quoted. "Sometime or other, if a man enter
+upon farm life--and it holds in almost every kind of life--there will come
+to him a necessity for bargaining. It is a part of the curse, I think,
+entailed upon mankind at the expulsion from Eden, that they should sweat
+at a bargain. * * * If I were to take the opinions of my excellent
+friends, the purchasers, for truth, I should be painfully conscious of
+having possessed the most mangy hogs, the most aged cows, the scrubbiest
+veal, and the most diseased and stunted growth of chestnuts and oaks with
+which a country-liver was ever afflicted. For a time, in the early period
+of my novitiate, I was not a little disturbed by these damaging
+statements; but have been relieved by learning on further experience that
+the urgence of such lively falsehoods is only an ingenious mercenary
+device for the sharpening of a bargain."
+
+
+II.--EPIGRAMMATIC SAYINGS FROM OTHER SOURCES.
+
+The epigrammatic sayings of the Bible are not confined, as we have already
+seen, to the Book of Proverbs. We find them elsewhere. Hosea says of
+idolaters, "They have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind."
+Micah declared of the mercenary prophets, "He that putteth not into their
+mouth, they even declare war against him." At the same time princes and
+judges are so corrupt, that "the best of them is as a briar; the most
+upright is sharper than a thorn hedge."
+
+Jeremiah charges against the people, "As a cage is full of birds, so are
+their houses of deceit." "Can the Ethiopian," he asks, "change his skin,
+or the leopard his spots?" and adds, "Then can ye also do right who are
+accustomed to do evil." This is equivalent to the proverb of another
+people: "Though you feed milk to a young snake, will it leave off its
+habit of creeping under the hedge?"
+
+"Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire?" asks Jeremiah;
+"yet my people have forgotten me days without number." "Yea, the stork in
+the heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and
+the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the
+judgment of the Lord." "As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them
+not; so he that getteth riches and not by right, shall leave them in the
+middle of his days, and at the end shall be a fool."
+
+Isaiah admonishes the people, "Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this
+broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and
+pierce it; so is Pharoah, king of Egypt, to all who trust in him,"--a
+saying which calls to mind the message Jesus sent to Herod, "Go, tell that
+fox." To those who trusted in the prowess of the Egyptians, Isaiah
+declares, "Now, the Egyptians are men and not God; and their horses are
+flesh and not spirit." He assures the people that the time will come when
+names shall be used with greater discrimination--"The vile person shall no
+more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful."
+
+Job says: "For vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild
+ass's colt." And it is Job who has given us the common expression, "I am
+escaped with the skin of my teeth."
+
+David says of the hypocrite:--"The words of his mouth were smoother than
+butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, but they
+were drawn swords." "Man that is in honor and understandeth not, is like
+the beasts which perish." "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no
+God." Of the wicked the psalmist exclaims: "Their poison is like the
+poison of a serpent; they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
+which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so
+wisely." Recalling an incident of Israel's journey through the wilderness,
+he gives his opinion of the transaction Aaron tried to disclaim: "They
+made a calf in Horeb and worshipped the molten image. Thus they changed
+their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass!" "Fools,
+because of their transgressions and because of their iniquities are
+afflicted." He says of those who gave him pain,--the "ploughers who
+ploughed upon his back and made long their furrows,"--"They shall be as
+the grass upon the house-tops which withereth before it groweth up;
+wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his
+bosom."
+
+Paul speaks of those "whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their
+shame;" and also of certain ones who "speak lies in hypocrisy, having
+their conscience seared with a red-hot iron." "Rulers," he says, "are not
+a terror to good works, but to evil." "If a man thinketh himself to be
+something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself."
+
+The Book of James has already been quoted in this chapter; but there is
+another passage of the proverbial or epigrammatic character that must not
+be omitted: "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your
+own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is
+like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth
+himself and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man
+he was." The Veman proverb is very like this: "Whatever he devoid of
+understanding may be reading, his virtue continues only so long as he is
+reading; even as a frog is dignified only so long as it is seated on a
+lotus leaf."
+
+One of the best examples of the kind of wit we are now discussing is found
+in the account of King Asa's sickness and death. The writer of the Book of
+Chronicles says: "Yet in his disease he sought not unto the Lord, but to
+the Physicians;" and then adds with imperturbable gravity, "And Asa slept
+with his fathers." Referring to this passage, Professor Matthews
+says:--"It looks like a sarcasm on the medical practitioners of
+Palestine." There is something similar to this in Ecclesiastes: "Wisdom is
+good--with an inheritance," an ancient instance of "the old flag--and an
+appropriation."
+
+
+III.--THE SAYINGS OF JESUS.
+
+To this chapter belong many of the sayings of Jesus. He spoke in proverbs
+as well as in parables.
+
+"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a
+rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
+
+"Many are called, but few are chosen."
+
+"The first shall be last, and the last first."
+
+"A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and among his
+friends."
+
+"He that humbleth himself shall be exalted; he that exalteth himself shall
+be abased."
+
+"Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves."
+
+"Physician, heal thyself."
+
+"Ye are the light of the world; a city that is set on an hill can not be
+hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a
+candlestick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house."
+
+"Let the dead bury their dead."
+
+"No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the
+kingdom of God."
+
+"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but
+considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" There are several
+proverbs in other literatures very like this. The Russian:--"A pig came up
+to a horse and said, Your feet are crooked, and your hair is worth
+nothing." The Bengal:--"The sieve said to the needle, You have a hole in
+your tail." The Chinese:--"Let every one sweep the snow before his own
+door, and not busy himself with the frost on his neighbor's tiles."
+
+"Ye can not serve God and Mammon."
+
+"A house divided against itself can not stand."
+
+"Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but
+inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know, them by their fruits. Do
+men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?"
+
+"For unto every one that hath to him shall be given and he shall have
+abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which
+he hath."
+
+"Wheresoever the carcass is, there are the vultures gathered together."
+
+"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls
+before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn again and rend
+you." Similar proverbs may be gathered from other sources. The Persian
+says, "It is folly to give comfits to a cow;" the Veman, "Though you
+anoint an ass all over with perfumes, it feels not your fondness, but
+will turn again and kick you;" the Telugu asks, "What can a pig do with a
+rose-bottle?" the Tamul says, "Like reading a portion of the Veda to a cow
+about to gore you;" and again, "Though religious instruction be whispered
+into the ear of an ass, nothing will come of it but the accustomed
+braying."
+
+"They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Such
+sayings of Jesus are true proverbs and instances of genuine wit.
+
+Archbishop Trench says, "Any one who by after investigation, has sought to
+discover how much our rustic hearers carry away even from sermons to which
+they have attentively listened, will find it is hardly ever the course or
+tenor of the argument, supposing the discourse to have contained such; but
+if anything is uttered, as it used so often to be by the best Puritan
+preachers, tersely, pointedly and epigrammatically, this will have stayed
+by them while all the rest has passed away. Great preachers to the people,
+such as have ever found their way to the universal heart of their
+fellows, have ever been great employers of proverbs." This principle helps
+to explain why, in the case of Jesus, "the common people heard him
+gladly."
+
+
+
+
+VI. REPARTEE.
+
+
+"He that can define, he that can answer a question so as to admit of no
+further answer, is the best man. Jesus spent his life conversing with
+humble people on life and duty, in giving wise answers, showing that he
+saw at a larger angle of vision, and at least silencing those who were not
+generous enough to accept his thoughts."--_Emerson._
+
+
+
+
+REPARTEE.
+
+    "And no one was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from
+    that day forth ask him any more questions."--_Matthew._
+
+
+The present chapter brings us to the subject of Repartee. Of this form of
+wit, Professor Matthews says, "Nothing is more admirable, nothing more
+quickly enlists our sympathies, than this perfect command and quick,
+instantaneous concentration of the faculties, when a man is taken at a
+disadvantage and has to repel an insinuation or an insult at a moment's
+warning. That felicity of instantaneous analysis which we call readiness,
+has saved thousands of men from mortification or contempt. The dextrous
+leap of thought by which the mind escapes from a seemingly hopeless
+dilemma is worth more than all the logic and learning of the world." "The
+impromptu reply," says Moliere, "is precisely the touchstone of wit."
+
+The pages of the Bible are sometimes enlivened by sharp repartees. The men
+of old time, the men of the Hebrew nation, understood the power of the
+quick and flashing answer, as well as more modern generations. Johnson and
+Foote and Sheridan might have found it by no means easy to hold their own
+in Judea. It is very likely that their powers would have been put to the
+severest test.
+
+
+I.
+
+Turning to the pages of the old Testament, we find many striking examples.
+
+Ben-hadad sends word to the king of Israel, threatening to destroy his
+army. The king of Israel replies, "Tell him, Let not him that girdeth on
+his harness, boast himself as he that putteth it off."
+
+Amaziah desired war with Jehoash. He sends to him saying, "Come, let us
+look one another in the face." Jehoash simply responds to the presumptuous
+challenge, "The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in
+Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife. And there passed by
+a wild beast that was in Lebanon and trod down the thistle."
+
+Job retorts upon Zophar, after a wearisome recital of dreary commonplaces
+intended for comfort, "No doubt but ye are _the_ people, and wisdom will
+die with you. But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior
+to you; yea, who knoweth not such things as these?" To the speech
+introduced by these words, Eliphaz sharply replies, "Art thou the first
+man that was born? or wast thou made before the hills? Hast thou heard the
+secret of God, and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? What knowest thou
+that we know not? What understandest thou which is not in us? With us are
+both the gray-headed and very aged men, much elder than thy father." Upon
+this latter sentiment Elihu expresses himself when he finds opportunity to
+put in a word; "Great men are not always wise, neither do the aged
+understand judgment."
+
+Indeed the Book of Job abounds in sharp speeches and replies as cutting as
+the speeches they answer. The sufferer obstinately refuses to accept
+their theory of his affliction or to adopt the remedies his friends
+propose. "Ye are forgers of lies," he exclaims, "ye are physicians of no
+value. O that ye would altogether hold your peace, and it should be your
+wisdom." In response to this appeal, Eliphaz becoming piqued proceeds to
+administer consolation with the lash: "Shall a wise man utter vain
+knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind? Should he reason with
+unprofitable talk or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?" "I have
+heard many such things," cries the wretched Job, "miserable comforters are
+ye all. If your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words
+against you, and shake mine head at you; but I would strengthen you with
+my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief."
+
+There were some word-battles between Sanballat and Nehemiah while the
+latter was trying to build the walls of Jerusalem, and the former was
+doing his best to hinder the enterprise. "Come," says Sanballat, "let us
+meet together in one of the villages in the plain of Ono,"--let us be
+friendly, let us have a pleasant visit together,--"but he thought to do me
+mischief." The crafty Sanballat did not take the builder of Jerusalem
+napping. Nehemiah replies, "I am doing a great work so that I can not come
+down; why should the work cease whilst I leave it to come down to you?"
+Are your wishes of such mighty importance, O Sanballat that I should leave
+the Lord's work? Must the building cease that I may gratify your whim? Go
+to, Sanballat, go to; I can not come down. My work is great and noble;
+thou art a trifler and hypocrite! In precisely this vein was Spurgeon's
+reply to the pious bore who sent up word, "Tell him a servant of the Lord
+wishes to see him." It was Saturday afternoon, and Spurgeon replied, "Tell
+him I am busy with his Master!"
+
+Sanballat will have at him again: "It is reported among the heathen, and
+Gashmu said it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel; for which cause
+thou buildest the wall that thou mayest be their king, according to these
+words. And thou hast appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem,
+saying, There is a king in Judah; and now shall it be reported to the king
+according to these words. Come now, therefore, and let us take counsel
+together." To this tissue of falsehoods manufactured by the mendacious
+Gashmu, Nehemiah flashes back with indignation, "There are no such things
+as thou sayest, but thou feignest it out of thine own heart." Nehemiah
+comes very near giving what Touchstone would call the "lie direct," and he
+gives it without the qualifying "If."
+
+Robert Collyer has the following comment upon Gashmu, who was quoted by
+Sanballat as authority for the charge that Nehemiah was going to set up
+for a king: "This only, this one thing is left: A good man was doing a
+good work with all his might, and bad men tried to hinder him. They tried
+to hurt his person. Gashmu was above that. He was none of your common
+rowdies. Sanballat and Tobiah might do that, but not Gashmu; yet Gashmu
+will sit there and nurse his dislike, and be glad to hear the petty
+stories that float like thistledown through the neighborhood against the
+innocent man; words are twisted and turned to meanings Nehemiah never
+thought of, and Gashmu hopes they are true; he wishes they were true; the
+wish is father to the thought, and he believes them. * * * So Gashmu has
+permitted his prejudices to grow into a lie. Gashmu is to live thousands
+of years for one purely false assertion, and to be the representative man
+of unprincipled gossips and narrow bigots as long as the world stands."
+
+Another illustration. When the woman, in time of famine, appealed to the
+King of Israel as he passed by, "Help, my lord, O King," he turned upon
+her with the somewhat grim rejoinder, "If the Lord do not help thee,
+whence shall I help thee?" Her case was hopeless, if the Lord could do
+nothing.
+
+Although the resemblance is not very strong, this incident suggests a
+story of Michael Angelo. It calls to mind the way in which he took revenge
+upon Biagio di Cesena. This courtier ventured to criticise his Last
+Judgment. With a swift stroke he turned the Minos of the fresco into a
+likeness of his critic. Biagio complained to the Pope. "Where has he
+placed you?" inquired the Pontiff. "In Hell," said Biagio. "I am sorry,"
+replied the Pope; "If it had been in Purgatory, something might have been
+done, but in Hell I have no jurisdiction."
+
+
+II.
+
+Examples of prompt and keen retort are not confined to the Old Testament.
+When we turn to the New Testament, we find additional illustrations.
+
+When Paul was making his defence before the Council, he said, "Men and
+brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day."
+This declaration of innocence offended the High Priest Ananias, and he
+commanded those who stood by, to smite the speaker on the mouth. This
+raised the indignation of Paul, and with the swiftness of an arrow he
+transfixed the Priest, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall; for
+sittest thou to judge me after the law and commandest me to be smitten
+contrary to the law?" This was understood as a bolt of invective by those
+who heard it, for they asked in alarm, "Revilest thou God's High Priest?"
+The answer of Paul was a still more subtle sarcasm: "_I wist not,
+brethren, that he was the High Priest_." There was nothing in the conduct
+of the man to betoken the dignity of his office. God's High Priest must
+surely be fair and impartial. God's High Priest would never counsel
+violence. The mistake, Paul would imply, was perfectly natural and
+excusable.
+
+There is a story of John Randolph not unlike this. Indeed, the sarcasm is
+the same in spirit and purpose. Paul admitted that "one must not revile
+God's High Priest," but _he did not perceive that the High Priest was
+present_. The coarse, loud, ill-tempered person who commanded to smite him
+on the mouth could not be High Priest! The following was the occasion of
+Randolph's sarcasm: During the winter of 1834 a member of the House, to
+whom he was much attached, died. His place was taken by a young man, vain
+and ambitious, who began his career by making a bitter attack on Mr.
+Randolph. No reply was made by the latter. Several days passed, when a
+question came up in which he was deeply interested, and he delivered a
+very earnest and impressive speech. As he closed, he said, "I should not,
+Mr. Speaker, have returned to press this matter with so much earnestness,
+had not my views possessed the sanction and concurrence of my late
+departed friend, _whose seat, I lament, is now unhappily vacant_."
+
+How skillfully, in the story of the young man who had been healed of his
+blindness, does the subject of the cure parry the thrusts of the synagogue
+authorities! "Give God the praise," they exhort, "we know that this man is
+a sinner!" "Whether he be a sinner or no," says the young man, "I can not
+tell; one thing I know that whereas I was blind, now I see." Thus
+repulsed, they begin again. "What did he to thee? How opened he thine
+eyes?" He replies, "I have told you already, and ye did not hear;
+wherefore would ye hear it again? Will ye also be his disciples?" Stung to
+the quick, they revile him, "Thou art his disciple, but we are Moses'
+disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses, but as for this fellow we
+know not from whence he is!" Thoroughly aroused, the young man sends home
+to them a final thrust: "Why herein is a marvelous thing that ye know not
+from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes? Now we know that God
+heareth not sinners; but if any man be a worshipper of God and doeth his
+will, him he heareth. Since the world began, was it not heard that any man
+opened the eyes of one born blind. If this man were not of God, he could
+do nothing!" Abuse and excision alone remain to the rulers of the
+synagogue. "Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?"
+And they cast him out. Excommunication is the sole answer of priest-craft
+and bigotry to reason.
+
+
+III.
+
+To many readers it may seem impious to say that under the head of Repartee
+we must classify many of those words of Jesus with which he cuts through
+the sophistry of opponents and disentangles himself from the webs that are
+woven about him. Let it be remembered, however, that we are dealing with
+his utterances simply as literature; with their religious significance, we
+are not now concerned. We are discussing the sayings of Jesus as we would
+the sayings of Johnson or Goldsmith.
+
+One of the most striking instances is found in the controversy over
+exorcism. When the scribes who came down from Jerusalem charged, "He hath
+Beelzebub and by the prince of the devils casts he out devils," he quickly
+reduced the accusation to an absurdity: "How can Satan cast out Satan? If
+he rise up against himself and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an
+end." He goes further--"If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your
+children cast them out?"
+
+There was one occasion, however, when Jesus himself seems to have been
+vanquished by a swift rejoinder. When the Syro-Phenician woman came to him
+in behalf of her daughter, in order to test her faith he said,--"Let the
+children first be filled, for it is not meet to take the children's bread
+and to cast it unto the dogs." "Yes, Lord," she answered, "yet the dogs
+under the table eat of the children's crumbs." These words came from a
+bright intellect as well as from a trusting heart. Jesus appreciated the
+keenness of the reply no less than the confidence it expressed. "_For this
+saying_ go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter." "For once,"
+says Macbeth, "Jesus was refuted and that by his own figure; and he wished
+to be refuted."
+
+How we enjoy such a dilemma as the one in which he placed the chief
+priests and the scribes and the elders! They asked him, "By what authority
+doest thou these things? And who gave thee authority to do these things?"
+"I will also ask of you one question," says Jesus, "and answer me, and I
+will tell you by what authority I do these things--the baptism of John,
+was it from heaven, or of men? answer me." "And they reasoned with
+themselves, saying, If we shall say from heaven, he will say, Why then did
+ye not believe him? But if we shall say of men,--they feared the people;
+for all men counted John that he was a prophet, indeed. And they answered
+and said unto Jesus, We can not tell." "And Jesus answered and said unto
+them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things."
+
+Another time "came to Jesus Scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem,
+saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the Elders? for
+they wash not their hands when they eat bread?" How quick and effective
+the reply: "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your
+tradition?" Nothing could be said in response. The question was absolutely
+closed. The disciples violate your tradition? Very good; but what does
+your tradition violate? Can we not see his opponents, falling back beaten,
+knitting their brows, taking counsel together, planning some overwhelming
+defeat for this impudent young heretic? What Thersites said of Ajax would
+well apply to them: "He bites his lips with a politic regard, as who
+should say, There were wit in this head an' 'twould out; and so there is,
+but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show
+without knocking."
+
+When the woman poured the spikenard on the head of Jesus, Judas, the
+virtuous Judas, forsooth! made objection. "Why was not this ointment sold
+for three hundred pence _and given to the poor_?" Why not, indeed,--for
+Judas is custodian of the poor fund. "Judas," returns his Master,--and
+there was pathos as well as rebuke in the words,--"Judas, the poor ye have
+with you always, and whenever ye will, ye may do them good." This was the
+first time Judas had ever manifested any solicitude for the poor. "But me,
+ye have not always." Judas was silenced; but he began to brood revenge.
+Soon he stole out and went to the chief priests. He had not secured the
+price of the spikenard, but he would indemnify himself by selling his
+Master!
+
+With what relish do we read the trenchant replies of Jesus to the Scribes
+and Pharisees and Herodians who had leagued to "entangle him in his talk."
+Easily as Samson broke the green withes, did he break the verbal fetters
+they forged. "In the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in
+marriage!" "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God
+the things that are God's." What can be more admirable viewed simply as
+repartee,--as illustrations of the "dexterous leap of thought by which the
+mind escapes from a seemingly hopeless dilemma?" If one were to read such
+fragments of Gospel history for the first time, without the idea that he
+must attach a solemn and awful meaning to every word, how would he delight
+in these intellectual contests and hail the genius of the victor!
+
+After the besiegers, in the preceding incident, had exhausted their
+fruitless ingenuity, Jesus turns upon them with the question, "What think
+ye of Christ? Whose Son is he?" "The Son of David," they feebly mutter.
+"How then doth David call him Lord? If David call him Lord, how is he his
+son?" That ended the controversy. The combined forces of theology and
+politics retired in confusion, evidently looking, as Dickens said of the
+portraits of the Dedlock family, "as if they did not know what to make of
+it." They had lost the battle. One can imagine the evangelist who
+afterwards wrote the account, almost chuckling with inward satisfaction,
+as he recalled the scene and recorded the result: "And no man was able to
+answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day ask him any more
+questions."
+
+
+
+
+VII. Wit and Logic.
+
+
+"Who would say that truth ought to stand disarmed against falsehood, or
+that the enemies of the faith shall be at liberty to frighten the faithful
+with hard words or jeer at them with lively sallies of wit, while the
+Christians ought never to write except with a coldness of style enough to
+set the reader asleep?"--_Augustine._
+
+
+
+
+WIT AND LOGIC.
+
+
+    "I was not gone far before I heard the sound of trumpets and alarms,
+    which seemed to proclaim the march of an Enemy; and as I afterwards
+    found was in reality what I apprehended it. There appeared at a great
+    distance a very shining light, and in the midst of it a person of most
+    beautiful aspect; her name was _Truth_. On her right hand, there
+    marched a male deity, who bore several quivers on his shoulders, and
+    grasped several arrows in his hand. His name was Wit."--_Addison._
+
+
+In her essay on Heine, George Eliot writes: "Every one who has had the
+opportunity of making the comparison, will remember that the effect
+produced on him by some witticisms is closely akin to the effect produced
+on him by subtle reasoning which lays open a fallacy or absurdity; and
+there are persons whose delight in such reasoning always manifests itself
+in laughter. This affinity of wit with ratiocination is the more obvious
+in proportion as the species of wit is higher and deals less with words
+and with superficialities than with the essential qualities of things.
+Some of Dr. Johnson's most admirable witticisms consist in the suggestion
+of an analogy which immediately exposes the absurdity of an action or
+proposition; and it is only their ingenuity, condensation and
+instantaneousness which lift them from reasoning into wit." The opinion of
+George Eliot has been shared by others. Pitt declared that "all wit is
+true reasoning," and Rogers says that "wit is truth." A French writer has
+observed that "reason needs to be armed with the terrible epigram." And
+even solemn John Milton writes of Plato's dialogues, "There is scarce one
+of them, especially wherein some notable sophister lies sweating and
+turmoiling under the inevitable and merciless dilemmas of Socrates, but he
+that reads, were it Saturn himself, would be robbed of more than a smile."
+
+There are in literature abundant examples of the condensed logic of
+wit,--the logic that exposes a fallacy, answers an objection and
+demolishes an argument, without resorting to major and minor premise and
+formal conclusion. One or two of these may pave the way to the main
+purpose of this chapter. "Where was your Protestant Church before Luther?"
+asked a Catholic of Wilkes. "Did you wash your face this morning?" said
+Wilkes. "I did, sir." "Where was your face before you washed it?" The
+logic of wit as employed by Dr. Johnson, is referred to by George Eliot.
+On one occasion it was debated whether a clergyman who had five years
+before been guilty of some grave sin should be reinstated. Johnson
+inquired whether the man had repented. It was admitted that he had.
+"Then," said Johnson, "if he has repented, is he not good enough to go to
+heaven?" "Certainly." "Why, sir, then there is no objection. A man who is
+good enough to go to heaven is good enough to be a clergyman." Johnson
+denounced Lord Bolingbroke in the following immortal analogy: "Sir, he was
+a scoundrel and a coward; a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against
+religion and morality, a coward because he had not resolution enough to
+fire it off himself, but left half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw
+the trigger after his death."
+
+A certain clergyman who had been addicted to bawling and roaring in the
+pulpit said, "I once thought it was the thunder that killed, and know now
+that it is the lightning that does the execution. I mean to thunder less
+and lighten more." Sir Thomas Overbury punctures certain pretensions thus:
+"The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors,
+is like a potato--the only good belonging to him is underground."
+Thompson, of the _Westminster Review_, defended the Radicals against the
+attacks of the Whigs in this manner: "Noah was a Radical when, hearing the
+world was to be drowned, he went about such a commonsense proceeding as
+making for himself a ship to swim in. An antediluvian Whig would have laid
+together half-a-dozen sticks for an ark and called it a 'virtual
+representation.'"
+
+The principle that underlies these instances is obvious. The form may vary
+but in every case there is an analogy that serves all the purposes of
+formal logic,--"an analogy which immediately exposes the absurdity of an
+action or proposition." The writers of the Bible understood and employed
+the same principle.
+
+
+I.
+
+One of the best examples of its use is found in Nathan's parable. He goes
+to David and tells him: "There were two men in our city; the one rich, the
+other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds; but the poor
+man had nothing save one little ewe lamb, which he had brought and
+nourished up; and it grew up together with him and with his children; and
+it did eat of his own meat and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom,
+and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich
+man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd to dress
+it for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's
+lamb and dressed it for the man that was come unto him." Such an action is
+so atrocious that it kindles David's wrath. He little suspects the purpose
+of the wily prophet. "As the Lord liveth," he cries, "the man that hath
+done this thing shall surely die! And he shall restore the lamb four-fold
+because he did this thing, and because he had no pity." Beware, David,
+beware! This Nestor-prophet, this Nathan of the subtle wit and keen-edged
+tongue hath digged a pit for thee and thou hast fallen into it. Swiftly
+the prophet smites the bewildered king with the conclusion, "_Thou art the
+man!_" Could a volume of reasoning have so impressed David with the
+enormity of his crime as this simple "analogy" of Nathan?
+
+A similar instance is found in the first book of Kings. Ahab the king of
+Israel had allowed the Syrian general, Ben-hadad, to escape. One of the
+prophets, determined to rebuke him, disguised himself and sat by the
+wayside, waiting until the king should pass by. "And as the king passed
+by, he cried unto the king and said: Thy servant went out into the midst
+of the battle, and behold a man turned aside and brought a man unto me and
+said, Keep this man; if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be
+for his life or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy
+servant was busy here and there he was gone." Ahab does not suspect the
+snare of the prophet. What would my lord, the king, decide? Shall thy
+servant pay the forfeit? "And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall
+thy judgment be; thyself hath decided it." And he made haste, removed his
+disguise, and said to the king: "Thus saith the Lord: _Because thou hast
+let go out of thine hand a man whom I had appointed to utter destruction,
+therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people_."
+Ahab has judged himself. No wonder he was vexed. "And the king of Israel
+went to the house heavy and displeased." Nothing so disconcerts one as the
+recoil of his own logic.
+
+Let us place side by side with these illustrations one or two pieces of
+the same kind of reasoning from Shakespeare. The Court Fool endeavors to
+show Lear his own pitiful lack of wisdom in giving away his kingdom to his
+daughters:--
+
+    "FOOL.--Nuncle, give me an egg, and I'll give thee two crowns.
+
+    "LEAR.--What two crowns shall they be?
+
+    "FOOL.--Why, after I have clove the egg i' the middle and eat up the
+    meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i' the
+    middle and gavest away both parts, thou borest thine ass on thy back
+    o'er the dirt; thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou
+    gavest thy golden one away."
+
+Upon another occasion the following dialogue occurs:--
+
+    "FOOL.--Canst thou tell how an oyster makes his shell?
+
+    "LEAR.--No.
+
+    "FOOL.--Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.
+
+    "LEAR.--Why?
+
+    "FOOL.--Why to put his head in; not to give it away to his daughters
+    and leave his horns without a case."
+
+Lear is so stung with the sense of his folly by these "analogies" of his
+jester that he exclaims in rage and bitterness, "I shall forget my
+nature!" It is the argument of Nathan, "Thou art the man."
+
+Upon the same principle, but in a different way, the Psalmist reasons with
+those who "slay the widow and the stranger and murder the fatherless," and
+who say, "The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard
+it." Thus he argues: "Understand, ye brutish among the people; and ye
+fools, when will ye be wise? _He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?
+he that formed the eye, shall he not see?_"
+
+Under this head must we also place the judgment of Solomon, when the two
+women came before him, each claiming the living child. "Then said the
+king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth and thy son is dead; and
+the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead and mine is the living one.
+And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the
+king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two and give half to
+one and half to the other. Then spoke the woman whose the living child was
+unto the king, for her heart yearned upon her son, and she said, O my
+Lord, give her the living child and in no wise slay it. But the other
+said, Let it be neither thine nor mine, but divide it. Then the king
+answered and said, Give her (the first) the living child, and in no wise
+slay it; she is the mother thereof." Solomon had to use a sharp argument,
+but he settled the controversy.
+
+
+II.
+
+The "suggestion of an analogy that immediately exposes the absurdity of an
+action or proposition," was the favorite method of argument with Jesus.
+
+He spun no metaphysical cobwebs, he used no long chains of linked
+propositions; it is no irreverence to say that his quick wit was his main
+reliance. In a sentence or two, with a simple, homely figure, he reduced
+to an absurdity the conduct he censured and the proposition he opposed.
+
+On one occasion he was asked, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?"
+"What man shall there be among you," he answered, "that shall have one
+sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold
+on it and bring it out? _How much more, then, is a man better than a
+sheep?_ Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day."
+
+At another time the same subject came up. Because Jesus had healed on the
+Sabbath day, the ruler of the synagogue was filled with indignation and
+made a very grotesque spectacle of himself. He stormed, scolded, and
+roared to the people, "There are six days in which men ought to work; in
+them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day." Jesus
+answered: "Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose
+his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away to watering? And ought
+not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo,
+these eighteen years, _be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day_?" The
+indignant ruler had to smother his wrath. "And when he (Jesus) had said
+these things, all his adversaries were ashamed." The people enjoyed their
+confusion, and evidently applauded the sharp-witted young prophet who had
+silenced the fault-finding tongues of the rulers. "All the people rejoiced
+for the glorious things that were done by him!"
+
+The Scribes and Pharisees were once murmuring and complaining that he
+mingled with publicans and sinners, and even condescended to eat with
+them. "And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a
+physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but
+sinners to repentance!"
+
+When the Pharisees and Sadducees desired that he would show them a sign
+from heaven, he answered and said unto them, "When it is evening, ye say
+that it will be fair weather for the sky is red. And in the morning, It
+will be foul weather to-day; for the sky is red and lowering. O, ye
+hypocrites, _ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern
+the signs of the times?_" He uses essentially the same argument for a
+similar request: "When ye see a cloud rise out of the West, straightway ye
+say, There cometh a shower, and so it is. And when ye see the South wind
+blow, ye say, There will be heat, and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites,
+_ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that
+ye do not discern this time?_" Says Geike, "With biting irony, he turned
+on them in a few brief, incisive sentences. * * * An evil and adulterous
+generation seeks after a sign of the approach of the Kingdom of God, while
+it is blind to the signs around that the Messiah must come, if the nation
+is not to perish."
+
+In a similar manner he shows how ridiculous are the doubts of those who
+fear that God will not answer prayer. "If a son ask bread of any of you
+that is a father, will ye give him a stone?" How this must have arrested
+the attention of his auditors; how they began to listen, curious to know
+what was coming next. "Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a
+serpent?" Now they exchange glances as much as to say, "No, no; surely we
+would not do that!" But only for a moment. The expectant faces are again
+turned upon the Great Teacher. "Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer
+him a scorpion?" "No, no!" and now they are eager for the conclusion: "_If
+ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how
+much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask
+him?_" It is the climax of absurdity for you to think that you are better
+than God, and will do more for your children than the Great Father will do
+for his children!
+
+The disciples of Jesus came to tell him that the Pharisees are offended at
+some of his sayings. His only reply is, "Let them alone; they be blind
+leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall
+into the ditch."
+
+When he charges the Pharisees with tithing mint, anise, and cummin, while
+neglecting judgment, mercy and faith, he stamps their conduct with an
+"analogy" that makes them ludicrous forever, "Ye blind guides _which
+strain out a gnat and swallow a camel_."
+
+At dinner, he was rebuked by his host for permitting a penitent woman to
+wash his feet with her tears and wipe them with the hairs of her head.
+"Simon," calmly returned the guest, "I have somewhat to say to thee."
+"Master, Say on." Jesus then proceeds to impale him upon the following
+question: "There was a certain creditor which had two debtors; the one
+owed him five hundred pence, the other fifty. And when they had nothing to
+pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will
+love him most?" Simon understands whither the question tends, and slowly
+and reluctantly comes his answer: "I--suppose--that--he--to--whom--he--
+forgave most." "Thou hast rightly judged." Yes, Simon, but thou hast
+condemned thyself and justified the woman.
+
+The story of the vineyard and its application are similar to Nathan's
+parable. "There was a certain householder which planted a vineyard, and
+hedged it round about and digged a wine-press in it, and built a tower,
+and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. And when the
+time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that
+they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants,
+and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other
+servants, more than the first; and they did unto them likewise. But last
+of all, he sent unto them his Son; saying, They will reverence my Son. But
+when the husbandmen saw the Son, they said among themselves, This is the
+heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on the inheritance. And they
+caught him and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him."
+
+This is the story. Jesus turns to the Pharisees: "When the Lord,
+therefore, of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto these husbandmen?"
+Priests and Pharisees are moved with indignation. This is horrible; it
+almost exceeds belief. Those husbandmen were monsters of ingratitude and
+wickedness! The Pharisees answer: "He will miserably destroy those wicked
+men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall
+render him the fruits in their seasons."
+
+Fatal answer for you, O Scribes and Pharisees! "Therefore I say unto you,
+_the Kingdom of God shall be taken from_ YOU, and given to a nation
+bringing forth the fruits thereof." There is a touch of humor in Matthew's
+description of the manner in which the real object of this story dawned
+upon the minds of the hearers. "And when the Pharisees had heard his
+parable, _they perceived that he spake of them_." Are we not irresistibly
+reminded of Falstaff, when the fairies in the forest turned out to be
+flesh and blood, "I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass?" Do we not
+feel about many of these condensed arguments of Jesus, as Milton did
+about the "sophist sweating and turmoiling under the inevitable and
+merciless dilemmas of Socrates," that "he who reads, were it Saturn
+himself, would be robbed of more than a smile?"
+
+Let us add by way of comparison, a passage from the Athenian Master. Here
+is a fragment of dialogue upon the enslaving power of money.
+
+"Come, now, and let us reason with the unjust who is not intentionally in
+error. 'Sweet sir,' we will say to him, 'what think you of things esteemed
+noble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the
+man, or rather to the god in man? and the ignoble that which subjects the
+man to the beast?' He can hardly avoid saying Yes,--can he now?"
+
+"Not if he has any regard for my opinion."
+
+"But if he admit this, we may ask him another question,--How would a man
+profit if he received gold and silver on condition that he was to enslave
+the noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold
+his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them
+into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large
+might be the sum which he received? And will any one say that he is not a
+miserable caitiff who sells his own divine being to that which is most
+atheistical and detestable, and has no pity?"
+
+This selection will enable us to see that the method commonly used by
+Socrates was essentially the method that Jesus so frequently employed.
+
+
+III.
+
+When we pass on to other portions of the New Testament, we find examples
+of the same kind of reasoning in James and Paul.
+
+Most admirably does James show the futility of faith without works. "What
+shall it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and hath not
+works? Can faith save him? If a brother and sister be naked and destitute
+of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed
+and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are
+needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not
+works, is dead, being alone."
+
+The class of people referred to by James are aptly described by Fielding
+in the character of Peter Pounce. "Sir," said Adams, "my definition of
+charity is a generous disposition to relieve the distressed." "There is
+something in that definition," answered Peter, "which I like well enough;
+it is, as you say, a disposition to do it, and does not so much consist in
+the act as in the disposition to do it. But, alas! Mr. Adams, who are
+meant by the distressed? Believe me, the distresses of mankind are mostly
+imaginary, and it would be rather folly than goodness to relieve them."
+"Sure, sir," replied Adams, "hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, and
+other distresses which attend the poor, can never be said to be imaginary
+evils." "How can any man complain of hunger," said Peter, "in a country
+where such excellent salads are to be gathered in almost every field? or
+of thirst, where every river and stream produce such delicious potations?
+And as for cold and nakedness, they are evils introduced by luxury and
+custom. A man naturally wants clothes no more than a horse or any other
+animal; and there are whole nations who go without them." Peter Pounce
+would have said to the "brother or sister naked and destitute of daily
+food," "_Depart in peace; be ye warmed and filled._"
+
+The declaration of James that "faith without works is dead," is
+illustrated in the sayings of others also:
+
+    "Sweet words, empty hands."--_Telugu._
+
+    "Kindness, but no milk."--_Urdu._
+
+    "Though they are brothers, their pockets are not sisters."--_Turk._
+
+    "It is not by saying Honey, Honey, that sweetness comes into the
+    mouth."--_Ib._
+
+    "His words leap over forts, his feet do not cross the
+    threshold."--_Telugu._
+
+    "If you do not ask me for food and raiment, I will care for you as my
+    own child."--_Ib._
+
+Equally admirable is that comparison of Paul in which he likens the Church
+to the human body and shows the folly of jealousy and schism: "If the foot
+shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it
+therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the
+hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?"
+
+Very pleasantly, but very effectually, does he remind those who professed
+to "speak with tongues" a sort of supernatural language, in the early
+Christian assemblies, that it was "better to speak five words with the
+understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." An
+illustration serves his purpose. "Even things without life, giving sound,
+whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in sound, how shall
+it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain
+sound, who shall prepare himself for battle? So likewise ye, except ye
+utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known
+what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air."
+
+Paul maintains the right of those who establish and teach churches, to be
+supported by those churches. It was a right upon which he did not always
+insist in his own case; but he fought for it as a great principle. "Mine
+answer to them that do examine me is this: Have we not the power (the
+right) to eat and drink?" The objector would admit this. Very well! "Who
+goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? Who planteth a vineyard and
+eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of
+the milk of the flock? * * * If we have sown unto you in spiritual things,
+is it a great thing if we shall reap of your carnal things? * * * Do ye
+not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of
+the temple? They which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?
+Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should
+live of the gospel." There is no gainsaying this argument. The "analogy"
+is unanswerable.
+
+Already once or twice in this chapter, reference has been made to Socrates
+and his method. Much of the following passage would apply equally well to
+Jesus or James or Paul: "He generally begins with some question,
+apparently so simple, so stupidly simple, and at such a distance from the
+field of discussion, that his opponent often hesitates whether most to
+admire the docility or wonder at the stupidity of the querist, and with a
+complacent smile, half of pity, half of contempt, promptly replies. Other
+questions succeed faster and faster, more and more difficult, and
+gradually approaching, in one long spiral of interrogations, the central
+position in which the unhappy sophist's argument stands. He now finds it
+impossible to escape, and confounded, perplexed and irritated, discovers
+that he is compelled to admit some palpable contradiction to his original
+assertions, and this too by means of those simple and innocent premises
+which he had so unsuspectingly granted. He feels himself within the coils
+of a great logical boa-constrictor who binds his folds together tighter
+and tighter till the poor sophist is absolutely strangled."
+
+
+
+
+VIII. THE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
+
+
+"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth
+in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates; in the city
+she uttereth her words, saying, How long ye simple ones will ye love
+simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate
+knowledge? Turn you at my reproof!"--_Solomon._
+
+
+
+
+THE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
+
+    "The oldest jibe in literature is the ridicule of false
+    religion."--_Emerson._
+
+    "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall hold them
+    in derision."--_Psalms._
+
+
+In the Bible, the elements of wit and humor are effectively employed in
+dealing with the sins of men. Evil doing, in its various motives and
+manifestations, is denounced, rendered repulsive, made ghastly and
+terrible, and when everything else has been done, it is exhibited as
+grotesque and ludicrous. Sin is the great absurdity of the universe. Were
+it not so tragic, it would shake the very heavens with laughter.
+
+One of the old English poets has these lines:--
+
+    "He who does not tremble at the sword,
+    Who quails not with his head upon the block,
+    Turn but a jest against him, loses heart;
+    The shafts of wit slip thro' the stoutest mail.
+    There is no man alive that can live down
+    The inextinguishable laughter of mankind."
+
+With this fact the writers of the Bible were quite as well acquainted as
+are the writers of modern times. They took advantage of it for the same
+purpose.
+
+"Of this we may be sure," says Hazlitt, "that ridicule fastens on the
+vulnerable points of a cause, and finds out the weak sides of an argument;
+if those who resort to it sometimes rely too much on its success, those
+who are chiefly annoyed by it almost always are so with reason, and can
+not be too much upon their guard against deserving it."
+
+Into hearts impervious to all else, the writers of the Bible drove the
+javelins of ridicule.
+
+
+_The Sluggard._
+
+
+If anything could make a lazy man feel uncomfortable, it would be such
+thorns as those Solomon has planted in his pillow:--
+
+    "I went by the field of the slothful,
+    And by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;
+    And lo! it was all grown over with thorns,
+    The face thereof was covered with nettles,
+    And the stone wall thereof was broken down.
+    Then I beheld and considered well,
+    I saw and received instruction:
+    'A little sleep, a little slumber,
+    A little folding of the hands to sleep.'
+    So shall thy poverty come as a robber,
+    And thy want as an armed man.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+    How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard,
+    When wilt thou rouse thee out of thy sleep?"
+
+
+_The Unfaithful Friend._
+
+If anything could make an unfaithful and deceitful friend, one who
+professes much in times of prosperity and performs nothing in times of
+need, ashamed of himself, it would be such a comparison as we find in the
+book of Job:--
+
+    "My brethren are deceitful, like the brook
+    As the channel of brooks that pass away,
+    They become turbid from ice,
+    The snow hides itself in them.
+    At the time they are poured off, they fail;
+    When it is hot they are consumed from their place.
+    The caravans along their way turn aside;
+    They go up into the wastes and perish.
+    The caravans of Tema looked,
+    The companies of Sheba hoped for them;
+    They were ashamed that they had trusted,
+    They came thither and were confounded."
+
+The friends of Job were like streams in the early spring, when melting ice
+and snow filled their channels, and the waters were not needed; but in
+the heat of summer, when fainting caravans looked for refreshment, dry and
+dusty.
+
+
+_The Drunkard._
+
+If anything could move a drunkard to forswear his cups and lead a sober
+life, it would be such a sarcastic description of him as that which
+follows:--
+
+    "Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contention?
+    Who hath complaining? Who hath wounds without cause?
+    Who hath redness of eyes?
+    They that tarry long at the wine,
+    They that go to try mixed wine.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Thine eyes shall behold strange things,
+    And thy heart shall utter froward things,
+    Yea thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea,
+    Or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast."
+
+The poem closes with a terrible thrust. After the folly of the drunkard
+has been described, his physical and mental condition pointed out--the red
+eyes, the strange things seen in delirium, the incoherent babbling, the
+unsteady gait, the surrounding perils,--the devotee of strong drink is
+made to exclaim, "_When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again!_" Knowing
+its effects, suffering in mind and body from his potations, such is the
+incorrigible stupidity of the wine-bibber that he no sooner wakens from
+his drunken slumber than he goes forth to seek again the source of his
+wretchedness!
+
+
+_The Idolater._
+
+Nowhere is the use of ridicule by the writers of the Old Testament
+displayed to better advantage than in their treatment of idolatry. Against
+this sin they brought to bear the most potent weapons of their wit. None
+of the resources of expression were left untried. Witness the withering
+irony with which Elijah mocked the frantic priests of Baal: "And it came
+to pass that at noon Elijah mocked them and said, Cry aloud, for he is a
+god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or
+peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked." No finer bit of irony can
+be found in any literature. Indeed, we may regard it as the most perfect
+specimen extant of this species of wit.
+
+Jeremiah exclaims, "As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the
+house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes and their
+priests, and their prophets, _saying to a stock, Thou art my father, and
+to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth_."
+
+The Psalmist thus speaks of the gods of the heathen:
+
+    "They have mouths, but they speak not;
+    Eyes have they, but they see not;
+    Noses have they, but they smell not;
+    They have hands, but they handle not;
+    Feet have they, but they walk not;
+    Neither speak they thro' their throat."
+
+Having thus described the senselessness and impotence of the gods of the
+heathen, he adds:
+
+    "They that make them are like unto them,
+    So is everyone that trusteth in them."
+
+In a similar vein Jeremiah ridicules the idols: "For the customs of the
+people are vain; for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the
+hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with
+gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers that it move not. They
+are upright as the palm tree, but speak not; they must needs be borne,
+because they can not go. _Be not afraid of them; for they can not do evil,
+neither also is it in them to do good._ * * * The stock is a doctrine of
+vanities."
+
+Isaiah satirizes the idolaters in this fashion: "They shall be turned
+back, they shall be greatly ashamed that trust in graven images, they that
+say to the molten images, Ye are our gods. Hear ye deaf, and look ye blind
+that ye may see. Who is blind but my servant? or deaf as my messenger that
+I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect (in his own estimation), and
+blind as is the Lord's servant? Seeing many things, but thou observest
+not; opening the ears, but he heareth not. * * * Who among you will give
+ear to this and hearken and hear for time to come?"
+
+Ezekiel declares that, on account of their idolatries, the people have
+become as worthless as a withered vine. Nothing useful can be made out of
+it. It is only fit for the fire. "What is the vine tree more than any
+tree, or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest? Shall wood
+be taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any
+vessel thereon? Behold it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire
+devoureth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned. Is it meet
+for any work? Behold, when it was whole, it was meet for no work; how much
+less shall it be meet yet for any work, when the fire hath devoured it,
+and it is burned? Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: As the vine tree
+among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so
+will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem."
+
+There is an elaborate piece of sarcasm in the forty-fourth chapter of
+Isaiah: "He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak
+which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest; he
+planteth an ash and the rain doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man
+to burn; for he will take thereof and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it
+and baketh bread." The tree which this idolater takes has grown up as any
+other tree, and after it is cut down, it is devoted to the same ordinary
+uses. Yet out of that very tree, "he maketh a god and worshippeth it; he
+maketh a graven image, and falleth down thereto."
+
+The prophet repeats and amplifies, "He burneth part thereof in the fire;
+with part thereof he eateth flesh, he roasteth roast and is satisfied;
+yea, he warmeth himself and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire;
+and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image; he falleth
+down unto it and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it and saith, Deliver
+me, for thou art my God."
+
+Then he concludes: "And none considereth in his heart, neither is there
+knowledge nor understanding to say, _I have burned part of it in the fire;
+yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh
+and eaten it; and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? Shall I
+fall down to the stock of a tree?_" The idolater does not see, does not
+"consider" what an abject simpleton he is to make a god out of the same
+material with which he bakes bread and roasts meat. It is as if the
+prophet should say, "What sort of a god is that, O Israel, with which you
+do your broiling and baking?"
+
+Robert South comments on this passage: "With one part he furnishes his
+chimney, with the other his chapel. A strange thing that the fire must
+consume this part and burn incense to that! As if there were more divinity
+in one end of the stick than in the other; or as if it could be painted
+and graven omnipotent, or the nails and hammer could give it an
+apotheosis."
+
+The fatalistic excuse which the people make for their idolatries and other
+sins, is thus disposed of by Jeremiah: "Behold ye trust in lying words
+that can not profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear
+falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye
+know not; and come and stand before me in this house which is called by my
+name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this
+house which is called by my name become a den of robbers in your eyes?"
+
+
+_Refuges of Lies._
+
+Isaiah charges the rulers of the people with forsaking the word of the
+Lord, and substituting for his truth false maxims and iniquitous precepts.
+They refuse to obey the divine commands, and lead their subjects also into
+rebellion. They have adopted other rules of life than those delivered by
+the prophets of Jehovah,--other national policy than that promulgated from
+above. In their overweening pride and self-confidence, they look with
+disdain upon the requirements of God. Isaiah represents them as saying,
+"We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement;
+when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto
+us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid
+ourselves." But the prophet warns them that their fancied security shall
+be broken up. "Judgment also will I lay to the line and righteousness to
+the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the
+waters shall overflow the hiding-place. And your covenant with death
+shall be disannuled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand. When
+the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down
+by it." He pauses a moment, after this strain of invective, and then
+sarcastically describes the insufficiency of their refuges by another
+figure, ludicrous enough, that of a man trying to stretch himself upon too
+short a bed, and to cover himself with too narrow a blanket. "For the bed
+is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering
+narrower than that he can wrap himself in it."
+
+
+_False Prophets._
+
+Ezekiel tells us that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "Son of
+Man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say unto
+them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the Lord.
+Thus saith the Lord God: Woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their
+own spirit and have seen nothing. O Israel, thy prophets are like the
+foxes in the desert. * * * They have seen vanity and lying divination,
+saying, The Lord saith; and the Lord hath not sent them." These prophets
+were endeavoring to soothe the people, to cover up their sins, to
+dissipate their fears of retribution. "They have seduced my people,
+saying, peace, when there is no peace." Then Ezekiel describes their work.
+They are like foolish masons who build a wall with mortar that will not
+hold the stones together,--"untempered mortar!" Can such work last? Can
+such a structure stand? "Say unto them which daub it with untempered
+mortar that it shall fall. There shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O
+great hail-stones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it. Lo! when
+the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing
+wherewith ye have daubed it?" Did ye not boast of your mortar? Did ye not
+promise the people that it would hold? Alas for you, O prophets! Alas for
+your work! "The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it; to wit, the
+prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see
+visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord."
+
+Most contemptuously does Isaiah speak of the false prophets: "The Lord
+will cut off from Israel, head and tail, branch and root, in one day. The
+ancient and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies,
+_he is the tail_."
+
+
+_The King of Assyria._
+
+Isaiah ridicules the high and mighty pretensions of the King of Assyria.
+That monarch boasts of his achievements. He takes the credit of all to
+himself. He wears the glory alone. "By the strength of my own hand, I have
+done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent; and I have removed the bounds
+of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the
+inhabitants like a valiant man." Falstaff could not proclaim his own
+prowess, in more bombastic style. "I am a rogue, if I were not at
+half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have 'scaped by
+miracle: I am eight times thrust through the doublet; four through the
+hose; my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked like a handsaw.
+I never dealt better since I was a man." Now let the Assyrian resume his
+parable: "And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people; and
+as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and
+there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped."
+Falstaff will match him again: "There is not a dangerous action can peep
+out his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I can not last for ever; but
+it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good
+thing, to make it too common. * * * I would to God my name were not so
+terrible to the enemy as it is!"
+
+The prophet, after allowing the Assyrian to sound his brazen trumpet,
+turns upon him, and sarcastically reminds him that he is simply a tool, a
+rod, a staff, in the hands of the Lord, and that he has of himself
+accomplished nothing: "_Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth
+therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it?_
+as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if
+the staff should lift itself up as if it were no wood!"
+
+
+_The King of Babylon._
+
+One of the most powerful passages of invective in any literature is that
+in which Isaiah pictures the fall of the King of Babylon.
+
+He begins--"How hath the oppressor ceased!" Then he sets forth the joy of
+the earth itself over the discomfiture of him who "smote the people in
+wrath with a continual stroke." All creation is glad. "The whole earth is
+at rest and is quiet; they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir-trees
+rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid
+down, no feller is come up against us." This is the state of things on
+earth.
+
+There is commotion in the lower world, there is mockery of the humiliated
+monarch as he descends among the shades. "Hell from beneath is moved for
+thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even
+all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all
+the kings of the nations."
+
+The shadowy, ghostly company gather about the fallen potentate and taunt
+him: "Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy
+pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols; the worm is
+spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from
+heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground
+which did weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will
+ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will
+be like the Most High! Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the
+sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and
+consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble,
+that did shake kingdoms, that made the world as a wilderness, and
+destroyed the cities thereof?"
+
+Then the prophet concludes: "All the kings of the nations, even all of
+them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast out of
+thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are
+slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit,
+as a carcass trodden under feet!"
+
+It is truthfully remarked that "keen thrusts and tingling ironies will
+rouse the slumbering, startle the stolid, shame the profligate, and set
+the thoughtless to thinking. While it is true that ridicule is not the
+test of truth, it is equally certain that it is only by ridicule that many
+dull-witted and sin-steeped persons can be made to see and feel the truth.
+It would be well for mankind in general, if all could be made to feel that
+wickedness is as contemptible as it is hateful. There is a stupidity in
+sin, a thick, rhinoceros skin of insensibility, which only the
+feather-winged arrows of wit can pierce. Iniquity has a pachydermatous
+hide, and can feel only when coals of fiery ridicule are laid upon its
+back, and blown by the breath of laughter."
+
+
+
+
+IX. THE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.
+
+
+"If our Savior himself never laughed, it is difficult to believe that the
+bystanders did not laugh, or at least smile, when he tore the mask from
+the hypocritical pharisees who laid heavy burdens on men's shoulders which
+they themselves would not move with their fingers, and devoured widows'
+houses, even while for a pretence they made long prayers."--_Matthews._
+
+
+
+
+THE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.
+
+    "Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith."--_Paul._
+
+
+The writers of the Old Testament who used the glittering lances of wit
+against the foes of truth and righteousness, had worthy successors in
+evangelists and apostles, and in Jesus himself. These men were indignant
+at hypocrisy and wrong-doing; they looked with scorn upon the swelling
+pretensions of the religious leaders; they expostulated with affectionate
+earnestness and severity with their own brethren who suffered themselves
+to be led astray. Indignation is not necessarily wrong or unchristian. The
+faculty of indignation is an essential part of human nature, and when
+aroused against evil its operations are beneficent. It in no wise
+diminishes the reverence we feel for Jesus, that he made a scourge of
+cords and lashed the traders and money-changers from the temple!
+
+Ruskin says, "There is no black horse in the chariot of the soul. One of
+the driver's worst faults is starving his horses; another is not breaking
+them early enough; but they are all good. Take, for example, one usually
+thought of as wholly evil--that of anger, leading to vengeance. I believe
+it to be quite one of the crowning wickednesses of this age, that we have
+starved and chilled our faculty of indignation, and neither desire nor
+dare to punish crimes justly."
+
+This faculty of righteous wrath when it takes shape in irony, ridicule,
+sarcasm, invective, is the mightiest foe of vanity, hypocrisy, pretension,
+corruption, and vice. By its sword do they perish. The teachers and
+writers of New Testament times, did not disdain to use in their work every
+instrument of power known to the human mind. From their own stand-point,
+at least, they had many false notions and customs to combat; they had the
+ignorant, prejudiced, officious and fault-finding to deal with; they were
+harrassed by narrow and persistent opponents; they had to do battle at
+every step. They might have exclaimed with a modern writer, "Let us be
+thankful that we have in wit a power before which the pride of wealth, and
+the insolence of office are abased; which can transfix bigotry and tyranny
+with arrows of lightning; which can strike its object over thousands of
+miles of space, across thousands of years of time; and which through its
+sway over an universal weakness of man, is an everlasting instrument to
+make the bad tremble and the foolish wince."
+
+
+_The Choice of the Jews._
+
+There is an excellent piece of quiet sarcasm in John's account of the
+trial of Jesus. He first gives us Pilate's conclusion in these words: "And
+when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews and saith: I find
+no fault in him at all; but ye have a custom that I release unto you one
+at the passover; will ye therefore that I release unto you the king of the
+Jews?" Pilate is willing; he pronounces Jesus innocent; but the crowd
+clamor and refuse. "Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but
+Barabbas." John closes the account with an inoffensive looking sentence,
+but one so full of bitter satire, that we can not help thinking of the
+time when he wished to call down fire from heaven. Jesus is an innocent
+man--so pronounced by the governor--but the Jews cry out for his blood.
+They want Barabbas released. And who is Barabbas? Who is this popular
+idol? Who is the man that the people prefer to Jesus the upright and
+spotless? With a rapier-like thrust, John pierces the heart of that
+iniquitous choice, "_Now Barabbas was a robber_." It is a stroke worthy
+the "Son of thunder."
+
+
+_The Weakness of Pilate._
+
+But think not, O Pilate, that thou shalt escape. The same hand that cast
+the first javelin, will also send one to pierce thy heart. In the next
+chapter, John tells us how, up to a certain point, Pilate sought to
+release Jesus. He was convinced of his innocence, and did not wish him put
+to death. But there is a weak spot in Pilate's nature, and John points it
+out with infallible precision. Pilate is not the man to stand for the
+right at personal sacrifice. When his own interests are at stake, he will
+permit injustice and cruel wrong to others. Why does he deliver Jesus to
+the cross? John is determined that all the world shall know. "The Jews
+cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend;
+whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cæsar." My lord Pilate
+is not proof against this insinuation. He can not face the possibility of
+losing his office. "_When Pilate, therefore, heard that saying, he brought
+Jesus forth._ * * * Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be
+crucified." John has stamped Pilate as a weak, vacillating and selfish
+ruler; and his portrait, marked with these features, has been transmitted
+to all ages.
+
+
+_Paul and his Detractors._
+
+Perhaps none of the great characters of New Testament times were so beset
+by foes of all kinds as was Paul. He has himself assured us that he was
+often in perils from his own countrymen, and in perils from false
+brethren. He was denounced by priests and scribes, and opposed by upstarts
+in the very churches he had founded. In replying to arguments and meeting
+objections he sometimes showed his mastery of more than one form of
+wit,--although the form he most frequently used was irony.
+
+By many his preaching was characterized as "foolishness." There was
+nothing in it to commend it to the Jews who "required a sign," or to the
+Greeks, "who sought after wisdom." "Very well," is his reply, "foolish it
+may be, but after all it has accomplished more than either Jew or Greek
+has been able to do for the world. 'Where is the wise? Where is the
+scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
+wisdom of this world?' What has it achieved? Where are its monuments? 'For
+after that the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
+foolishness of (just such) preaching (as mine) to save them that believe.'
+This foolishness has lifted men from vile and sinful lives into
+righteousness and honor. Have your own way about it, O Greeks and Jews; I
+will be accounted a fool if you will, and am willing to let my words be
+stigmatized as folly; but you will find that 'God hath chosen the foolish
+things of the world to confound the wise; God hath chosen the weak things
+of the world to confound the things that are mighty; and base things of
+the world, and things that are despised hath God chosen; yea, and things
+that are not, to bring to nought things that are.' I accept the low
+estimate you put upon me and my work, but I triumph over you and your
+work, however exalted. Results shall determine. This is glorious folly!"
+
+In writing to the Corinthians, he says of certain members of the church
+who thought that in spiritual things they were superior to himself, "Now
+some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. But I will come to
+you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, _not the speech of them
+which are puffed up, but the power_."
+
+To those thus puffed up, he addresses himself in the following ironical
+strain: "Now ye are full, now ye are rich; ye have reigned as kings
+without us; and I would that ye did reign, that we also might reign with
+you. For I think that God has set forth us the apostles last. * * * We are
+fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye
+are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised."
+
+He denounces certain teachers who were sowing the seeds of discord among
+his churches, as "false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming
+themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is
+transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his
+ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end
+shall be according to their works." Such teachers as these pronounced Paul
+a fool and did everything to bring his work into contempt. "Very good,"
+says Paul to the Corinthians, "receive me then as a fool," and then
+proceeding, with his favorite irony, "For ye suffer fools gladly, _seeing
+ye yourselves are wise_!"
+
+How scathing is his rebuke to those who misrepresented his doctrine: "We
+be slanderously reported, and some affirm that we say, Let us do evil
+that good may come!--whose condemnation is just." This is his only answer
+to evil tongues.
+
+It is conceded by the best authorities that Paul did not write the Epistle
+to the Hebrews, but there is a passage in that letter not unlike him,--the
+rebuke to those who ought to be strong, manly and intelligent Christians,
+but who have not yet gotten out of their swaddling clothes: "For when for
+the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again
+which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such
+as have need of milk and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk
+is unskillful in the word of righteousness; for he is but a babe. But
+_strong meat belongeth to those that are of full age_, even those who by
+reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."
+
+Similar to this is Paul's treatment of the Corinthians when they were
+divided in their allegiance, some claiming to belong to one teacher and
+some to another. First Paul himself had been there and taught among them
+in that broad and liberal spirit which always characterized him. He made
+very little of forms and ceremonies, and very much of charity and
+brotherhood. Then came Peter who was always more narrow than Paul, but
+very intense. Paul was a broad river, Peter a mountain torrent. Peter
+never completely freed himself from the bondage of the Jewish system, and
+he insisted upon some of the things that Paul discarded. Soon a party was
+formed. Some thought, no doubt, that Paul was too far away from the Jewish
+creed, that he was not strict enough, that it was perhaps safer to take
+Peter as a guide; so while some said, "I am of Paul," others said, "I am
+of Cephas." Then came Apollos who is described as being "very eloquent."
+When he stood up to speak, many said, "He beats both Paul and Peter; I am
+of Apollos." So there were "envyings and strifes and divisions." Paul
+ridicules the Corinthians for these childish quarrels, and says that he
+must still speak to them as to "babes." "I have fed you with milk and not
+with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, _neither yet now are
+ye able_!"
+
+
+_Examples from other Apostles._
+
+The epistle of James that has furnished illustrations for some of the
+preceding chapters, shall yield one for this, in its notice of a grave
+abuse that existed in the early churches, and that has not entirely died
+out of modern churches.
+
+"My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of
+glory, in respect of persons. For if there come into your assembly, a man
+with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in
+vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing,
+and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place (Take this high-priced and
+fashionable pew, where you can listen to the gospel in luxurious ease, and
+at the same time dazzle the eyes of those in neighboring pews with the
+latest fashions), but say to the poor, Stand thou here, or sit here under
+my foot-stool (or go up in the gallery), are ye not then partial in
+yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?"
+
+Peter silences certain ones who complained of persecution, by saying, "If
+ye are reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye (that is nothing to
+complain of), but let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or
+as an evil-doer, or as a busy-body in other men's matters (if any one of
+you suffers in such a character, he deserves the lash)." In either case,
+there is nothing to justify your outcry.
+
+He also denounces certain ones who have forsaken the right way and gone
+astray as "wells without water, clouds without rain that are carried of a
+tempest." They "speak great swelling words of vanity, promising liberty
+while they are themselves the slaves of corruption." And then he fastens
+the reproach of their apostasy upon them with what Falstaff would call a
+"most unsavory simile,"--"It is happened to them according to the true
+proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was
+washed to her wallowing in the mire." Such are those who turn back to
+error from the paths of truth.
+
+In much the same strain does Jude write to the same class: "These are
+spots in your feasts of charity; clouds without water, carried about of
+the winds; trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked
+up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame;
+wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever!"
+
+John wrote to the Laodiceans: "I know thy works that thou art neither cold
+nor hot; so then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I
+will spew thee out of my mouth. Thou sayest, I am rich and increased with
+goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched
+and miserable and poor and blind and naked!"
+
+The Laodiceans needed the familiar prayer of Burns:
+
+    "O wad some power the giftie gie us,
+      To see oursel's as ithers see us;
+    It would frae mony a blunder free us,
+      And foolish notion!"
+
+They needed a look into the glass of Lao, which revealed the blemishes of
+the soul, how fair soever the exterior.
+
+
+_Christ's Use of Invective._
+
+Even more severe than his apostles in his use of denunciation, was the
+Great Master himself. In his controversies with the recognized religious
+leaders of his day, he heaped coals of fire upon their claims and
+teachings and practices.
+
+"Ye leave the commandment of God and hold fast to the tradition of men,"
+he says to the Scribes and Pharisees; and then adds, with terrible irony,
+"Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your
+tradition." Surely, when the commandments of God were placed side by side
+with rabbinical glosses, they were in an extremely cruel position!
+
+No passage of invective, in any literature, is more crushing than this:
+"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the
+kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither
+suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, Scribes and
+Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte,
+and when he is made, ye make him two-fold more the child of hell than
+yourselves. * * * Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye
+devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers; therefore ye
+shall receive the greater damnation. * * * Woe unto you, Scribes and
+Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and
+platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Blind
+Pharisees! cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that
+the outside of them may be clean also! Woe unto you, Scribes and
+Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers which,
+indeed, appear beautiful outward, but within are full of dead men's bones
+and all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men,
+but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. * * * Woe unto you,
+Scribes and Pharisees, for ye are as graves which appear not, and men walk
+over them and are not aware of them."
+
+But not only the leaders, but the people also, fall under his lash. "The
+men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall
+condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold a
+greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the South shall rise up in the
+judgment with this generation and shall condemn it; for she came from the
+uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold a
+greater than Solomon is here! When the unclean spirit is gone out of a
+man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and findeth none. Then he
+saith, I will return to my house from whence I came out; and when he is
+come, he findeth it empty, swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh
+with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in
+and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.
+Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation!"
+
+Upon another occasion, he upbraided the cities in which he had wrought and
+preached. "Woe unto thee, Chorazin; woe unto thee Bethsaida; for if the
+mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in
+you, they had a great while ago repented sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
+But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for
+you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust
+down to hell!"
+
+Does it seem strange that such language should have come from the lips of
+Jesus? Should we not rather have expected it from the stern Baptist, his
+forerunner, who denounced the "brood of vipers" that came to his baptism?
+Is it inconsistent with that spirit of love which we believe to have been
+the distinguishing characteristic of Christ? But love is not mere
+invertebral amiability or moon-faced complacency. By as much as love is
+strong and true, by so much does it seek, at any cost and by any means, to
+remove the faults and follies of its object. If the lash be needed, the
+lash it will take. "He who has never experienced the affectionate
+bitterness of love," says F. W. Robertson, "who has never known how
+_earnest_ irony and passionate sarcasm may be the very language of love in
+its deepest, saddest moods is utterly incapable of even judging this
+passion!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here the writer's task ends. The subject may be capable of much more
+elaborate treatment; it would be claiming too much to suppose that these
+chapters exhaust it. The writer trusts, however, that he may have
+suggested a line of study to others, as it was first suggested to him. The
+poetry, the dramatic portions, the oratory of the Scriptures, are
+unsurpassed. Viewed simply as a literary work, the Bible is the most
+interesting in the whole realm of letters. It becomes increasingly
+interesting, as its great human elements are recognized. Over history,
+biography, and most serious discourse, play the soft gleams of healthful
+humor and the lightning-like bolts of sarcasm and wit. The book touches
+human nature at all points. The more we view it as "literature," the less
+as "dogma," the firmer will become its hold upon the heart of man.
+
+That these fragmentary studies may help some one to appreciate his Bible
+better and enjoy it more, is the writer's wish. He may also express, in
+closing, the hope that whoever has taken the trouble to read these pages
+may have found them free from that which he disclaimed at the
+outset--irreverence; as he believes them to be free from the other
+extreme, superstition.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Wit and Humor of the Bible, by Marion D. Shutter
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIT AND HUMOR OF THE BIBLE ***
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