"Parable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... This little parable occurs in the ritual of a religious ceremony of the Pawnee tribe. The song has no words, except a term for wren, the vocables being intended only to imitate the notes of the bird, nevertheless, one can trace, ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... Liege, quoting this parable of Christ which St. Chrysostom had quoted before him, interprets it in a more liberal fashion than the Bishop of Constantinople. For he not only condemns the death penalty, but all ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... market of brains are worth perhaps as much as they get. But how can they bring themselves to pose as the representatives of a creed, which, as they themselves expound it, is based upon humility, poverty, and self-denial? Not one of them who would not quote with approval the parable of the Wedding Guest. But try putting one of them out of their due precedence at the next Court reception. It happened some little time ago with a Cardinal, and England rang with his protests. How blind not to see how they would spring ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... Revd. Vicar prided himself on the appropriateness of his sermons; so, this time, as he had yesterday united a distinguished and beautiful widow to her second husband, he selected for his text the parable of the widow's son. True, Mrs. Nightingale had no son, and her daughter wasn't dead, and there is not a hint in the text that the widow of Nain married again, or had any intention of doing so. On the other hand, the latter had ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... say, I have no Imagination; and therefore, if this doctrine be true, my life must be a failure. You may possibly have but one talent while your neighbor has ten, but you are just as responsible for the cultivation and enlargement of your endowment as your neighbor for his. Had the parable been reversed, and had he who was endowed with five talents hidden them in the earth while he who had one doubled his lord's money, the condemnation and the acceptance would likewise have been reversed. Unless a man be so far idiotic that he is not an accountable being, ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... Canaanites. The leading ones were wheat, barley, olives, grapes, and figs. The two grain crops were, of course, the most necessary to life. They were planted in the early spring, and harvested in the summer. The grain was sown broadcast, by hand, just as Jesus describes in his great parable of the sower. ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... no reply; but he seemed to guess who I was, and bent down his head between his hands. I saw tears dropping from between his fingers. It was a good sign. I thought of the parable of the prodigal son. "He has been eating the husks: perhaps he will soon say, 'I will arise and go to my Father.'" I prayed that the Holy Spirit would strive mightily with him, and make him feel not only his sad moral and physical condition, but his terribly dangerous ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... otherwise, he is no whit the worse. So, if any of these opponents be left, I will not waste time in vain repetition of the demonstrative evidence of the practical value of science; but knowing that a parable will sometimes penetrate where syllogisms fail to effect an entrance, I will offer ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... of King John. The text of that morning's sermon happened to be the Lord's saying, "Many first shall be last, and the last first," which asserts His absolute sovereignty in choosing and in rewarding His missionaries, and introduces the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. As Carey wrote in the fulness of his fame, that the evangelical doctrines continued to be the choice of his heart, so he never wavered in his preference for the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... at the delicious human interest, the subtle irony to pierce complacent humbugs, that lurked behind these Oriental situations. He made the most of his chance for a quaint parable, applicable to the courts, the church and science of Europe. As the story runs on, midst many and sudden adventures, the Babylonian reads causes from events in guileless fashion, enthusiastic as Sherlock Holmes, and no less efficient—and ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... see only a second coincidence in the second scene narrated to him, described by the narrator as A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the Plums? ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a great deal of poetry. I would not give a rush for a man who merely pores over his poets in order to make notes or comments on them; you ought to have them as beloved companions to be near you night and day, to take up the parable when your own independent thought is hazy with delight or even with sorrow. As you tramp along the whistling stretches amid the blaze of the ragworts and the tender passing glances of the wild veronica, you can take in all their loveliness with ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... up our parable and say: Do you wish to have the greatest and most vehement pleasures for your companions in addition to the true ones? 'Why, Socrates,' they will say, 'how can we? seeing that they are the source of ten thousand hindrances to us; they trouble the souls of men, ...
— Philebus • Plato
... by depriving him of life; that the public weal having made him resolve to take that step, he informed me of it in order that I might aid him with my advice and personally assist in its execution. Beaupuis next 'took up his parable,' and warmly represented the evils which the too great authority of Richelieu had caused France, and concluded by saying that we must prevent the like inconvenience before his successor had rendered matters remediless." ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... been felt by most people who read Madame Sand's first books, "Valentine" and "Indiana": in "Spiridion" it is greater, I think, than ever; and for those who are not afraid of the matter of the novel, the manner will be found most delightful. The author's intention, I presume, is to describe, in a parable, her notions of the downfall of the Catholic church; and, indeed, of the whole Christian scheme: she places her hero in a monastery in Italy, where, among the characters about him, and the events which occur, the particular tenets of Madame ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... may say,—My parable relates to one person: that which you have quoted pourtrays two, and thus all parallelism is lost. (In other words, our LORD'S picture of "the Education of the World" is altogether unlike Dr. Temple's!)—Take, however, a parable which ought to suit exactly; ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... And while the boy was striking a fresh one Davy stamped out the burning end that Nelly dropped on to the grass, and said: "A lie! Well, it was an' it wasn't. A sort of a scriptural parable, eh?" ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... found, in this legitimate issue of his career, a very staggering and grave consideration. Every beast, as he says, clings bitterly to a whole skin. If everything is lost, and even honour, life still remains; nay, and it becomes, like the ewe lamb in Nathan's parable, as dear as all the rest. "Do you fancy," he asks, in a lively ballad, "that I had not enough philosophy under my hood to cry out: 'I appeal'? If I had made any bones about the matter, I should have been planted upright in the fields, the St, Denis Road" - Montfaucon being on the way ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... priest's son, stricken by God and reduced to beggary; a clerk discharged for drunkenness; a merchant's son or nephew who had tried his feeble powers in a theatrical career, and was now going home to play the last act in the parable of the prodigal son; perhaps, judging by the dull patience with which he struggled with the hopeless autumn mud, he might have been a fanatical monk, wandering from one Russian monastery to another, continually seeking "a peaceful life, free ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Judgment was making this oration to the town of Mansoul, it was observed by some that Diabolus trembled; but he proceeded in his parable and said, 'O thou woful town of Mansoul, wilt thou not yet set open thy gate to receive us, the deputies of thy King, and those that would rejoice to see thee live? Can thine heart endure, or can thy hands be strong, in the day that ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... this isolation her face looking in at his door would have been as that of an angel! And he knew that all the time his debts were increasing, and when would he begin to pay them off! His mind wandered; and when Sullivan came at length, he was talking wildly, imagining himself the prodigal son in the parable. ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... their very essence abnormal; and to suppose that they could ever become the common type of character, would be as absurd as to suppose that all mankind could be kings. I will take another instance that is more to the point yet. A favourite positivist parable is that of the miser. The miser in the first place desires gold because it can buy pleasure. Next he comes to desire it more than the pleasure it can buy. In the same way, it is said, men can be taught to ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... Christianity had been cast into mythical moulds by the oriental fancy, that it was introduced in its completed form to modern thought. Although expressly repudiated by Jesus of Nazareth himself, and applied in maxim and parable as a universal symbol of intelligence to the religious growth of the individual and race, his followers reverted to the coarser and literal meaning, and ever since teach to a greater or less extent the chiliastic or millennial dogma, often ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... and poets who took up their parable against the worship of material wealth and comfort, he will always have a foremost place. The thunder of Carlyle, the fiery eloquence of Ruskin, the delicate irony of Matthew Arnold, will find a responsive ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... domiciled in the breeches. Then they all blushed at their ease, while examining this habitavit, thinking that perhaps the desire of the prelate was that they should discover therein some sage admonition or evangelical parable. Although this sight caused certain ravages in the hearts of those most virtuous maidens, they paid little attention to the flutterings of their reins, but sprinkling a little holy water in the bottom of the abyss, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Nothing new in crusade against drink. No kudos to be gained; no acclaim of the multitude to ring in the pleased ear; no cheering clash of party conflict. GRANDOLPH gives a deprecating twirl to his modest moustache, and takes up his homely parable. Possibly he does this with the larger content, since he had his go at the Land Purchase Bill before Debate on Second Reading opened. His letters, published on eve of Easter recess, hurtled pleasantly around ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... clover-stems Where-through I gaze from off my hill, afar, The spacious fields from me to Heaven take on Tremors of change and new significance To th' eye, as to the ear a simple tale Begins to hint a parable's sense beneath. The prospect widens, cuts all bounds of blue Where horizontal limits bend, and spreads Into a curious-hill'd and curious-valley'd Vast, Endless before, behind, around; which seems Th' incalculable Up-and-Down of Time Made plain before mine eyes. The clover-stems Still cover ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... servant in the parable, the modern laboratory has been given its ten talents. It enjoys a secrecy which is profound, all that wealth can procure, and unrestricted opportunity for ever phase of research. There is no limitation to the torments which ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... upon Hugh's spirit, as he recalled these words; out of which stillness, I presume, grew the little parable which follows; though Hugh, after he had learned far more about the things therein hinted at, could never understand how it was, that he could have put so much more into it, than he seemed to have understood at that period ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... push the parable to those extremes," said Meldon. "No parable would stand it. Sabina did pour in the paraffin oil. I'm not pretending that a wolf or any animal of that sort came in and meddled with the judge's food. I'm merely trying to explain ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... reputation and circumstances.—A man may be held in very high esteem by the world, and yet may be a very miserable creature so far as his character is concerned. The rich man of the parable was well off and probably much thought of, but God called him a fool. Here is a man who is greatly esteemed by the public; he is regarded in every way as admirable. Follow him home, and you find him in his family a mean and sordid soul. There you ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... these "words."—There can be no doubt that, in this introduction, there is a reference to Balaam's prophecy in Num. xxiv. 3,—and this goes far to prove how much David was occupied with the views which men of God had formerly opened up into future times:—"And he took up his parable and said: Balaam the son of Beor prophesies, and the man who had his eyes shut, prophesies: He prophesies who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down and having his eyes open." The remarks ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... name given, originally in the Vulgate, to the rich man in the parable of the Rich ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... from Jesus' parable of the wise and the foolish house -builders that obeying the Bible is the ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... little sentimental feeling," as his family defined it, by breaking faith with the mother of the man now standing at Joseph Frowenfeld's elbow, and who was then a little toddling boy. It was necessary to save the party—nay, that was a slip; we should say, to save the family; this is not a parable. Yet Numa loved his wife. She bore him a boy and a girl, twins; and as her son grew in physical, intellectual, and moral symmetry, he indulged the hope that—the ambition and pride of all the various Grandissimes now centering in this lawful ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... straw, That with anatomising scalpel tents Its three-inch of thy skin, and brags—'All's bare,' The eyeless worm, that boring works the soil, Making it capable for the crops of God; Against its own dull will Ministers poppies to our troublous thought, A Balaam come to prophecy,—parables, Nor of its parable itself is ware, Grossly unwotting; all things has expounded Reflux and influx, counts the sepulchre The seminary of being, and extinction The Ceres of existence: it discovers Life in putridity, vigour in decay; Dissolution even, ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... have come over to the opinion of the common people. The peculiar glory of Bunyan is that those who hated his doctrines have acknowledged his genius by printing and using a Catholic version of his parable, The Pilgrim's Progress, with the Virgin's head ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... airily. "It is a parable. It is a parable of you and all your rationalists. You begin by breaking up the Cross; but you end by breaking up the habitable world. We leave you saying that nobody ought to join the Church against his will. When we meet you again you are saying that no one has any will to ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... country that many of the best things in the markets were never called for. Our nation is no longer in its "teens" and should cease to act like a foolish boy who has inherited (what appears to him) a limitless fortune; not for fear of his coming, like his prototype in the parable, to live on "husks" for he is doing that already, but lest like the dog of the fable, in grasping after the shadow of a banquet he miss the simple meal ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... for the first sowing of faith, & planting of the Church. Where now the Church being established, and the white Horse whereof I spake before, hauing made his conqueste, the Lawe and Prophets are thought sufficient to serue vs, or make vs inexcusable, (M28) as Christ saith in his parable of Lazarus and the ...
— Daemonologie. • King James I
... seen, is more than an exciting story of a storm. It is a spiritual vision of life. It is a soul's confession. It is Mr. Masefield's De Profundis. It is a parable of trial—a chant of the soul that has "emerged out of the iron time." It is a praise of life, not for its own sake, but for the spiritual mastery which its storms and dangers bring. It is a paean of survival: the ship weathers the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... that toward his latter time "that closeness did impair and a little perish his understanding." Surely Comineus mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master Louis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true: "Cor ne edito,"—"Eat not the heart." Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... parables of chapter thirteen. There is order and purpose also in the arrangement of these groups of miracles and parables. The first miracle is the cure of leprosy, and is a type of sin; while the last one is the withering of the fig tree, which is a symbol of judgment. The first parable is that of the seed of the kingdom, which is a symbol of the beginning or planting of the kingdom; the last is that of the talents and prophesies the final adjudication at the last day. This same orderly arrangement is also observed in the two great sections of the book. The first great ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... and felt her cool hand upon my hot forehead, and heard the low sweet song, or the gentle story, or the tenderly told parable from the Bible, with which she tried to soothe me, I could not resist the mystic fascination that lured me, as I lay in her lap, to steal a glance ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... ran hard for nearly a half hour before they checked, and Larry bethought him of those unfortunates between whom and himself that great gulf had been fixed. Apparently they had not found, any more than the rich man in the parable, a means of crossing it. He was high above the valley; the splendid landscape lay in broad undulating ribbons of brown and green and amethyst and blue, with the Broadwater dividing it—a silver belt, with a band of green on its either side; but within the great circle that was ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... have borne the heat and burden of the day." Master says, "It is perfectly right." Brother—"It cannot be right—it is very unreasonable." Master—"Hear what the law says on the subject." He then reads the following parable—Matt. XX. 1-16. "For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... beauty, whilst they contain a great deal besides this, do contain this in their several ways; the money, the animal, the man belong to the woman of the house, to the shepherd, to the father. Each is 'lost' in a different fashion, but the most clear revelation is given in the last parable of the three, which explains the other two. The son was 'lost' when he did not love the father; and he was 'found' by the father when he returned the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Chapter: That Park Predicament Nineteenth Chapter: In the House of Grey One Twentieth Chapter: A Chemistry of Scandal Twenty-first Chapter: The Singing Distances Twenty-second Chapter: Beth Signs the Picture Twenty-third Chapter: The Last Ride Together Twenty-fourth Chapter: A Parable of Two Horses ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... the mischief he had caused with his lying tongue; and Salesa was surrendered to the matrons of the village to receive a lashing for her misconduct. Then Tanielu, the pastor, prayed that God's wrath might be averted from so wicked a village, and made a beautiful parable about the Garden of Eden ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... shall tell me about them," interrupted Miss Sherrard. "So you do read your Bible every day. Then I dare say you happen to know the beautiful story, or rather parable, spoken by Christ ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... that is popularly put first in our agricultural and educational theory. "A sower went forth to sow." A teacher went forth to teach, that is, to scatter information, facts:—arithmetical, historical, geographical, linguistic facts. But the emphasis of the greatest agricultural parable in our literature was after all not on the sowing but on the soil, on that upon which or into which the seed fell,—or as it might be better expressed, upon the fallow. It was only the fallow ground, the ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... Himself are clear and definite, and were, as we shall see, quoted by Origen as referring to the secret teaching preserved in the Church. "And when he was alone, they that were about Him with the twelve asked of Him the parable. And He said unto them, 'Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.'" And later: "With many such parables spake He the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. But without a parable spake He not ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... a most striking sentence spoken by Jesus in explaining the parable of the tares, in Matthew, Chapter thirteen. He said, "The good seed are the sons of the kingdom." We think of the truth, the Gospel message, as the good seed that we are to sow, and so it is. But there's a far better seed. It is men, saved men. We are to sow our saved selves, our ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... The lesson was the parable of the unforgiving debtor and the parallel passage containing the matchless story of the sinful woman and the proud Pharisee. In the reading of these lessons the voice, which had hitherto carried the strident note of nervousness, mellowed into rich and subduing fulness. ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... this chase, in which they might have read a parable of their own affair, sweep past them like a bad dream. In the dead hush that followed they heard what was a good deal more significant for them, the baying ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... boxed.—But then—thank the powers, the Archdeacon so blessedly and refreshingly didn't, and, what was more, didn't in the very least want to know. He never asked for trouble; but, like the priest and Levite of sacred parable, carefully passed by on the other side when ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... uncandid and cruel turn I had done my father brought me almost to the verge of suicide. On Sunday morning I entered a church in Toronto, and tears flowed down my face as I heard the minister read the parable of the Prodigal Son. It seemed to me as a voice from home, and I determined to go to my father. Without hesitating, or stopping an hour, I took all the money I had to pay my way, and in about six days afterward, sitting beside the driver on the stage-coach, looked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... involved, I saw, or seemed to see, that it meant essentially the introduction of Natural Law into the Spiritual World. It was not, I repeat, that new and detailed analogies of Phenomena rose into view—although material for Parable lies unnoticed and unused on the field of recent Science in inexhaustible profusion. But Law has a still grander function to discharge toward Religion than Parable. There is a deeper unity between the two Kingdoms than the analogy of their Phenomena—a ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... Whitcomb Riley See'n Things Eugene Field The Duel Eugene Field Holy Thursday William Blake A Story for a Child Bayard Taylor The Spider and the Fly Mary Howitt The Captain's Daughter James Thomas Fields The Nightingale and the Glow-Worm William Cowper Sir Lark and King Sun: A Parable George Macdonald The Courtship, Merry Marriage, and Picnic Dinner of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren Unknown The Babes in the Wood Unknown God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop Robert Southey The Pied Piper of Hamelin ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... find in the treatment of the facade of Orvieto the beginning of the development of passionate romance,—the one being grave sermon writing; the other, cheerful romance or novel writing: so that the one requires you to think, the other only to feel or perceive; the one is always a parable with a meaning, the other only a story ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... wished to show the people the danger of caring too much for money or the things of this life, so he told them this parable or story. ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 9, March 1, 1914 • Various
... thought when I recently quoted from Dr. Hake’s account of that Christmas gathering of the Rossettis at Bognor in 1875—a gathering which he has made historic—that to-day I should be writing an obituary notice of the “parable-poet” himself. It is true that, having fractured a leg in a lamentable accident which befell him, he had for the last few years been imprisoned in one room and compelled during most of the time to lie in a horizontal position. But notwithstanding this, and notwithstanding ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... surprise and perplex the student of human character. As a misdirected toe-nail, injured by pressure, sometimes turns round, and, re-entering the flesh, vexes it into a sore, it would seem as if that noble inventive faculty to which we owe the parable and the epic poem, were liable, when constrained by self-love, to similar misdirections; and certainly, when turned inwards upon its possessor, the moral character festers or grows ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... now in Buddhistic India, but it is hardly likely, as Buddha did not require the help of a teacher to find truth, and his followers would not have invented the person of Balauhar-Barlaam; on the other hand, the introduction of the Evangelical Parable of The Sower, which exists in the original of all the versions of our Book, shows that this original was a Christian adaptation of the Legend of Buddha. Mr. Jacobs seeks vainly to lessen the force of this proof in showing that this Parable has ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... are sixteen figures in mosaic of the Prophets or Fathers; and over them again, as before, are thirteen scenes from the life of Our Lord: (1) The Healing of the cripple at Capernaum, (2) The Herd of Swine, (3) The Healing of the paralytic who was let down in a bed to Jesus, (4) The Parable of the sheep and the goats, (5) The Widow's mite, (6) The Pharisee and the Publican, (7) The Raising of Lazarus, (8) The Woman of Samaria at the well, (9) The Healing of the woman with an issue of blood, (10) The Healing of the ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... passively concerned, I do not see how I can avoid it. Besides, being a public man, I am not wholly averse to publicity; first person, singular, perpendicular, as Thackeray had it, in type looks rather agreeable to the eye. And I rather believe that I have a moral to point out and a parable to expound. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... end was at hand. From girlhood she had confronted a great contradiction. The sharpest trial to Christian faith throughout the ages is probably the spectacle presented by the visible Church of Christ. This abiding parable of the contrast between ideal and actual was perhaps never more painful to the devout soul than in Catherine's time, and perhaps we are safe in saying that no one ever suffered from it more than she. Her whole life was an Act of Faith: faith the more heroic because maintained ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... he spoke a parable, he was pleased to go no further than the fields, the seashore, a garden, a vineyard, or the like; which are things, without the knowledge whereof, scarcely any man can be supposed to ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... was suited to his hearers.—When Christ taught the people he used material that they could comprehend. Thus, when he spoke his parable of the sower, while he sat by the seaside, the multitude before him had gathered from the villages and farms of the country round about. They therefore could thoroughly appreciate the lesson. His parable of the ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... discretionary power in the disposal of property. See Gen. xxiv. 22, 23, 53. The condition of Ziba in the house of Mephiboseth, is a case in point. So is Prov. xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New Testament, Math. xxiv. 45; Luke xii. 42, 44. So in the parable of the talents; the master seems to have set up each of his servants in trade with considerable capital. One of them could not have had less than eight thousand dollars. The parable of the unjust steward is another ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... a parable about some creature, a child of the cliff—Hamakua's ocean boundary is mostly a precipitous wall—which he represents as a hand with five buds. Addressing it as a servant, he bids this creature twine a [Page 124] wreath sufficient for his ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... me this kind of parable in support of his exhortations," replied Rodin. "Oh, sir! do I not owe to the consoling words of that young priest all that has strengthened and revived my poor ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... it could. I am confident that in drawing his will he trusted you absolutely and me absolutely. He often spoke to me about money, and told me what a solemn trust riches were. He charged me like the man in the parable not to bury my talent in a napkin, but to put it out to usury. He said that he made you my guardian, because you were the most unworldly-minded man he knew, and he told me many times that although he could not give me absolute control of my money before ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... as 1853 intimations of the doctrine that an offending member might be put out of the way were given from the Tabernacle pulpit. Orson Hyde, on April 9 of that year, spoke, in the form of a parable, of the fate of a wolf that a shepherd discovered in his flock of sheep, saying that, if let alone, he would go off and tell the other wolves, and they would come in; "whereas, if the first should meet with his just deserts, he could not ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... himself recites a parable about a rich man who went to hell because he was rich and a poor man who went to heaven because he was poor. Rich Christians are told by the clergy that the surest way for them to get to heaven is by being rich; ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... conclude this branch of my argument by quoting the most ancient allusion to a pet that I can discover in writing, though some of the Egyptian pictured representations are considerably older. It is the parable spoken by the Prophet Samuel to King David, that is ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his skull,' and that he cried hastily to the young man, his armor-bearer, and said unto him, 'Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him.' It is a parable of our present position. Mrs. Stowe has thrown a piece of millstone, sharp and strong, at the skull of the giant abomination of her country; he is reeling in his death pangs, and, in the fury of his despair and shame, is crying, but crying in vain, 'Say not, A woman slew ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... conduct, In uprightness, justice, and rectitude, To impart discretion to the inexperienced, To the young knowledge and insight; That the wise man may hear and add to his learning, And the man of intelligence gain education, To understand a proverb and a parable, The words ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... nay said old Davie: but he turned over the leaves of his Bible for a moment, and then, clearing his voice, and first doffing his cook's cap (which he had but lifted a minute for the King), he read from the Book of Judges, Jotham's parable of the trees. 'Twas a little while ere any spoke: then said the Queen's chaplain, swearing a great oath, that he could not but be infinitely surprised to find there to be ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... took up the matter, passing a decree to the effect that inasmuch as heresy had not been cured by the censorship this should be made much stricter, and appointing a commission in order, as, regardless of the parable,[1] it was phrased, to separate the tares from the wheat. The persons appointed for this delicate work comprised four archbishops, nine bishops, two generals of orders and some "minor theologians." After much sweat they brought forth a report on most of the doubtful ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... human friend. We see many things as children which we cannot see as grown-up men and women, for, as Longfellow said, "the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts." Nay, I feel convinced that He who spoke the parable of the vine had seen the same vision when He said: "I am the vine, ye are the branches. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me." And it is on this ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... Agrippa, an eloquent man and dear to the Commons, as belonging to them by birth, who should be their spokesman. So Agrippa, coming to the camp and being admitted thereunto, spoke to the Commons this parable only; for in those days men were not wont to make set speeches. "In old times the members of man lived not together in such harmony as we now see to be among them; but each member had his own counsel and his own speech. All the other members ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... of the cleansing and filling that is needed in sinful man before he can follow the path of the plant. It shows us some of the Divine principles of the new life rather than a set sequence of experience; above all, the parable gives a lesson that most of us only begin to learn after Pentecost has become a reality to us—the lesson of walking, not after the flesh, ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter
... and parable, won many followers. She pointed out that the doctrine of the Humanist in abolishing world competition hit at the fundamental principle that made for initiative and made man utilise thought ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... the drowsed soul from the dreams and phantom world of sensuality to actual reality—how has it been evaded! His word, that was spirit! His mysteries, which even the apostles must wait for the parable in order to comprehend! These spiritual things, which can only be spiritually discerned, were—say some—mere metaphors! Figures of speech! Oriental hyperboles! "All this means only morality!" Ah! how far nearer the truth to say ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... grave clothes into the new world; the Jewish spirit come up into the day from out the basement and cellar rooms of the synagogue where it had been seated for a thousand years drugging itself with rabbinical lore, refining almost maniacally upon the intention of some obscure phrase or parable, negating the lure of the world and of experience with a mass of rites and observances and ceremonials, losing itself in the gray desert stretches of theory, or wasting itself in the impossible dream of Zion ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... flung him from his breast. But he was no nearer to the meaning of life than he had been before. Why the world was there and what men had come into existence for at all was as inexplicable as ever. Surely there must be some reason. He thought of Cronshaw's parable of the Persian carpet. He offered it as a solution of the riddle, and mysteriously he stated that it was no answer at all unless you found it out ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... plunderings and oppressions. This is what is politely called partisan history. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a literary indictment of the South by featuring its supposed brutalities. And the attitude of the South is mirrored in a pretty parable concerning a Southern girl who came North on a visit, and seeing in print the words "damned Yankee," innocently remarked that she always thought they were one word. A description of the enemy, made by a person or a people, must be taken cum ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... for Widow Tregellis and her children, and shared with them all he had, going short for them many a time. And I can't help thinking, sir, that Christ would have helped Peggy, and that Michael, being an infidel and such a good man, is something like that second son in the parable who said he would not do his Lord's will when he was ordered, but who ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... and say about them? You remember the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. Jesus said that this poor sinning publican, who smote upon his breast, and said, "God be merciful to me a sinner," was the one that God looked upon with favor, not the Pharisee, who ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... yon town am I; No bridge anear, I sit and sit Until these waters have run dry, So that afoot I get to it." "A living parable behold, My friend!" quoth I. "Upon the brim You, too, will gaze until you're old, But never boldly take ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... know," broke from him, as if he could not bear to leave the subject—"but at least they're not original, you know.... I think that must be just the meaning of the parable of the rich ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the Christian cross, have only a similar significance, a bringing near to the eye of what exists in reality only for the mind and heart. A symbol, however, is an arbitrary fiction, and stands to the idea as a metaphor does to the thing itself. In literature the parable of the mustard seed to which the kingdom of heaven was likened, exemplifies symbolical or metaphorical method; but the tale of the court of Arthur's knights, ideal method; between them, and sharing something of both, lies allegorical method. Idolatry is the religion of symbolism, for ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... 'Excellent is this parable that thou hast recited! Indeed, thou art acquainted with truth! Having listened to thy nectarlike speech, I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... parable, Signor Fogazzaro reveals his attitude, which it appears, does not differ from that proposed by many Anglicans and other Protestants towards their respective churches. Herein his Saint takes on the largest significance. He is a religious man who constantly praises Reason, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... dignity, to observe that—since there never was a true story which could not be told in parables, where you might put a monkey for a margrave, and vice versa—whatever has been or is to be narrated by me about low people, may be ennobled by being considered a parable; so that if any bad habits and ugly consequences are brought into view, the reader may have the relief of regarding them as not more than figuratively ungenteel, and may feel himself virtually in company ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... gone with a rush this year," he drawled. "The Talfer comes down brown, the Eisack comes down blue; they flow into the Etsch and make it green; a parable of the Spring for ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 4:2; Matthew 13:3).—Christ spoke in parables to convey and send home to the hearts of His hearers the truth, just as Nathan employed the parable of the lamb in the case of David to make him acknowledge his sin. They were adapted to the capacities of His hearers. Each parable had some great ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... The parable of "The Pharisee and the Publican," describes two men who went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... want a supper," said Lucien to Blondet, hoping to rid himself of this mob, which threatened to increase, "it seems to me that you need not work up hyperbole and parable to attack an old friend as if he were a booby. To-morrow night at Lointier's——" he cried, seeing a woman come by, whom he rushed ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... "The Spirit on the Face of the Waters," "Creation of Birds and Fishes," "Eden," and "The Parable of the Good Seed," by Pupils of H. A. Payne, Birmingham School of Art. These lose very much by reduction, and should be seen with a lens magnifying 2-1/2 diameters. They are the designs of the pupils themselves (boys in their teens), and are examples of bold ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... prodigal's return this," he said, remembering the parable he used to learn to say to his father on Sunday afternoons; "not so much as a blessed fatted calf—only a half-starved cow and a deaf old woman. I wonder what ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... calumnies, because faith alone will save them, and they certainly have the true faith, which shows itself by these true fruits of charity. They are the elect, and consequently, they are not like the Catholic Priests, who are all wicked. The reader may recollect the parable of ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... think there is a kind of parable there for the race as a whole? Have you ever met a man without wondering what shining sorrows he hides from the world, what contrast between vision and accomplishment torments him? Behind every ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... I give my father up. I give him a parable: that the Waverley novels are better reading for every day than the tragic Life. And he takes it backside foremost, and shakes his head, and is gloomier than ever. Tell him that I give him up. I don't want no such a parent. This ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to preach to Protestants about the sin of man-worship! Verily, here we have the parable of the mote and the beam in a twentieth century edition. Catholic teachers would be the last ones, we imagine, whom scrupulous Christians would choose for instructing them regarding the sin of idolatry and ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... himself ever the wiser; for, in all his labours he had rejected to get that food that indeed is meat and drink for the soul. Nay, in singing this song he did but provoke God to hasten to send to fetch his soul to hell; for so begins the conclusion of the parable—'Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?' So that, I say, it is the greatest folly in the world for a man, upon any pretence what ever, to neglect to make good the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the lesson which we are to draw from the parable of the potter's clay is just the exact opposite which some men draw. Not that God's decrees are absolute: but that they are conditional, and depend on our good or evil conduct. Not that His election or His reprobation ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... in honour of Jack's repentance; and the Curate stood outside upon the threshold, looking at the scene with the strangest half-angry, half-comical realisation of the state of mind of the elder brother in the parable. He had himself been rather found fault with, excused, and tolerated, among his relations; but Jack had at once become master of the position, and taken possession of all their sympathies. Mr Wentworth stood gazing at them, half-amused, and yet more ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... occurrences of life, and to reveal the true way of regarding them by His own attitude towards them. When He would teach the beauty of humility it is by putting a little child in the midst of His arrogant and vainglorious disciples, that the child may become the living and memorable parable of His sentiments. When He would teach humanity, He does so by His own conduct to lepers. When He would discredit and expose the barbarism of the Mosaic Sabbatarian laws as interpreted by scribes and Pharisees, He does so by healing the sick and blind upon the Sabbath day. ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... pantomimo. Pantry mangxajxejo. Pap kacxo. Papa patreto, pacxjo. Papal papa. Paper papero. Paper-hanger paperkovristo, tapetisto. Paper-maker paperisto. Paper-manufactory paperfarejo. Paper-mill paperfarejo. Paper-shop jxurnalvendejo. Papyrus papiruso. Parable komparajxo. Parabola parabolo. Parade paradi. Parade (place) promenejo. Parade vidajxo, luksajxo. Paradise paradizo. Paradox paradokso. Paragon perfektmodelo, perfektajxo. Paragraph paragrafo. Parallel paralela. Paralyze paralizi. Paralysis paralizo—ado. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... up until somebody declines to let you have your own way—an' then, right off, you fly in a rage an' git abusive. I'm gittin' weary o' bein' ordered off your dirty little scow an' then bein' invited back agin. One o' these bright days, when you start pulling for the fiftieth time the modern parable o' the Prodigal Son an' the Fatted Calf, I'm goin' to walk out o' the cast for keeps. Now, if I was you an' valued the services of a good navigatin' officer an' a good engineer, I'd just take a little run along the waterfront ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... lies dead in me, yet lives In Thee, whose Parable is—Time, And Worlds, and Forms, and Sound that gives ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... he returns, in a parable, to his epoch. For this book is the history of France "from the earliest time to the present day," seen in the mirror of the writer's ironical temperament. It is very good. It is inimitable. It is sheer ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... will possibly comprehend that the Atlantic, in this parable, stands for the mighty ocean of ether through which we drift and that the bunch of corks represents the little and obscure planetary system to which we belong. A third-rate sun, with its rag tag and bobtail of insignificant satellites, we float under the same daily conditions towards some unknown ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... women. Consider the Balzac. It is not Balzac the writer of novels, but Balzac the prophet, the seer, the great natural force—like Rodin himself. That is why these kindred spirits converse across the years, as do the Alpine peaks in that striking parable of Turgenieff's. No doubt in bronze the Balzac will arouse less wrath from the unimaginative; in plaster it produces the effect of some ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... hearts in consequence? Their assurance of immortality has not come from a knowledge of him, and without him it is worse than worthless. Little indeed has been gained, and that with the loss of much. The word applies here which our Lord in his parable puts into the mouth of Abraham: If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. He does not say they would not believe in a future state though one rose from the dead—although most likely they ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... on his neck, and killed him"—bid him a hearty welcome—lavished the richest favors on him, and called all to rejoice at his return. In like manner our heavenly Father receives the returning penitent. This is the spirit of the parable. ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... the tale of the Kilmansegg Kin, In golden text on a vellum skin, Though certain people would wink and grin, And declare the whole story a parable— That the Ancestor rich was one Jacob Ghrimes, Who held a long lease, in prosperous times, Of acres, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... slid helplessly into the naive question, "Well, did his father drown?" before the meaning of the little parable struck her. She began to laugh, with her gay, sweet inability to resent a joke made at her own expense. "Don't you think you are a good hand at sermon-making!" she mocked him. "It's all very well to preach, but just you tell me what you would have ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... were spoken in a kindly, wheedling tone, and the girl's face broke into the prettiest of smiles. Perhaps Janet would have obeyed, but Muckle John, swift to prevent defection, took up the parable. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... householder came near, and said unto him, ' Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence, then, hath it tares?' And he saith unto them, an enemy hath done this." You know the rest of the parable. The explanation of it is as follows:—"He who soweth the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and the good seed are the sons of the kingdom, and the tares are the sons of the Evil One, and the enemy who sowed them is the Devil." Here you see, as far as ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... it her Godfather, Sir DRURIOLANUS LE GRAND, or was it the joint effort of GRAND et PETTITT, so as to satisfy all comers Great and Small? The Prodigal Son has already served as the title of an Opera directly founded on the Scriptural parable of the Prodigal, and has recently been used as the title of the now famous ballet d'action. There was also a Pere Prodigue—which the English schoolboy thought was French for an uncommonly big Marie Louise specimen; so there is justification and authority for bringing this new member of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... been running its parlour and dining cars, its telegraphs and electric lights and hotels, a winding thread of life and civilisation, through the lonely and savage splendours of snow-peak and rock, transforming day by day the destinies of Canada—the parable became a truth, proved upon the pulses ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Abraham or the Gospel reminds the Jew that Moses and the prophets were as convincing; they would not believe them. Christ said: "If ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed me for he wrote of me. If ye believe not him, neither will ye believe, though one arose from the dead." Christ in this parable prophesied of his own death and resurrection, they did not believe when he arose ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... literary dictator of Victorian prose. And, though we all know how wantonly he often misused his mighty gift, though no one now would venture to imitate him even at a distance, and though Matthew Arnold was ever taking up his parable—"Flee Carlylese as the very Devil!"—we are sliding into Carlylese unconsciously from time to time, and even Culture itself fell into the trap in the ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... horse's head, like the temple between the paws of the Sphinx," answered Faber, speaking a parable without knowing it. ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... a more naked, narrative articulation; after the succinct, the dignified, and the poetic; and as a means to this, after a general lightening of this baggage of detail. After Scott we beheld the starveling story— once, in the hands of Voltaire, as abstract as a parable —begin to be pampered upon facts. The introduction of these details developed a particular ability of hand; and that ability, childishly indulged, has led to the works that now amaze us on a railway ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... standardization and architectural thinking, such as it is. But I meant this suggestion to go further, and to be taken in a higher sense, so I ask these people to read this chapter again. I have carried out the idea, in a parable, perhaps more clearly in The Golden Book of Springfield, when I speak of the World's Fair of the University of Springfield, to be built one hundred years hence. And I would recommend to those who have already taken seriously chapter eighteen, to reread it in two towns, ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... moment, but you have, fortunately, seen your error in good time for the money is still here. I have little to say to you, for your own feelings convince me that it is needless. Do you think that you can read a little? Then read this." Anderson turned to the parable of the Prodigal Son, which I read to him. "And now," said he, turning ever the leaves, "here is one ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... at and the work of God accomplished; and so they are dissipated by the influences of the world; and those who have experienced them are perhaps made worse instead of better. It is a very significant thing that is said of the pastor in our Lord's parable—that he sought the lost sheep "until he found it." We seek: we even seek labouriously and painfully: but we frequently leave off ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... a denunciation in the form of a parable. Dame Catherine was thereby accusing the churchmen and burgesses of Tours of working against Charles of Valois, their lord. The woman must have been held to have influence with the King, his kinsmen and his Council; for the inhabitants of Tours took fright and sent an Augustinian ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... plates, beginning with the Annunciation of the Virgin, and continuing down to the whole Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. He also engraved, after the drawings of the same Martin, the seven Works of Mercy, and the story of the rich Lazarus and the poor Lazarus, and four plates with the Parable of the Samaritan wounded by thieves, with four other plates of the Parable of the Talents, written by S. Matthew ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... Jesus experienced two alleviations of His suffering: the strength of a man relieved His body of the burden of the cross, and the pain of His soul was cooled by the sympathy of women. Is it not a parable—a parable of what men and women can do for Him still? Christ needs the strength of men—the strong arm, the vigorous hand, the shoulders that can bear the burden of His cause; He seeks from men the mind whose originality can plan what needs ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... a fine romantic actor, like Burke flinging the dagger on the floor. He may even (for all I know) be a sublime mystic, profoundly impressed with the ancient meaning of the divine trade of the Carpenter, and offering to the people a parable in the form of a ceremony. All I wish to indicate is the abyss of mental confusion in which such wild ritualism can be called "sound common sense." And it is in that abyss of mental confusion, and in that alone, that the new Imperialism ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... yields its life to a fungus, for which there is no remedy except, according to the natives, a lovely lily that grows in the forest. Transplanted, at the roots of the maori, the lily heals its disease and drives away the parasite. The missionaries cited this as a parable of Christianity, which would save from damnation the convert no matter how fungusy he was with sin. In tribal wars the enemy laid a sea-slug at the heart of the maori, and, its foe unseen, the tree perished from the corruption of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... irradiation of genius, the imagination of the poet, the sagacity of the politician, the wisdom (as Scripture calls it), which now rears and decorates the Temple, now manifests itself in proverb or in parable. The old saws of nations, the majestic precepts of philosophy, the luminous maxims of law, the oracles of individual wisdom, the traditionary rules of truth, justice, and religion, even though imbedded in the corruption, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... labor, and its grievances are suppressed. We are told nothing about how the worker lives: what homes, what food, his wage will provide. The journalist holds up a moral umbrella, protecting society from the fiery hail of conscience. The baser sort of clergyman will take up the parable and begin advocating a servile peace, glibly misinterpreting the divine teaching of love to prove that the lamb should lie down inside the lion, and only so can it be saved soul and body, forgetful ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury, if it be anything more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... panting heart of fire; And in the storm-dismantled forest-choir For thine own elegy thy winds attune Their wild and wizard lyre: And poignant grows the charm of thy decay, The pathos of thy beauty, and the sting, Thou parable of greatness vanishing! For me, thy woods of gold and skies of grey With speech ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... that one would have done better if one had been in his place; and thus one must try to resist any expression of personal disapproval, because such an expression implies a consciousness of moral superiority, and the moment that one is conscious of that, as in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, the position of the condemner and the condemned is instantaneously reversed. To hate people is the most dangerous luxury that one can indulge in, and the most that one is justified in doing is to avoid ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... place apart in English poetry. Death's Jest-Book is perhaps the most morbid poem in our literature. There is not a page without its sad, grotesque, gay, or abhorrent imagery of the tomb. A slave cannot say that a lady is asleep without turning it into a parable of death: ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... but as symbols are sent." From the beginning man has divined that the things open to his senses are more than mere facts, having other and hidden meanings. The whole world was close to him as an infinite parable, a mystical and prophetic scroll the lexicon of which he set himself to find. Both he and his world were so made as to convey a sense of doubleness, of high truth hinted in humble, nearby things. No smallest thing but had its skyey aspect which, by his winged and quick-sighted fancy, he ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... never checked him, never questioned his goings and comings. Sometimes, half-jestingly it seemed, he asked his advice, and whatever Martin said was always considered. As often as not the advice given took the form of a parable, and, no matter how absurd it sounded, Sir John invariably tried to understand ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner |
