with that of the glorious faculties of the spirit, of which we are by no means without gleams, even though we live most distinctly in our more external powers.

con

The Rabbins, with their tendency to lose themselves in minor and trifling detail, and to overshoot wisdom by subtlety, were stantly harping upon this comparison of faculties. "In this world, men eat and drink, carry on business, marry wives and beget children; but in the world to come those things do not occur: (Pirke R. Elieser in Jalkut Sim.) There are, as they hold, the host below and the host above. "On high they neither eat nor drink, nor beget nor bear children, nor die, but live for

ever.

But in the lower part they eat and drink, beget and bear, die, and live not:" (Pesikta Rabbathi.) The following is more trifling and absurd in its details, but it will show how familiar was the notion of opposite and balancing qualities, as the five wise and five foolish virgins. "Six things there are in man, of which he holds three in common with the beasts, three with the angels of ministry. The former three are, to eat and drink, to propagate his kind, and to pass excrement; the latter are, that he is endowed with reason, walks erect, and speaks in the Hebrew tongue;" (Aboth R. Nathan, c. 36.)

The Parsees classed precepts, elementary and other qualities in groups of five; one of these groups consists of thinking good, speaking good, doing good, hearkening, and being pure. They regarded the division of the soul as threefold, but in the later systems it is made to consist of five parts. Numbers are quite arbitrary unless used by consent in a special sense; number can really describe the infinite variety of spiritual faculties.

no

It may be thought to be foreign

to the poetic nature of a parable to analyse its construction down to such trifling, or even inordinate detail; but in face of the fact that an infallible Church professes to hold by tradition the keys that unlock all the problems of its sacred books, and that in this country alone there are thousands of eminent persons ready to furnish a glib exposition of any parable, it behoves a layman who suggests a new and unfamiliar rendering to look well to the supports on which it rests. And surely these should be best found in the philosophic views actually current at the period of the parable, and among the race from which it sprang.

If the English mind objects to the kind of thought that emanates from the deep and subtle Hebrew mind, and to the tediousness of penetrating into it, one mode of relief is obvious. But while these sacred traditions hold their present high and special place, a place which indeed they deserve in the midst of the grand literature of the world, no trouble should be deemed too great for the proper understanding of them.

The work has now been well begun at our universities, and the next generation may hope for more wisdom and less assumption.

That minute analysis is necessary, may be argued by the following passage from the representative treatise of Talmudical gnomology (Pirke Aboth. iv. 3) : "Who is rich? He that is contented with his lot; for it is said, when thou eatest the labour of thy hands, happy art thou, and it shall be well with thee (Ps. cxxviii. 2). 'Happy art thou' in this world; and it shall be well with thee' in the world to come." On this the Rev. Charles Taylor ("Sayings of the Jewish Fathers," Cambridge University Press, 1877) comments: "It is a characteristic of Talmudic

exegesis that, as far as possible every expression of Holy Scripture is regarded as having a separate significance. In such texts as the above the darshan [teacher of the school of the mystics] allows no mere cumulation of phrases for the sake of symmetry or emphasis, but he sees distinct allusions to the present and future worlds."

66

A consideration of the way in which a saying from the Psalms (xxxvii. 32) is parabolically interpreted will help us in the present study: "The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him." The 'wicked' is man's evil nature (Sukkah, 52 b), which he must subdue, yet not wholly destroy and eradicate, for this would be to ruin the body by the destruction of the psychic force." While we continue here, in the long day before the heavenly feast, we cannot do without the lamps of the five foolish virgins. "The evil yeçer rules over the animal soul, which a man is commanded to preserve: Take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently' (Deut. iv. 9); and in order to do this, he must to a certain extent follow the promptings of the yeçer. Even the evil yeçer is good, for it is said: 'And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.""

The tendency of the greatest rabbi mystics was not to a flurried asceticism, but to a large acceptance of life. The lamps of the foolish virgins were giving light until that midnight of new openings of day drew nigh. Had they been starveling lamp-bearers with penurious lamps, type of a mean and shrinking animal soul—the sort of nature that escapes sin, not by conquest, but by lack of the oil of passion-the outer court at least of their master's palace would have been but poorly lit. The parable of the prodigal son, and his brother

who stays at home in assured but colourless respectability, will be suggested by the following: "The strong and great man is he in whom the evil nature is strong; ' and therefore our wise men of blessed memory have said, In the place where penitents stand, the faultlessly righteous stand not,' for it is said (Is. lvii. 19), Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near; to the far off first, and afterwards to the near:" (Berakoth, 34, b).

However foreign to our intellectual methods may be the involutions of Hebrew thought, yet when once we have reached the thought itself, we can embody it in what form we please, and our life itself most naturally suggests itself as the best vehicle for truth. But whether we neglect the inner heart of our own accepted traditions or not, the least amount of study of them on a proper plan must lead us to more respect for the value and depth of ancient thought. Of the Essenes those mysterious contemporaries of our era's beginning, we learn with regard to their study of their Scripture heirlooms: "Most things are philosophically treated of by them through symbols according to the ancient mode of pursuit.'

Philo, who tells us this, makes no parables; but he has learned from them. He speaks of elucidations which "I have heard from godillumined men, who regard the generality of what is contained in the laws to be plain symbols of obscure meanings, and forms of expression of the undivulged:" (De Spec. Leg. § 32.) Who were these great illuminati? We can only suppose, if it is not the Pharisaic doctors that are referred to, that they were the rabbis of the Essene communities, dwelling in scattered groups, but perhaps mostly in the regions between Pales

tine and Alexandria. The theory has been advanced that Jesus acquired his literary knowledge within the schools of this small but important society. Whether he did or not, his own sphere was so splendid that it cannot but outshine his school.

Further, in his picture of the religious services of the Therapeuts, Philo conveys as follows their expository method ::

"The explanations of the Sacred Scriptures are made by giving the deep meanings which lie in the allegories. For the whole range of laws seems to these men to be like a living organism, which has for body the express commandments, but for soul the invisible meaning which is stored up within the letter, in which meaning the rational soul begins distinctively to contemplate what is proper to itself, beholding as it were by means of a mirror of the mere terms the extraordinary beauties of thought introduced, and while unfolding and revealing the symbols, bringing the inner sense bare to the light, unto such as are able by the aid of slight indications to behold what is unseen through what is in appearance:" (De Vita Contempl.)

It may very fairly be urged that it militates against such a meaning of the parable as we have suggested, that it is not to be found in the oral tradition of any Church. Alas! Were not most of the early traditions lost when the Church divided into little spiteful sects? Nevertheless, it is not a little suggestive to find Clement of Alexandria, apparently making casual reference to this parable (Strom. v. 14), comment so strangely upon the closing injunction, "Watch," as to observe that it is "as much as to say, 'Study how to live, and endeavour to separate the soul from the body.'" What has this

to do with ten virgins, but by an interior sense of the parable being understood, a sense evidently akin to that which we have indicated ?

Again he says (Strom. v. 6), "Great is the crowd that keep to the things of sense, as if they were the only things in existence. Cast your eyes around,' says Plato, ' and see that none of the initiated listen.' Such are they who think that nothing else exists but what they can hold tight with their hand; but do not admit as in the department of existence, actions and processes of generation, and the whole of the unseen. For such are those who keep by the five senses. But the knowledge of God is a thing inaccessible to the ears and like organs of this kind of people." Clement is also in the same groove as the Talmudists as to the constitution of man. He says (Strom. vi. 16), "There is a ten in man himself; the five senses and the power of speech, and that of reproduction, and the eighth is the spiritual principle communicated at his creation; and the ninth the ruling faculty of the soul; and tenth, there is the distinctive characteristic of the Holy Spirit, which comes to him through faith.' Here he binds down to definite attributes the complex being of man; a true parable does not so specify, it suggests.

It is to our own poets that we must look to get help in the understanding of the ancient symbolic lore. They can help us by stretching out nearer and more familiar hands than those of the strongest of far off days. In their glowing crucibles of sympathy they can make alive again symbols that were dead, and by their insight can retrieve meanings that were lost. That is, such as are poets, and have not shut themselves up out of the blue heaven in little boudoirs of versification.

Several poets have dared to treat of the midnight scene of the parable. We say dared, for the scene is one so remote from the orbit of the ordinary mind that it requires courage even to fling out a silver line of parabola round it. And the outstretching soul that catches a gleam from the light beyond. that of "common day" is liable to a charge of cometary eccentricity or extravagance. Yet strange is the idea of remoteness, for the scene is so very near. Compare its distance with that of historic pictures-for all who can read this it is certainly not so far off as the eighteenth century is, and for a large number of us the way to it is not so long, but that it will be reached before the twentieth century begins. As for remoteness of space, that is but a mode of expressing the sense of separation. Southey wrote, in his ode to the memory of Heber— Heber, thou art not dead, thou canst not die !

Nor can I think of thee as lost.

A little portiou of this little isle At first divided us; then half the globe: The same earth held us still; but when, O Reginald, wert thou so near as now 'Tis but the falling of a withered leaf, The breaking of a shell; The rending of a veil ?

A pretty fancy, says the æsthetic materialist, which is not meant to be seriously believed. But the true poet and prophet does believe it in every era of the world. Even the critic, when he has refined his faculties, feels bound to give the warning: "Do not confound what is spiritual with what is abstract; and bear in mind that philosophy has a muse, and ought not to serve merely as a laboratory for argument:" (Joubert.)

This neglected Muse of Philosophy is the true leader of the poet or parabolist into regions that at first seem remote and unfamiliar -regions that are only affrighting

because the ignorant mind has a blur in its eye and is aghast at shadows

"What angel but would seem

To sensual eyes ghost-dim ?"
E. B. BROWNING.

The only cure is for the mind to be, so to speak, patted and soothed and brought a little nearer. The materialist says, "It is nothing; it is folly to be afraid; don't be superstitious." The true mystic says, "It is something, but not to be afraid of; don't be superstitious, but come a little nearer." We allow, because it is rationally necessary, the existence of an unseen ether hanging between star and star, and, though so infinitely thin and impalpable, potent to carry a vigorous wave of message sheer through what we call a solid; but it is held unscientific to regard that ether as full of life. And yet, as says a simple and wise old English divine, "Little know we how little a way a soul hath to go to heaven when it departs from the body; whether it must pass locally through moon, sun, and firmament (and, if all that must be done, it may be done in less time than I have proposed the doubt in), or whether that soul find new light in the same room, and be not carried into any other, but that the glory of heaven be diffused over all, I know not, I dispute not, I inquire not."

We are allowing ourselves to dwell upon this theme, because some gentle consideration of it is necessary to the study of parable, which, like poetry, will not confine

itself to the terrestrial condition of man. As an old dictum runs, containing a fine appreciation of the parabolic quality of all representation here, we may find "Umbra in lege, imago in evangelio, veritas in cœlo." The law gives a shadow, the gospel a phantom image, Heaven has the

utter truth; we see through a glass darkly here.

To return to the poetic expressions that parallel the Parable of the Ten Virgins read in the manner suggested, we may cite Elizabeth Barrett Browning's eloquent words, which form a vivid picture of the scene:

"No type of earth could image that awaking,

Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs round him breaking,

Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted."

This picture too, by the same lady, of insight, is a brave one. To Georges Sand she writes :

"Whose soul, amid the lions Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance,

And answers roar for roar, as spirits can."

This is expressive metaphor for the lifelong conflict prior to the final one, which is represented in the parable by the words, "Lord, lord, open to us. Verily, I say.

unto I know you not;" when you, the virgins that have been refused oil for their lamps, vanish at last in what Augustine would surely call mitissima damnatio, the least and gentlest damnation possible, like that of the cast off slipper we fling after the wedding party. But oft the dismissed servants are young and strong, and will not give up their disestablished office; the virgins (not necessarily girls, by the way) shouting outside the Master's now shut door in the parable, had made themselves known to Robert Browning when he drew the similitude of

"Sin

Which steals back softly on a soul halfsaved."-Pauline.

How bright even the lamps of the foolish virgins may be, if those of the wise ones are not obscured, ny a poet has seen:

Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense,

But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.

(H. VAUGHAN, 17th Cent.)

The picture of the parable, we must remember, is of a wellbalanced nature, ready for the call. It is possible to imagine a case in which the wiser virgins, even if supplied with oil, should have mismanaged their lamps, and afford but little light to herald the bridegroom. In which case his state is a poor one, and he has to turn to looking after his servants. But it is not necessary to stigmatise even the foolish virgins as representing sin; they represent earth life, and creation is a slow process:

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her

own;

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,

And, even with something of a mother's mind

And no unworthy aim,

The homely nurse doth all she can
To make her foster-child, her inmate,

man,

Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he

came.

WORDSWORTH.

The finest poem we have from Mrs. Lydia Sigourney is a suggestive picture which we may draw into subsidiary relations to our parable, by describing it as the "good byes" which pass at length between the virgins whose lamps are alight and their old companions, whose engagement to bear the lamp is terminated. The soul thus addresses the body:

Companion dear! the hour draws nigh, The sentence speeds-to die, to die. So long in mystic union held, So long with strong embrace compelled, How canst thou bear the dread decree, That strikes thy clasping nerves from me?

*

If I have ever caused thee pain, The throbbing breast, the burning brain,