Proverbs and Their Lessons / Being the Subject of Lectures Delivered to Young Men's Societies at Portsmouth and Elsewhere

by Richard Chenevix Trench

Proverbs in sermons.

It has been sometimes a matter of consideration to me whether we of the clergy might not make larger use, though of course it would be only occasional, of proverbs in our public teaching than we do. Great popular preachers of time past, or, seeing that this phrase has now so questionable a sound, great preachers for the people, such as have found their way to the universal heart of their fellows, addressing themselves not to that which some men had different from others, but to that rather which each had in common with all, have been ever great employers of proverbs. Thus he who would know the riches of those in the German tongue, with the vigorous manifold employment of which they are capable, will find no richer mine to dig in than the works of Luther. And such employment of them would, I believe, with our country congregations, be especially valuable. Any one, who by after investigation has sought to discover how much our rustic hearers carry away, even from the sermons to which they have attentively listened, will find that it is hardly ever the course and tenor of the argument, supposing the discourse to have contained such; but if anything was uttered, as it used so often to be by the best puritan preachers, tersely, pointedly, epigrammatically, this will have stayed by them, while all beside has passed away. Now, the merits of terseness and point, which have caused other words to be remembered, are exactly those which signalize the proverb, and generally in a yet higher degree.

It need scarcely be observed, that, if thus used, they will have to be employed with prudence and discretion, and with a careful selection. Thus, even with the example of so grave a divine as Bishop Sanderson before me, I should hesitate to employ in a sermon such a proverb as Over shoes, over boots—one which he declares to be the motto of some, who having advanced a certain way in sin, presently become utterly wretchless, caring not, and counting it wholly indifferent, how much further in evil they advance. Nor would I exactly recommend such use of a proverb as St. Bernard makes, who, in a sermon on the angels, desiring to shew à priori the extreme probability of their active and loving ministries in the service of men, adduces the Latin proverb: Who loves me, loves my dog; [208] and proceeds to argue thus; We are the dogs under Christ’s table; the angels love Him, they therefore love us.

But, although not exactly thus, the thing, I am persuaded, might be done, and with profit. Thus, in a discourse warning against sins of the tongue, there are many words which we might produce of our own to describe the mischief it inflicts that would be flatter, duller, less likely to be remembered than the old proverb: The tongue is not steel, but it cuts. On God’s faithfulness in sustaining, upholding, rewarding his servants, there are feebler things which we might bring out of our own treasure-house, than to remind our hearers of that word: He who serves God, serves a good Master. And this one might sink deep, telling of the enemy whom every one of us has the most to fear: No man has a worse friend than he brings with him from home. It stands in striking agreement with Augustine’s remarkable prayer “Deliver me from the evil man, from myself.” [209] Or again: Ill weeds grow apace;—with how lively an image does this set forth to us the rank luxuriant up-growth of sinful lusts and desires in the garden of an uncared-for, untended heart. I know not whether we might presume sufficient quickness of apprehension on the part of our hearers to venture on the following: The horse which draws its halter is not quite escaped; but I can hardly imagine an happier illustration of the fact, that so long as any remnant of a sinful habit is retained by us, so long as we draw this halter, we make but an idle boast of our liberty; we may, by means of that which we still drag with us, be at any moment again entangled altogether in the bondage from which we seemed to have entirely escaped.

In every language some of its noblest proverbs, such as oftentimes are admirably adapted for this application of which I am speaking, are those embodying men’s confidence in God’s moral government of the world, in his avenging righteousness, however much there may be in the confusions of the present evil time to provoke a doubt or even a denial of this. Thus, Punishment is lame, but it comes, which, if not old, yet rests on an image derived from antiquity, is good; although inferior in every way, in energy of expression, as in fulness of sense, to the ancient Greek one: The mill of God grinds late, but grinds to powder; [210] for this brings in the further thought, that his judgments, however long they tarry, yet, when they arrive, are crushing ones. There is indeed another of our own, not unworthy to be set beside this, announcing, though with quite another image, the same fact of the tardy but terrible arrivals of judgment: God comes with leaden feet, but strikes with iron hands. And then, how awfully sublime another which has come down to us as part of the wisdom of the ancient heathen world; I mean the following: The feet of the (avenging) deities are shod with wool. [211] Here a new thought is introduced,—the noiseless approach and advance of these judgments, as noiseless as the steps of one whose feet were wrapped in wool,—the manner in which they overtake secure sinners even in the hour of their utmost security. Who that has studied the history of the great crimes and criminals of the world, but will with a shuddering awe set his seal to the truth of this proverb? Indeed, meditating on such and on the source from which we have derived them, one is sometimes tempted to believe that the faith in a divine retribution evermore making itself felt in the world, this sense of a Nemesis, as men used to call it, was stronger and deeper in the earlier and better days of heathendom, than alas! it is in a sunken Christendom now.

Proverbs not profane.

But to resume. Even those proverbs which have acquired an use which seems to unite at once the trivial and the profane, may yet on closer inspection be found to be very far from having either triviality or profaneness cleaving to them. There is one, for instance, often taken lightly enough upon the lips: Talk of the devil, and he is sure to appear; or as it used to be: Talk of the devil, and his imps will appear; or as in German it is: Paint the devil on the wall, and he will shew himself anon;—which yet contains truth serious and important enough, if we would only give heed to it: it contains, in fact, a very solemn warning against a very dangerous sin, I mean, curiosity about evil. It has been often noticed, and is a very curious psychological fact, that there is a tendency in a great crime to reproduce itself, to call forth, that is, other crimes of the same character: and there is a fearful response which the evil we may hear or read about, is in danger of finding in our own hearts. This danger, then, assuredly makes it true wisdom, and a piece of moral prudence on the part of all to whom this is permitted, to avoid knowing or learning about the evil; especially when neither duty nor necessity oblige them thereto. It is men’s wisdom to talk as little about the devil, either with themselves or with others, as they can; lest he appear to them. “I agree with you,” says Niebuhr very profoundly in one of his letters, [212] “that it is better not to read books in which you make the acquaintance of the devil.” And certainly there is a remarkable commentary on this proverb, so interpreted, in the earnest warning given to the children of Israel, that they should not so much as inquire how the nations which were before them in Canaan, served their gods, with what cruelties, with what abominable impurities, lest through this inquiry they should be themselves entangled in the same. (Deut. xii. 29, 30.) They were not to talk about the devil, lest he should appear to them.

And other proverbs, too, which at first sight may seem over-familiar with the name of the great enemy of mankind, yet contain lessons which it would be an infinite pity to lose; as this German: Where the devil cannot come, he will send; [213] a proverb of very serious import, which excellently sets out to us the penetrative character of temptations, and the certainty that they will follow and find men out in their secretest retreats. It rebukes the absurdity of supposing that by any outward arrangements, cloistral retirements, flights into the wilderness, sin can be kept at a distance. So far from this, temptations will inevitably overleap all these outward and merely artificial barriers which may be raised up against them; for our great enemy is as formidable from a seeming distance as in close combat; where he cannot come, he will send. There are others of the same family, as the following: The devil’s meal is half bran; or all bran, as the Italians still more boldly proclaim it; [214] unrighteous gains are sure to disappoint the getter; the pleasures of sin, even in this present time, are largely dashed with its pains. And this: He had need of a long spoon that eats with the devil;—men fancy they can cheat the arch-cheater, can advance in partnership with him up to a certain point, and then, whenever the connexion becomes too dangerous, break it off at their will; being sure in this to be miserably deceived; for, to quote another in the same tone: He who has shipped the devil, must carry him over the water. Granting these and the like to have been often carelessly uttered, yet they all rest upon a true moral basis in the main. This last series of proverbs I will close with an Arabic one, to which not even this appearance of levity can be ascribed; for it is as solemn and sublime in form as it is profoundly deep in substance: The blessings of the evil Genii are curses. How deep a meaning the story of Fortunatus acquires, when taken as a commentary on this.

But I am warned to draw my lecture to an end. I have adduced in the course of these lectures no inconsiderable number of proverbs, and have sought for the most part to deduce from them lessons, which were lessons in common for us all. There is one, however, which I must not pass over, for I feel that it contains an especial lesson for myself, and a lesson which I should do wisely and well at this present time to lay to heart. When the Spaniards would describe a tedious writer, one who possesses the art of exhausting the patience of his readers, they say of him: He leaves nothing in his inkstand. The phrase is a singularly happy one, for assuredly there is no such secret of tediousness, no such certain means of wearing out the attention of our readers or our hearers, as the attempt to say everything ourselves, instead of leaving something to be filled up by their intelligence; while the merits of a composition are often displayed as really, if not so prominently, in what is passed over as in what is set down; in nothing more than in the just measure of the confidence which it shows in the capacities and powers of those to whom it is addressed. I would not willingly come under the condemnation, which waits on them who thus leave nothing in their inkstand; and lest I should do so, I will bring now this my final lecture to its close, and ask you to draw out for yourselves those further lessons from proverbs, which I am sure they are abundantly capable of yielding.