Beside this let me place a lesson from the flowers, culled from Matthias Faber. “They teach us to trust in God. I pray you look at Divine Providence exerted in behalf of the smallest floweret. God has given it perfect parts, and members proportioned to its trunk; He has provided it with organs for the performance of all those functions which are necessary to it, as the drawing up of juice, and its dispersion through the various parts; a root branching into tiny fibres riveting it to the soil; a stalk erect, lest it should be stained and corrupted through contact with the earth, strong also, lest it should be broken by the storm, a rind thick or furred to protect it from cold, or heat, or accident; twigs and leaves for adornment and shelter; a most beauteous array of flower above the array of Solomon in all his glory. He has given it, besides, a scent pleasant to beasts or men; He has endued it with healing properties, and, above all, with the faculty of generating in its own likeness. How many benefits conferred on one flower! one flower, I say, which to-morrow is cut down and cast into the oven! What, then, will He not give to man, whom He has made in His own image, an heir of Heaven!… ‘Consider the lilies of the field how they grow,’ aye! how they grow, how is it? They grow steadily night and day, stretching themselves out and expanding, so that no man may discern the process going on. So, too, let us grow, daily extirpating vices, daily implanting virtues, thus sensibly increasing, so that, after the lapse of years, we may be found to have advanced in spiritual growth, though we ourselves may not have known it. As said the Apostle, ‘Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark’ (Phil. iii. 13).
“They teach us, also, to sigh for heavenly beatitude, and the society of the blessed. If even in this world such variety of flowers is seen, such beauty, such fragrance, and these in flowers which to-day are and to-morrow are cast into the oven, what will be the beauty, what the variety, what the glory of the elect in the kingdom of God! Those who go to distant lands are ever discovering fresh and fresh flowers; and so in Heaven is there unmeasured variety among the angels and the elect.
“Yet in all this variety there is perfect unity. For as in the same garden, or meadow, the flowers are content with their several beauties, and no one impedes the growth of another, or thrusts it out of its place, but all look up to the one sun, and bask and grow and gather strength in his brightness; so also in Heaven. There each of the Blessed will be content with his portion of glory, none interfering with another, none envying another. For all will see God face to face, and live and move and have their being in His presence, and therewith be satisfied through eternity.”
Simile has been used extensively in all ages of the Church, but in the fifteenth century it had become very mean and coarse. Meffreth could talk of the world as being untranquil, like a globule of quicksilver, never to be brought to rest till fused to a black residuum in the sulphurous blast of Hell; and could illustrate the text, “Here we have no continuing city,” by comparing this poor world of ours to the weed-covered back of a large whale, which an eminent and veracious navigator—of course he means Sinbad—mistook for a verdant isle, only to discover his mistake when he began to drive into it the stakes of his habitation.
Far nobler was the use of simile in the great revival of the sixteenth century.
Pre-eminent among those who made it a vehicle for conveying truths, are the names of De Barzia and Osorius; both men of great refinement of taste and richness of imagination.
What, for example, could be more graceful than the following, given by the Bishop of Cadiz, when speaking of the impossibility of man comprehending the reason of God’s dealings, when He touches with the finger of death at one time a child, at another an aged man, then a youth, and next, perhaps, one in full vigour of manhood? To us, this selection seems to be a matter of chance, but there is no chance in it. The Bishop then uses this illustration. The deaf man watches the harpist, and sees his fingers dance over the strings in a strange and unaccountable way. Now a strong silver cord is touched, then a slender catgut string. At one time a long string is set vibrating, at another a very short string; now several are thrummed together, and then one alone is set quivering. Just so is it with us; we hear not the perfect harmony, nor follow the wondrous melody of God’s operations, for the faculty of comprehending them is deficient in us, and to us in our faithlessness there seems chance and hazard, where really there exists harmony and order.
Osorius uses a different simile in illustrating an idea somewhat similar.
He is speaking to those who murmur at God’s dealings in this world, and who would fain have His disposition of things altered in various particulars. He then says, that those who look on an unfinished piece of tapestry see a foot here, a hand there, a patch of red in one spot, of green in another, and all seems to be confusion. Let us wait till the work is complete, and we shall see that not a hand or foot, not a thread even is out of place. Such is the history of the world. We see blood and war where there should be peace; we see men exalted to be kings who should have been slaves, and men condemned to be slaves who would have ruled nations in wisdom and equity, and we think that there is imperfection in the work. Wait we awhile, till at the Last Day the great tapestry of this world’s history is unrolled before us, and then we shall see that all has been ordered by God’s good providence for the very best.
But Scripture supplied most of the illustrations needed by these preachers. It was to them an inexhaustible storehouse, from which they could bring forth things new and old. Holy Scripture seems to have supplied them with every thing that they required; it gave them a text, it afforded confirmation to their subject; from it they drew mystical illustrations for its corroboration, and examples wherewith to enforce precept.