(2) Fish advance in the water by wagging their tails; and good Christians have to advance by remembering the end of all things!!
(3) Little fish are eaten by big fish, and so of the faithful it is said, “Men shall devour you.”
Occasionally Jean Raulin tells a story to enliven his discourse—stories in the pulpit were in vogue then—and these anecdotes and fables are often exceedingly good and pointed, but they are most unsuited to a sermon.
On one occasion, when preaching on the corruptions in the Church, and declaiming against the way in which the clergy condoned moral sins of the blackest dye, but showed the utmost severity when the slightest injury was done to the temporal welfare of the Church, he illustrated his subject by a story to this effect:
The beasts were once determined to keep Lent strictly, and to begin by making their confessions. The Lion was appointed confessor. First to be shriven came the Wolf, who with expressions of remorse acknowledged himself a grievous sinner, and confessed that he had—yes, he had—once eaten a lamb.
“Any extenuating circumstances?” asked the Lion.
“Well, yes, there were,” quoth the Wolf; “for the mother who bore me, and my ancestors from time immemorial, have been notable lamb-eaters, and ‘what’s born in the bone comes out in the flesh.’”
“Quite so,” said the confessor; “your penance is this,—say one Pater Noster.”
The next to approach the tribunal of penance was the Fox, with drooping tail, a lachrymose eye, and humble gait.
“I have sinned, father!” began Reynard, beating his breast; “I have sinned grievously through my own fault; I—I—I—yes, I once did eat a hen.”