when time and
experience, including suffering perhaps, had prepared them for deeper
thought, they would find the living kernel of gospel truth within the
husk of the simple tale.

PARABLES IN GENERAL.

The essential feature of a parable is that of comparison or similitude,
by which some ordinary, well-understood incident is used to illustrate a
fact or principle not directly expressed in the story. The popular
thought that a parable necessarily rests on a fictitious incident is
incorrect; for, inasmuch as the story or circumstance of the parable
must be simple and indeed common-place, it may be real. There is no
fiction in the parables we have thus far studied; the fundamental
stories are true to life and the given circumstances are facts of
experience. The narrative or incident upon which a parable is
constructed may be an actual occurrence or fiction; but, if fictitious,
the story must be consistent and probable, with no admixture of the
unusual or miraculous. In this respect the parable differs from the
fable, the latter being imaginative, exaggerated and improbable as to
fact; moreover, the intent is unlike in the two, since the parable is
designed to convey some great spiritual truth, while the so-called moral
of the fable is at best suggestive only of worldly achievement and
personal advantage. Stories of trees, animals and inanimate things
talking together or with men are wholly fanciful; they are fables or
apologues whether the outcome be depicted as good or bad; to the parable
these show contrast, not similarity. The avowed purpose of the fable is
rather to amuse than to teach. The parable may embody a narrative as in
the instances of the sower and the tares, or merely an isolated
incident, as in those of the mustard seed and the leaven.

Allegories are distinguished from parables by greater length and detail
of the story, and by the intimate admixture of the narrative with the
lesson it is designed to teach; these are kept distinctly separate in
the parable. Myths are fictitious stories, sometimes with historic basis
of fact, but without symbolism of spiritual worth. A proverb is a short,
sententious saying, in the nature of a maxim, connoting a definite truth
or suggestion by comparison. Proverbs and parables are closely related,
and in the Bible the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.[653] The
Old Testament contains two parables, a few fables and allegories, and
numerous proverbs; of the last-name