I reckon the pearls of the
twelve gates were never found in earthly oysters: nor do I account that
the gold of the streets was molten in an earthly furnace. No more, when
_Edith_ saith she will run and fetch a thing, should I think to accuse
her of falsehood if I saw that she walked, and ran not. 'Tis never well
to fetch a parable down on all fours. You and I use allegory always in
our common talk."

"Ay," quoth Sir _Robert_: "but you reckon they _be_ pearls, and gold?"

"I will tell you when I have seen them," saith _Father_, and smiled.
"Either they be gold and pearls, or they be that to which, in our
earthly minds, gold and pearls come the nearest. Why, my friend, we be
all but lisping children to God. Think you one moment, and tell me if
every word we use touching Him hath not in it more or less of parable?
We call Him Father, and King, and Master, and Guide, and Lord. Is not
every one of these taken from earthly relationships, and doth it not
presuppose a something which is to be found on earth? We have no better
wits than to do so here. If God would teach us that we know not, it
must be by talking to us touching things we do know. Did not you the
same with your children when they were babes? How far we may be able to
penetrate, when we be truly men, grown up unto the measure of the
stature of the fulness of _Christ_, verily I cannot tell. Only I do see
that not only all _Scripture_, but all analogy, pointeth to a time when
we shall emerge from this caterpillar state, and spread our wings as
butterflies in the sunshine. Nay, there is yet a better image in
nature. The grub of the dragon-fly dwelleth in the waters, and cannot
live in the air till it come forth into the final state. Tell me then,
I pray you, how shall this water-grub conceive the notion of flying
through the air? Supposing you able to talk with him, could you
represent the same unto him other than by the conceit of gliding through
water with most delightsome swiftness and directness? To talk of an
element wherein he had no experience should be simply so much nonsense
to him. Now, it may be--take me not, I pray you, as meaning it must
be--that all that shall be found in Heaven differs as greatly from what
is found on earth as the water differs from the air. Concerning these
matters, I take it, God teaches us by likening them to such things as we
know that shall give the best conceit of them to our minds. Here on
earth, the fairest a