Other truths are wrapped up in parables. The form of the parable, not the matter it conveys, concerns me now. It is a form of speech which imbeds itself deeply in the memories of men and was admirably suited to preserve a genuine record during the time when the Gospel should subsist as an oral tradition. It put what was most important into the shape which made it most easy to recollect. Nothing except proverbs takes hold of men’s memories so firmly as tales. The most ancient literary possessions of the world are, probably, certain stories containing a moral. Of course our Lord’s teaching in parables answered greater ends than this of making His lessons easy to retain: but this form of teaching agreed wonderfully well with what the circumstances required. Next to tales in respect of being easily remembered, come narratives of detached striking acts. So the materials of the Gospel History, sayings, parables, narratives of signs and wonders, are cast into the forms best calculated for safe transmission through a period of tradition. We find the same suitableness of the form to the needs of the case, in the shape in which the whole Gospel has been delivered to us. I refer to its being narrative instead of didactic, and coming from the Evangelists instead of from Christ. If our Lord had left writings of His own, every letter of them would have been invested with such sanctity that there could have been no independent investigation of truth. Its place would have been taken by commentatorial works on the delivered word. When writings are set before us and we are told, “All truth lies there; look no further;” then our ingenuity is directed to extract diversities of meanings from the given words; for matter must be set forth in human speech, and human speech conveys different meanings to differently biased minds. The Jews regarded their sacred books as the actual words of God; hence came that subserviency to the letter, and that stretching of formulae which brought them to play fast and loose with their consciences. The Scribes looked on their Law as a conveyancer on a deed: they were bound by the letter, and this led them to regard the Almighty as One dealing with men under the terms of a contract. This drew them out of the road which led to a true knowledge of God, and helped to make them “blind leaders of the blind.” Our Lord breaks down this slavery to the letter of the Scripture which He found existing, and He is careful not to build up a new bondage to His own words.