Sacred history furnishes us with one example at the least of the generation in this wise of a proverb. That word, “_Is Saul also among the prophets?_” is one of which we know the exact manner in which it grew to be a “proverb in Israel.” When the son of Kish revealed of a sudden that nobler life which had hitherto been slumbering in him, alike undreamt of by himself and by others, took his part and place among the sons of the prophets, and, borne along in their enthusiasm, praised and prophesied as they did, showing that he was indeed turned into another man, then all that knew him beforehand said one to another, some probably in sincere astonishment, some in irony and unbelief, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” And the question they asked found and finds its application so often as any reveals of a sudden, at some crisis of his life, qualities for which those who knew him the longest had hitherto given him no credit, a nobleness which had been latent in him until now, a power of taking his place among the worthiest and the best, which none until now had at all deemed him to possess. It will, of course, find equally its application, when one does not step truly, but only affects suddenly to step, into an higher school, to take his place in a nobler circle of life, than that in which hitherto he has moved. [Sidenote: The cranes of Ibycus.] Another proverb, and one well known to the Greek scholar, _The cranes of Ibycus_,[30] had its rise in one of those remarkable incidents, which, witnessing for God’s inscrutable judgments, are eagerly grasped by men. The story of its birth is indeed one to which so deep a moral interest is attached, that I shall not hesitate to repeat it, even at the risk that Schiller’s immortal poem on the subject, or it may be the classical studies of some here present, may have made it already familiar to a portion of my hearers. Ibycus, a famous lyrical poet of Greece, journeying to Corinth, was assailed by robbers: as he fell beneath their murderous strokes he looked round, if any witnesses or avengers were nigh. No living thing was in sight, save only a flight of cranes soaring high over head. He called on them, and to them committed the avenging of his blood. A vain commission, as it might have appeared, and as no doubt it did to the murderers appear. Yet it was not so. For these, sitting a little time after in the open theatre at Corinth, beheld this flight of cranes hovering above them, and one said scoffingly to another, “Lo, there, the avengers of Ibycus!” The words were caught up by some near them; for already the poet’s disappearance had awakened anxiety and alarm. Being questioned, they betrayed themselves, and were led to their doom; and _The cranes of Ibycus_ passed into a proverb, very much as our _Murder will out_, to express the wondrous leadings of God whereby continually the secretest thing of blood is brought to the open light of day.