How many proverbs, which cannot be affirmed to have been originally made for the kingdom of heaven, do yet in their highest fulfilment manifestly belong to it, so that it seems as of right to claim that for its own, even as it claims, or rather reclaims, whatever else is good or true in the world, the seeds of truth wherever dispersed abroad, as belonging rightfully to itself. Thus there is that beautiful proverb, of which Pythagoras is reputed the author: _The things of friends are in common_.[186] Where does this find its exhaustive fulfilment, but in the communion of saints, their communion not with one another merely, though indeed this is a part of its fulfilment, but in their communion with Him, who is the friend of all good men? That such a conclusion lay legitimately in the words Socrates plainly saw; who argued from it, that since good men were the friends of the gods, therefore whatever things were the gods’, were also theirs; being, when he thus concluded, as near as one who had not the highest light of all, could be to that great word of the Apostle’s, “All things are yours.” Nor can I otherwise than esteem the ancient proverb as a very fine one, and one which we may gladly claim for our own: _Many meet the gods, but few salute them_. How often do _the gods_, (for I will keep in the language which this proverb suggests and supplies,) _meet_ men in the shape of a sorrow which might be a purifying one, of a joy which might elevate their hearts to thankfulness and praise; in a sickness or a recovery, a disappointment or a success; and yet how few, as it must be sadly owned, _salute_ them; how few recognise their august presences in this joy or this sorrow, this blessing added, or this blessing taken away. As this proverb has reference to men’s failing to _see_ the Divine presences, so let me observe by the way, there is a very grand French one which expresses the same truth, under the image of a failing to _hear_ the divine voices, those voices being drowned by the deafening hubbub of the world: _The noise is so great, one cannot hear God thunder_.[187] [Sidenote: One man, no man]