No one can suppose that Rachel literally wept at the murder of her children nearly 2000 years after her death, nor that the slaughtered Egyptians put their swords under their heads as they were lying in _sheol_, and conversed together in the nether parts of the earth, some being comforted, and others ashamed; nor that the kings overthrown by the king of Babylon rose up from their sepulchral thrones in mock solemnity, and taunted him with becoming weak as they. But these were all figures to set forth great and salutary truths. May not our Lord then, for once, be permitted for a like purpose to use a like figure, so largely employed by the prophets, and so well known to his hearers, by personifying persons in _hades_ to perform actions which were not there literally to occur? We have certainly as good reason to suppose that Rachel, the Egyptians, and the king of Babylon, were real personages, and their descent into _sheol_ and the accompanying circumstance as related by the prophets, veritable history, as to suppose that Dives was a real character, and his torment in _hades_, and his conversation with Abraham, a real transaction. Those who held in their hands the Old-Testament scriptures were perfectly familiar with such figures. There the “trees of the field” converse and “clap their hands,” the “floods” lift up their “voice,” the hills and mountains “sing,” stones from the wall “cry out,” and beams “answer,” the blood of Abel finds a “voice,” and “cries out from the ground,” and dead men rejoice over the fall of their rivals, slain by the sword. In a volume abounding with such figures, cannot for once a rich man, representing a class of living persons, be endowed in _hades_ with life and speech? must this one figure of personification be singled out from all others, as a rigidly literal narrative, and be made to sustain the weight of the most terrific doctrine of which the mind of man can conceive? Sufficient evidence has been produced to show that this is a parable. And now we invite the attention of the reader to the testimony of two eminent authors respecting the use which should be made of parables. Dr. Clarke (note on Matt. 5:26) says:-- “Let it be remembered that by the consent of all (except the basely interested), no _metaphor_ is ever to be produced in _proof_ of a doctrine. In the things that concern our eternal salvation, we need the most pointed and _express evidence_ on which to establish the faith of our souls.” And Trench, in his work on parables, lays down this very important rule:--