h picture by itself. We
must not forget, however, that these are heavenly pictures that hang
around us,--that heavenly things are here exposed to view. A
heavenly interpreter walks by our side: we must have a heavenly
sense if we would grasp the meaning of what we hear and see. If our
study quicken this sense within us, so that it shall grow clearer
and sharper before every picture, a rich treat awaits us, for the
heavenly Gallery is great.--_Draeseke, vom Reich Gottes_, i., 270.

1. The faculty of perceiving and appreciating analogies. It is certainly
not necessary that an interpreter of Scripture should be a poet; but to
possess in some measure that eye for parallels which constitutes the
basis of the poetic faculty, is a most desirable qualification for one
who proposes to help his neighbours in the study of the parables. It is,
indeed, true that a man who possesses only a very small measure of this
or of other mental gifts, may read these lessons of the Lord with
spiritual profit to himself; but the pictorial theology of the New
Testament is not safe in the hands of a teacher who is signally
defective in the faculty to which it specially appeals. Learning, and
zeal, and faith combined may, in this department, expend much labour to
little purpose, for lack of power to perceive the point of the analogy.
But, on the other hand,

2. A stern logic is as necessary as a lively imagination. Deficient in
the analogical faculty, you cannot in this department go quickly
forward; but deficient in the logical faculty, you will go forward too
fast and too far. We need a well-spread, well-filled sail; but we need
also a helm to direct the ship in the path of safety. Restraining,
discriminating judgment, is as necessary as impulsive power. Every one
who possesses even a moderate acquaintance with the literature of this
department will, I am persuaded, acknowledge the justice of this
observation. Some expositors of the parables, especially in more ancient
times, remind one of the _Great Eastern_ in the Atlantic when her rudder
was disabled. There is plenty of impelling force, but this force, for
want of a director, only makes the ship go round and round in a
weltering sea. From the pages of those commentators, whose imaginations
have broken loose, you may cull fancies as manifold, as beautiful, and
as useless as the gyrations of a helmless ship in a stormy sea.

3. Some competent acquaintance, not only with the Scrip