148 EMBLEMATIC TEACHING. 



ecstasy, " be then no longer what you are But what say I ? 



the Spirit's influence has already begun and you, while it is 

 time, must work with it to complete a change." 



" The time is past; or, if I had years instead^ of hours, did 

 you not once tell me no, I learnt it from my mother when I 

 was a little child that ' the leopard could not change his spots, 

 nor the Ethiop his skin.' " 



"Aye ! but I also told you yesterday that the Butterfly is 

 an emblem an image of the soul your soul. The Butterfly 

 was once a crawling greedy caterpillar his world the heart of 

 a cabbage." 



" The devil fell sick the devil a monk would be ; 

 The devil got well the devil a monk was he." 



The baron got well ; but his penitence did not exactly evaporate 

 in a whiff of brimstone, as is here recorded concerning that of 

 his late master. 



One day, while leaning, in his walk, on the arm of Ambrose, 

 a thought a clever one as he believed it entered the conva- 

 lescent's head. 



" Father," said he, '' what would have become of all these 

 flying creatures, if when, as you tell me, they were crawling 

 caterpillars, they had not eaten their fill? Methinks their 

 bravery would have been finely clipped. See, some of them 

 are bigger than the others, those, I warrant, who had a place 

 nearest to the cabbage heart. If your comparison held good, 

 the more a man indulged his carnal appetites, the better angel 

 he would make." 



" Satan, avaunt !" inwardly exclaimed the holy man, shocked 

 at the irreverent idea " thou speakest as if the carnal man were 

 in reality a caterpillar, with no better teaching than his own 

 craving appetites the immortal spirit really a short-lived But- 

 terfly. Did I not explain how these are only emblems ? But, 

 even thus considered, thy objection is but vain. Perhaps thou 



