do it so much harm; for salt extracts from the flesh its juices, wherefore men desirous of preserving meat from putrefaction put it in the pickle-tub. Morally—by salt understand the bitterness of penitence, or satisfaction; and by the meat understand carnal delights,” &c. (Domin. 2da p. Pascha, 9.)
I have mentioned the fact of Meffreth using stories in his sermons. They occur very frequently; they are not all either appropriate or edifying. The following, however, is pretty: it is to be found in the first sermon on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Meffreth is speaking of wealth and its cares as contrasted with the insouciance of poverty. He then relates the story of a certain Robin, or Rubinus, a poor man who lived under the steps leading into the palace of a wealthy nobleman. Poor Robin had a hard time of it: he toiled all day, and at nightfall he would go about the streets with an old fiddle, playing for a few coppers: sometimes, however, he would get as much as five pence, and then he would fiddle and sing at night on his straw, so cheerily that the rich man in his palace heard him and sighed, because his own heart was never glad. One day the lady of the house said to her lord, “How is it that you with all your wealth are never happy, whilst poor Robin under our stairs is as cheerful as a cricket?” “I will destroy his mirth,” replied the rich man; and he secretly conveyed a bag of money into Robin’s den.
No fiddle, no song, were heard for many days, for the poor fellow was gloating over his strangely-acquired wealth, and fearing hourly lest it should be taken from him. “How is it,” asked the lady of the house, “how
