College Conference.

The eighteenth College Conference on the Parabolic teachings and the teaching of Christ, was held by Professor Palmer in Sever 11 last evening. Professor Palmer said that if any of us should try to sum up the works of Christ we should select the Miracles and the Parables as the most striking outward and inward features of his teachings. The parables remain long in our minds, attracting us and accompanying us throughout our lives. There are in all between twenty-five and fifty of Christ's parables. There are but few of his speeches, the chief characteristics of which could not be found in other literatures, but nowhere else do we find the same grand personality which is behind the parables of Christ.

The art of teaching by stories is deeply rooted in humanity and has been used by all great teachers and leaders. Buddha, Socrates, and ascending in the ages Martin Luthur and Abraham Lincoln used it. The Lord taught in this same way by the use of his parables. Professor Palmer then went on to mark out the character of the parable and to define the meaning of the word, leaving until his next lecture the discussion of what Christ really taught by his parables. Parable really means a comparison or likeness, and as in all speech we are simply executing comparison the word came to mean in the olden times to talk or to speak. Parable afterwards came to mean condensed speech, and in this way the smiles of Homer and others and the fables of Aesop are kindred to the parables of Jesus. Two fables occur in the Old Testament. Jesus must have been familiar with the use of fables, but he never used them, because they were inadequate for his purpose. Fables make our thoughts entertaining, but unlike parables they are very often untrue and thus could not be used by the Lord in his teachings.