372
PLOUGH
POET
17^^ Jn 12^*). All the pleasure the -world can afford will never compensate for what is lost in such a pursuit (Mt 16-«, Mk S^, Lk 9-'). In this comprehensive statement even intellectual and a?sthetic forms of pleasure are included. The habit of daily self-denial is to be adopted (Lk 9-^). No delight in business, however laudable in itself, must rival the call of Christ (Lk 14^^). A dreadful reversal awaits the Dives who clings to the pleas- ures of this age (Lk 16-^). Thus the rich are terribly handicapped in their heavenly course (Mt lO--"). The pleasures of this world may secure the liorrors of hell (Lk 6-"). No, the disciple must be as his Master (Mt 10-^). Tlie ]\Laster's prayer was always, ' Not wliat I will, but what thou wilt' (Mk 14^'). The pleasures of popularity (Jn 12-^2) and of ostentation (Mt 6^-i», Lk 20""^) are to be avoided. Hand or eye may well be sacrihced for the sake of faithfulness to Christ in the hope of eternal salvation (Mt o^^- «", Mk 9«- ^'). The blessed are those who ' hunger and thirst after rigliteousness,' not after pleasure (Mt 5^). The faithful disciple sliall hnd tribulation rather tha.u pleasure (Jn 16^^), inward peace but an outward sword (Mt 10^^), joy rather than enjoj'ment (Jn 1511 ig2u-2:i 1713) ^v B_ Franklaxd.
PLOUGH {apoTpov). — The plough is nientioned but once in NT (Lk 9"-), and the act of ploughing twice (Lk 17% 1 Co 91"). The Eastern plough appears to have changed but little since ancient times, the oldest representations closely resem- bling the implement now in use. It is almost entirelj' of wood, and is of slight construction, the furrow drawn being only 4 or 5 inches deep in light soil. It consists of a pole about 8 ft. long, in two pieces, with a joint in the middle. Through the butt-end is passed downward and made fast a piece of wood about 5 ft. long, the upper end slop- ing backward to form the handle. The under end is sharpened, and armed with a piece of iron. This serves as both coulter and share. The handle is grasped witli the left hand, the right holding the goad to drive and guide the oxen. To the thin end of the pole is attached a crossbar with yokes which drop upon the necks of the oxen, and are fastened by tlie yoke-ljands. See also art. Agriculture in vol. i., and in Hastings' DB, i. 49" (where the plough is figured). W. EwiNG.
POET. — It may seem unnecessary to protest at the outset against the idea of any essential incom- patibility of poetry with truth, as if, because a saying is poetry, it lay under the suspicion of being untrue, or even less true than prose. Yet that delusion has done so much harm even in regard to secular writings, that it is necessary to refer to it in the association of poetry with the most sacred writings in the world. The'fact is, of course, that poetry is often the only medium of expression for a more direct and larger truth. Many truths are too subtle and too far-reaching to be expressed other- wise ; and it was inevitable that God should have chosen to make use of poetry in His supreme revela- tion. Greek poets were prophets, and Hebrew prophets were poets. In every age and nation the connexion between religion and poetry has been so close that it excites no wonder when Lecky {ffist. of Rationalism, ii. 232, 2.53, 260) tells us that, in the past, religious dogma has been transformed into poetry, or Matthew Arnold {Essnjjs in Criticism), that in the future this transformation will be com- plete. It excites no wonder, for these writers were so impressed with the interest and significance of the connexion, that they did less than justice to the equally clear phenomenon of the element of indis- putable facts tiiat are permanently claimed by history and by science in the Christian religion.
No definition of poetry is here offered. Matthew Arnold's definition of it as 'a criticism of life ' is true, but inadequately true. It is one kind of criticism of life — one which utilizes emotion and imagination in a peculiar way. and often afiects the style of utterance in the direction uf music, through rhymed or rhythmical utterance niore or less de- liberate and formal. The result is that subtle and yet unmistakable quality which differentiates poetry from prose, the use of which is an art akin to the graphic arts, yet often unconscious, and generally instinctive rather than deliberate.
That Jesus was in this sense an artist is abun- dantly manifest. We shall see how in Him the poetic and the graphic qualities blended, and nothing about Him is more evident than the delicate and indeed exquisite sensitiveness, both of bodj' and of mind, which accomiaanies these qualities. Even in His unusually speedy death (Mk IS-*^) we see the result of an extremely sensitive frame. It was this that led to the constant perversion of His woids by coarse-grained and vulgar persons (Jn 2^"), and often led Him to keep silence (Mt 27^'-) when the uncomprehending demanded speech ; He knew that whatever He might say, He could not have made them understand Him.
At the beginning of the Gospels we find the story of His life set deep in poetry. The stories of John tiie Baptists preaching are full of the poetry of the desert, with its intense visual images of the vipers, the axe, the stones, the fires, and the fan of the wilderness (Mt 3" etc.). The infancy of Jesus is cradled among songs of women and of men, in which the narrative breaks forth into the music of the earliest Christian hymns.