Parallels: How do we analyze them?

[Benjamin McGuire]

Just one thought -

I finally started to take a look at Grunder's stuff.

On page 69, he makes this comparison:

REST NEEDED FROM MENTAL EXERCISE; the Mind like a Tightly-Strung Bow:

WILLIAM ALCOTT

1830s-1840s

Some of our students in commons and elsewhere, suppose themselves highly meritorious because they have adopted the

plan of appointing one of their number to read to the company, while the rest are eating. But they are sadly mistaken. Nothing is gained by the practice. On the contrary, much is lost by it. The bow cannot always remain bent,

without injury. Neither can the mind always be kept 'toned' to a high pitch. Mind and body must and will have their relaxations.

[p. 68]

JOSEPH SMITH

1840s

". . . I have played ball with him [Joseph Smith] many times in Nauvoo. He was preaching once, and he said it tried some of the pious folks to see him play ball with the boys. He then related a story of a certain prophet who was sitting under the shade of a tree amusing himself in some way, when a hunter came along with his bow and arrow, and

reproved him. The prophet asked him if he kept his bow strung up all the time. The hunter answered that he did not. The prophet asked why, and he said it would lose its elasticity if he did. The prophet said it was just so with his mind, he did not want it strung up all the time. . . . ["] [Elder William M(oore). Allred, St. Charles, Bear Lake County, Idaho, b. 1819, quoted in "Recollections of the Prophet Joseph Smith," Juvenile Instructor 27:15 (August 1, 1892), p. 472.]

I suppose that all things aside, if this is all you saw, you might consider this to be an interesting parallel. But, of course, the encounter which is described in the Juvenile Instructor almost certainly never happened. That text is drawn from a work by Francis de Sales, titled Introduction to the Devout Life, first published in 1609 (in French, though subsequently translated into several languages). In the beginning of chapter 31, Francis describes this event:

We must needs occaisionally relax the mind, and the body requires some recreation also. Cassian relates how St. John the Evangelist was found by a certain hunter amusing himself by petting a partridge, which sat upon his wrist. The hunter asked how a man of his mental powers could find time for so trifling an occupation. In reply, St. John asked why he did not always carry his bow strung? The man answered, Because, if always bent, the bow would lose its spring when really wanted. "Do not marvel then," the Apostle replied, "if I slacken my mental efforts from time to time, and recreate myself, in order to return more vigorously to contemplation." It is a great mistake to be so strict as to grudge any recreation either to others or one's self.

So, if this is the case, not only does Grunder's comparison not have any significant value for the argument he is making, it displays a rather symptomatic problem of the sort that he himself denies he is engaged in ...

Ben M.