Jesus Christ ever spoke has been disproved by after history. Christianity must claim this aspect of its own evidences, and insist upon it in the spirit of justice. When men are commended according to their wisdom none can begrudge their just fame. To commend a man according to his wealth is to give way to the meanest form of idolatry; or to commend him even on account of intellectual gifts is rather. to pay an indirect tribute to one's own appreciation of genius; but to recognise a man's wisdom, in the highest moral sense of that term, as well as in its purest intellectual aspects, is to be just to the man. The time will come when monuments need not be built, and will not be built, to destroyers, warriors, men of great power of opposition; but marble will be wanted, and brass will be needed, to memorialise men who have been patriotic, independent of fear or favour, and religiously devoted to all the deepest interests of the people. The perverse or wicked heart shall be despised: it never had any great thought for the benefit of the community; it never escaped the baneful influence of its own eccentricity; it was always thinking how best to help itself, and the only heaven to which it can ever come is a heaven of intelligent and eternal contempt.

"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel" (ver. 10).

This verse might be rendered-A righteous man knows the feelings of beasts. He gives them credit for feelings; he does not look upon them as merely so much animated matter, but as standing in some relation to himself, and the more complete his ownership the more considerate ought to be his treatment even of the beasts he owns. Even when the wicked man supposes himself to be merciful there is cruelty in his tenderness. Men may become so debased as to lose all sense of moral distinction, and not to know when they are tender and when they are cruel; yea, rather, they may lose all sense of tenderness, and may sink into the utterest severity and cruelty of nature. A wicked man cannot be gentle. Men should remember this, and distrust all the gentleness which is supposed to attach to men who are without conscience. The tenderness of such men is an investment, is a political trick, is a bait by which to catch the unwary, is an element of speculation. Rowland Hill used to say

in his quaint way that he would not value any man's religion whose cat and dog were not the better for his piety. This is but a new translation of the text. This is the beauty of the Christian religion it flows throughout the whole life, it ramifies in every department of the existence, and carries with it softness, purity, sympathy, kindness. The good man cannot be self-neglectful: his very goodness makes his self-discipline the more complete ; and the more complete his self-discipline the larger will be his charity to those who are looking on, and who are not blessed with the same favourableness of circumstances. So then the Bible is not only a people's book, a household book, a woman's book, but it would also seem to be the book of the very beasts of the earth. "Doth God care for oxen ?" "Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father." The young lions roar, and seek their meat from God. The universe must be looked upon as a great household, belonging to the Almighty, regulated by his power and his wisdom, and intended to exemplify the beneficence of his providence. In our Father's house are many mansions. All life must be most precious to him who created it. Life is a mystery which remains unsolved, bringing with it claims which none can safely or religiously set aside.

"He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding" (ver. 11).

The wise man here lays down what ought to be the law of cause and effect, and what indeed is that law in the great majority of instances. Only he that tills his land should be satisfied with bread; he for whom the land is tilled without any exercise of forethought or prudence on his own part should have but little to eat. By tilling the land one branch of industry alone is not to be understood; the wise man is praising thriftiness, energy, care, and regard to opportunity for making solid and healthy progress. It is one man's business to till his brains; another to till the soil; another to engage in adventure; and so on, according to the endless variety of human gift. Whoever gives an equivalent for his bread will enjoy that bread all the more: he can have but poor satisfaction in his food who never worked for it, and who is indolently availing himself of the activity and enterprise of other men. The man who follows shallow persons proves his

own mental quality. The wise man cannot follow vain persons, simply because he is wise, and their company would be an offence to him; he could not understand their language; he could not enter into their pursuits; he could not reciprocate their sympathies: he lives in another and upper universe. We may know what a man is by the company he keeps. The sober man cannot enjoy the society of drunkards. An honest man can find no home among thieves. You may not know the man himself, but if you know his company you know him also; find one in the company of vain, shallow, worldly persons, and, without even knowing so much as his name, you may describe him as "void of understanding."

NOTE.

"The most salient point of contrast in the usages of ancient as compared with modern Oriental society was the large amount of liberty enjoyed by women. Instead of being immured in a harem, or appearing in public with the face covered, the wives and maidens of ancient times mingled freely and openly with the other sex in the duties and amenities of ordinary life. Rebekah travelled on a camel with her face unveiled, until she came into the presence of her affianced (Gen. xxiv. 64, 65). Jacob saluted Rachel with a kiss in the presence of the shepherds (Gen. xxix. 11). Each of these maidens was engaged in active employment, the former in fetching water from the well, the latter in tending her flock. Sarah wore no veil in Egypt, and yet this formed no ground for supposing her to be married (Gen. xii. 14-19). An outrage on a maiden in the open field was visited with the severest punishment (Deut. xxii. 25-27), proving that it was not deemed improper for her to go about unprotected. Further than this, women played no inconsiderable part in public celebrations: Miriam headed a band of women who commemorated with song and dance the overthrow of the Egyptians (Exod. xv. 20, 21); Jephthah's daughter gave her father a triumphal reception (Judg. xi. 34); the maidens of Shiloh danced publicly in the vineyards at the yearly feast (Judg. xxi. 21); and the women fêted Saul and David, on their return from the defeat of the Philistines, with singing and dancing (1 Sam. xviii. 6, 7). The odes of Deborah (Judg. v.) and of Hannah (1 Sam. ii. 1, etc.) exhibit a degree of intellectual cultivation which is in itself a proof of the position of the sex in that period. Women also occasionally held public offices, particularly that of prophetess or inspired teacher, as instanced in Miriam (Exod. xv. 20), Huldah (2 Kings xxii. 14), Noadiah (Neh. vi. 14), Anna (Luke ii. 36), and above all Deborah, who applied her prophetical gift to the administration of public affairs, and was so entitled to be styled a "judge " (Judg. iv. 4). The active part taken by Jezebel in the government of Israel (1 Kings xviii. 13; xxi. 25), and the usurpation of the throne of Judah by Athaliah (2 Kings xi. 3), further attest the latitude allowed to women in public life. The management of household affairs devolved mainly on the women. The value of a virtuous and active housewife forms a frequent topic in the Book of Proverbs (xi. 16; xii. 4; xiv. I xxxi. 10, etc.)."-SMITH'S Dictionary of the Bible.

Chapter xii. 12-24.

THE ROOT OF THE RIGHTEOUS, ETC.

"The wicked desireth the net of evil men: but the root of the righteous yieldeth fruit" (ver. 12).

THE

'HE wicked man would prosper according to the law of evil. He would take evil men in his net, and make a profit of them if he could; or he would borrow the net of an evil man with which to ensnare the good: he lives by what he calls his wits; being devoid of morality he is exempt from discipline, and so he lives the wild, loose life that is uncontrolled and all but irresponsible. The root of the righteous yieldeth fruit: the fruit is in the man himself; the stem may be feeble, the branches may be exposed to rough and cruel weather, but in the root there are juices that must by-and-by reveal themselves in abundant fruitfulness. The wicked man's possessions are all external; they can be held in the hand; they can be carried to the market-place and disposed of for an equivalent in gold and silver: the treasures of the righteous are in the root; they are hidden, deeply down, where they drink the juices of the earth, and receive the light of the sun, that by the chemistry of nature they may express themselves in due time in leaf and blossom, in bud and flower and fruit. It is fruit which is yielded by the root of the righteous; though the word fruit is in italics in this text, yet it would seem to be the right word, and the only right word. Where only leaves were yielded Jesus Christ pronounced his condemnation; Jesus Christ continually said that his Father was glorified by the bringing forth of much fruit by the branches that were in the vine; he taught that the purpose of pruning was to multiply the fruit: there can be, therefore, no difficulty in adopting the word "fruit" in this instance as the right word. We are not to bring forth leaves only, or blossoms only, nor are we to afford opportunity

VOL. XIII.

II

for birds to build their nests only; all these things may be included, but the supreme object is the bearing of fruit which the husbandman can approve, and which can be turned to high utility by the hungering world.

"There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health" (ver. 18).

Some men pride themselves on the pungency of their speech. They delight in sharp answers, keen retorts, quick repartees, and boast themselves when they cut their opponents in two. There are others who are gifted in the expression of complaint, reproach, and criticism against the whole providence of life. They can say sharp and bitter things about God and man, and they can be satisfied because of the edge of their own epigram, no matter against whom or against what that edge is directed. The tongue of the wise man is slower, but healthier; the wise man weighs his words; he is anxious to be associated only with judgments which can be confirmed by experience and illustrated by wisdom. The wise man speaks healthily that is to say, he speaks out of the abundance of his own health, and he speaks in a way that will double and strengthen the health of others. To come near him is to ascend a mountain and breathe the freshest air of heaven, or to go down by the sea-shore and receive messages across the great deeps, full of vigour, and truth, and strengthening influence. Wise men keep society healthy. But for their presence it would stagnate, and go from one degree of corruption to another until it became wholly pestilential. There are two speakers in the text, and to the end of time there will probably be two speakers in the world-the critical speaker and the judicial speaker; the man all sharpness and the man all thankfulness. The business of Christian discipline is to tame the tongue, to chasten it, to teach it the speech of wisdom, and to instruct it as to the right time of utterance and the right time of silence.

"The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment" (ver. 19).

Here, as usual, we have the two sides-truth and falsehood. We know as a matter of fact that truth will be established for