Vers. 27, 28.-Di1atoriness in the payment of fust debts. I. Tms DILATORINESS IB MORALLY cULPADLE, AND MOST INJURIOUS TO SOCIETY. Through thoughtlessness in some cases, through deliberate meanness in others, many people postpone the payment of their just debts as long as possible, though they have the money by them, and are perhaps turning it to account for their own advantage. Such needless dela.y of justice should be regarded as a moral offence. A sad laxity prevails in this matter. It is said that preachers direct their admonitions respec~ing the business habi_ts of the day t?o much to one side of the case. The tradesman 1s accused of greed, dishonesty, deceit, while little is said of the conduct of the customer. But here is an instance where the failin" nay, the sin, lies with the buyer. Most of us little know how much the trading classe~• suffer from delay and difficulty in calling in the money that is owing to them; how often they pinch themselves and suffer in silence for fear of losing a customer by giving offence in too much pressing for payment, knowing that the comm.on selfis~- ness of others will readily lead them to court the patronage of the offended client. This delay is grossly unjust to more conscientious people who pay promptly, and yet aro made to suffer from the high prices necessitated by the bad debts and postponed pay- ments of others. It is also a direct temptation to those shifty practices which all of us deprecate when we meet with them in trade. Feeling that he cannot rec~up himself readily in the regular way, the tradesman is tempted to try some leas straightforward method for making bis business, thus heavily handicapped, to somo extent profitable. OH, Ut. 1-36.] THE PROVERB8. 73
A new moral tone is requisite in this matter. People should see that to delay to execute justice is to commit injustice. Time is as valuable as coins. He who robs a man of time is a thief, and should wear the brand of a thief. IJ, THE REMEDY FOR TlllS DILATORINESS MUST BE FOUND IN A FULLER RECOG:)11- TION OF THE 0LAIMS OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. It is not enough to prove the abstract justice of prompt payment. The selfishness which withholds it will find some casuistic excuse for further delay. This selfishness, which is at the root of the evil, must be overcome. The spirit of Cain is dishonest as well as murderous. We are too ready to treat those with whom we have merely business dealings according to an entirely different code from that which controls our conduct with our friends. Com- mercial rules are so much more lax than social laws. The mere business relation is too often robbed of all human consideration, treated from a. purely selfish standpoint, almost on a principle of enmity, as though it belonged to a state of war. Does a man cease to be our brother because we buy and sell with him? When he was a stranger, we felt some tie of common hu.man:ty with him. After we have entered into relations of mutual convenience, is the tie broken, and does he become as a heathen and a publican? We must remember that it is our "neighbour" who claims just payment; and are we not required to love our neighbour as ourselves? The golden rule of Christ, that we must do to others as we would that they should do to us, must be applied to business, or we have no right to profess ourselves to be Christians.
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vera. 1-10.-Precepts and promises of wisdom. I. THE co=cTioN OF PREOEPT AND PROMISE, 1. Precept needs confirmation. We cannot but ask- Why should we pursue this or that line of conduct in preference to another? Why should men be God-fearing, honest, chaste? We a.re rational creatures, not "dumb driven cattle," to be forced along a given road. We must have reasons; and it is to reason in us that the Divine reason ever makes appeal. 2. The confirmation is found in experience. Tbis is the source of our knowledge; to it the trne teacher must constantly refer for the verification of his principles, the corroboration of his precepts. The tone assumed by the teacher is indeed that of authority, but real authority al ways rests upon experience. Experience, in short, is the discovery and ascertainment of law in life. Precepts :i.re its formulation. 3. The experience of the past enables the prediction of the future. Just as we know the science of the astronomer,'e.g., to be sound, bec:i.use we find that he can predict with accuracy coming events, appearances of the ,heavenly bodies, eclipses, etc., so do we recognize the soundness of moral te:i.ching by its power to forecast the future fates of men. Precepts a.re the deductions from the actual; promises the forecasts of that which, because it has been constant in the past, may be expected in the future. In science, in morality, in religion, we build on the permanence of law; in other words, on the constancy of the eternal God. II. p ARTICULAR EXAMPLES OF THIS CONNECTION. 1. Obedience ensures earthly happi- ness. (Vers. 1, 2.) The connection is first stated generally. "Extension of days," or long life, is the one aspect of this happiness; inward peace of heart, denied to the god• less, the other (Isa. xlviii. 22; lvii. ~1). Prolongation of days, lifo in the good land, dwelling in the house of the Lord, a.re the peculiar Old Testament blessings (Deut. iv. 40; v. 33; vi. 2; xi. 9; xxii. 7; xxx. 16; Ps. xv. 1; xxiii. 6; xxvii. 4). (1) 'l'he desire for long life is natural, and reli:i;ion recognizes it. (2) Without inward satisfac- tion, long life is no blessing. (3) While the Old TestamenL promises formally cover the finite life only, they do not exclude the infinite. In God and faith in him the infinite is germinally contained. 2. Love and good faith ensure favour with God, good will with men. "Mercy," or "love;" the word denotes the recognition of kinship, fellowship in men, and the duty of kindness therein implied. "Truth," in the sense in which we speak of a troe man; sincerity and rectitude, the striving to make tho 1eemin_q and the being correspond to one another; the absence of hypocrisy. St. Paul gives Lhe ideas, "dealing truly in love" (Eph. iv. 15). · Let these virtues be bounJ nbout the neck, like precious objects, for the sake of security; let th~se commands be engraven in the only indelible way-upon the heart. Let the mmd be fixed and 74 THE PROVERBS. [cu. m. 1-35.