The Pulpit Commentary — Proverbs — Section 277

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-7.-Traits of wisdom and folly. I. FEMININE WISDOM. (Ver. I.) 1. Its peculiar scope is the home. Women are physically and moral,ly constructed with a view to the stationary life and settled pursuits of home. Its comfort, the strength of the race, the well-being of society, are rooted, moro than in any other human means, in the character, the principle, the love and truth of the wife and mother. 2. The absence of it is one of the commonest causes of domestic misery. The fact is but too well known to all who are acquainted with the homes of the poor, and indeed of all classes. The ca'IJ,Se is not far to seek. 'l'he word "home" has hardly a meaning with- out the presence of a virtuous woman; and a home has seldom been wrecked while a virtuous woman remained m it. II. THE STRICT CONNECTION OJ!' RELIGION AND MORALITY. (Ver. 2.) 1. Fear of Jehovah includes reverence for what is eternal,, faith in what is constant, obedience to what is unchanging law. 2. Contempt for Jehovah means the neglect of all this; and the preference of pa.'<Sion to principle, immediate interest to abiding good; what is selfish and corruptible to what is pure and durable and Divine. III. SPEECH A SCOURGE OR A SHIELD. (Ver. 3.) 'l'be word of haste, which is at the same time the word of passion and of inconsiderateness, recoils upon the speaker. As an old proverb says, "Curses come home to roost." And what can put a stronger armour about a man, or cover him more securely as a shield, than the good words he has thrown forth, or in eeneral the expression of his spirit in all that is wise and loving? The successive accretions of substance from year to year in the trunk of the oak tree may typify the strength coincident with growth in the good man's life. IV. 'l'HE OOID-"ECTI0N OF :MEANS AND ENDS. (Ver. 4.) Such seems to be the point of the saying. "Nothing costs nothing." If you keep no oxen, you have no manger to supply. But at the same time, nothing brings nothing in. 'l'he larger income is secured by the keeping of oxen. This is, in fact, the sense of the old saw, "Penny wise and pound foolish." In short, it is part of the science of life to know the limits of thrift and of expense. "A man often pays dear for a small frugality." "Cheapest," says the prudent, "is the dearest labour." In the more immediate interests of the soul, bow true is it that only first expense of thought, time, love, upon others is the truest condition of our own blessedness I . V. 'l'BUTH AND LIES. (Ver. 5.) Again .and again we strike upon this primary stratum of character. We cannot define the truthful or untruthful man. We can feel them. The reason is as "simple ae gravity. 'l'rutb is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to a:Iairs. The natural force is no more to be withstood than any other force. We can drive a stone upwards for a moment into the air, but it. is yet true that all stones will fall; and whatever instances may be quoted of unpunished theft, or of a lie which somebody credited, justice must prevail, and it is the privilege of truth to make itself believed." VI. 'l'HE UNWISDOM OF THE SCOFFER. (Ver. 6.) He places himself in a false relation to truth; would measure it by his small mind, and weigh t't in bis imperlect scales. He bas one principle only to apply to everything, and that he limited percep- tion of his faculty or the narrow light of his experience. 'l'be description well applies to the free-thinkers, the illuminati 60 called of the last century in England, France, and Germany, and their successors in the present day. There is the air of superior intelligence and zeal for truth, frequently concealing some passion of a very different order. Or, again, there is the shallow assumption that absolute trnth is to be found by the human intellect, which bas led philosophers into many aberrations. The end is some fallacy and glaring self-contradiction. How different the spirit of him whom the teacher describes as "intelligent" in this place I It is "easy" for him to be wise. It is like opening hiR lungs to the bountiful and all-~mbr~cing air, or expatiating on the boundless shore, like great Newton. Wisdom sprmgd Jrow the s~ncc that truth in its Olt, XIV, 1-35,] THE PROVERBS. 283