The Pulpit Commentary — Proverbs — Section 281

Ver. 4.-Daintiness and usefulness. It is a very great thing to prefer the greater to the smaller, the more serious to the less serious, in the regulation of our life. It wakes all the difference between success and failure, between wisdom and folly. I. A. SERIOUS MISTAKE, to prefer nicety or daintiness to fruitfulness or usefulness, This grave mistake is made by the/armer who would rather have a clean crib than a quantity of valuable manure; by the housewife who cares more for the elegance of the furniture than the comfort of the family; by the minister who spends more strenJ?;th on the wording than on the doctrine of his discourse; by the teacher who lays more stress on the cornposi tion of classical verses than on the history of his country or tban on the strength- ening of the mind; by the poet who takes infinite pa.ins with his rhymes and gives little thought to his subject or his imagery; by the statesman who is particular about the draughting of his bills, and has no objection to introduce retrograde and dishonouring measures; by the doctor who insists much on his medicine, and lets his patient go on neglecting all the laws of hygiene; etc. II. THE WISDOM OF TllE WISE, This is found in subordinating the trivial to the important; in bein~ willing to submit to the temporarily disagreeable if we can attain to the permanently good; in being content to endure the sight and the smell of the unclean crib if there is a prospect of a fruitful field. The great thing is increase, fruitfulness, the reward of honest toil and patient waiting and believing prayer. 'fhis increase is to be sought and found in five fields in particular. 1. Bodily health and strength. 2. Knowledge, in all its various directions. 3. Material wealth, that minister,; to the comfort and thus to the well-being of the families of man. 4. Wis- dom ; that noble quality of the soul which distinguishes between the true and the false, tbe pure and the impure, the imperishable and the ephemeral, the estimable and the unworthy, and which Dot only distingui8hes but determinately chooses the former and rejects the latter. 5. Spiritual fruitfulness; the increase of our own piety and virtue, and also the growth of the kingdom of our Lord.-C. Ver. 8.-Understanding our way. A man may be "prudent," he may be clever, learned, astute; yet he may miss his way, he m~y lose his life, he may pro~~ to be a failure. The wisdom of the prudent, that which makes prudence or o.b1hty really valuable, that which constitutes its virtue, is the practical wnderstanding of life, the knowledge which enables a man to take the right path and keep it, the discretion which chooijes the line of a true success and main to.ins it to the end. It is to perceive o.nd to pursue the way that is- OR, XIV, 1-35.] THE PROVERBS. 287