seculnr, and much more religious, and to show observers how hard it is to guide wealth ~·ithout wisdom, especially the highest. (2) Goodness towards the poor, whose scanty sb11re of this world's goods be not unfrequently compensates with great intellectual capacity, and even with celestial wisdom, Nothing more remarkable than the number o'. the world's t~inkers, philosophers, poets, 'painters, writers, astronomers, :h~m1sts, mventors, and discoverers that have sprung from the poor; while in religion it 1s everywhere apparent that God hath not chosen the mighty and the noble and t~e wealthy as s~cb, but rather the poor of this world, rich in faith, to be heirs of the kmgdom (1 Cor. 1. 26, 27; Jas. ii. 5). 2. Thatwudom is superior to force. "Wisdom is better than str~ngtb," and "wisdom is better than weapons of war." (1) 'l'rue of merely human wisdom. Illustrations almost numberless might be furnished of the superiority ?f wisdom to force, in the way both of overcoming force and of effecting what force 1s unable to accomplish. Had the Preacher lived to-day, he might have penned a brilliant commentary on his own text in both of these respects. The history of modern civilization but another name for the record of man's victories over brute strength and material force through the power. of mind; and the all-important moral of its story, that vast as are nature's powers, huge, gigantic, and irresistible as are the forces slumbering everywhere within its bosom, the human intellect can oontrol and combine these, and compel them to subserve its purposes and schemes. (2) True of wisdom spiritual and Divine. Not only is this not destructible by force, else it would have long since been banished from the world, but it can stand up, as through past centuries it has done, against the fiercest assaults, fixed and immovable, smiling defiance on every assailant, feeling inwardly confident that no weapon formed against her shall prosper (Isa. liv. 17), aud that even the gates of hell shall not prevail against her (Matt. xvi. 18); yea, anticipating confidently tbe advent of a time when she should trample this grim adversary of brute force beneath her feet, and even chase it from the field (Isa. xi. 9; lx. 18). And more, she can do what mere force and weapons of war are powerless to accomplish--change hearts of unbelief and sin into hearts of faith and holiness, rein in, hold down, and even crush out impure lusts and fierce passions, tame and sway human wills, and convert children of the devil into sons of God (Job xxviii. 28; Jas. iii. 17). 3. That wisdom mostly speaks into unwilling ears. "Nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised." Partly because of the world's want of appreciation of tbe intriusic excellence of wisdom, the world usually possessing a keener relish and finer instinct for folly; and partly, perhaps chiefly, because of the wise man's poverty. At all events, it has usually been tbe world's way to treat its wise men with disdain. 'l'he 1iicture of wisdom crying aloud in the street into unheeding ears (Prov. i. 20-25) has often been reproduced, as e.g. in tbe persons of Jehovah's prophets (Lev, xxvi. 43; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16; Isa. liii. 1; Matt. xxi. 34--36) and of Christ (John v. 40). 'l'o this day the world's treatment of Christ is not dissimilar, his words of wisdom being by men for the most part despised, and in particular the special wisdom he displayed in effecting their deliverance from sin and Satan by himself submitting to shame and death, and extending_to them the offer of a full and free forgiveness, being frequently regarded with scorn and contempt. 4. That wisdom is more influential than folly. "The words of the wise," spoken "in quiet, are more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools," or that is the rincrleader among fools, their very prince and chief. This assertion may seem to conflictwith that of the preceding verse, but in reality it does not. 'l'he noisy demagocrue who by sheer vociferation stirs the unthinking populace may appear to be more -influential than the quietly speaking man of wisdom, but in the long run it is tlie latter that prevails. After all, it is ideas that move the world, in science, in philo- sophy, in religion, and these have their. birth in meditative so11:1s rather than in fiery spirits, and diffuse themselves, not amid the tempests ?f pass10~, b~t thr~ugh the medium of calm and earnest speech. Remarkably was this exemplified in Chnst-read in connection Col. ii. 3; John vii. 37; lea. xiii. 3; and to this day the most powerful force operating in and on society is not that of eloquence, or of intellect, or of learning, all confessedly influential, but of goodness, which works silently and often out of sight liki, leaven. 5. That wisdom is commonly repaid with ingratitude. "No man r<:,n,eml>ered that same poor man." 'l'he Preacher says it with a touch of ~ad~es~, as if 1.1r1er all it was a strange and almost a new thing beneath the sun--::wh1ch It 1s not. \\"Ldber the wise woman who saved the city Abel was remembered by her citizens is CU. IX, 1-18.] ECCLESIASTES; OR, THE PREACHER.
not reconled; but history reports that Themistocles, who delivered .Athens from the Persians, was afterwards ostracized by his countrymen. .Alas I ingratitude has never been an uncommon sin among men. Pharaoh's buUer has had many a successor (Gen. xl. 2o). The world has never been guilty of overlauding its benefactors or ovP.r- loading them with gratitude. Rather the poet accurately likens Time to a sturdy beggar with a wallet on his bnck- " Wherein he doth put alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes." And goes on to add- " Those scraps are good deeils past, which are devoured As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done," etc. (' Troilus and Cressida,' act iii. sc. 3.) Nor is it merely the world of which such ingratitude can be predicted, but the Church also bas been too often guilty of forgetting him to whom she owes her deliverance. How many of his words, for instance, are not heard by those who profess to have been redeemed and saved by him-words of counsel for the path of duty, words of comfort for the day of trial, words of caution for the hour of danger! And yet the rcmem brance of these would. be .the highest tribute of gratitude they could offer their Divine Redeemer.