Proverbs 20
Butler1. WINE is a mocker, strong drink a brawler; And whosoever erreth thereby is not wise.
2. The terror of a king is as the roaring of a lion:
He that provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own life.
3. It is an honour for a man to keep aloof from strife:
But every fool will be quarrelling.
4. The slothful will not plow by reason of the winter;
Therefore he shall beg in harvest, and have nothing.
5. Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water;
But a man of understanding will draw it out.
6. Most men will proclaim every one his own kindness:
But a faithful man who can find?
7. A just man that walketh in his integrity, Blessed are his children after him.
8. A king that sitteth on the throne of judgment
Scattereth away all evil with his eyes.
9. Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
10. Divers weights, and divers measures, Both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD.
11. Even a child maketh himself known by his doings,
Whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.
12. The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, The LORD hath made even both of them.
13. Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; Open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
14. It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: But when he is gone his way, then he boast- eth.
15. There is gold, and abundance of rubies: But the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.
16. Take his garment that is surety for a stranger; And hold him in pledge that is surety for strangers.
17. Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man; But afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
18. Every purpose is established by counsel: And by wise guidance make thou war.
19. He that goeth about as a talebearer reveal- eth secrets: Therefore meddle not with him that openeth wide his lips.
20. Whoso curseth his father or his mother, His lamp shall be put out in the blackest darkness.
1. No better description of wine was ever given than that of the inspired penman, that it is a “mocker.” Its promises are false and its performances deceptive. Yet what remains more common than to hear people recommend as a “food” what contains in itself no more of the elements of nutrition than broken granite? Liebig demonstrated that all the nourishment to be found in two gallons of the best Bavarian beer could be taken up upon the point of his table-knife; and Carpenter showed that the strength gotten out of a man by wine was of exactly the same nature as the speed gotten out of a horse under the plunge of the spur. The only source of either animal heat or animal strength in a glass of wine or a bottle of beer is in the unfermented vegetable element that it contains. And this modicum is more than neu- tralized by the alcohol which gives it its fasci- nation. It should be understood that the one imperative requisite for health is in an even and natural flow of the blood through the chan- nels of circulation. It should then be remem- bered that the first effect of alcohol, received into the system through the stomach, is to de- range this flow. Controlled as the circulation is by a delicate system of vaso-motor nerves which open and close automatically the valves of the vessels, whatever affects these valves
21. An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; But the end thereof shall not be blessed.
22. Say not thou, I will recompense evil: Wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee.
23. Divers weights are an abomination to the LORD; And a false balance is not good.
24. A man’s goings are of the LORD; How then can man understand his way?
25. It is a snare to a man rashly to say, It is holy. And after vows to make inquiry.
26. A wise king winnoweth the wicked, And bringeth the threshing wheel over them.
27. The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, Searching all the innermost parts of the belly.
28. Mercy and truth preserve the king: And his throne is upholden by mercy.
29. The glory of young men is their strength: And the beauty of old men is the hoary head.
30. Stripes that wound cleanse away evil: And strokes reach the innermost parts of the belly.
must of necessity change the nature of the cir- culation. The slightest observation will con- vince any one that the first effect of alcohol is to partially paralyze this system, and render the nerves slow and irregular in the response to the necessities of their function. The quickened pulse, the flushed face, the tingling extremities show that the heart is doing double duty, and the blood is, despite its instinctive efforts to keep the circulation uniform, thrown in a great sheet toward the surface, and more or less re- tained in the engorged vessels of the cuticle. When we note by finger tip and watch that the action of the heart has been increased from two to four beats a minute, we can easily estimate the increased labor which is laid upon this sen- sitive and vital organ by the action of wine. If we ask any engineer what would be the effect of lightening the weight upon the governor of his engine or shortening the stroke of its pis- ton, he would promptly tell us that it must in- crease its speed and wear out the machinery with proportionate rapidity. Such is the action of alcohol upon the living organism of the hu- man frame. The heart of even a moderate drinker, like the heart of one afflicted by val- vular disease, does double duty and suffers in consequence.
One of the phenomena which sorely puzzled early Arctic explorers was that under the power of grog they were less sensible of cold, but more quickly succumbed to its effects. The studies of the physician soon made it plain that the nerves of sensation being partially benumbed, men could not realize the cold; while the nerves of automatic play being also affected, the blood was thrown to the surface to lose its animal heat by rapid radiation, and death was the result. Another of the deceits of strong drink is in the counterfeit of strength which it presents in its victim. Nothing is more common than great mental excitement existing side by side with decreased physical power; and the most common of all results, in such a crisis, is the final prostration and complete collapse of the one thus affected. Nervous excitement is a close counterfeit of muscular power, but is, in truth, its very antipodes. The experiments of the physiologist with innumerable living creatures shows most conclusively that the body is weakened by alcohol just as surely as the brain is unnaturally excited. Interior.
What is called “strong drink” was made, according to various ancient authorities, from wheat, from barley, dates, and other fruits, or from honey, and was sometimes mixed with spices to make it more intoxicating. It seems not to have been called by our translators “strong” relatively to wine, but to other common drinks. Like wine it was intoxicating. The thing affirmed here is that wine robs a man of his sense of propriety, and makes him abusive and insulting to others. Strong drink makes him boisterous, noisy, sometimes raging like a madman. The use of either wine or strong drink will shut off all hope of attaining true wisdom. For this acquisition, a calm, self-poised, considerate state of mind is indispensable. The maddening power of strong drink is fatal. H. C.
When the wine is in, the wit is out, and then the man, according as his natural temper is, either mocks like a fool or rages like a madman. Drunkenness, which pretends to be a sociable thing, renders men unfit for society, for it makes them abusive with their tongues and outrageous in their passions. H.—Strong drink demoralizes and debauches the character, weakens the moral principles, strengthens the corrupt propensities, and excites the wicked passions. It opens new avenues to temptation, exposes its victims to the worst influences, and counteracts those which are good. To seek happiness in the immoderate use of wine is as if one should build huge fires in his dwelling on a hot, sultry day in midsummer; or rather as if he should set fire to his house in the dead of winter, and think to find a comfortable protection for himself and children beneath the leafless hedge. He kindles the fires of passion which must consume his comforts, and sooner or later, unless extinguished, consume both his body and his soul. J. M. M.
The day was when that wreck of honesty and manly strength, that sad ruin of grace and womanly beauty, was filled with sorrow and remorse; but these feelings became more and more enfeebled, while drinking habits, fed by every new indulgence, increased in strength, making reformation less hopeful by every day’s delay. And now, like a boat swept on in a foaming rapid, which neither oar nor arm can stem, with all the dread consequences full in sight, a ruined character, a beggared family, his body descending into an untimely grave, his soul to the doom of these awful words, “No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven,” he yields to a torrent that sweeps means, character, wife, children, body, and soul into one common ruin. Guthrie.—There is no hope that it should ever change. The waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have but set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth, to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will; to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the way emanating from himself; to perceive all goodness emptied out of him, and yet not to be able to forget a time when it was otherwise; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own self-ruin; could he feel the body of the death, out of which I cry hourly with feebler and feebler outcry to be delivered, it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of its mantling temptation. Charles Lamb.
Surely the testimony of medical experts ought forever to settle the question that moderate drinking is not safe. No man knows or can know when he keeps within the limits of moderation. The results of long experience demonstrate that moderation never has and never can fight intemperance successfully. The results of scientific experiments with alcohol have settled only one point—viz., the soundness of the principle of abstinence. And whatever the differences between doctors and scientific men as to the smallest minimum poisonous dose or the largest maximum safe dose, all their differences lie within a certain small circle at whose circumference they do meet and are agreed, that even by the broadest estimate among them but very little alcohol is safe or even presumably beneficial. And with this on the one hand, we have, on other, the great realm of the nameless and indescribable totality of drunkenness, degradation, and misery. And since the use of alcohol is such a physiological problem even to scientific men, and since the consequences involved in them are so tremendous as we know them to be, and as Moxon points out in these impressive words: “Alcohol affects the whole man, his whole self, all he can do or say, and not only so, but all that his bodily nature does in secret with him”—surely the disagreement among accepted authorities cannot be held to warrant its use, but rather to impose the highest obligation to avoid it altogether. Anon.
5. Deep waters are difficult to be sounded. So a man’s secret purpose or counsel it may be difficult to sound. Yet a man of skill will draw it out from its depths. Drawing out is a metaphorical expression occasioned by the preceding image—deep waters. M. S.
9. This must be explained to mean: Who can say this appropriately and truthfully, and perhaps with some emphasis on the word I as opposed to what God and His grace do for those who seek help of Him. He seems to speak of those who boastfully proclaim what they themselves have done. H. C.
10. Divers weights. Deception in weights and measures destroys and sweeps away all legitimate modes of dealing. If the laws of buying and selling are corrupted, human society is in a manner dissolved; so that he who cheats by false weights and measures, differs little from him who utters false coin; and consequently one who as buyer or seller has falsified the standard measures of wine or corn or anything else, is accounted criminal. Calvin.—This branch of social morality requires the strictest attention from the Lord’s people. It is here that continual contact goes on between them and the world. Nothing injures religion so much as the mercantile immoralities of its professors. Fraudulent bankrupts, dishonest tradings, overreachings—these are what go to lessen the influence of religion among men. Edgar.
As certainly as what is contemptible carries contempt, the man who is willing to sell his integrity with his goods will appear to be just the character he is. Undeviating adherence to truth and justice may possibly lose to-day’s customer, but in the long run it will bring as many more as it is more implicitly trusted. H. B.—Ordinary trade is a splendid field for the practical exercise of religious virtues, because the commercial activities of the age afford large facilities either for fidelity or for fraud. In every office and warehouse religion claims to set up her throne. In the smallest act of buying and selling she insists on having a voice. Not only on the portal of every church, but on the forefront of every shop—ay, on the beam of every balance, we ought to see the inscription, “To the glory of God alone!” D. D.
11. By his doings the mere child will show not only what he is now but what he will become in after life. Hence the importance of studying his developments of character closely at the earliest possible period, that you may forecast his future and guard in season against evils which, neglected, will become incurable. H. C.—The graces or the faults of children are not trifles, as they are often deemed to be. “The child is father of the man;” and the earliest actions are prophecies of the future, whether it will be pure and right, or unclean and evil.
12. More is meant than meets the ear. It is not merely that we owe the gifts of sight and hearing to Jehovah, but that He, being the Giver, will also call us to account for them. “He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?” E. H. P.—That God made the ear and the eye is affirmed for the sake of this inference—viz., that he must therefore himself have a perfect ear and eye to discern all human deeds and even thoughts. H. C.
14. It is nought, saith the buyer—that is, the buyer tries to overreach the seller by disparaging his goods; but when he has obtained them at his own price, he boasts of having tricked him. Wells.—Thus the arts of trade and the spirit of the sharper were the same in the age of Solomon as in our own. Human selfishness makes no progress (morally) in the ways of business with the lapse of ages. H. C.—What the proverb means to expose and censure is, consciously unjust depreciation of an article in order to secure it for less than the buyer believes it to be worth. This may be done in two ways: First, by the actual depreciation of the thing itself, either as to material or workmanship or both; the man knowing well enough that in each respect it is alike good. Or, secondly, by the man’s pretending that he does not want it and has no use for it, so that whatever may be its intrinsic value it is not really of that value to him; he, on the contrary, knowing and feeling that it would just suit him, and secretly wishing to obtain it if possible. All this is, of course, wrong. The case, however, is much worse when the buyer knows or suspects that the seller must sell; that he is poor or in difficulties, and that his circumstances may be taken advantage of to wring from him his goods at a cruel sacrifice. A man’s heart may be broken as well as his position destroyed by such heartless pressure being brought to bear upon him in a great necessity. T. B.
What, it may be asked, is the very operation of merchandising but a drill exercise in selfishness? And what is the law of price or profit but the law of possibility—viz., to ask the highest price the market will bear, be the cost what it may or the value what it may. What, too, is current price itself but a market graduation, settled by the contrary bulling and bearing of two selfishnesses, that of the sellers and that of the buyers? And then what is the trader doing but feeling after all the while, and having it even for his life to wait on the adjustments of selfishness, even as barometers wait on the airwaves and their fluctuating levels? which waiting always on the unsteady, unsteadies even the sense of principle. Besides the very working of a bargain, what is it but an adroit wrestling match; a talking up of the market and the goods perhaps on one side and a talking down on the other, or a magnifying by shrewd silences that is even more cunningly and skilfully insincere? Bushnell.
He who freely praises what he means to purchase, and he who enumerates the faults of what he means to sell, may set up a partnership with honesty. Lavater.
- “To eat gravel” was a Hebrew and is an Arabic phrase for getting into trouble. Like this, in the long run, is the “bread” got by deceit, which tastes sweet at first, but ends by leaving the hunger of the soul unsatisfied. The general sense of the verse recognizes the fact that there is a pleasure in the sense of cleverness felt after a hard bargain or a successful fraud, and meets it by bidding men look on the after consequences. E. H. P.—So universally, though the first taste of sinful enjoyment may be sweet, it will be bitterness in the latter end. H. C.
19. Talebearers are commonly flatterers, and by speaking fair insinuate themselves into men’s acquaintance. Those are unprincipled people that go about carrying stories, that make mischief among neighbors and relations, that reveal secrets which they are intrusted with, or which by unfair means they come to the knowledge of; or under pretence of guessing at men’s thoughts and intentions tell that of them which is really false. “Be not familiar with such, do not give them the hearing when they tell their tales and reveal secrets, for you may be sure that they will betray your secrets too and tell tales of you.” H.
20. By a figure at once truly beautiful and terribly forcible, this flagrant sin against one’s father and mother is threatened with the most appalling punishment. That the lamp of one’s life—the only means for one ray of light and joy—shall be extinguished in the very depths of darkness, leaves this miserable victim the wreck of ruin and despair. God will never lack the requisite agencies to punish this most unnatural sin. H. C.
22. Say not thou, I will recompense. Take not revenge for an injury received where thou art not the proper judge, but leave thy cause to the Lord and expect His righteous sentence. Bishop Patrick.—We must not avenge ourselves, no, nor so much as think of it or design it. “Say not thou, no not in thy heart, I will recompense evil for evil; do not please thyself with the thought that some time or other thou shalt have an opportunity of being quits with him. Do not wish revenge or hope for it, much less resolve upon it, no, not when the injury is fresh, and the resentments of it most deep. Never say that thou wilt do a thing which thou canst not in faith pray to God to assist thee in, and that thou canst not do in meditating revenge.” We must refer ourselves to God and leave it to Him to plead our cause, to maintain our right, and reckon with those that do us wrong in such a way and manner as He thinks fit and in His own due time. Wait on the Lord, attend His pleasure, acquiesce in His will, and He does not say that He shall punish him that has injured thee; instead of desiring that, thou must forgive him and pray for him, but He shall save thee, and that is enough. H.
If this precept were obeyed by half the living world, these obedient ones would have little violence to fear from the other half; there would be a vast diminution in the wrongs inflicted by man upon his fellows. Those who thus committed all vengeance to God would have a most precious experience of His friendship and love; would find their hearts drawn exceedingly near to Him as to an ever-present friend and preserver, and would have a double joy in the victory gained over one of the most dangerous passions of the depraved heart. H. C.—Men cannot injure us except so far as they exasperate us to forget ourselves. No man is really dishonored except by his own act. Calumny, injustice, ingratitude—the only harm these can do us is by making us bitter, or rancorous, or gloomy, by shutting our hearts or souring our affections. We rob them of their power if they only leave us more sweet and forgiving than before. And this is the only true victory. We win by love. Love transmutes all curses and forces them to rain down in blessings. Our enemies become unconsciously our best friends when their slanders deepen in us heavenlier graces. Let them do their worst; they only give us the Godlike victory of forgiving them. F. W. R.
23. Swinging in the air before our eyes this tangible type represents the law and duty of justice with singular accuracy and beauty. A pair of scales is the symbol of mutuality, or reciprocity, between man and man. Each side or cup of the scales, with its contents, owes its position not to any natural value or independent force it has in itself, but to what there is on the opposite side of the support. The true position, when both rest after their vibration, is that when the opposite weights are equal. These are the mutual rights of men. The standard, supporting the whole, firm and fixed, represents the upholding hand of God, keeping just men and unjust men, for the time, alike, while it tries and proves them what manner of men they are and how they turn. Almost all our life is implicated in some social relation, and in all the enlarging series of circles—the family, the school, the neighborhood, the sphere of public business, the nation—that balancing of mutual rights, with all its delicate exposures and dangers, its sources of sin, and pain, and meanness, and moral victory and glory, is going on. Hence is the solemn necessity and the religious sanctity of justice—such justice as only Christ teaches and the Christian learns. And because of all these various kinds of commerce, the commerce of material things, in property and merchandise, stands as a kind of representative and illustration, so the scales have become the recognized symbol of commercial honesty. The “false balance” is the special falsehood of commerce, but it is the emblem of all injustice. On the one side something is given or taken for which there is no offset on the other. And yet, observe there seems to be an offset. The scales hang even to the eye. But something which is not the just weight is put in to look as if it were, to satisfy appearances by a deception. The buyer gets something for which he paid nothing; or the seller is paid something for which he delivers nothing. F. D. H.
24. God guides the steps of man, i.e., He chooses and arranges for him his path. Man cannot know or determine with certainty his own way, since all is dependent on God. M. S.—Our enterprises succeed, not as we desire and design, but as God directs and disposes. The goings even of a strong man, so the word signifies, are of the Lord, for his strength is weakness without God, nor is the battle always to the strong. We have no foresight of future events and therefore know not how to forecast for them. We so little understand our own way that we know not what is good for ourselves, and therefore we must make a virtue of necessity, and commit our way unto the Lord in whose hand it is, follow the guidance and submit to the disposal of Providence. H.
The finite, dependent being is preserved in a sense of his dependence by realizing that he is not his own master, that he cannot foresee or secure his own way, that confidence in himself as the guardian of his own interests is presumptuous. The uncertainties of our lives, our ignorance, our weakness, suggest the feeling of our dependence, and the sense of our dependence is a prime essential of piety. So, too, our ignorance of the future is an aid to faith also. We trust where we do not know. We rely on character because it is a security, and because we cannot foresee events. The character of God is a guarantee for that which shall come to pass. But why, one may ask, should a finite mind, ignorant of the future, trust rather than distrust, believe rather than doubt? Without question, our ignorance opens the door both to faith and to the want of it, and just here lies the trial of our characters. But when our dependence on a Supreme power is felt, when the fact is admitted that God has plans running through every life and all history, then faith, and not distrust, is natural, for such plans are good, they cannot fail; he who is in harmony with them shall prosper, and God will protect his interests. T. D. W.
25. The sentiment is that a man is ensnared by making a vow without reflection, and postponing till after his vow the inquiry whether he can perform it or whether it is admissible to disregard it (see Eccl. 5:4, 5). H. C.
27. The higher life, above that which he has in common with lower animals, comes to him direct from God. Such a life, with all its powers of insight, consciousness, reflection, is as a lamp which God has lighted, throwing its rays into the darkest recesses of the heart. We are here half-way to the higher truth proclaimed in the prologue of John’s Gospel. The candle, or lamp of Jehovah, derives its light from “the Light that lighteth every man,” from the Eternal Word. E. H. P.
The soul is a principle of light to guide and direct man in all his motions, enabling him to reflect not only on his own actions, but on his most secret thoughts, and to discover the good or evil which is in them. Wells.—The soul of man, considered as having the power of turning its searching eye inward and taking cognizance of its own moral states and acts, is here beautifully compared to the lamp of the Lord, going down into the secret chambers of the inner man to search out the dark things there. See in this reflexive power one of the noblest features of man’s God-like nature. He can and may know himself, and therefore may prosecute the noble work of self-correction and self-culture. H. C.
We have here the dignity of the soul, the great soul of man, that light which lighteth every man. It is a Divine light; it is the candle of the Lord, a candle of His lighting, for it is the inspiration of the Almighty that gives us understanding. He forms the spirit of man within him. It is after the image of God that man is created in knowledge. Conscience, that noble faculty, is God’s deputy in the soul; it is a candle not only lighted by Him, but lighted for him. The Father of spirits is therefore called the Father of lights. It is a discovering light. By the help of reason we come to know men, to judge of their characters and dive into their designs; by the help of conscience we come to know ourselves. The spirit of a man has a self consciousness (1 Cor. 2: 11), it searches into the dispositions and affections of the soul, praises what is good, condemns what is otherwise, and judges of the thoughts and intents of the heart. This is the office, this the power of conscience, which we are therefore concerned to get rightly informed and keep void of offence. H.
Man belongs to two worlds: the carnal and the spiritual, a higher and a lower; and his great danger is, lest the lower nature may too much engross him, and his efforts to gratify it may swamp the needs and the feebler demands of the higher. It is then to enable him to pay due attention to his spiritual nature that man’s Creator has implanted within him this faculty of conscience, to remind him continually of the great things concerning himself, concerning God, and concerning eternity. Conscience is, therefore, the sentinel which God has placed within man, to watch over and protect from harm his moral and spiritual well-being. It does not act with the same power in all persons; nor, in the same person, does it always act in the same degree; it is capable of being hardened, seared, and deadened; and as such its admonitions will be comparatively slight, unless roused up and awakened. But, less or more in every one, it is man’s universal and perpetual reminder that he has a spiritual nature which demands watchfulness and care, training and development; and which will in the last great day leave all men “without excuse,” inasmuch as having it in them, as a law unto themselves, they heeded it not, and lived lives of carnal gratification only—while their souls were entirely neglected, gradually deteriorating through neglect, until they died an everlasting death—a death of moral and spiritual suicide. Martensen.
Conscience is not in itself a sure and safe instructor as to the path of duty. God has not implanted in every man’s mind, by nature, a knowledge of God and a knowledge of God’s law. Such knowledge comes by revelation, not by conscience. What we call “conscience” is a monitor rather than a teacher; it is that faculty or attribute of man which tells him that he ought to do right, although it does not tell him what right is; and again it reminds him that he has done wrong, when he purposely has done that which he supposed was wrong, or has failed to do that which he understood to be his duty. Hence it is true that, when a man acts against his conscience he is at fault, because so far as he knows he does wrong and his intention has been to be wrong. But, on the other hand, if a man does what his conscience approves, it does not follow that he is doing right. Many a man is serving the devil conscientiously. “To the law and to the testimony.” There is the standard of right. Your duty is to do right as God commands the right; not merely as your conscience approves or dictates. It is your duty first to know what is right, and then to do what is right. You may think you are all right while yet you are all wrong. You may be walking by the light which is within you. “Take heed, . . . that the light which is in thee be not darkness.” “If . . . the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.” It is true that the Holy Spirit is promised to dwell in the believer’s heart; but the Holy Spirit is to take of the things of Christ as they are disclosed in the revelation of Christ and to make them clear unto the disciple. He in whom the Holy Spirit dwells seeks the Spirit’s guidance in the study of the Word of God, which was written by those whom the Holy Spirit inspired to its writing. The Bible, not the conscience, is the repository of God’s truth. Beware lest you be wrong conscientiously. H. C. T.
No human spirit can enlighten itself, and no man can enlighten his fellow-man. Jesus Christ, the Mediator, gives light. He alone brings to earth a clear knowledge of God, and He alone finds a way to man’s spirit with the fire of His personal love. When He is accepted, light is bestowed. This light may be dim and feeble at first, but soon it grows brighter, and presently it burns with a clear, strong flame. No one can, therefore, realize the true glory of his spiritual life until Jesus Christ becomes his Light. H. M. Booth.—There is a multitude of men whose lamps are certainly not dark, and yet who certainly are not the candles of the Lord. With a nature richly furnished to the very brim, and yet profane, impure, worldly, they scatter scepticism of all good and truth about them wherever they may go. If it be possible for the human candle, instead of being lifted up to heaven and kindled at the pure being of Him who is eternally and absolutely good, to be plunged down into hell, and lighted at the yellow flames that burn out of the dreadful brimstone of the pit, then we can understand the sight of a man, who is rich in every brilliant human quality, cursing the world with the continual exhibition of the devilish instead of the godlike in his life. P. Brooks.
29. “The glory of young men,” says the royal preacher and sage, “is their strength.” This is their peculiar excellence and charm—their distinctive crown of beauty. Every age of human life, like every other true work of God, has such a distinctive excellence—some special characteristic which pre-eminently belongs to it, and which constitutes the authentic stamp of its Maker’s mind and hand. Everything which He hath made, and which remains in any measure as He made it, is beautiful; but beautiful in its own place, and after its own kind. It has not only its degree, but its style of beauty, which is its own and not another’s. Each is itself, and its true glory lies in being like itself, and the best of itself. So “the glory of young men is their strength.” They have a strong heart, and a strong hand, and a strong pulse of life and action. They may not trust like the child, nor counsel like the hoary head, nor suffer and endure like patient woman; but they can do and dare, toil and fight, as none else can, and that is their glory. This is the idea, evidently, which was in the mind of the hoary Apostle of Love, when after writing successively to the children and the fathers in the faith, he addresses himself last of all to this class, and says, “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong.” They are to be strong in courage, in brave, resolute purpose, strong in all high and noble and manly sentiment, strong above all in that holy and unseen might which cometh from above, which lifts the soul above itself, which makes the meanest nature noble, the homeliest life sublime. They are to be strong in youthful fervor. Fervor is the inspiration of life, the fire of energy, the spring and moving power of action. If courage imparts steadfastness, fervor imparts intensity. The one gives solidity, the other impulse, enthusiasm. Fervor makes us not only brave, but chivalrous, heroic; teaches us to hope great things, and attempt great things, and never to despair while we are in God’s work and on God’s side. It makes us not only do our work, but “do it with our might;” not only put our hand to it, but throw our whole heart and soul into it. They are to be strong in sobriety and self-control. “Young men likewise exhort that they be sober-minded.” If self-control is for them difficult, it is just on that very account peculiarly necessary. Their eager passions and mutinous appetites must either be mastered, or they will master them. This is that sobriety, that self-discipline, and self-control of which the apostle speaks. It is a prime element of moral strength. Without it courage melts into effeminacy, and enthusiasm expires in self-indulgence and apathy. In self-control the soul gathers up its strength, rallies its scattered powers, subdues distracting elements, nerves and braces itself, takes possession of itself, asserts the command of all it is and all it can do; and thus, with concentrated force, addresses itself to its appointed work, whether to do or to dare. Islay Burns.
30. The general sentiment is that a vigorous corporeal punishment is an effective remedy for the wicked man or boy, because it goes deep into his sensibilities—takes hold, when, by the supposition, nothing else will. Closely in this connection, Solomon had spoken of the “spirit of man” as “the candle of the Lord,” going down deep into the soul; but remembering that some men do their utmost to extinguish this candle, and will not be searched deeply by its light, he intimates that God’s discipline must be his next and last resort. H. C.