February 19

"How much better is it to get wisdom than gold!"—Proverbs 16:16.

"HOW much better!"

Wisdom buys what gold cannot procure. Wisdom—the mind which hearkens to God and the heart which yields to Him—brings me His divine favour, His forgiving grace, His power to shield me, His guidance to lead me, His knowledge to inspire me, His glory to crown me. It secures for me a wealth beside which the treasures of the world are poor and pale. Shall I not "sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse," if like Daniel I am a man greatly beloved of the King of kings?

Wisdom penetrates where gold cannot go. It carries pardon and peace into the deepest recesses of my spirit, while gold can do nothing but deck my body and my home. It gives me the strongest and the tenderest influence over others, while gold cannot dispel their griefs and answer their doubts. It lifts me into communion with the Most High God, and gold is powerless to lead me thither, to that country afar beyond the stars.

And wisdom lasts when gold is done. This world's riches take to themselves wings and flee away: almost every day furnishes me with a new instance of how fleeting they are and how perishable. But wisdom makes mine the possessions which do not wax old, which are never withdrawn, which through life and death and eternity are certain to gladden my soul.

With all my getting, let me be sure that I get wisdom. They said of Corot that he never began the painting of his immortal landscapes except with the skies. Let it be with the skies and with God that I am careful to begin—not with the earth and with its tarnished and rusting gold.