Some of the psalms are alphabet acrostics, notably the One-hundred-and-nineteenth, each of whose first eight verses begins with the Hebrew A, the next with B. As in all collections of hymns, some are better than others, in interest, in literary form, in the ideas which they express. In some psalms the poet curses his enemies (58, 69); in some he speaks without expectation of individual immortality: "In death there is no remembrance of thee" (6:5), "What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth?" (30:9). So devout, however, is the spirit of the Psalms, so filled with the consciousness of God, with the sense of sin and of the divine pardon of the penitent, with the inevitable grief of life and with the divine compassion, that Christians as well as Jews find in them the expression of their own praise and prayer.

XII

THE WISE MEN

W

HEN the hero of the book of Job is in the midst

of his misfortunes, and his distress is increased by the distrust and disrespect of his neighbors, he recalls the departed happiness of the days when his fellow-citizens honored him as a Wise Man.

Oh that I were as in months past,

As in the days when God preserved me;
When his candle shined upon my head,

And when by his light I walked through darkness;
As I was in the days of my youth,

When the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;
When the Almighty was yet with me,

When my children were about me;
When I washed my steps with butter,

And the rock poured me out rivers of oil;

When I went out to the gate through the city,
When I prepared my seat in the street!

The young men saw me, and hid themselves:
And the aged arose, and stood up.

The princes refrained talking,

And laid their hand on their mouth.

The nobles held their peace,

And their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.
When the ear heard me, then it blessed me;

And when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me:

Because I delivered the poor that cried,

And the fatherless, and him that had none to help

him.

The blessing of him that was ready to perish came

upon me:

And I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.

I put on righteousness, and it clothed me:
My judgment was as a robe and a diadem.
I was eyes to the blind,

And feet was I to the lame.

I was a father to the poor:

And the cause which I knew not I searched out.
And I brake the jaws of the wicked,

And plucked the spoil out of his teeth.
Then I said, "I shall die in my nest,

And I shall multiply my days as the sand.
My root is spread out by the waters,

And the dew lieth all night upon my branch.
My glory is fresh in me,

And my bow is renewed in my hand."
Unto me men gave ear, and waited,

And kept silence at my counsel.

After my words they spake not again;

And my speech dropped upon them.

And they waited for me as for the rain;

And they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.

If I laughed on them, they believed it not;

And the light of my countenance they cast not down.
I chose out their way, and sat chief,

And dwelt as a king in the army,

As one that comforteth the mourners.

The intimate and leisurely conditions of oriental life gave opportunity to the Wise Man. The men of the neighborhood met every day at the village gate, and there sat and talked. They discussed the infinite aspects of human life, and added appropriate morals to the narratives of local events. The seniors gave the juniors good advice. Each community had its own oracle, who held his place, in part by virtue of his

years, but chiefly because of his gifts of observation and expression. Such philosophers, under like conditions, were influential in the early history of New England. It accounts, in some measure, for the similarity between the Proverbs and the shrewd sayings of Poor Richard's Almanac.

The Wise Men did not lay claim to any special inspiration. The chapters of their collected sayings do not begin with the prophetic formula, "Thus saith the Lord." Whatever wisdom they had came from experience, and consisted in their understanding of human nature. Their philosophy was practical, rather than speculative. They looked out rather than in, and did not concern themselves with the processes of thinking. They did not watch the workings of their minds. Their interest was not in the abstract, but in the concrete. They cared for things, not for the "thingness of things."

I

The wisdom of the Wise Men appears in its simplest form in the book of Proverbs, which is composed of several collections of wise sayings. It opens with the Praise of Wisdom.

My son, forget not my law;

But let thine heart keep my commandments:

For length of days, and long life,

And peace, shall they add to thee.

Let not mercy and truth forsake thee:

Bind them about thy neck;

Write them upon the table of thine heart:

So shalt thou find favour and good understanding

In the sight of God and man.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart;
And lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him,
And he shall direct thy paths.

Be not wise in thine own eyes:
Fear the Lord, and depart from evil.

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,

And the man that getteth understanding.

For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver,

And the gain thereof than fine gold.

She is more precious than rubies:

And all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.

Length of days is in her right hand;

And in her left hand riches and honour.

Her ways are ways of pleasantness,

And all her paths are peace.

She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon
And happy is every one that retaineth her.

her:

Then the proverbs begin, with the tenth chapter. First, the Proverbs of Solomon, ascribed to him, or collected by him, or assembled under the patronage of his great name; like the Psalms of David. Then the Words of the Wise, (22:17). Here the poetic form changes from the couplet to the double couplet.

Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise,
And apply thine heart unto my knowledge.
For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within
thee;

They shall withal be fitted in thy lips.

Rob not the poor, because he is poor:
Neither oppress the afflicted in the gate:
For the Lord will plead their cause,

And spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.

1