n some cases they seem to be worldly-wise,--such as we
might suppose to fall from the mouth of Benjamin Franklin or
Cobbett,--recognizing worldly prosperity as the greatest of blessings.
Sometimes they are witty, again ironical, but always forcible. In some
of them there is awful solemnity.

There are no more terrific warnings and exhortations in the sacred
writings than are found in the Proverbs of Solomon. The sins of
idleness, of anger, of covetousness, of gossip, of falsehood, of
oppression, of injustice, of intemperance, of unchastity, are uniformly
denounced as leading to destruction; while prudence, temperance,
chastity, obedience to parents, and loyalty to truth are enjoined with
the earnestness of a man who believes in personal accountability to God.
The ethics of the Proverbs are based on everlasting righteousness, and
are imbued with the spirit of divine philosophy; their great peculiarity
is the constant exhortation to wisdom and knowledge, to which young men
are especially exhorted. Like Socrates, Solomon never separates wisdom
from virtue, but makes one the foundation of the other. He shows the
connection between virtue and happiness, vice and misery. The Proverbs
are inexhaustible in moral force, and have universal application. There
is nothing cynical or gloomy in them. They form a fitting study for
youth and old age, an incentive to virtue and a terror to evil-doers, a
thesaurus of moral wisdom; they speak in every line a lofty and
comprehensive intellect, acquainted with all the experiences of life.
Such moral wisdom would be imperishable in any literature. Such
utterances go far to redeem all personal defects; they show how
unclouded is a mind trained in equity, even when the will is enslaved by
iniquity. What is still more remarkable, the Proverbs never apologize
for the force of temptation, and never blend error with truth; they
uniformly exalt wisdom, and declare that the beginning of it is the fear
of the Lord. There is not one of them which seeks to cover up vice with
sophistical excuses; they show that the author or authors of them love
moral beauty and truth, and exalt the same,--as many great men, with
questionable morals, give their testimony to the truths of
Christianity, and utterly abhor those who poison the soul by plausible
sophistries,--as Lord Brougham detested Rousseau. The famous writings of
our modern times which nearest approach the Proverbs in love of truth
and moral wisdom are th