hemselves till they came again to see
who in reality he was and whence he came,--that is to say, till they were
brought to see what they themselves still were, and would always be, when
they were left to themselves. "Where did you lie last night? asked the
Shining One with the whip. With the Shepherds on the Delectable
Mountains, they answered. He asked them then if they had not of those
shepherds a note of direction for the way? They answered, Yes. But did
you not, said he, when you were at a stand pluck out and read your note?
They answered, No. He asked them why? They said they forgot. He asked,
moreover if the shepherds did not bid them beware of the Flatterer? They
answered, Yes; but we did not imagine, said they, that this fine-spoken
man had been he."

All good literature, both sacred and profane, both ancient and modern, is
full of the Flatterer. Let me not, protests Elihu in his powerful speech
in the book of Job, let me not accept any man's person; neither let me
give flattering titles unto man, lest in so doing my Maker should soon
take me away. And the Psalmist in his powerful description of the wicked
men of his day: There is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward
part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter
with their tongue. And again: They speak with flattering lips, and with
a double heart do they speak. But the Lord shall cut off all flattering
lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things. "The perpetual
hyperbole" of pure love becomes in the lips of impure love the impure
bait that leads the simple ones astray on the streets of the city as seen
and heard by the wise man out of his casement. My son, say unto wisdom,
Thou art my sister, and call understanding thy kinswoman; that they may
keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth thee
with her words, which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth
the covenant of her God. And then in the same book of Hebrew aphorisms
we find this text which Bunyan puts on the margin of the page: "A man
that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet." And now,
before we leave the ancient world, if you would not think it beneath the
dignity of the place we are in, I would like to read to you a passage out
of a round-about paper written by a satirist of Greece about the time of
Ezra and Nehemiah in Jerusalem. You will easily remark the difference of
tone between the seriousne