The sayings we have been quoting in this volume for the most part belong to the life of ordered and peaceful society. There is no tramp of armies, no sense of imminent death, no outrage of gigantic suffering and injustice, in the pages of Proverbs or Ecclesiasticus. To-day, however, the ordinary problems and interests of peace-time seem altogether irrelevant. Twenty million fighting men in Europe, asked what a maxim is, would talk to you of machine-guns; the maxims otherwise called proverbs belong to a different and forgotten world. For trifling moralisms we have to-day neither taste nor time. But the Jewish proverbs range wide enough to have a word for everyone, for the grave or the gay, for pious or profane, for those in haste just as much as for those at leisure; and many of their comments on life are very far removed from being trifling. In our enquiry we have met not a few winged words worth capturing and holding fast even in war-time; great thoughts such as this assertion, He that followeth after righteousness shall attain unto life, but he that pursueth evil doeth it to his own death (Pr. 1119), or this reassuring hint of the fundamental goodness of human nature, When the righteous triumph there is great glorying, but when the wicked come to power men hide themselves (Pr. 2812; cp. 1110), or this grand medicine for a tempted people, Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any folk (Pr. 1434).{281}
Moreover it ought to be recognised that, properly regarded, morality is never unimportant; moralisms being trifling only so long as they remain mere words, not when they are translated into deeds. Act upon the good that is found in these proverbs, and immense results would follow. But just there is the crux: “It is a small matter to get right principles recognised, the whole difficulty lies in getting them practised. We need a power which can successfully, contend against the storm of our passion and self-will.”[154]
Now there is one deeply significant fact which we have seen in our study of the Jewish proverbs, but on which we have not yet laid sufficient stress—the fact that they seemed to their authors to point beyond themselves to a Divine Source. They were not fortuitous atoms gathered no man knew whence or why, but part of a marvellous system inspired and originated by God, sustained by His inexhaustible power, and governed by His holy purposes. Whatever may be thought regarding particular proverbs, no sensible person can imagine that Wisdom itself is idle or unimportant talk. Wisdom remains wise even in such a war as this, though the nations rage and the kingdoms are moved.
But is there a Divine Wisdom? Or is the aspiring faith of men only an unsubstantial dream? From first to last the Jews believed that Wisdom is a reality, and, far from weakening as the years went on, their confidence even increased, and their thoughts of the wonder and glory of the Heavenly Wisdom became, if possible, more sublime and yet no less intimate. And high as they exalted Wisdom, her chiefest glory remained this, that she was willing to dwell with men. Let us take as a last quotation some beautiful and loving words from that late work, the Wisdom of Solomon, to which reference was made in Chapter IX:{282}
Wisdom is an effulgence from everlasting light,
A stainless mirror of God’s working, and an image of His goodness.
And it, being one, hath power to do all things;
And remaining in itself, reneweth all things:
And from generation to generation passing into holy souls
It maketh men friends of God and prophets....
Wisdom is fairer than the sun, and above all the constellations of the stars.
Being compared with light, it is found to be before it;
For to the light of day succeedeth night,
But against Wisdom evil doth not prevail (W.S. 726-30).
Is there this Heavenly Wisdom? Century by century, Life is accumulating its patient answer to the question, building up its vast evidence that the word of God endures, generation by generation confirming the intuition that the visible is for man the least ............