Wisdom

Chapter 1

  1. 1

    Listen, all you who are judges here on earth. Learn to love justice; learn to think high thoughts of what God is, and with sincere hearts aspire to him.

  2. 2

    Trust him thou must, if find him thou wouldst; he does not reveal himself to one that challenges his power.

  3. 3

    Man’s truant thoughts may keep God at a distance, but when the test of strength comes, folly is shewn in its true colours;

  4. 4

    never yet did wisdom find her way into the schemer’s heart, never yet made her home in a life mortgaged to sin.

  5. 5

    A holy thing it is, the spirit that brings instruction; how it shrinks away from the touch of falsehood, holds aloof from every rash design! It is a touchstone, to betray the neighbourhood of wrong-doing.

  6. 6

    A good friend to man is this spirit of wisdom, that convicts the blasphemer of his wild words; God can witness his secret thoughts, can read his heart unerringly, and shall his utterance go unheard?

  7. 7

    No, the spirit of the Lord fills the whole world; bond that holds all things in being, it takes cognisance of every sound we utter;

  8. 8

    how should ill speech go unmarked, or the scrutiny of justice pass it by?

  9. 9

    The hidden counsel of the godless will all come to light; no word of it but reaches the divine hearing, and betrays their wicked design;

  10. 10

    that jealous ear is still listening, and all their busy murmuring shall stand revealed.

  11. 11

    Beware, then, of whispering, and to ill purpose; ever let your tongues refrain from calumny. Think not that the secret word goes for nought; lying lips were ever the soul’s destroying.

  12. 12

    Death for its goal, is not life’s aim missed? Labours he well, that labours to bring doom about his ears?

  13. 13

    Death was never of God’s fashioning; not for his pleasure does life cease to be;

  14. 14

    what meant his creation, but that all created things should have being? No breed has he created on earth but for its thriving; none carries in itself the seeds of its own destruction. Think not that mortality bears sway on earth;

  15. 15

    no end nor term is fixed to a life well lived …

  16. 16

    It is the wicked that have brought death on themselves, by word and deed of their own; court death, and melt away in its embrace, keep tryst with it, and lay claim to its partnership.