And

them, but see with them. Seeing is the legitimate use of the eyes, just as believing is the legitimate use of the faculties of the mind and soul. what blindness is to eyes made for seeing, that doubting is to a mind made for believing. When shutting the eye and closing the ear are the best ways of seeing and hearing, then doubting will be the best way of gaining knowledge about truth and duty. That young man who supposes that if he is just a little sceptical, he shall be more likely to know what is truthful, makes a terrible mistake. The habit of doubting is the least reasonable of all habits. For a man was made to believe; and he had better believe wrongly on some subjects, than to believe nothing on any.

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There can be no progress by doubt and negation except in error. But," says one," would you not have a man doubt an error? and is not such a doubt a help toward coming to the truth?” We answer that if a man doubts an error because he is in the habit of doubting, he will doubt the truth for the same reason. We would have him see and believe the truth, and then whether he doubts or does anything else with the error is of no consequence. Let any young man see that the believing and not the doubting spirit is the guide to truth. For God

So,

made us, and Jesus commands us to believe. too, if we are made to believe, there is something to be believed. God made the eyes to see something. If the feet are to stand, there is provided an earth to stand upon. If man is a believing animal, there is somewhere truth to be believed. Truth must be a positive thing. It is of God. For God is the 66 God of truth." It is sometimes said that the truth to any man is what he honestly believes it to be. "It is truth to him, though error to another." If that were so, truth would not be truth, but only each man's fancy. But God made the mind to believe, and the truth to be believed. When a young man says, "I cannot decide among so many religions," he says either that God has not given him brains enough to believe, or else has withheld the truth, so that he cannot know it. If he says the first he denies his own manhood; if he says the second he condemns his God for so making the mind, and not making the truth which the mind was made to believe.

In dealing with his doubts a young man should also be careful, and not deem doubting the sign of a stronger intellect. It is far from that. Anybody can doubt. And a man who is floundering in a sea of doubts has no right to call out to others to

come and see how brave and strong a swimmer he is. The strong and brave swimmer is he who gets through and gains the other shore, and stands firmly on the rock. He who can never quite make up his mind on any subject is not usually praised for vigour of intellect. The young man who begins a trade, a business, a profession, and then, speedily doubting his ability or taste for it, turns to another, only again to doubt his ability, is a young man who awakens only pity for his want of perception or of purpose. He who cannot make up his mind on any public question, who always doubts how to vote, gets no praise for manliness. Doubt and indecision are marks of weakness rather than strength, and this Book of the Proverbs breathes all through it a bracing atmosphere of faith in truth, in right, in manhood, and in God. It shows on every page the native nobility of the man who is strong alike in the integrity of his outward virtue and his inward faith.

The plan of the Book of the Proverbs is in harmony with the design of its author. Its sayings are often used by us in disjointed fragments. For it is portable wisdom. But then any separate part is richer when seen in its connection with the scope of the entire book. It is not a chance medley of

miscellaneous remarks.

It is no mere scrap-book.

It is far from being a confused mass of apothegm and epigram. The casual observer of the heavens on a winter's night might at first think the skies were full of bright disorder. To him it might seem as if God had scattered here and there the dust of stars carelessly over the firmament. But his friend bids him observe the lines of gigantic boundary, tells him of the order and place of each constellation, and shows him that instead of chaos there is plan in the skies. So it is with these proverbs. They seem like a whole firmament of gems. Such is their point and brilliancy, that the very things that make them proverbs give them also their seeming abruptness and lack of connection. But the plan is there, and study will bring it out, until we admire the setting as much as the gems themselves.

The first part of the book comprises nine chapters. In these the importance of a well-grounded and firmly-settled piety is insisted upon for every young man. The dangers and duties of early life are pointed out so clearly that this portion of the book has been called the "Young Man's Directory." The second part, comprising the next fourteen chapters, supposes that the clerk or apprentice or student has acquired his business, his trade or

profession, and is ready to step forth into actual life. It tells him how to deal with men in such a way as to be prosperous and at the same time please the Lord. This second part may be called the "Merchant's Directory." The third division, though endorsed by Solomon, is the work of the son of a noble mother, who, with that mother in mind, sets forth the glories of true womanhood. It is the finest word-painting in literature; and that too in a line where the poets of the world have woven their choicest garlands and sung their sweetest songs. But if these are the main divisions of the book, it comports well with its plan that all through it there should be delightful episodes; the bowers of fancy where the poet may sing his verses, and the gardens where the philosopher may walk without interruption while talking to the admiring disciples, who, after the manner of Eastern scholars, love to call some veteran in wisdom by the name of master.

In a gallery of art there are large and even colossal objects in one picture, while another is a miniature of not more than a hand's breadth. And here in this gallery are pictures with a solitary figure a single proverb; and there are also pictures of broadest artistic grouping. Here is a brief