The ways of wisdom and other sermons

Front matter

THE

WAYS OF WISDOM

OTHER SERMONS

Contents

PAGE

II.— Christian Giving as a Matter of Business, 22

III. — Christian Giving as a Luxury, . . . 39

I

" Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." — Prov. iii. 17.

TO-DAY is observed in many of our churches as children's day. This does not mean that all of us who are old enough to vote must stay at home : or that we must sit on one side as mere spectators, and let the younger ones do the worshipping. But it means that we all come together to-day for a children's service, remembering that we ourselves have been children, even the oldest of us ; and that a good deal of the child sticks to us still. In college, at commencement time, when graduates of all ages were apt to come back for a day or two to visit their alma mater, we often noticed that the oldest classes, men who had been out of college thirty, forty, fifty years, seemed to take the heartiest pleasure of all in making themselves boys again : those gray-haired dignitaries of the Church and the State would march through the college grounds, singing their student songs at the top of their voices, not at all afraid of compro-

* Preached on Children's Day, June 13, 1886.

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mising their manhood by this renewal of the customs of their youth. And so it is no compromise of dignity for any of us to come to this children's service as participants ; to place ourselves, as well as we can, beside our young fellow-students in the great school of life — these small freshmen and juniors ; to share their hopes and their curiosity and ambition ; or if there should be any one here too old for such condescension, any one who cannot be converted and become as a little child at least once or twice in the year, he may as well go out of the church at once ; for we are told that with such a temper of heart he can by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven.

So then, children, all of you, I ask you if you do not like the sound of our text ; and if we have not got an interesting sort of teacher to speak to us to-day, this Solomon. He does not look much like a minister, to be sure ; but he looks as if he had been everywhere that any one can go, and had seen pretty much everything that there is to see ; and that is the sort of man we are glad to listen to. For now that we are all boys and girls here together, we may confess that we do not always care much to listen to these ministers. We do not always take much stock, as the saying is, in what they tell us. They do not know as much as they try to make us think. They spend their time in their study, reading old books, and writing over old sermons, and in talking to sick

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people and old ladies ; what do they know about the world, and the ways to make money and to have a good time? They advise us not to smoke and swear, and always to be good ; and go to the prayer-meeting, and not to go to the theatre, and all that sort of thing : and of course we expect them to talk that way ; they can't go to such pleasant places themselves ; and of course they do not wish any one else to go. But what do they know about it, anyway ? This John the Baptist, who has lived all his life till a fortnight ago in the country, where he never saw more than five or six people at a time ; or this Elijah, who chooses to wander off by himself, and live like a hermit on the hills and beside the brook; — these preachers, all of them ; — they mean well, no doubt, but we think they are a little slow ; they do not know what they are trying to talk about. So we listen to them as long as we can stay awake on Sunday ; and then go and do just as we choose on Monday.

But, children, we have a different sort of preacher to-day, this Solomon : why, he is as rich as Croesus ; and you ought to see his horses and the handsome houses he has built for himself. And he knows all the big people abroad ; and they send presents to each other. And his wife is the daughter of the King of Egypt. And he has fleets of ships to go anywhere he sends them ; and they bring him everything he wants, all sorts of strange animals and birds, apes

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and peacocks, and curiosities from all over the world: he has a sort of private menagerie up at his own house. And the best music ; and all the pleasantest people. I tell you that man knows what it is to have a good time : he is not one of your humdrum ministers with nothing but a black coat and a bookcase and a barrel of sermons.

We are something like boys in school, all of us, and we do not pay much attention to what our teacher says : but an older boy comes back from college, where he has made a great mark for himself, and is captain of the ball-nine, and knows all the best fellows ; we will listen to every word that he says. Or we are like girls at the seminary ; and one of the older girls, who has been out in society for a year or two, and has spent one winter in New York, and another abroad, and has been introduced to a live lord in London, comes back with one of her Paris dresses on ; we will listen to her. Well, what has this Solomon, this older boy, to say about his good times, now that he has come back from college ?

" Her ways are ways of pleasantness," he says. Why, that is good : that sounds like having a good time. But whose ways? who is he talking about? "Wisdom's ways." Oh ! that is not quite what we were expecting. That sounds rather like a sermon. That is what our tiresome old teacher has been telling us for a year past : he is always saying that it is pleas-

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anter to read Caesar than to play ball ; and pleasanter to draw circles and triangles on the blackboard than to ride on the bicycle. And we always thought he was mistaken. And does Solomon come back and tell us the same thing? He must be making fun of us. No : he says he is in earnest.

Well, let us find out what he means by the ways of wisdom. Ways of wisdom, roads of wisdom. The most interesting thing to know about a road, is where it goes to. There is something in that. Perhaps he means that the way of wisdom leads into more pleasure at last than any other way, even if it does not always seem such a pleasant road to start out on. Yes ; and probably that is so sometimes. The other day when we were planning to ride over to New Brunswick after school, Henry and George, who made haste to learn their lessons, and who recited them well, and started off promptly, did find the ride pleasanter than Tom did, who spent the morning whispering about the time he expected to make, and the fun he was going to have, and so failed in all his lessons, and was kept in after school and missed the ride altogether ; is that what you mean, Solomon, when you say that wisdom's road is one of pleasantness ; do you mean that it leads into more pleasantness than other roads ? " Yes," he says, " that is part of what I mean." " I have noticed in college," he goes on, " that the fellows who come well prepared for the course, and who have cultivated

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some real taste for study, are the ones who have time for all the fun too, and seem to enjoy it most — the ball, the boating, the singing, the pleasant society. The fellows who go to college meaning to study, and with a good start in their studies ; they really get the cream of it all." Well, if Solomon says so, we shall have to see to-morrow what we can make out of Caesar and Geometry, shall we not ? or what we can make out of our reading and writing and arithmetic. That path of hard study has always seemed a pretty rough path to walk on ; but if it really leads into all these pleasant things, we do not any of us wish to be left out of those.

But hush! Solomon is beginning to speak again. He says he will tell us something about those other paths that are not paths of wisdom : for he has walked along some of them himself far enough to know where they go to. There is the path of the idle man — no, I mean the idle child ; we are all children to-day — a very easy road to travel. Not to do anything unless you feel like it : not to do anything that takes too much trouble. It is too much trouble to get up in time for breakfast, and too much trouble to start from home in time for school, or in time for church on Sunday. We will come when we are ready, not before. And if we disturb five hundred people who are trying to unite in prayer, as we march up the aisle, and crowd past them into the seats, that makes no

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II difference to us. We are not going to hurry ourselves : it is too much trouble.

And we are not going to trouble ourselves to learn all our lessons either, just as the book says they ought to be ; we shall spell our words the way we think easiest : e-s-y, easy ; t-r-u-b-b-l-e, trouble ; s-p-e-1, spell ; h-o-o, who. And it is too much trouble to learn that long multiplication table exactly; we shall say that 4 times 7 makes 82, if we want to. Perhaps yo j have heard that we have a Take-it-easy club in our town ; and two of us, you know, Dan and Charlie, were sitting in the yard one day whittling ; and their mother called, " Boys, come in here. I want you to help me." And they said, " We can't now." And she asked, " Why not, Dan ; what are you doing?" "Doing nothing." "And what are you doing, Charlie ? " " Helping Dan." That is our way of living, helping each other do nothing ; and it is very easy and pleasant. Do you not think so, Solomon ?

" It is a hard way, boys, before you get through," he says. " I went by the field of the slothful : and it was all grown over with thorns and nettles : and the stone-wall was broken down : and I looked at it a while, and took a lesson from it. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep : so shall thy poverty come as a robber : and thy want as an armed man. It takes a

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great deal more trouble for the idle man to barelylive off his neglected farm than it does for the industrious man to live in plenty off his farm, with its rich, well-kept acres, and its walls always in good repair. The idle man always finds the hardest ways of doing things. It is harder w r ork to come to church a little late, and walk up to your pew with all the people staring at you, and find it full, and have to hunt for another, than it would have been to start ten minutes earlier, and be ready to take part in the service at the beginning."

Why, so our minister used to tell us, and we did not pay much attention : but if you say so, Solomon, we really must see what we can do about it. If this road of slothfulness ends in thorns and nettles and hardship, as you say, we shall have to choose some other route.

But are there any other bad roads? "Ah, yes," he says, " plenty of them. Did you see those five or six young men walking into a pleasant-looking shop down-town with such curious doors ; made to open easily, but to hide whatever is going on inside ? " Yes, we saw them ; and they seemed to be having a very pleasant time : they were talking and laughing in a loud tone : and we can hear them now inside there laughing louder yet : they seem too happy to contain themselves ; and very good friends they are with each other. And sometimes they have tried to

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make us go in with them. And they have called us babies and fools because we did not know how to enjoy ourselves. How is it, Solomon ? You have been to college : is that the way to enjoy yourself — to go off every now and then on a spree ? Do these boys and men who drink have a pleasanter time than the rest of us ?

" They think so, for a little while," he says : " but before long they find they are mistaken. They have only woe, and sorrow, and quarrelling among themselves, and cursing at each other ; and wounds without cause that they have given each other, and redness of eyes. If you want my advice, it is this : ' Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it goeth down smoothly : at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.' And — hear me out : wine is not the only thing to look away from ; if I were making a new edition of my Proverbs to-day, I should tell some of you, children, not to look upon the candy when it is sweet, and tempting, and when it goeth down smoothly. At the last it biteth like a toothache and stingeth like a dyspepsia : and when you have thoroughly sickened yourself with it, you will wish that you had never heard of the miserable stuff ; you will wish that you had been wise enough to eat wholesome food ; and eat it at the right time ; and had kept your health and strength ; and your

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ability to enjoy all the good gifts of God. And — do not interrupt me, I am not through yet ; I should say to some of you young boys, whom I saw coming out of school the other day, trying to light your cigarettes and keep them lighted, and finding it pretty hard work, and trying to make it seem that you were forty or fifty years old — I should say that we had a good many curious things in Jerusalem when I was king there — a regular museum of them : but we had not anything quite so curious as this, this small roll of paper with a little fire on one end and a fool on the other. That would have taken the prize away from all the apes and peacocks and other curiosities that I got together out of Spain and India. Why, boys, you must know that you are fools to do such a thing. Perhaps you ask me not to call your father names who does the same : but your father is a grown man at least, and may not have come to this children's meeting ; or if he has, I am sure that he would back every statement that I make. We are not talking now about his style of smoking ; I am not calling him names, for I venture to say he does not smoke these miserable, poisonous cigarettes. But for us, children and young people, to take up a habit wilfully that we have no natural inclination for ; that at first is sickening to most of us ; that will surely stunt our growth, and stupefy our minds, and poison our whole vitality, merely because we think it makes us seem big — — You just go home, and open your Bible at my Proverbs : the 23d chapter : and put in these foot-notes : * Look not upon the wine when it is red ; no : nor upon the cheap confectionery when it is sweet ; nor upon the tobacco-smoke when it is disagreeable and poisonous and silly.' So much for that broad pathway of intemperance : it does not lead into pleasantness or peace. Far from it."

Well, Solomon ; you are using rather plain language. Have you anything more to say ? Are there any other bad roads ?

" Oh, yes," he answers : " I cannot take time even to name most of them, for you are only children, and could not listen to me for an hour or two as grown people would without grumbling. But I must speak a little longer even to you. There are roads which I hope most of you are too young to know much about. But perhaps you know something of them ; perhaps some of your friends have taught you words, that you would not have your mother hear for the world. And perhaps they have shown you books and pictures, that you knew you ought to be ashamed to touch or look at. But you were tempted to touch, and look, and listen. Oh, do we not all wish sometimes, children, that we had a clean heart again ; with nothing but pure thoughts in it, and nothing but pure words coming out of it : so that we could open it, if we were asked to, and let any one — let our father and mother see everything that was there, and know that they would not find anything to make us ashamed? But then we forget this wish so quickly : and the next time we are tempted, we listen and speak again, and make ourselves all the more impure. And we even find some kind of evil pleasure in what we are so ashamed of. It is as if some one with a very soft inviting voice, and a very pleasant face, were saying to us : ' Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.' O, what a lie that is ! " Solomon exclaims. "And listen to this : whenever you are tempted to do, or say, or hear, or see, anything that you know you ought to be ashamed of, remember I tell you ; ' Her feet go down to death ; her steps take hold on hell.' ' There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, seemeth pleasant, but the end thereof are the ways of death.' "

And so it is with all those ways of foolishness and wickedness : they often seem easy and pleasant to travel at first, but they lead quickly into trouble and want, and shame, and darkness. Now a road ought to be named from the place it goes to : and so I say the ways of wisdom are pleasantness; and her paths are peace. It is not always an easy road to start in, or to walk in : it is often up-hill work ; there is no doubt about it — but it leads into a pleasant country. And even the. path itself grows pleasanter and pleasanter,

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the further it leads you into that pleasant country. Why, many a boy has begun to study, only because he wants to know something, and he finds the study itself very disagreeable work. But as he goes on, a time comes when the hours that he spends over his books are the very pleasantest hours of the whole day to him. A boy resists those temptations to smoking, and eating, and drinking what is not good for him : or breaks off the foolish habit, if he had begun to form it: and it is pretty hard work: and for a while only strong resolution carries him through. But a day comes when he takes more pleasure a thousand times in his health, and strength, and habits of self-control, than he ever would have taken in the pleasantest sinful excess. " Wisdom's ways," " the path of the just," Solomon says, " may not always promise much pleasure to begin with ; but it is as the shining light : that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

Wisdom's ways. But what is wisdom after all? Tell us that, Solomon ; you have been telling us about a good many kinds of foolishness : tell us what is wisdom. Is it to work hard and keep your farm in good order ; and raise big crops : and save your money and grow rich ? " No," Solomon says, " not always : a man can do all that without being a wise man : for I myself got more servants, and herds, and flocks than any one before me ever had in Jerusalem :

but I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought : and all was vanity and a striving after wind."

Well, what is wisdom? is it to study hard at school, and learn all that there is to know in our books : so that people will point us out as the very best scholars ? " No," Solomon says : " not always : a boy may do all that, and not be truly wise. For I tried to search out all things under the sun : and men called me the wise king : my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge : but it was all a striving after wind. My increase of knowledge was an increase of sorrow."

" Well, but what is wisdom, this kind of wisdom whose ways are pleasantness and peace ; can you tell us?" "Yes," he says: " I can, or at least I can begin to tell you. ' The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.' "

Solomon says that, children : and before he made up his mind to that, he had tried pretty nearly every path that you could think of : some paths that men would call foolish, and some that men would call wise : but he had to come back discouraged from all of them, to take a new start here : " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

Well, that is a pretty good sermon at last ; and if he can make us believe that, I am glad we have let

Solomon have the pulpit this morning : though, certainly, he has not always talked much like a minister. Once or twice I was afraid he would say something that might sound a little strange in church. He called a spade a spade ; and most preachers call it an implement of agriculture. But now, before he gets through, it seems that he had not forgotten what place this is, and what day this is : for he says : "This is the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments : for this is the whole duty of man. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

But now, children, before we go away, I must ask Solomon to make room for another teacher, wiser than he ever was. For this building that we gather in is a better temple of worship than Solomon ever saw : and this Bible of ours has in it some books better than any that Solomon had ever read. He was a wise man : and " the Queen of the South came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear his wisdom : but, behold a greater than Solomon is here." We have been trying to make Solomon tell us what is the way, the way of wisdom, the way of pleasantness and peace. And the most that he can do is to say a very few words about the beginning of it. You see, poor man, he could talk all day about the ways of folly, of slothfulness, and intemperance, and impurity ; because he had walked along some of those

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roads himself for many years, and knew where they went. But the way of wisdom, he never much more than looked into that ; and, so all that he can say is : " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of it."

Well, it is something to know as much as that — to know how the way of wisdom begins : but we should really like to know a little about how it goes on ; and what this pleasantness and peace that it leads to are like. How shall we learn? Who can tell us? These wise men of worldly experience, like Solomon, can always tell us more about the ways of folly than they can about the way of wisdom. What is the way? Children, I thank God that some of you, young as you are, know what it is. You remember that Jesus was talking with His disciples just before He left the earth ; and He said to them : " Ye know the way whither I am going." And Thomas answered with just the same sorrowful perplexity that has troubled many of us since : " How can we know the way ? " And Jesus said : " I am the way."

That is a better answer than Solomon knew how to give ; he could warn us against those dangerous paths of idleness and folly and sin ; but how are we to keep out of them ? how are we to get out of them ? they open before us so pleasantly, so deceitfully. And we often start into them without thinking of the danger. And then when we have come to grief and shame, and really wish to turn back, we do not know which way

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to turn. And then Jesus speaks to us ; and He is greater than Solomon; and He says: "I am the way. Give your heart to me ; bring your troubles and sins to me in prayer ; tell me about your failures and blunders, and all the things that have made you sorry and ashamed ; ask me to lead you the right way, and I will." I thank God, children, that some of us know this to be true. I wish we all knew it. It is something that the youngest of us are not too young to learn, for He says : " Suffer the little ones to come unto me." It is something that the oldest of us, even if we have many gray hairs on our head, are not too old to learn. For we are all here to-day at a children's service. We have wished that God would convert us all, and make us as little children, so that we might find the way into the kingdom of heaven.

II. Christian Giving As A Matter Of Business*

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse." — Mal. iii. 10.

What has that old law of tithes for us Christians ?

I. First, what was that law ? We learn from many sources that in very ancient times the tenth was a common form of tribute, whether for secular or sacred purposes; when Abraham gave a teiV;h of his spoils to Melchizedek, he acted after the common custom of the day. Abraham's grandson, Jacob, being familiar with this custom, on awaking from that dream in which God had promised him safety and abundance, vowed that if the promise were fulfilled, he would devote a tenth of his yearly income to the Lord. This vow might well be recognized as binding upon all the children of Jacob, who had hope in the promises spoken to their father: accordingly, under Moses, the system of tithes or tenths became incorporated in their law. The tenth of all agricultural

* Delivered before the regular offering for the Board of Home Missions, Nov. 15, 1885. (22)

produce was devoted to God. Indeed, the common opinion of Bible scholars has been that there were at least two tithes. The statutes on the subject are not quite clear ; but comparing what is said in Numbers (xviiL 21-28), with what is said in Deut. (xii. 5-18, xiv. 22-27, xxvi. 12—14), we conclude that one tenth was demanded for the support of the Levites, and another tenth for the festivals and relief of the poor. The latter, however, was quite largely consumed by the offerer himself and his poorer friends in their own attendance upon the festival ; and therefore may hardly be regarded as a tax. But the first tithe, that demanded for the support of the Levites in their sacred ministry, was a direct offering of one tenth to the Lord. This, like all the appointed Jewish offerings, was intended to denote, that the whole people, with their land and all their possessions, belonged to God ; the part surrendered to Him a confession that the whole was His.