There is nothing like the Bible to put heart into a man. This is not
strange, for the Book was written for this purpose by men of God's
choosing whose business it was to strengthen their fellows.
One of the most vivid parts of the Bible is the book of Proverbs.
"Would that our young men were saturated with its thought," Albert J.
Beveridge said of it, while he was a member of the United States Senate.
"It is rich in practical wisdom for the minute affairs of practical
life. It abounds in apt and pointed suggestions and pungent warnings
concerning our companionship, our personal habits, our employments, our
management of finance, our speech, the government of tongue and temper,
and many other such things, which daily perplex the earnest soul, and
daily occasion harm to the thoughtless and misguided."
Years earlier, another eminent American, Washington Irving, used what is
the keynote of the book in an earnest talk with George Bancroft, later
the historian of his country, then a student in Europe. The two were
taking a walking excursion, when the older man said something the
student remembered all his life. It was natural, then, that Bancroft's
biographer should give this in his subject's own words, in "Life and
Letters of George Bancroft:"
"At my time of life, he tells me, I ought to lay aside all care, and
only be bent on laying in a stock of knowledge for future application.
If I have not pecuniary resources enough to get at what I would wish
for, as calculated to be useful to my mind, I must still not give up the
pursuit. Still follow it; scramble to it; get at it as you can, but be
sure to get at it. If you need books, buy them; if you are in want of
instruction in anything take it. The time will soon come when it will be
too late for all these things."
More than a century ago an immigrant from Scotland landed in New York.
In the story of his life he later told how the book of Proverbs became
his rock. The first night he slept in an old frame building with a
shingle roof. During the night he was aroused by a storm of rain
accompanied by thunder and lightning such as he had never experienced in
Scotland. Homesick, terrified, unable to sleep, he rose and took from
his chest the Bible his father had carefully packed with his clothes. He
wrote later that as the book was opened, "My eyes fell on the words, 'My
Son.' I was thinking of my father. I read on with delight. Having
finished the last verse I found I had been reading the third chapter of
the Proverbs of Solomon. Get a Bible and read the chapter. Then suppose
yourself in my situation--sore in body, sick at heart, and commencing
life among a world of strangers, and see if words more suitable could be
put together to fit my case. I looked upon it as a chart from heaven,
directing my course among the rocks, shoals and storms of life.... I
went forth with a light heart to work my way through the world, resolved
to keep this chapter as a pilot by my side."
The importance for to-day of the message in Proverbs 30:8, "Remove far
from me vanity and lies," is illustrated by several incidents told by
Lucy Elliot Keeler, in "If I Were a Boy:"
"The son of a distinguished American recently entered business in New
York, beginning, at his father's request, at the foot of the ladder, and
receiving the princely salary of $20 a month. At a time when his
father's name was in everybody's mouth the editor of a yellow journal
sent for the son and invited him to join the staff. 'You need not write
any articles,' he said, with a smile, 'nor do any reporting. Just sign
your name to an article which I will furnish you each day, and I will
pay you $200 a month....' The young man's reply was too emphatic to be
accurately reported here, but it was to the effect that he would rather
starve than pick untold dollars out of the gutter.
"A few years ago an American commissioner occupying a house in the West
Indies hired a man to wash the windows and another to scrub the floors.
The bills submitted were for $12 and $7, respectively. 'What does this
mean?' was the astonished query. '$12 for a day's work? Man, you are
crazy!' 'Oh,' came the soft reply, 'of course, I only expect a dollar
and a half for myself, but that was the way we always made out bills for
the Spanish officers.' 'Take back your bills,' was the American's
emphatic reply, 'and make them out honestly.'"
The wisdom of the warning in Proverbs 27:2, "Let another man praise
thee, and not thine own mouth," has seldom been more strikingly
illustrated than at a large convention when several thousand people
listened attentively as a speaker of reputation was introduced to them.
He talked fluently for several minutes, then began to ramble. He made
several attempts to regain his lost hold on his hearers, then took his
seat.
"I can't imagine what was wrong to-day," he said to his neighbor on the
platform. "I had all ready what I felt sure would be a telling address,
but somehow I couldn't say what I wanted." A sympathetic answer was
given by the man to whom he had spoken, but if he had said all that was
in his heart this would have been his message: "I know you had a telling
argument to present, for I read your manuscript. But you spent the first
three minutes in talking about yourself. It was there you lost the
attention of the people; they did not come to hear about you, but to
learn of your Master. And when you had put yourself in the foreground,
it was impossible for you to present Him with power."
The speaker's mistake is repeated every day, not merely by men on the
platform, but by everyday people in the home, in the school, and at
work. It is fatal to usefulness to put ourselves in the foreground; but
those who forget self and remember others are welcome wherever they go.