This chapter will prove less ambitious than its title suggests. As the remarks made a few pages back, on The Body Politic were meant to be taken in conjunction with what was said in Chapter VIII. regarding social and family conduct, so here also only a few reflections will be given in summary or in supplement of the Wise-men’s ideal of personal character. It is perhaps as well that it seems superfluous to recapitulate the various attributes that the proverbs say are to be chosen or eschewed by the perfect man; for when the Vices have been assembled they form a dismal and depressing crowd, and when the Virtues are lined up over against them, they are a celestial host but they glitter on high beyond a modest man’s attainment. Moreover the art of noble living is best practised not by those who go spelling out the details, as if the Virtues were meant to be acquired singly or the Vices attacked and conquered one by one, but by those who from sound instinct or a wisely-trained intelligence have mastered a few great thoughts and assented to follow their guidance in the maze of life. It is the purpose of these pages to touch only on certain of these controlling facts, principles, or ideals of conduct. The task before us is therefore neither intricate nor long. It is simple, yet (for all its simplicity) serious.

There is one quality that is not so much a part of character as the very soil out of which it grows—Honesty of purpose; if absent or only fitfully present, moral growth is either stunted or cut off; if present, then a multitude of imperfections are found pardonable. Wise therefore is the Jewish proverb that says of Deceitfulness, using a realistic metaphor more eloquent than many words, Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel (Pr. 2017). Over against it set this strong simple plea for Sincerity: Strive for the truth, unto death, and the Lord God shall fight for thee (E. 428); and then consider the implication in the contrast of those maxims—that Evil is first sweet then bitter, and Good first painful then joyous. Sometimes those propositions are visibly, demonstrably, true in their entirety; sometimes the second part of them to be credited requires faith in the spiritual nature of man. But of the first part there can be no question; ’tis a matter of universal experience—moral victories at the first are difficult, moral defeats easy, The way of sinners is smooth without stones, but at the end thereof is the pit of Hades (E. 2110), a glissade to the precipice and over; facilis descensus Averno.

Setting aside for the moment the influence of religious belief on conduct (the next chapter will have something to say upon the point), it would seem that there is one outstanding quality to which the Jewish proverbs recur again and again, as if to tell us that here is the supreme secret. That quality may be called Receptivity, but it has many aspects for which other titles might more fittingly be used: it is the willing mind, the open eye and the hearing ear; in youth it is zeal to learn, in manhood more often the grace to profit by mistake. So from teachableness it is wont to pass into penitence, the recognition of error and imperfection—not passive penitence, however, but the active desire to improve—and then from this virile penitence it should rise into that disposition of Charity or Love towards others, which is the highest virtue, without which a man may have many talents and yet profit nothing. Let us trace the sequence in the proverbs, commencing with the desire for knowledge:

To him that is willing to learn, the proverbs promise rich and wonderful reward, and the New Testament repeats the promise:

Thus far the subject is familiar. Twice already reference has been made to this virtue of Learning-Ever. Impenitently we bring it up again, seeing that the Jewish proverbs are most urgent on the matter and also that men to-day stand in no small need of the counsel. For all its vaunted liberty of thought, our age is by no means patient of personal criticism, doubtless because owing to the swift and amazing increase in control of material resources it has been peculiarly successful in certain directions (not, however, the most important); and the success has made us vain. To know a little about the universe (and we know no more) is a very dangerous thing.

But observe how from the initial grace of an eager, receptive attitude towards life, other virtues naturally appear. Frankly and patiently to recognise one’s errors is to increase in wisdom, to learn before it is too late, to see the pitfalls one has narrowly escaped, and so to be humbled, to feel the sense of a great forgiveness vouchsafed to the simple-hearted, and accordingly to be grateful and to be happy:

This experience, if at all intense, has a profound effect on character; he that knows he has been forgiven much will love much, and his gratitude towards the Giver of all mercy will spontaneously show itself in mercy towards other men. Others will wrong him and disappoint him often, but, remembering his own imperfections, he will want to judge them gently and never to despair of helping them; to him it seems as if “they know not what they do.” But this is the very disposition required of us in the prayer “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us,” and the question must surely be rising in the reader’s mind, What relation can possibly be discovered between these high thoughts and the Jewish proverbs? This surprisingly intimate relation—that whilst the manifestation of perfect forgiveness in Christ’s own Person made His Prayer a new power in the world, the thought in this petition was not new; it goes back to these words of Ben Sirach, He that taketh vengeance on his neighbour will meet vengeance from the Lord, and his sins will surely be confirmed. Forgive thy neighbour the hurt that he hath done thee, and then shall thy sins be pardoned when thou prayest (E. 281, 2)! Who dares withhold his approval from the condition in the abstract? If we are Christians at all, our conscience must welcome its eternal justice, recognising that we can ask no greater mercy to be extended us by God. And so we are wont to repeat the Prayer willingly without reservations or misgivings ... just until the day come when “our neighbour” has gotten him a name and we lie dazed and bleeding from the hurt that he hath dealt us. That is the moment for which these words were spoken—Let not mercy and truth forsake thee, bind them upon thy neck (Pr. 33). Know that—By mercy and truth iniquity is purged away, and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil (Pr. 166). By the time a man has schooled himself to put those exhortations into practice, he will be in no danger of treating forgiveness lightly: true forgiveness is conditioned by the Moral Law, is no futile shutting-of-the-eyes to uneradicated sin, and may therefore call for faithfulness unto death and necessitate the greatest sacrifice earth knows, even the Cross of Christ.

And with the thought let us return to that saying of Ben Sirach, Strive for the truth unto death. “The Truth” is here to be interpreted in the fullest sense of the term; it means Righteousness or Justice; it denotes sincerity in things great and small, in thought word and deed. The proverb then may serve as a reminder of the uncompromisingly stern and perilous element in human experience. Until three years ago many men had no lively sense of that aspect of things. The sinister possibilities were not absent, but often they were fallaciously concealed. When a man catches the same train to town day after day and his outward circumstances are uneventful and regular as some slow-moving stream, he may easily be deluded into thinking that his inner, spiritual self is likewise pursuing the even tenor of its way; whereas in reality it may be waging a desperate battle against increasing pride, prejudice, hardness of heart, and a whole battalion of the Fiend’s picked legionaries. The Prosperous, consulting his bankbook, may easily be betrayed into saying “I shall not want,” whilst the soul within him is choking. If our essential life is spiritual and consists in our love of the True, the Good, the Beautiful, riches are likely to prove a thin armour against the enemy. But three long and terrible years of war have transformed the situation, and there are few to-day who do not know that there is “a striving for the truth unto death.” Little need now to emphasise the dark side of life; myriads are but too well acquainted with its tragedies.

The Jewish proverbs offer no philosophy of Suffering; for that one must go to the Christian religion, which has faced the worst of the problem and is unique in having found a reassuring answer. When, however, we turn to the immediate question, how best to meet and deal with hardship, physical or mental, behold! Christianity is content to appropriate the language of a Jewish proverb and reiterate its counsel, though with a glorious new confidence: Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.... For consider Him who endured such gainsaying of sinners against himself that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the exhortation which reasoneth with you as with sons,

It is for discipline that ye endure; God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father doth not discipline? (Hebrews 121-7). To use or to refuse this idea of the educative opportunity in suffering makes an amazing difference to life. Says a commentator of the older school writing upon this passage in Proverbs: “First, Despise not the discipline.... Do not meet sorrow by a mere hardihood of nature. Let your heart flow down under trouble, for this is human: let it rise up also to God, for this is divine. And secondly, Faint not.... This is the opposite extreme. Do not be dissolved, as it were—taken down and taken to pieces by the stroke. You should retain presence of mind and exercise your faculties. If the bold would see God in his afflictions, he would not despise; if the timid would see God in them, he would not faint.... The same stroke may fall on two men and be in the one case judgement, in the other love. You may prune branches lying withered on the ground, and also branches living in the vine. In the two cases the operation and instrument are precisely alike; but the operation on this branch has no result, and the operation on that branch produces fruitfulness.”[152]

Never in living memory has there been greater need for wise and persuasive advice how to conduct oneself in time of anxiety and affliction. In the gales of life many a ship is flung on the rocks for lack of a little good seamanship on board. But ships need care even when they are sailing summer seas; and so, because one hopes that brighter days are coming to the world and coming soon, there is room for one more counsel in conclusion. Religion, and particularly Christianity, has been robbed of half of its power over men’s souls, by reason of the absurd and tragical notion that it bears chiefly on the woes of man and very little on his joys. On this score also the Jewish proverbs preach a useful and pleasant sermon, with their natural honest desire for the good things of life and their strong and salutary conviction that in Wisdom—being that fear of the Lord which is to depart from evil—will be found a never-failing source of refreshing happiness: