[VII.]
REALISM IN MORAL TEACHING.
"I looked forth through my lattice; and I beheld."—Prov. vii. 6.
The three chapters which close the introduction of our book (vii.-ix.) present a lively and picturesque contrast between Folly and Wisdom—-Folly more especially in the form of vice; Wisdom more generally in her highest and most universal intention. Folly is throughout concrete, an actual woman, pourtrayed with such correctness of detail that she is felt as a personal force. Wisdom, on the other hand, is only personified; she is an abstract conception; she speaks with human lips in order to carry out the parallel, but she is not a human being, known to the writer. As we shall see in the next Lecture, this high Wisdom never took a human shape until the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ; Folly, unhappily, had become incarnate in myriads of instances; scarcely any city or place where men congregate was, or is, without its melancholy example. It follows from this difference between the two that the picture of Folly is a piece of vigorous realism, while the account of Wisdom is a piece of delicate idealism. Folly is historical, Wisdom is prophetic. In this chapter we are concerned with facts which the author witnessed from the window of his house looking forth through the lattice.[110] In the next chapter we shall touch on ideas which he had not seen, and could not have seen unless it were in lofty vision looking out through the lattice of the soul. In the present chapter we have an opportunity of noticing the immense value and power of pictorial delineation and concrete images in moral teaching; in the next we shall experience the peculiar fascination and inspiration of beautiful abstract conceptions, of disembodied ideals which, so far as we know at the time, are not capable of actual realization.
It is important to remember this difference in order to understand why Wisdom, the shadowy contrast to that Mistress Folly who was only too concrete and familiar, shaped itself to the writer's mind as a fair and stately woman, a queenly hostess inviting simple ones to her feast; though, as Christians have learnt, the historical embodiment of Wisdom was a man, the Word of God, who of God was made unto us wisdom.
Now before we take our stand at the window and look through the lattice into the street, we must notice the exhortations to the young man to make wisdom and understanding his intimate friends, with which the chapter begins. The law is to be kept as the apple of the eye, which is so sensitive, so tender, and at the same time so surpassingly important, that the lid has to shield it by a quick instinctive movement outrunning thought, and the hand has to be ready at all times to come to its succour. The commandments are to be written on the fingers, like engraved rings, which would serve as instant reminders in unwary moments; the very instruments through which the evil would be done are to be claimed and sealed and inscribed by the righteousness which can preserve from evil, while in the secret tablets of the heart the holy truths are to be written; so that if, in the business of life, the writing on the fingers may get blurred or effaced, the principles of righteousness may yet be kept like priceless archives stored in the inviolable chambers of the inner man. Wisdom is to be treated as a sister,[111] not as if there were a natural kinship, but on the ground of the beautiful influence which a true sister, a pure woman soul, exercises over a young man's life. It is given to a sister again and again, by unfailing sympathy and by sweet comprehending ways, not teasing nor lecturing, but always believing and hoping and loving, to weave a magical spell of goodness and truth around a brother who is exposed to dangerous temptations; she will "maintain for him a saving intercourse with his true self;" when the fires of more ardent affections are burning low, or extinguished in doubt or disgust, she will be with him like a calm impersonal presence, unobtrusive, unforgotten, the more potent because she makes no show of power. Such a lovely fraternal relation is to be maintained with Wisdom, constant as a tie of blood, firm as a companionship from earliest infancy, yet exalted and enthusiastic in its way, and promising a lifelong attraction and authority.
This blessed kinship with Understanding should save the young man from such a fate as we are now to contemplate.
It is twilight, not yet absolutely dark, but the shuddering horror of the scene seems to quench the doubtful glimmer of evening and to plunge the observer suddenly into midnight.[112] There is a young man coming round the corner of the street. His is no manly walk, but an idle, effeminate saunter—a detail which is not brought out in the English Version.[113] He is a dandy and sadly empty-headed. Now all young men, good and bad alike, pass through a period of dandyism, and it has its uses; but the better the stuff of which the man is made, the more quickly he gets over the crisis, and returns to his senses. This young man is "void of understanding;" his dandyism will be chronic. His is a feeble will and a prurient mind; but his special weakness consists in this, that he thinks he can always resist temptation, and therefore never hesitates to thrust himself in its way. It is as if one were to pride himself on being able to hang on with his fingers to the rim of a well: he is always hanging there, and a touch will send him in. One who is in his own opinion weaker would give the dangerous place a wide berth, and nothing but sheer force would bring him to the edge.
This young dandy has nothing to say for himself. A tempter need not be at the trouble to bring any sound arguments, or to make the worse appear the better reason; to this poor weakling the worse the reason is the better it will appear. As you see him lolling down the path with his leering look and his infinite self-satisfaction—good-natured, but without any other goodness; not with bad intentions, but with everything else bad—you can foresee that he will be blown over as easily as a pleasure skiff on a stormy ocean; if you have a compassionate heart you mourn over him at once, for you see the inevitable.