Prowess

“ He needs a guide: what can be this guide, if not the law of development, the immanent logic of humanity itself? Holding the thread of ideas with one hand, and, on the other, that of history, I must have penetrated the intimate thought of society; I became a prophet, without ceasing to be a philosopher.
So here I am commencing, under the title of Creation of Order in Humanity, a new series of studies, the most abstruse that can engage human intelligence, but, in the situation in which I found myself, absolutely indispensable. ”

“ Therefore in the Book of Proverbs we find the name חכמים דּברי (words of the wise) used for משׁלים (proverbs) ; and by a careful consideration of all the proverbs in which mention is made of the חכמים, one will convince himself that this name has not merely a common ethical sense, but begins to be the name of those who made wisdom, i.e., the knowledge of things in the depths of their essence, their special lifework, and who connected themselves together in oneness of sentiment and fellowship into a particular circle within the community. ”

“ He had then been to her only a Prodigal who had squandered his substance, tried to feed his soul on the swinish husks of Doubt, and returning to his father's house unrepentant, had been admitted yet remained rejected: a Prodigal not of the flesh and the world but of the spirit and the Lord. But what has ever interested the heart of woman as a prodigal of some kind? ”

“ I apply the proverb to the situation in life which has been assigned to a man by Providence. As the brooding bird should be found upon her eggs, or with her young, so should every servant, in every department, be found in his own place, and at his own occupation. It should be the aim of every man to have it said of him with truth—Tell me where he ought to be, and I will tell you where he is. ”

“ The Proverbs are inexhaustible in moral force, and have universal application. There is nothing cynical or gloomy in them. They form a fitting study for youth and old age, an incentive to virtue and a terror to evil-doers, a thesaurus of moral wisdom; they speak in every line a lofty and comprehensive intellect, acquainted with all the experiences of life. ”

“ But when our reasons for which we assent to some Proposition, derive not from the Proposition it selfe, but from the Person Propounding, whom we esteeme so learned that he is not deceiv'd, and we see no reason why he should deceive us; our assent, because it growes not from any confidence of our owne, but from another mans knowledge, is called Faith: And by the confidence of whom, we doe beleeve, we are said to trust them, or to trust in them. ”

“ These Christian multitudes, so many of whom have but just adopted their new faith and begun to taste of the pleasures it imparts, all enjoying in such harmony and quietness their rich blessings—with many their only blessings—how hard for them, all at once, to see the foundations of their peace broken up, and their very lives clamored for! rulers and people setting upon them as troops of wild beasts! It demands almost more faith than I can boast, to sit here without complaint a witness of such wrong. How strange, Probus, that life should be made so difficult! ”

“ Proverbs, which are the wisdom of ages collected into a few brief words, tell us in one pithy sentence that "if we talk of the devil he is sure to appear." While the name of a long-absent friend is in our mouth, the next moment brings him into our presence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I thank you, ye relics of founding titles, and magnificent names: ye have taught me more of the littleness of the world, than all the volumes of my library. Your nobility, arrayed in a winding sheet; your grandeur, mouldering in an urn: are the most indisputable proofs of the nothingness of created things. Never, surely, did Providence write this important point, in such legible characters, as in the ashes of My Lord, or on the corpse of His Grace.—Let others, if they please, pay their obfequious court to your wealthy sons ”

“ They raised their eyebrows, and the more primitive among them shrugged their shoulders a little, and smiled. If Providence really insisted upon making people so perfect, what was to be done? It was distressing, but there was nothing to be said; they must just lead their lives, and the gossips must bear it. ”

“ And the evidences which were to effect the world's conversion were no cunningly arranged syllogistic demonstrations, but once more those loftier evidences which lay in the calm endurance by heroic men of the extremities of suffering, and which touched—not the mind with conviction, but the heart with admiring reverence. ”

“ I have neither honor nor command, and men bow not the head as I pass along; yet do I feel within me the consciousness of a great power that should rule my species—not obey. My eye pierces the secret hearts of men—I see their thoughts ere their lips proclaim them ”

“ What criterion ought one to adopt, in order to judge one's fellows? After all, there was not a single one of the people whom he knew who might not, in certain circumstances, prove capable of a shameful action. ”

“ Hear Bossuet, hear all that faith humbles under its salutary yoke: they will tell you that the views of Providence are inaccessible to human prudence, and that everything happens for the greater glory of God, ad majorem Dei gloriam! ”

“ So when eloquence and want of judgment go together, want of judgment, Like the daughters of Pelias, consenteth, through eloquence, which is as the witchcraft of Medea, to cut the commonwealth in pieces, upon pretence or hope of reformation, which when things are in combustion, they are not able to effect. ”

“ Nous en sommes-nous flanqués, des confidences?—in those happy days when my first thought in seeing an adventure poindre à l’horizon was of the pleasure I should have in relating it to the great Prosper. As I tell thee, I’m happy; decidedly j’ai de la chance, and from that avowal I trust thee to construct the rest. Shall I help thee a little? Take three adorable girls—three, my good Prosper, the mystic number, neither more nor less. ”

“ IX. What may be said then of these kinde of Precepts: Repent, Be Baptized, Keep the Commandements, Beleeve the Gospell, Come unto me, Sell all that thou hast, give to the Poor, follow me, and the like? We must say that they are not Lawes, but a calling of us to the faith, such as is that of Isa. Come, buy wine, and milk without monie, and without Price, Isai 55. vers. 1. Neither if they come not, doe they therefore sinne against any Law, but against prudence onely; neither shall their infidelity be punisht, but their former sinnes. ”

“ V Gaspar Ruiz, who could with ease bend apart the heavy iron bars of the prison, was led out with others to summary execution. "Every bullet has its billet," runs the proverb. All the merit of proverbs consists in the concise and picturesque expression. In the surprise of our minds is found their persuasiveness. In other words, we are struck and convinced by the shock.
What surprises us is the form, not the substance. Proverbs are art—cheap art. ”

“ Of what consequence to you, reader, is my obscure individuality? I live, like you, in a century in which reason submits only to fact and to evidence. My name, like yours, is Truth-seeker. [1] My mission is written in these words of the law: Speak without hatred and without fear; tell that which thou knowest! The work of our race is to build the temple of science, and this science includes man and Nature. Now, truth reveals itself to all; to-day to Newton and Pascal, tomorrow to the herdsman in the valley and the journeyman in the shop. Each one contributes his stone to the edifice; ”

“ Nevertheless,' continues he, 'that I subsisted is clear, for you find me even now alive.' Which fact, however, except upon the principle of our true-hearted, kind old Proverb, that 'there is always life for a living one,' we must profess ourselves unable to explain. ”

“ But since the absolute rule of the adepts is never to interfere with the judgement of any other person whomsoever—how much more, then, one of themselves, and that one most highly revered!—they had refrained from active opposition. The adept who wrote this added that the Order had already quite enough knowledge to enable it or its members to formulate a magical link with the adepts. ”

“ They who do not believe them, ought not to believe any prodigies; for these would not be called prodigies did they not happen out of the ordinary course of nature. But, is it possible that anything should happen in vain, however hidden be its cause, in so grand a government of divine providence? One of the sacred Psalmists says, "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what prodigies He hath wrought in the earth." ”

“ Still more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of all nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the statements of an absolute truth, without qualification. Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction. ”

“ He talked to me more like a grave and prudent adviser than a companion of my school-days—deploring the follies into which I had strayed, and congratulating me upon my reformation, which he supposed to be almost complete. ”

“ Those who have occupied themselves herein have sought to trace historically the circumstances out of which various proverbs have sprung, and to which they owe their existence; that so by the analogy of these we might realize to ourselves the rise of others whose origins lie out of our vision, obscure and unknown. ”

“ Thou shalt see—we shall find one here, one there, that hath need of our wisdom; and perhaps to-day we shall even catch the ear of the multitude, and many will give heed both to hear and to receive our teaching.{108}”
CHAPTER VII
Men and Manners Students of the Old Testament do not require to be told that the universalism of the Book of Proverbs is a remarkable fact. ”

“ I was thus again constantly attracted from the outer to the inner aspects of life. Life, with its inmost motives laid bare, passed before my eyes, with my father's comments pronounced upon it; and thing and word, act and symbol were thus perceived by me in their most vivid relationship. I saw the disjointed, heavy-laden, torn, inharmonious life of man as it appeared in this community of five thousand souls, before the watchful eyes of its earnest, severe pastor. Matrimonial and sexual circumstances especially were often the objects of my father's gravest condemnation and rebuke. ”

“ Every atom of meat that you drop into the water within his range of vision must be his: you perhaps intended the morsel for the Goby or the Blenny, but Proach sees it, and Proach must have it. They indeed may sail up towards the speck, but Proach dashes up, bristling with indignation at their temerity, and snaps the food from before their very noses. ”

“ I believe I have proved, to be sure, that our abandonment by Providence does not justify us; but, whatever our crime, toward it we are not guilty; and if there is a being who, before ourselves and more than ourselves, is deserving of hell,—I am bound to name him,—it is God. ”

“ The old, old difficulty came back to him—provision was made everywhere for man’s moral nature, and he earnestly believed that provision had been made for man’s spiritual nature, but he could not find that provision in the narrow sphere to which his learning and his observation was confined. ”

“ Who knows how many links we may have to ascend in the vast cycle of worlds around, ere we arrive at the one which is knowledge—where we may look before, and after, and judge of the whole? How many stages of probation may we yet have to pass! ”

“ Explanation. - This fable contains and enforces many just, and serious considerations; some whereof have been long since well observed, but some again remain perfectly untouched. Prometheus clearly and expressly signifies Providence; for of all the things in nature, the formation and endowment of man was singled out by the ancients, and esteemed the peculiar work of Providence. The reason hereof seems, 1. That the nature of man includes a mind and understanding, which is the seat of Providence. ”

“ How can one hope to evade the responsibilities of his position? The proverb is an interesting reminder of the custom once common enough, and which we ourselves have seen in Sussex and Wiltshire, on the heavy down-lands, of ploughing with a yoke of oxen. There is quaint humour in this, "The chicken is the countrey's, but the citie eateth it." "If the old dog barke he gives counsell." "A married man turns his staffe into a stake," his wandering days are over. ”

“ I like my place, for that reason, better than yours—I say ‘for that reason’ because I believe that we are all equal, and I have more fellow-feeling for an intelligent labourer than for many of our dukes. ”

“ It seems too much to ask of Providence, that while we, on our part, leave our congenital taste for the bathos to its natural operation and its infinite variety of experiments, Providence should mysteriously guide it into the true track, and compel it to relish the sublime. ”

“ I have bided long enough; now, friend Prosper, do you bide yours. As for the cognizance, I know it very well by this; it shall be on again by the morning. Then we will see if I can do as Prosper what I have failed to do as Galors. ”