may, to man the rigging, or to grasp the helm, to heave the lead, to furl the sail, or to shake out the banner, we need but be true to ourselves, our country and our God. The lesson of Pascal's genius may not be open to many; the lesson of his virtues and his principle is open to all. The last editor of his Thoughts has published an engraving of the page in that well nigh illegible manuscript, where the feeble if not the dying hand of the scholar had traced this sentence, in reviewing his own literary labors and their fate with man, "Ad tuum, domine Jesu, tribunal appello." "To Thy tribunal, Lord Jesus, I appeal." How much of the sublimity of sorrow and of the energy of faith was compressed into that brief sentence. It was the appeal of conscience against power: the cause shifted from the bar of human fallibility to be lodged in the chancery of the divine infallibility. The sister he had so tenderly loved gone broken-hearted to the tomb, himself dying, and the truth, dearer than all, threatened: here was his trust. It was to be the place of meeting for Versailles and Port Royal, for the Jansenist and the Jesuit, the men of the court, of the camp and of the college: and it shall gather the men of France and the men of America, of all sects and every creed. It is the tribunal toward which all history tends and where all character shall be analyzed; towards it fashion flutters, misery struggles, and crime gravitates. Is it a gloomy or unsuitable thought as the accompaniment of all our schemings, the background of all our prospects, whilst we look with the beaming eye of youth on the opening fields of life? In the life of this illustrious scholar, the remembrance of that day was as the pillar of cloud that cleft the path of Israel through the Red Sea, darkening with its salutary shadow the glare of worldly fame and the lustre of the enchanted gardens of Armida, and lightening, like the pillar of flame, the hour of his sorrow and the night of his desolateness. Fashions change. Fame itself is variable and uncertain; reputations, the daughters of opinion, rise, flourish, decay and die; a breath has made and a breath may break them; but here is a standard that does not vary, and here are motives the force of which is never spent. Happy will it be for us all, avoiding the errors and the infirmities even of so mighty a name as Pascal, to eye like him the end that crowns the work of life, and to remember that it is our immortality that stamps our daily duty and ascertains the wisdom or the folly of the employment of each moment. And, consciously or unconsciously, to that dread bar the appeal which Pascal made is also registered by us, by each one of us, in every deed of every hour. WILLIAM R. WILLIAMS.

NEW YORK, N. Y.

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EXEGESIS OF PROVERBS XXIII. 26, WITH SPECIAL

תְּנָה בְנִי לִבְּךָ לִי REFERENCE TO THE PHRASE

TH

HESE words are translated in our version, "My son, give me thine heart." This rendering is literal, and is followed by the principal translations of the word into other languages.1

As to the meaning of this phrase, that which is accepted by the evangelical denominations of this country with singular unanimity is given by Bridges, in his Commentary on Proverbs, and is thus

expressed:

Solomon would seem here to rise above himself, and to speak in the name and person of the Divine Wisdom; for no one but Jehovah can claim the gift of the heart, the work of his own hands.

My son. Such is the relationship which God acknowledges, including every blessing which he can give and all the obedience that he can claim. No obedience can be without the believing and practical acknowledgment of this filial relation. The loving Father calls, "My son, give me thine heart," that is, he asks not for magnificent temples, costly sacrifices, pompous ceremonials, but for the spiritual worship of the heart. He demands not the hands, the feet, the tongue, the ears, but that which is the moving principle of all the members, the heart.

This is also the interpretation of the passage given by many of the older English commentators, as Drs. Gill, Henry, Poole, Clark. The

1 Septuagint: Aós poc viè oǹv kapdíav. Vulgate: Præbe, fili mi, cor tuum mihi. Luther's Version: Gib mir, mein sohn, dein herz. French (Martin): Mon fils, donne-moi ton cœur.

same view substantially is also held and set forth by some of the German commentators, as Michaelis among the older, and Lange among the more recent critics. But although so generally accepted and so well sanctioned, this view of the passage is open to very grave if not fatal objections against it.

I. Such a meaning necessitates a change in the subject of the sentence, and thus makes the grammatical construction harsh and unnatural.

The writer of this part of the book of Proverbs is declared. (Vide xxii. 17.) He is the subject without any break up to this point, xxiii. 26. There is not the slightest intimation in the words that even the natural subject is to be changed. It ought not to be unless it is very plain that the subject will not answer in this connection, that the natural construction which has heretofore prevailed is and must be broken up in this twenty-sixth verse.

II. Such a rendering of the phrase introduces, also, a harshness into the course of thought.

In this chapter the writer treats exclusively, leaving out the passage in question, of the duties that men owe to themselves and each other. No reference or allusion is made to the duties that men owe to "God, either preceding or subsequent to verses twenty-six and twenty-seven. The immediate connection is as follows:

The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice; and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. Thy father and thy mother shall be glad; and she that bare thee shall rejoice.

Then follow verses twenty-six and twenty-seven:

My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit.

To insert the idea in verse twenty-six that God speaks and claims. the heart of the reader is self-evidently as harsh and unnatural in thought as it certainly is in grammatical construction. Such an idea does not appear to have any proper place in the flow of the thought, seems to be thrown in arbitrarily, and disappears as suddenly as it came; for there is no after use for the idea, or reference of any kind to it subsequently. Clearly any explanation of the passage which involves this harshness in the flow of the thought is presumptively erroneous, and can only be accepted from absolute necessity.

III. As thus explained there is no particular pertinency in the expression to the subject under consideration.

The twenty-seventh verse is connected with verse twenty-six by the conjunction? (for). Because "a harlot is a deep ditch and the strange woman a narrow pit," etc., is the statement made in verse twenty-six, "My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways." It is manifestly a very strange reason, and one wholly . without precedent in the Scriptures, that is here employed to induce men to give God the heart. The bare statement is enough to show the utter want of pertinency in the expression to the subject discussed. IV. Such an interpretation, too, finds no support in the general style and usage of this book.

In this connection let us note the usage of the term " by the writers of this book, and also their manner of speaking with reference to the strange woman, the subject here treated of in verses twenty-six and twenty-seven.

1. The term is very frequently employed; and in nearly all, if not in all cases, it is used to designate the reader or the person addressed by the writers. Instances of its use in this sense are numerous. Vide, for instance, Proverbs i. 8, 10, 15; ii. 1; iii. 1, 11, 21; iv. 20; v. 1; vi. 1, 20; vii. 1.

In this twenty-third chapter the term is employed in this sense in the fifteenth verse: "My son, if thine heart be wise, mine heart shall rejoice, even mine." Also in verse nineteen: "Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thy heart in the way."

The only exception to this general usage of the term is found in viii. 32, "Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children (D), for blessed are they that keep my ways." In this place wisdom is personified, and speaks to men in her own name. But there is no other instance in the book (leaving out xxiii. 26) where God addresses men by this term; so that the general usage of the term " is very clear. And then again, it must be noted that in speaking of the strange woman the writers frequently, if not always, use the expression "my son," as a preliminary, just as we have it in verse twenty-six.

We have such a connection of words and of thought in v. 1-3: "My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding, that thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge; for the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil," etc. A similar combination is found in vi. 20, seq.: "My son, keep thy father's commandment,” etc., "to keep thee from the evil woman." Also in vii. 1–5, 24, 25. 2. In speaking of the strange woman, the writers invariably make the appeal themselves. They call the attention of the reader to their wisdom, to the ways they point out as the ground of safety.

To this end, notice again the passage found in v. 1, seq.: "My son, attend unto my wisdom and bow thine ear to my understanding, that thou mayest regard discretion and that thy lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of a strange woman," etc. Chapter vii. 24, 25: “Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths." Chapter v. 7, 8: "Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house," etc.

Chapter vi. 20 is an instance of the same nature. The reference is not to the writer directly, though it is indirectly, as the ground for avoiding the character named. "My son, keep thy father's commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother," etc., "to keep thee from the evil woman," etc.

Chapter vii. 1-6 inclusive, affords another example of the same kind of reference: "My son, keep my words and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments and live, and my law as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call understanding thy kinswoman [that is, cultivate habits of the most endearing intimacy with and friendship for wisdom and understanding] that they may keep thee from the strange woman," etc.

A similar reference is implied in the words of king Lemuel (xxxi. 3), "Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings."

Such is the general usage in this book with reference to the employment of the term ", and the manner of writing in style and thought with respect to the strange woman. We are at liberty to place much dependence on this usage, because, as we have seen, it is so uniform. From this examination it is evident that the common interpretation of the passage in xxiii. 26 has no support in the general style and usage of the writers in treating of the same subject. While of course it is not to be expected that the same thing should be said always with reference to the same subject, still a similarity of style and thought may reasonably be looked for. It is not probable that this passage would be a single exception to the general usage, especially when the expressions used are so very similar to those employed in every other instance when speaking of the strange woman. It would be altogether more natural to interpret this phrase in xxiii. 26 in conformity to the other clear passages, if it could be done without difficulty, than to make it mean something