As you make your bed so you must lie on it.

Beware of little sins, and of all the "onlys."

The Pitcher, that goes often to the well, gets broken at last. Commit a sin twice and you will think it allowable.-Talmud. A fault, once denied, is twice committed.

whereas.

A small leak will sink a great ship.

A stitch in time

Saves nine.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For want of a horse the rider was lost,
Being overtaken and slain by the enemy.

No time like the present.

Reformation is too late when retribution begins.

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.

Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.-Longfellow.

"Threatened folks live long,'

and so is it, says Matthew Henry, with threatened sins.'

Make the plaister as wide as the wound.

With regard to the future many lands have their sayings.

L'homme propose,

Mais Dieu dispose.

'Man appoints, God disappoints'

is our English, less pleasing version.

Every bullet

Has its billet.

Non ci muove foglia,
Senza Iddio voglia.

Not a leaf moves on the trees,
Unless God Almighty please.

It is ill jesting with God's Judgments.

and, it may be added, 'with God's Word'; quoting scripture irreverently comes very near to breaking the 3rd commandment, How sharp and forcible is old Fuller's expostulation.

'Jest not with the two edged sword of God's word! Will nothing serve thee to wash thy hands in but the font? or to drink healths in but the Church chalice ?

Again

Prayer and provender hinder no journey.-Matt. Henry. or, as the Roman Catholics used to say in Scotland, Meat and mass hinder nae man.

The body is sooner drest than the soul.

Half the truth is often a whole lie.

This is a proverb which Tennyson has most admirably versified.

A lie which is all a lie, may be met with, and fought with out right,

But a lie which is half the truth is a harder matter to fight.

Half right's wholly wrong.

The shortest line's the straightest 'twixt two points.-
Bulwer.

I must now draw attention to an intermediate tract of country lying between ordinary pious proverbs, and those with which God's Word Written supplies us. There is a perfect mine of practical wisdom, hardly ever worked, to be found in a book which is contained in the Apocrypha.

The sayings are not scripture, they put forth no claim to be considered inspired; yet we may say of

very many of them, (and it is the highest praise,) that they are a good imitation. I mean the proverbs to be found in the book Ecclesiasticus. At the risk of being lengthy I subjoin a few of these, following the order observed in the previous chapters. They are hard upon Women, as in the following example,

Any plague but the plague of the heart!

Any wickedness but the wickedness of a woman!

So Jeremy Taylor has said, but it applies to both sexes,

Better sit up all night than go to bed with a dragon.

A friend and companion never meet amiss,
But above both is a wife with her husband.

Marry thy daughter and so shalt thou have performed a weighty matter, but give her to a man of understanding.

Honour thy Father with thy whole heart,
And forget not the sorrows of thy Mother.

Glory not in the dishonour of thy Father,
In thy Father's dishonour is no glory to thee.

Go not to law with a Judge;

For they will judge him according to his honour.

Honour a Physician with the honour due unto him,
For the uses which ye may have of him,

For the Lord hath created him.

Speech proverbs are plentiful here as everywhere else.

Believe not every Tale.

.

To slip upon a payment is better than to slip with the tongue.

Friends also have many a mention.

If thou wouldest get a Friend, prove him first,

And be not hasty to credit him.

The Italians advise

Treat your friend as one who may some day become your enemy; and your enemy as one who may some day become your friend.

Forsake not an old Friend,

For the new is not comparable to him;

A new friend is as new wine,

When it is old thou shalt drink it with pleasure.

Better is the life of a poor man in a mean cottage,
Than delicate fare in another man's house.

Money Maxims have their mention.

When a rich man speaketh, every man holdeth his tongue,
If a poor man speak, they say, what fellow is this?
Pride is rebuked most forcibly:

Pride was not made for man.

Pride is hateful before God and man.

While, as to Sin generally, how excellent this advice is

Say not, I have sinned and what harm hath happened unto me? For the Lord is long suffering, He will in no wise let thee go.

Be not ashamed to confess thy sins,

And force not the course of the river.

These others are more general.

Seven days do men mourn for him that is dead.

But for a fool, and an ungodly man all the days of his life.

All things are double one against another,

And He hath made nothing imperfect.

Go weigh me the weight of the fire,
Or measure me the blast of the wind,
Or call again the day that is past!

Who can number the sand of the sea,

And the drops of rain, and the days of eternity?

Whatever thou takest in hand
Remember the end,

And thou shalt never do amiss.

Thus is arrived at the Proverbs of Solomon.

“Apples of gold in pictures of silver,”

as such sayings are therein called; we lose something inevitably from their transference into another language; but, even in our English version, how they gleam out golden from their framework of silvern setting! Here is the good gold of solid matter, and the silver of elegant and most apposite phraseology. And what wonderful wisdom! What profound and perfect knowledge of human nature! That which they offer they can do, and in the perfection of instructiveness, Give subtilty to the simple,

To the young man knowledge and discretion.

A man of wisdom will hear and will increase learning;
And a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.

Searching for wisdom in other writings is but scratching on the surface of the gold mine; here we have a shaft that leads straight down into it.

St. Basil thus characterises the Book.

It bridles the injurious tongue, corrects the wanton eye, and ties the unjust hand in chains. It persecutes sloth, teaches prudence, raises man's courage, and represents temperance and chastity after such a fashion that we cannot but have them in veneration.

As there are no songs comparable to the Songs of Zion, so there are no sayings like Solomon's Proverbs!

A man who would be armed with a stock of aphorisms appropriate to each and every emergency, who seeks to have by him sayings that are at once witty and weighty, cannot do better, will do best by studying the Book of Proverbs.

In illustration of this let us begin with 'The Family.' On the careful maintenance, and perfect purity of all its relations, there is founded, and depends, beyond all else, a nation's welfare; now see how this, especially, is guarded in its beginnings, and fenced