A wicked woman in the house of a good man is a accursed of all men. hell to him in this world. Though it be pretended that no man can shun his It cannot be said of a miser that he possesses his destiny, yet it is well to do nothing without precauriches, however attached he may be to them. The thought of evil frequently derives its origin from idleness. Kings and subjects are equally unhappy, where persons of merit are despised, and where ignorant men occupy the chief places of trust. Answer those who ask questions of you in such a manner as not to offend them. The most proper method of punishing an envious person is, to load him with benefits. Prudence suffers between impossibility and irresolution. When you speak, let it be in such a manner as not to require an explanation. The most precious acquisition is that of a friend. Never trust to appearance. Behold the drum: notwithstanding all its noise, it is empty within. Keep not an evil conscience: but be diffident, to the end that you be never surprised nor deceived. Nothing remains with punishment or reward. A wise man by his speeches does things which a hundred armies conjoined could not execute. Do not speak till you have thought on what you intend to say. Those who believe they may gain by seditions and commotions never fail to excite them. tion. It is a double present when given with a cheerful countenance. Nobility is nothing, unless supported by good actions. Evil speaking and calumny never quit their hold till they have destroyed the innocent on whom they have once seized. Consider your estate, and leave playing and jesting to children. Soft words may appease an angry man; bitter words never will. Would you throw fire on a house in flames to extinguish them? Continue to speak the truth, though you know it to be hateful. It is a blessing to a house to have a number of guests at table. Five things are useless when they are not accompanied each with another thing: advice without effect; riches without economy; science without good manners; almsgiving to improper objects, or without a pure intention; and life without health. If you wish your enemy never to know your secret, never divulge it to your friend. Art thou a man in honour? Wouldst thou live The best friends we have in this world are the without inquietude or remorse? Then do actions spies of our actions, who publish our faults. Hope for nothing from this world, and your soul will enjoy rest. He who applies himself to acquire knowledge, puts himself in the capacity of possessing all good things. He who does not succeed in the business in which he is employed, because he is incapable of it, deserves to be excused; for it is to be believed that he has done all he could to accomplish his end. worthy of thy character. When subjects are ill-treated by subaltern officers, and cannot make remonstrances to the prince, because the too great authority of ministers of state deprives them of the means; their lot is like to that of a man who, half dead with thirst, approaches the river Nile to drink; but, perceiving a crocodile, is obliged to perish for lack of water, or submit to be devoured. It is better to perish with hunger, than to deprive Every kind of employment requires a particular the poor of their bread. sort of genius. If you be reproved for your faults, do not be angry Riches increase in proportion as you give to the with him who does it: but turn your anger against poor. The greatest reputation is frequently an embarrass ment. Do not despise a poor man because he is such: the lion is not less noble because he is chained. A young man, who has the wisdom of an old man, is considered as an old man among those who are wise. A righteous prince is the image and shadow of God upon earth. the things for which he has reproved you. Poisonous food is preferable to bad discourse. Do not discover the faults of others, if you be unwilling to have your own known. Wage war against yourself, and you will thereby acquire true peace of soul. One resembles those the company of whom he most frequents. The best expended riches are those which are given for God's sake. Asiatic Proverbs. If you have a dispute with any person, take heed that you say not of him all the evil which you know; otherwise you will leave no room for accommodation. Your conversation is the index of your intellect, and your actions show the bottom of your heart. It is more difficult to manage riches well, than to acquire them. The grandeur of kings is evidenced in the administration of justice. Honour your parents, and your children will honour you. which comprehend all the morality of the ancients and moderns. 1. Have no attachment to the world, but in proportion to the short duration of thy life. 2. Serve God with all that fervour which the need thou hast of him demands. 3. Labour for the other life that awaits thee, and consider the time it must endure. 4. Strive to escape that fire, out of which those who are once cast in can never escape. 5. If thou hast temerity enough to sin, measure before hand the strength thou shalt require to endure Cultivate no friendship with him who loves your the fire of hell, and the chastisements of God. enemy. If you have a friend who takes offence at trifles, break entirely with him, for he is not to be trusted. The happiness of life is only to be found, when the conscience is pure and clean. Measure every man with his own measure; i. e., "Do not expect or require from him more than is in him." Can any man boast who considers what he is come from? 6. When thou wishest to transgress, seek for a place where God cannot see thee. The Words of ALI to his Sons. My sons, never despise any person: consider your superior as your father, your equal as your brother, and your inferior as your son. Words addressed by a Mohammedan to the MESSIAH. In whatever corner of the world you are, you will from thy words. have something to suffer. The soul receives life and vigour at the bare men It will be more profitable for thee to adorn thy in- tion of thy name. side than thy outside. The Words of LOCKMAN to his SON. My son, I wish thee to observe these six maxims, If ever the human spirit be rendered capable of contemplating the mysteries of the Divinity, it is thou alone who givest it the light by which it understands, and the attractions by which it is penetrated. INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES. THE HE Book, entitled Koheleth, or Ecclesiastes, has ever been received, both by the Jewish and Christian church, as written under the inspiration of the Almighty; and was held to be properly a part of the sacred canon. But while this has been almost universally granted, there has been but little unanimity among learned men and critics as to its author. To Solomon it has been most generally attributed, both in ancient and modern times. Grotius, however, conjectured that it was written a long time after Solomon; and he says, at the close of his notes on it, that it was revised in the days of Zerubbabel by some learned man, who in the twelfth verse of the last chapter addresses his son Abihud: " And further, by these, my son, be admonished." But such a conjecture appears to have little foundation. This great man was more successful in his criticism on the language of the book; showing that there are many words in it which do not savour of the purity of the Hebrew tongue; and are found in the times of the captivity, and afterwards, and such as appear principally in the Books of Ezra and Daniel. Calovius has on the other hand, not with so much success as he imagined, argued against Grotius for the purity of the language. Mr. G. Zirkel of Wurtzburgh published an examination of this book in 1792, in which he endeavours to prove: 1. That the style of Ecclesiastes is that of the later Hebrew writers, as appears by the Chaldaisms, Syriasms, and Hellenisms that occur in it. 2. That it may have been written between the years 380 and 130 before Jesus Christ, if not later. The Jena reviewers seem to have thought it to be a translation from the Greek, and to have been written by a Jew of Alexandria, while the famous library was founding by Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, about the year 240 before Christ. And that it is to this circumstance that chap. xii. 12 alludes, "Of making many books there is no end;" which could not have entered into the head of a Palestine Jew; and such a person might speak with propriety of an Israel in Jerusalem, chap. i. 12, being acquainted with an Israel in Alexandria. The Jews in general, and St. Jerome, hold the book to be the composition of Solomon, and the fruit of his repentance when restored from his idolatry, into which he had fallen through means of the strange or heathenish women whom he had taken for wives and concubines. Others, of no mean note, who consider Solomon as the author, believe that he wrote it before his fall; there being no evidence that he wrote it afterwards; nor, indeed, that he ever recovered from his fall. Besides, it was in his old age that his wives turned away his heart from God; and the book bears too many evidences of mental energy to allow the supposition that in his declining age, after so deep a fall from God, he was capable of writing such a treatise. This opinion goes far towards destroying the divine inipiration of the book; for if he did recover and repent, there is no evidence that God gave him back that divine inspiration which he before possessed; for we hear of the Lord appearing to him twice before his fall, but of a third appearance there is no intimation. And, lastly. Of the restoration of Solomon to the favour of God there is no proof in the sacred history; for in INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES. the very place where we are told that "in his old age his wives turned away his heart from the Lord, we are told of his death, without the slightest intimation of his repentance. See my character of Solomon at the end of 1 Kings xi. Nothing, however, of this uncertainty can affect either the character, importance, or utility of the book in question. It is a production of singular worth; and the finest monument we have of the wisdom of the ancients, except the Book of Job. But the chief difficulty attending this book is the principle on which it should be interpreted. Some have supposed it to be a dialogue between a true believer and an infidel, which makes it to the unwary reader appear abounding with contradiction, and, in some instances, false doctrine; and that the parts must be attributed to their respective speakers, before interpretation can be successfully attempted. I am not convinced that the book has any such structure; though in some places the opinions and sayings of infidels may be quoted; e. g., chap. vii. 16, and in some of the following chapters. In the year 1763, M. Desvœux, a learned foreigner then resident in England, and who was in the British service, wrote and published a Philosophical and Critical Essay on this book, in which he endeavours to prove, that the design of the author was to demonstrate the immortality of the soul; and that it is on this principle alone that the book can be understood and explained. As a late commentator on the Bible has adopted this plan, and interwoven the major part of this dissertation with his notes on the book, I shall introduce the whole of M. Desvœux's analysis of its contents, the propositions, arguments, proofs, illustrations, corollaries, &c., on the ground of which he attempts its illustration: The whole of the discourse (he says) may be reduced to the three following propositions, each of which is attended with its apparatus of proofs and special observations. PROPOSITION I. No labour of man in this world can render him contented, or give him true satisfaction of soul. PROPOSITION II. Earthly goods and possessions are so far from making us happy, that they may be even viewed as real obstacles to our case, quiet, and tranquillity of mind. PROPOSITION III. Men know not what is or is not truly advantageous to them; because they are either ignorant or unmindful of that which must come to pass after their death. The three propositions, with their proofs and illustrations, are contained in the following analysis. For my This is the whole of M. Desvœux's Analysis; and I place it here, that the reader who approves of the plan may keep it in view while he is passing through the book. own part, I doubt whether the author made any such technical arrangement. The three propositions which M. Desvoeux lays down, and which are so essential to the interpretation he gives of the book, would have been expressly propounded by the inspired writer had he intended such; but they appear nowhere in it, and M. D. is obliged to assume or gather them from the general scope of the work. However, on his plan, he has certainly made a number of judicious observations on different passages, though his translations are generally too bold, and seldom well supported by the original text. In 1768 was published "Choheleth, or the Royal Preacher, a Poetical Paraphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes. Most humbly inscribed to the King." 4to. There is no name to this work. The late Rev. John Wesley gives the following account of the work and its author in his Journals: "Monday, Feb. 8, 1768. I met with a surprising poem, entitled, Choheleth, or the Preacher it is a paraphrase in tolerable verse on the Book of Ecclesiastes. I really think the author of it (a Turkey merchant) understands both the difficult expressions, and the connexion of the whole, better than any other either ancient or modern writer whom I have seen. He was at Lisbon during the great earthquake, just then sitting in his night-gown and slippers. Before he could dress himself, part of the house he was in fell, and blocked him up. By this means his life was saved; for all who had run out were dashed to pieces by the falling houses." About Mr. W. seems to have known the author well, but did not like to tell his name. the year 1789 that eminent man recommended the work to me, and told me several particulars relative to it, which have escaped my memory. I procured the book the first oppor |