CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Hebrews 10:32. Illuminated.—Enlightened, by the preaching of the Christian truth. (Compare 2 Corinthians 4:6; 1 Peter 2:9.) At a later period the word φωτισθέντες became a synonym for “to baptise.”
Hebrews 10:33. Gazing-stock.—Lit. “as one set on a theatrical stage.”
Hebrews 10:34. In heaven.—An incorrect reading. R.V. has, “knowing that ye yourselves have a better possession and an abiding one.” Moulton thinks the translation should be, “perceiving that ye have your own selves for a better possession and one that abideth.” “He points them to the tranquil self-possession of a holy heart, the acquisition of our own souls, as a sufficient present consolation for the loss of earthly goods, independently of the illimitable future hope.”
Hebrews 10:38. The just shall live by faith.—A much-disputed sentence. In some manuscripts the word μου is found, which alters the idea of the clause. ὁ δὲ δίκαιός μου ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται, would mean, “But My righteous one shall live by faith.” In the Hebrew of Habakkuk the word “faith” means “faithfulness” or “fidelity”; and that is probably the writer’s meaning here. He is commending steadfastness as opposed to defection from the faith. “But the thought of faithful constancy to God is inseparably connected with trustful clinging to Him.” A man lives indeed if he is faithful.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Hebrews 10:32-39
The Inspiration of Experience.—To have had the experience of the joys of salvation may increase our judgment if we fail, but it also increases our stability if we “hold fast.” There are times in life when looking back upon religious experiences that we have had in the past has a distinctly weakening influence on our religious life, making us morbid and depressed. But there are other times when such reviewing of the past is inspirational. We convince ourselves of the reality and power of our religion by remembering what it was to us in the beginning of our career, and what it has been again and again to us in the strain-times of life. The writer here thinks that reminding the Jewish Christians of their new-found joy, of their new-found faith in Christ, will materially help them to “hold fast the confession of their faith, that it waver not.” His plea is this: “You have withstood severe suffering and persecution for Christ’s sake. You did not fail then, and why should you suffer yourselves to fail now?”
I. The former experiences.—The persecutions which arose about Stephen, in the very first months of the Christian history, scattered the first Jewish Christian Church, and brought persecutions on the members, which are indicated by the activity, energy, and unscrupulousness of Saul of Tarsus. It involved personal sufferings, open insults and reproaches, loss of property and work. And some of those to whom this epistle was addressed had actually come through all these bitter experiences, and had come through them well, “holding fast.” “Ye endured a great fight of afflictions.” The first flush of faith, and the glow and enthusiasm of first love, no doubt helped them very greatly over their difficulties then; but lengthened experience and settled principles ought to give them even a fuller power to withstand now. They should be far better able to stand a strain than they were in those days when they were first “enlightened.” But let them not forget that they had passed through this experience. It had been proved that they could hold their Christian faith through times of temptation, strain, and persecution.
II. The new afflictions.—They were sufficiently like the old to make their former experience avail. They were sufficiently unlike the old to make a special demand for watchfulness. Persecutions were renewed, and they could but take many of the old forms; but the special peril of the hour was the enticement of subtle persuasions to fall back upon the older Jewish faith, the faith of their childhood. These persuasions came from those in close association with them, and became very serious trials of their faith.
III. The conditions of renewing the old victory of steadfastness.—
1. The spirit of Christian endurance.
2. The realisation that, in having Christ, they had in themselves a “better possession” than could be taken away from them by any persecutions.
3. A holy boldness that would enable them to set a firm front against every foe, that would enable them to resist evil influence by attacking the evil.
4. The patience which could rise into persistency, be determined to know the will of God, and to stand by it.
IV. The reward of those who finally overcome.—“They receive the promise.”
1. They are in a state of readiness for the Lord’s coming.
2. They realise the true life now, in keeping their faith, and living the life of faith.
3. They are conscious of the acceptance and favour of God, who finds “His pleasure in them.”
4. They receive the full salvation of the soul—its emancipation from all bodily limitations, and full unfolding into the image of the risen and glorified Son of God. The mention of the life of faith, the life ruled and toned by a steadfast faith in God, prepares the way for the striking series of illustrations of the power of faith in life which are given in the next chapter.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Hebrews 10:32. Admonished by the Past.—“But call to remembrance the former days.” At different times and in various moods of mind we find ourselves variously impressed by the sameness, or by the diversity, of our human experiences. It may be true to say that, strictly, a past experience is never repeated; for if the thing that happens is the same, the attendant circumstances and conditions are not the same, and our personal states, in relation to the thing, are not the same. It is with examples taken from our own past as it is with the examples offered us in the blessed human life of our Divine Lord; we can copy neither in any minute detail. But we are not therefore shut off from following the example of our Divine Lord, nor are we prevented from being duly admonished and aided by our own past experiences. What we require to see is that all things enshrine principles, express principles in some one direction and with some precise limitation. We remember the thing, the incident, the conflict, the success or failure, for the sake of the principle which found expression in it, and may gain a new application to our new scenes and difficulties. There is a sense in which man can only progress by forgetfulness of the past—“leaving the things that are behind.” “Let the dead past bury its dead.” It is at once the mission and the weakness of the aged, their keeping us in touch with the past. But it is equally true that nothing is ever safely built up—no truth, no character, no human life, nothing moral—save on the foundations of the past. It is the young man’s mission and weakness that he imagines things are new, and wants everything to be independent of everything else. The point in relation to the past specially presented in this text is, that former experiences have put good principles, right motives, and good inspirations to the test—perhaps to a severer test than they are ever likely to be subjected to again. They stood the test; they stood the test well: then you may safely trust those principles, motives, and inspirations in view of new emergencies.
Hebrews 10:35-36. The Need of Patience.—Patience is the ballast of the soul, that will keep it from rolling and tumbling in the greatest storms; and he that will venture out without this to make him sail even and steady will certainly make shipwreck and drown himself, first in the cares and sorrows of this world, and then in perdition.—Hopkins.
Christian Patience.—Results are slowly produced in the natural, the moral, and the spiritual worlds. Men who only gaze upon work, and have not to do it, are often impatient. Some of the early Christians were in danger even of apostasy through the want of patience amid the trials which they had to endure.
I. The need which there is of patience in Christian life and work.—There are difficulties connected with our life and work common to all times.
1. The difficulty of fully understanding the gospel ourselves, and of making it understood by others.
2. The moral difficulties we have to encounter are even greater than the intellectual.
3. We need patience on account of the opposition which we have to encounter.
4. On account of the deep obscurity in which we labour—obscurity applying to the results of our labour as well as to its design.
5. And on account of delay in the fulfilment of God’s promises.
II. The root from which patience will spring—confidence or faith.—The man who has no faith in the soil will not plough it; the man who has no faith in the seed will not sow it; and the man who has no faith in the return of the seasons will neither plough nor sow. So it is in spiritual things.
III. The reward with which patience shall at length be crowned.—It hath “great recompence of reward.” Ye shall “receive the promise.”—Absalom Clark.
The Promises call for Patience.—The greatest part of the saints’ happiness is in promise. They must first do the will of God before they receive the promise, and after they have done the will of God they have need of patience to wait for the time when the promise shall be fulfilled; they have need of patience to live till God calls them away. It is a trial of the patience of Christians to be content to live after their work is done, and to stay for the reward till God’s time to give it them is come. We must be God’s waiting servants when we can be no longer His working servants.—Matthew Henry.
Hebrews 10:36. The Expectation of Future Blessedness.—Whereas we have here the expression of “receiving the promise,” it is plain the promise must be understood objectively—that is, that transcendent good that was promised; namely, that principally wherein all the promises do finally and lastly centre: which it is plain the apostle here most especially intends, as being eminently called “the promise.”
I. The business of a sincere Christian in this world is to be doing the will of God.—By the will of God we are to understand the object of His will, or that which He wills—namely, the thing willed. Our duty willed by Him and not mere events, that must be understood to be the object of this will. Of this every sincere Christian must be the active instrument: it is the business of a devoted person, one given up to God in Christ. Such only are in an immediate capacity or promptitude to do the will of God intentionally and with their own design, though it be the undoubted duty of all who are naturally capable thereof.
II. Patience, in the expectation of the blessedness of the heavenly estate, is very needful to every sincere and thorough Christian.—Give some account of this patience. The natural constitution of the human soul disposeth it equally to covet and pursue a desirable good as to regret and shun a hurtful evil. The want of such a desirable and suitable good, understood to be so, is as truly afflicting and grievous as the pressure of a present evil. An ability to bear that want is as real and needful an endowment as the fortitude by which we endure a painful evil. Therefore it equally belongs to patience to be exercised in the one case as well as in the other. What does patience suppose, as it hath its exercise this way, viz. in the expectation of future blessedness?
(1) That blessedness, truly so called, be actually understood and apprehended by the expectants as a real and most desirable good to them.
(2) That the delay and deferring of this blessedness must be an afflicting and felt grievance: otherwise patience can have no place or exercise about it. Wherein does patience consist? It is “an ability becomingly to endure.” But its reference to God must be maintained. And this reference must be to Him as to the Author of it and the object of it. Patience is not only a rational temperament, it is also a gratuitous donation, a gift of the good Spirit of God. God is said to be “the God of patience.” A deference of His holy pleasure in ordering the occasions of such exercise is carried in the notion of it. It hath in it submission to the will of God. Consider patience in its peculiar effect—the “work of patience.” It gives a man a mastery and conquest over all undue and disorderly passions. It fixes the soul in a composed serenity; creates it a region of sedate and peaceful rest; infers into it a silent calm; allays or prevents all turbulent agitations; excludes whatsoever of noisy clamour; permits no tumults, no storm or tempest, within,—whatsoever of that kind, in this our expecting state, may beset a man from without. Christ said, “In your patience possess ye your souls.” If you have not patience, you are outed of yourselves; you are no longer masters of your own souls; can have no enjoyment of yourselves; and, therefore, are much less to expect a satisfying enjoyment of Him. The temper of spirit it introduces is a dutiful silence. In reference to the delay of the blessedness we expect, we ought not to be without sense, as if it were no grievance. And we ought not to have an excessive sense of it which were peevishness or impatience.
III. The necessity of patience arises from a consideration of the principles from whence the necessity arises, and the ends which it is necessary unto.—The principles are such as these: faith of the unseen state; hope; love; holiness, which includes hatred of the opposite—sin; and a tendency to the improving and heightening itself. Where there is an inchoate holiness, there cannot but be a tendency unto consummate perfect holiness. As holiness includes conformity to the preceptive will of God, so it doth to His disposing will being made known. Therefore when we understand it to be His pleasure we should wait, the holy nature itself, which prompts us so earnestly to desire the perfection of our state, must also incline us patiently to expect it. The sovereign and supreme principle is the blessed Spirit of God Himself. He begets, raises, and cherisheth such desires after the blessedness of the heavenly state as makes this patience most absolutely necessary. Consider the ends which patience serves. The nearer and more immediate—“our doing the will of God”; the remoter and ultimate—“our inheriting the promise.” Patience conduces to our doing God’s will. Not that it is the proper principle of doing it—active vigour is that; yet the concomitancy of patience is requisite thereto. Two things God doth ordinarily will concerning the way wherein He conducts and leads on those that peculiarly belong to Him to the blessed end and consummate state He designs them to, the one whereof is also requisite to the other:
1. Their gradual growth and improvement in holiness and all dutiful dispositions towards Him, till they come nearer to maturity for glory, and a meetness for the heavenly state.
2. Their maintaining an intercourse with Himself in order thereto.—John Howe.
Hebrews 10:38. Drawing Back.—As the fig tree began to wither so his gifts began to paire, as if a worm was still gnawing at them; his judgment rusts like a sword which is not used; his zeal trembleth as though it were in a palsy; his faith withereth as though it were blasted; and the image of death is upon all his religion. After this he thinketh, like Samson, to pray as he did, and speak as he did, and hath no power, but wondereth, like Zedekiah, how the Spirit is gone from him. Now when the good Spirit is gone, then cometh the spirit of blindness, and the spirit of error, and the spirit of fear, and all to seduce the spirit of man. After this, by little and little, he falls into error, then he comes into heresy; at last he plungeth into despair: after this, if he inquire, God will not suffer him to learn; if he read, God will not suffer him to understand; if he hear, God will not suffer him to remember; if he pray, God seemeth unto him like Baal, which could not hear. At last he beholdeth his wretchedness, as Adam looked upon his nakedness; and mourneth for his gifts, as Rachel wept for her children, because they were not. All this cometh to pass that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken that which he seemeth to have.”—H. Smith.
Hebrews 10:39. Shrinking Back and Keeping On.—“But we are not of them that shrink back unto perdition; but of them that have faith unto the saving of the soul.” There is no more difficult work given to Christian teachers to do than to “reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and gentleness.” It is easy work, there is a certain personal gratification found in the work, of denouncing and condemning. The denouncer has a pleasant consciousness of moral superiority; but a man must have himself in noble restraint, and go well out of himself in pitiful interest in others, before he can rebuke wisely and effectively, and put compassion and Christly sympathy into his reproofs. The writer of this epistle had a very serious work of warning to do. It so thoroughly possessed him that it comes out into varied expression at every opportunity. It is like the ever-recurring refrain of a song or a piece of music. And he seemed himself to get almost weary of it, and to fear that it would be unduly wearying and depressing to those whom he addressed. So in this passage he tries hard to get into another mood, and to write trustingly and hopefully. The mood of our text is a cheerful one, but the cheerfulness is only gained through a struggle. The writer has evidently been greatly distressed by failures from the Christian profession. He has almost overwhelming impressions of the perils to which Christian professors were exposed in his days, more especially Christian professors who had come out of Jewish associations. He has every confidence and satisfaction in the sincerity and stability of those to whom he wrote, and yet he felt that he must warn them carefully, for a spirit of self-security might creep in upon them, and then the temptations, false teachings, and imperilling influences and associations would have every chance with them; for “let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” The writer’s confidence in the people was partly based on the fact that he and they had already passed through a very bitter experience together, and they had acted nobly all through it, and come out nobly from it. He knew therefore how they could “stand fast in the Lord.” He bids them “call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were enlightened, ye endured a great conflict of sufferings; partly, being made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, becoming partakers with them that were so used. For ye both had compassion on them that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions, knowing that ye yourselves have a better possession and an abiding one.” It may be asked, If they had shown themselves so noble, why should their teacher have any such grave anxieties concerning them, and address such careful warnings to them? The answer is twofold:
1. In the very fact of their coming so well out of one time of strain lay a peril of unwatchfulness, and unpreparedness to meet a fresh time of strain. An army is never in such peril as in the hours succeeding a victory. A man is placed in the gravest moral peril immediately after he has gained a great moral success. It is so easy for a man to delude himself with the idea that one success guarantees continuous success; so easy to argue, “I have stood, therefore I shall stand”; so easy to fail to realise that life is a continuous moral battle, a series of surprises; our moral foes are skilful in assuming various devices, and the successes of our past form no guarantee whatever for triumph in the future, even our experiences but feebly preparing us for the strain-times that are before us. Froude reminds us that experience is like the stern-light of a ship, it does but cast its rays upon the way that has been taken. To moral victors the counsel must be given, “Be not high-minded, but fear.
2. But the other answer is this—The new peril to which they were exposed bore an altogether new character, and they might not be prepared for it. Their early experience had been one of active persecution. The government and society of the day had been arrayed against them. Some of them had been cast into prison, many of them had been despoiled of their goods, their characters had been maligned, and they had been hated of all men for Christ’s name’s sake. And such times of outward persecution and material peril have passed again and again over Christ’s Church. They are the times of which the most can be made in history, but they are not the times that bring the gravest peril to the spiritual life of the Church. That life has always survived its martyr ages. If there is a seeming exception to that “always,” it is found in the driving of evangelical religion out of France for generations by the persecutions which culminated in Black Bartholomew’s Day. But even in France evangelical religion did but hide its head awhile, waiting its opportunity to lift it high again in the latter days. The experiences of persecuting ages never fit men to meet all the forms of peril in which the Christian life may be placed, and they do us some injury if they start in us the impression that all strain upon the religious profession will take this outward form. These Jewish Christians would fail to see the new forms that temptation was taking, if they persisted in thinking that all temptation would follow the pattern of that which they had already gone through and overcome. The evils around them now were of a subtle character. They came even from the fact that they were not persecuted. They came from that easy-going spirit which comes when there is no evident call to watchfulness and enterprise. They came from their ability to put their Christian weapons aside on the shelf; they were losing the power to use them skilfully, and were disinclined to take them down when any foe appeared. And they came in the opportunity the leisure afforded for the influence of enervating and false teachings, and for the attraction of pleasurable but demoralising self-indulgences. When the sky is clear, the air dry, the sunshine warm, the atmosphere genial, the trees budding, and the flowers opening freely, when there is no warning of storm, and no mutter of distant war, then subtle pestilence may be stalking abroad, and secretly imperilling life and health. The Church has lost most in its times of apparent security. It has been drawn back rather than driven back. The ship will sail the great Southern Seas, safely outriding the great gales, and, if bruised, still sound, when it has been smitten with the lightnings, tossed with the tempests, and helplessly driven before the hurricanes; and then it will come out into smooth seas, and the blue shall reach from rim to rim, no more than a gentle breeze shall play upon the waters, and it shall feel restfully, peacefully, unwatchfully secure. But almost out of sight is yonder island, with its coral reef, over which the waves dash violently. That island is a source of new, unknown, subtle and well-nigh overwhelming danger to the ship. It has a strange attractive power upon the under-waters. Towards the reef the currents are setting, and they may seize the ship, and bear her secretly on, until at last, no hurried turning of the helm, no desperate hanging out of every yard of sail that the ship can carry, will save her; on, on she is borne, till they can hear the wild lashing of the waves upon the coral rocks, and soon the ship is crashed upon them, drawn back, and crashed again upon them, until the fragments of a hopeless wreck are borne over the reef to tell their tale of woe. Well, indeed, may we be warned of the perils that belong to quiet times of religious experience. Then—yes, then more especially—there be many that shrink back to perdition. We may well thank our Bible Revisers for that very suggestive term “shrink back.” They seem to have caught the writer’s idea precisely. He evidently fears chiefly a spirit of religious sluggishness, donothingness, listlessness. He had the same kind of fear about his people that St. Paul had about Timothy. That quiet, studious, weakly-bodied young man was inclined to take things too easily, to let things go rather than battle with them. And this brought grave fears for him to his father in Christ; so he sent him this arousing message, “Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” And what this writer fears is not a determinedly going back from the faith of Christ, not an open and resolute apostatising, nothing disgraceful like the forsaking of Demas, or the violent enmity of Julian; but a drifting away, a shrinking back, a silent action of the current of worldliness, or a current of false teaching, which would take all the inspiration and sanctifying impulse out of the Christian faith, until the Church would but keep its name to live, and be dead. His point may be simply illustrated by the fish in a rapid stream. So long as they actively swim, let their life go out in energetic efforts, they can go up the stream, advance against the current. But peril lies in sluggishness. Cease to swim, and silent, ever-working forces act upon the fish; he shrinks back, he is borne downward, though he may think he keeps his place; presently he will feel the power of the downward swirl; it will be beyond his power of resistance, and over the great fall he is borne. It is thus with the Christian. He need only do nothing to “shrink back unto perdition.” Relative to the Christian life, we must accept of the world as a force, like a descending stream, ever bearing us downward. In the stream of the world we have to be, we must be. Against the stream we have to swim if we would reach the restful lake of the holy ones. Against the stream, always against the stream, day and night against the stream—that is how it must be with us. Relax one moment, the current seizes you, and ere you know it you have shrunk back a little way. Get into a listless, careless way in the religious life, and it is inevitable that downward you go. Perhaps you will even be so fascinated at first that you will quite enjoy the rest from toil and strain, and find all around so pleasant that you feel sure the end must be like the way. But what an awful delusion all that is! See which way are you moving? The lake of holiness and God is not that way. You are “shrinking back,” you are going down, the rapids are that way, the frightful fall is that way, the whelming waters are that way. Shrinking back is always “unto perdition.” There are two ways of living the Christian life. There is “keeping on,” and there is “letting go.” The “keeping on” folk are they who have faith (and let it inspire activity and effort) unto the saving of the soul. The “letting go” folk, who make no effort to follow on and keep up, are they who “shrink back unto perdition.” Would you be “keeping on”? Then you must mean to keep on, plan to keep on, master yourself, and master your circumstances, in order to keep on. Keeping on is never a matter of accident, it is always a matter of thought and effort. Keeping on the whir and whirl of machinery means persistent toil in renewing the fires, and replenishing the boilers. Would you be “letting go”? Then no resolve whatever is needed, you are required to make no effort, you simply need do nothing: cease to keep on, stop, and you will surely drift. You can only keep up to a level reached by persistently striving to reach a level beyond. The law of the garden is the law of the soul. Toil, weed, watch, culture, plant, put energy into it, wisely directed, well-adapted energy into it, and the garden will be an ever-increasing joy to you. But stop, be careless, leave it alone, cease to work at it—that is all you need do—do nothing—it will soon be overgrown with weeds, a ruin and a disgrace. Toil, strive, watch, be active, enterprising, energetic, in the religious life, and beauty, power, joy, will abundantly respond to you. Let things go, let duty be done perfunctorily, and worship become formality; rest upon a past experience; want nothing higher or better; get through a religious life somehow, anyhow, with a wretched sort of lifeless hope that somehow all will come out right at last,—you can picture that soul-garden; you do not need that I should picture it for you. It is evidently “shrinking back unto perdition.” The cultured place is fast becoming a wilderness. In the religious life there is one absolute and universal law always working: “Strive, and you shall live”; “Cease to strive, and you shall die.” Let the oars lie still on the rapid stream of life—the oars of your soul’s boat—you need do nothing more, the stream of life will do its fatal work only too surely—“you will shrink back unto perdition.” The truth may be illustrated in our several Christian spheres.
1. The Christian life demands anxious and continuous attention to personal culture. Flag in it, stop it, and your Christian character will soon shrink back.
2. The Christian life demands active endeavour to exert gracious personal influence, and to use in service entrusted talents and gifts. Persistently send out holy influences, and you will keep and enlarge your powers of influencing. Stop all effort to influence, and the very ability will fade away, as the blacksmith’s muscle becomes flaccid when he ceases to wield the hammer.
3. The Christian life demands a persistency and continuity of attendance on Christian worship and means of grace. Begin to flag; do not go sometimes; become irregular; go when you feel inclined, not when you ought; and you will soon cease to get a blessing, and easily shrink back into indifference. But the writer of our text wrote hopefully, and we would speak hopefully to you. We must warn you faithfully; but we hope that you are “not of them that shrink back unto perdition, but of them that have faith unto the saving of the soul.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 10
Hebrews 10:33. A Gazing-stock.—The Greek word here used means to expose to view as in a public theatre, which was commonly done in those days. The expression here is figurative, yet it was afterwards literally carried out, when Christians were exposed in the theatres, not only to opprobrium and insult, but made the victims of wild beasts, or assaulted by gladiators.
Hebrews 10:36. Patience likened to a Jewel.—“I compare patience to the most precious thing that the earth produces—a jewel. Pressed by sand and rocks, it reposes in the dark lap of the earth. Though no ray of light comes near it, it is radiant with imperishable beauty. Its brightness remains even in the deep night; but when liberated from the dark prison, it forms, united to gold, the distinguishing mark and ornament of glory, the ring, the sceptre, and the crown,” said the wise Hillel. “Her end and reward is the crown of life.”—Krummacher.
The Leaves teaching Patience.—O impatient ones! Did the leaves say nothing to you as they murmured when you came hither to-day? They were not created this spring, but months ago, and the summer just begun will fashion others for another year. At the bottom of every leaf-stem is a cradle, and in it is an infant germ; and the winds will rock it, and the birds will sing to it all summer long; and next season it will unfold. So God is working for you, and carrying forward to the perfect development all the processes of your lives.—H. Ward Beecher.
The Work of Patience.—Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility. Patience governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues pride; she bridles the tongue, refrains the hand, tramples upon temptations, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom. Patience produces unity in the Church, loyalty in the State, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor, and moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman, and improves the man, is loved in a child, praised in a young man, admired in an old man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age.—Horne.