There are, of course, instances in the Bible when the grammatical rules of Brown and Murray forbid satisfactory parsing. The reason of this is the natural wish of the translators, anxious to preserve the literal form of the original, not to sacrifice accuracy to the nicety with which they might round their phrases. They were intent alone upon truth; and it is precisely in this element that eloquence finds its first and most powerful incentive. Beauty of language has two sources of inspiration. One is that of truth, which arouses in the heart a love lifting the mind with a burning enthusiasm into the regions of all that is fair and chaste and grand; and the language of him who has mastered it assumes the sound and form of these lofty emotions. There is indeed another source of inspiration. It is that from which emanates the brilliant but ephemeral beauty of the literature of the day. It is not love of unchanging truth, but the captivating passion of the hour, which, as someone has said, acts upon the brain "like the foaming grape of Eastern France--pleasant to the sense of taste, yet sending its subtle fumes to the brain, and stealing away the judgment." Truth in literature possesses a power of eloquence of which fiction is but a shadow at best, varying in size, and dwarfed or magnified in proportion as it approaches and recedes from the object which occasions it. XIII. FRIENDS OF GOD. And with this study of truth there is added to knowledge and power and beauty of expression another vital element, which gives these acquisitions an infinite value: I mean the gift of wisdom as distinct from knowledge. Read the Sapiential book of Solomon, and mark what he there says. He had learnt all things that human industry could suggest, but the science of things earthly was as nothing to the wisdom which, as he says, "went before me; and I knew not that it was the mother of all." And when he had learnt wisdom in listening to the breathing of that sacred voice whose words he recorded for our instruction, he describes it as a sacred fire of genius, "holy, one, manifold, subtle, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing can oppose, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured--a breath of the power of God--making friends of God, and prophets, for God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom--more beautiful than the sun" (Sap. vii. 22-29).