Our consideration of the great subject must here be confined to considering the proverbs of the period. From these it appears that the rank and file of the Wise-men either did not feel the problem in its acutest form or failed to reach those heights of spiritual insight that some of the Jews attained. In the proverbs a variety of sensible but unsatisfactory arguments are put forward. One method of defence was to challenge or deny the reality of the facts alleged: _There shall no mischief happen to the righteous, but the wicked shall be filled with evil_ (Pr. 12^{21})--_Say not thou, “I will recompense evil.” Wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee_ (Pr. 20^{22})--_The Lord is far from the wicked but he heareth the prayer of the righteous_ (Pr. 15^{29})--_The Lord will_ =not= _suffer the soul of the righteous to famish, and he thrusteth away the desire of the wicked_ (Pr. 10^{3}). No one capable of sympathy with human perplexity will dismiss such assertions as merely stupid. Pathetically insufficient they may be, but these are the words of men convinced that somehow their instinct for God and the moral life is sound; and there is grandeur in the unyielding defiance. Another favourite reply was to insist on the solid rewards of virtue or to maintain that in the end it is honesty that pays best: _The wicked earneth deceitful wages, but he that soweth righteousness hath a sure reward_ (Pr. 11^{18})--_He that soweth iniquity shall reap calamity_ (Pr. 22^{8}). The Wise liked also to dwell on the fear of retribution which is likely to haunt the evil-doer: _His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden in the cords of his sin_ (Pr. 5^{22}), a retort to the power of which many a villain, dogged by the thought of exposure, could bear witness. After all, there generally is _human_ justice to be considered, although the _divine_ seem far away. Sometimes The Wise had recourse to the suggestion that _the fear of the Lord prolongeth life, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened_ (Pr. 10^{27}). Some, more daringly, declared that the agony of a single day or hour might redress the balance; thus Ben Sirach: _It is an easy thing in the sight of the Lord to reward a man in the day of his death according to his ways. The affliction of an hour causeth forgetfulness of delight, and in the last end of a man is the revelation of his deeds. Call no man blessed before his death_[84]; _and_ (yet another suggestion) _a man shall be known in his children_ (E. 11^{26-28}). This further possibility that Justice, if nowhere manifest in a man’s own life, will certainly appear in the fortunes of his descendants, is emphasised also in several Psalms and in passages of the _Book of Job_ (_e.g._, _Job_ 5^{4}), and apparently was more satisfying to the Jews than it would be to ourselves. A new argument, too vague to be consoling, is hinted in Pr. 16^{4}, where it is declared that _God hath made everything for its own end, even the wicked for the day of