claim than that the Wise were a _contributory_ cause, their words and their example having co-operated with the work of others in producing the result described. Where then, may it be said, that the seed they sowed took root and ripened? One general answer may be given instantly--Wherever the Bible has been known and read: a result immeasurably exceeding the utmost expectations of the Wise. Who among them ever hoped that their proverbs would receive a place in a Book destined to exercise pre-eminent moral and spiritual force throughout the world, and that through all these centuries the best part of their wisdom, wit, and idealism would be known and esteemed in a myriad Gentile homes? For closer consideration three themes may profitably be singled out; the first being that of immediate Jewish history in Palestine, by which is meant the critical centuries 350 to 150 B.C. This topic will first be discussed generally, and then attention will be concentrated on certain events during the years 200 to 150 B.C., when the struggle between Judaism and Hellenism came to a climax and was decided. I (_a_) Less than justice is done to the Wise in the picture of post-exilic Judaism usually presented to students. They are not wholly ignored, but their value as a formative influence in the community of Jerusalem and Judæa, we venture to think, has been insufficiently appreciated. For this misjudgment there are several plain reasons which will prove to be well worth examining. In the first place, the absence of theological fervour in the proverbs, their matter-of-fact standpoint, and the doubtful propriety of certain sayings have been disappointing and even disconcerting to many readers of the Bible. Judged too hastily by the superficial features of their writings, the Wise have been dismissed either as altogether wanting or, at best, as of small moral and religious importance. But how serious an error that method of rough-and-ready judgment may induce, can readily be imagined. It is much as if some future historian, attempting to estimate the value of Christianity to this generation, had to derive his opinion from a survey of the volumes of sermons published, many of which he might be inclined to criticise on the ground that they were concerned with the inculcation of commonplace moral duties. There is far more behind such a book as _Proverbs_ than can appear in it. The Wise have been considered too much from the literary point of view, too little from the human.