In conclusion, here is a proverb which needs a few words of introduction. The graces and benefits of religion are frequently associated in the Bible with “meekness” or “humility.” Now those English words carry unfortunate associations which are absent from the Hebrew they represent. The “humility” commended by the Prophets and Psalmists is a certain frank simplicity of soul--a quality from which not a few of the most effective and virile personalities in the world’s history have derived their power. It has little or nothing to do with softness or timidity of character; indeed courage is its hall-mark. Those who first rallied round the Maccabean leaders in the struggle against an unclean Hellenism were of “the meek ones of the earth.” The Russian peasant has this Biblical “humility,” but the proudest military empire in the modern world has tasted the fortitude of his soul. Wherefore we may claim that this exquisite saying is not merely beautiful, but is also profound: _The prayer of the humble pierceth the clouds_ (E. 35^{17}). CHAPTER XX The Gift of God The sayings we have been quoting in this volume for the most part belong to the life of ordered and peaceful society. There is no tramp of armies, no sense of imminent death, no outrage of gigantic suffering and injustice, in the pages of _Proverbs_ or _Ecclesiasticus_. To-day, however, the ordinary problems and interests of peace-time seem altogether irrelevant. Twenty million fighting men in Europe, asked what a maxim is, would talk to you of machine-guns; the maxims otherwise called proverbs belong to a different and forgotten world. For trifling moralisms we have to-day neither taste nor time. But the Jewish proverbs range wide enough to have a word for everyone, for the grave or the gay, for pious or profane, for those in haste just as much as for those at leisure; and many of their comments on life are very far removed from being trifling. In our enquiry we have met not a few winged words worth capturing and holding fast even in war-time; great thoughts such as this assertion, _He that followeth after righteousness shall attain unto life, but he that pursueth evil doeth it to his own death_ (Pr. 11^{19}), or this reassuring hint of the fundamental goodness of human nature, _When the righteous triumph there is great glorying, but when the wicked come to power men hide themselves_ (Pr. 28^{12}; cp. 11^{10}), or this grand medicine for a tempted people, _Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any folk_ (Pr. 14^{34}).