Concerning Mercy in deed or thought and Honesty in speech the Wise said, _Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them upon thy neck, write them on the tablet of thine heart; so shalt thou find favour and good repute in the sight of God and man_ (Pr. 3^{3, 4}). There are phrases concerning Kindness which live in the memory and touch the heart: _The healing tongue is a tree of life_ (Pr. 15^{4})--_There is that speaketh rashly like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the Wise is health_ (Pr. 12^{18}), and a saying that for all its gentleness holds the conscience in a vice-like grip: _A soft answer turneth away wrath_ (Pr. 15^{1})--so hard to believe when occasion presses, but proved true a thousand thousand times. And here, in conclusion, are three, wonderful, winged proverbs, which haunt one with the magic of their moral challenge: _Say not, “I will do so to him as he hath done to me, I will render to the man according to his work”_ (Pr. 24^{29})--_If thine enemy be hungry give him bread to eat, if he thirst give him water to drink; for thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head, and the Lord shall reward thee_ (Pr. 25^{21}). _Hatred stirreth up strife, But love covereth all transgressions_ (Pr. 10^{12}).[65] So much for Man, the individual. To finish the outline of the Wise-men’s ideal we have still to consider the proverbs concerning family life and the wider relationships of the State. II.--FAMILY LIFE A slight acquaintance with Oriental life will suggest the probability that in the family, as the Wise conceived it, fathers and sons were the only important figures; and Jewish proverbs at first sight confirm the conjecture: “Daughters,” says Kent[66], “are passed by with a silence that is significant.” But, significant of what? Not that they were ill-used or neglected or unloved in Hebrew homes, but that the Wise not unnaturally acquiesced in the normal conditions of Oriental existence which inevitably made a daughter of much less importance than a son. A girl was debarred from the manifold interests of commercial, social, and political affairs; she could not, like a son, perpetuate the family name; nor could the parents hope to see in her the support and strength of their old age. The Wise never attempted to ignore facts, and they never aimed at nor imagined revolutions in the fundamental circumstances of society as they found it. But we have to confess that Ben Sirach does more than acquiesce in the recognised limitations of daughters. He was reprehensibly querulous upon the subject, and we fear lest some who read may find it difficult to forgive him for such a ridiculous exhibition of masculine stupidity. Says Ben Sirach (and from the slow shake of his head we infer this to be no hasty _dictum_, but the result of his mature and cautious consideration), _A daughter is a secret cause of wakefulness to a father, and anxiety for her putteth away sleep.... Keep