Equally profitable is the study of the Wisdom literature. The wise men accepted the great religious truths proclaimed by the prophets; it was their business to apply them to the details of everyday life, and instruct their contemporaries in that application. They did an important and necessary work; they pointed out constantly and persistently that religion cannot be separated from the daily life. But the wise men were dealing with persons who had hardly gone beyond the childhood stage in things religious and ethical, hence they must put the most profound truths in the simplest possible form. They must abstain, as far as possible, from all speculation, and confine themselves to simple, practical precepts which would appeal to the ordinary practical common sense of the hearer. "The great desire of the sages," says Marshall, "was to reduce the lofty theistic morality which underlies Mosaism to brief, pithy sayings, easily remembered and readily applicable to the everyday life of man."[18] Certainly, in time they would be compelled to rise above simple precepts and try to solve some of {245} the more perplexing problems of life; on the other hand, there would always be a demand for the more simple sayings of these moral guides. The Old Testament contains specimens of these different productions of wisdom activity. The book of Proverbs is a collection of the more simple, practical precepts, while the books of Job and Ecclesiastes illustrate speculative wisdom. The charge has sometimes been made against the book of Proverbs that it is not truly religious, that it moves on a lower plane, and contemplates lower aims than the other books of the Old Testament; but this is only a half truth. That the book differs from other books is undoubtedly true, but that is due to the purpose of its author. He did not mean to collect prophetic discourses or sublime religious lyrics, but those simple precepts of life which, though simple, are ever needed for the proper conduct of man. There are two phases of religion: the one internal, the religious experience; the other external, the religious life. The two go together, though at times the one, at times the other, may be emphasized. The authors of the Proverbs emphasized chiefly the latter. They teach the most difficult of all lessons: how to practice religion; how to fulfill the duties and overcome the temptations of everyday life. But these wise men rested their practical teaching upon a religious basis. Their {246} religion may not be on a New Testament level, but in this they resemble other Old Testament writings; their conceptions of reward and punishment may be crude, and at times materialistic, but this peculiarity they share with all those saints of Israel whose vision is limited to this world.