[460] Prov. xvi. 3. [461] Prov. xvi. 4. _See_ note, p. 201. [462] Prov. xvi. 5. [463] Prov. xvi. 6. [464] Prov. xvi. 7. [465] Prov. xvi. 9. _Cf._ Prov. xix. 21: "There are many devices in a man's heart; but the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." [466] Prov. xvi. 20. [467] Prov. xviii. 18. John Paton, the missionary to the New Hebrides, uncertain whether to go back to Scotland and plead for more missionaries, and receiving no light from human counsel, says, "After many prayers and wrestlings and tears, I went alone before the Lord, and on my knees cast lots with a solemn appeal to God, and the answer came 'Go home.' In my heart I believe that ... the Lord condescended to decide for me the path of duty, otherwise unknown; and I believe it the more truly now, in view of the aftercome of thirty years of service to Christ that flowed out of the steps then deliberately and devoutly taken." See the _Autobiography_, Second Part (Hodder and Stoughton, 1889). [468] Prov. xvi. 33. [469] Deut. xxv. 13-16. [470] Lev. xix. 33, 36. [471] Eccles. vii. 15. [472] Isa. xxviii. 23-29. [473] It seems impossible that a general and perfect morality in business can ever be attained apart from this apprehension of an Omniscient Mind weighing and judging, as well as accurately observing, everything done even in secret. In mediæval Europe, when this faith was practically unquestioned, there was a certain honesty and sincerity in handicrafts and in general dealing, until the Church made the fatal blunder of granting indulgences for men's peccadilloes, and professing to exonerate them from the consequences of the truth which she herself in theory held. [474] Prov. xvi. 6. XVII. _FRIENDSHIP._ "A friend loveth at all times, and as a brother is born for adversity."--PROV. xvii. 17. (This rendering, based upon the margin of the R.V., yields a much better sense than the loosely connected, "And a brother is born for adversity.")