Verse 3. "To perceive the words of understanding" is a phrase which may be interpreted as meaning the power of justly distinguishing between good and evil counsel--between that which is right in its principle and salutary in its operations, and that which is unsound and pernicious.--_Wardlaw._ All through Ecclesiastes and throughout the present book, the more mental aspects of sin are always made prominent--piety is called wisdom. The saints are _the wise._ The impenitent man is _a fool._ Nothing could be more natural than that just here there should be the broad assertion that knowledge is piety. Nothing could be more seminal. A new heart comes from a new light. If a man sees, he believes, he loves, he hopes, he serves, he repents, he rejoices; and this as but new forms of the one blessed illumination.--_Miller._ Verse 4. There are none that need to be politicians more than they that desire to serve God because they have to deal with the most politic enemies. . . . No gift is worse taken, though never so well bestowed, than this is, where there is no feeling of the want of it. The simple seeth not his defects, the young man thinketh that he seeth great abundance of ability in himself.--_Jermin._ The teacher offers to save the young and inexperienced from the slower and more painful process of learning by experience.--_Plumptre._ Over the gates of Plato's school it was written: "Let no one who is not a geometrician enter." But very different is the inscription over these doors of Solomon: "Let the ignorant, simple, foolish, young, enter."--_Cartwright._ _MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 5, 6. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A WISE MAN.