This "knowledge of the holy" is the knowledge of all that is involved in _hallowing God's name;_ knowing experimentally all that tends to our sanctifying the Lord in our hearts and in life.--_Fausset._ Some of the true wisdom is a nucleus, round which more will gather. A little island once formed in the bed of a great river, tends continually to increase. Everything adds to its bulk. The floods of winter deposit soil on it. The sun of summer covers it with herbage and consolidates its surface. Such is wisdom from above once settled in a soul. It makes all things work together for good to its possessor.--_Arnot._ Verse 12. As we are not aware that the mass of the impenitent actually scoff at religion, we must look at this word, so often selected by Solomon, as meaning that practical scorn, by which men, who profess to respect the Gospel, show it the practical contempt of their worldliness.--_Miller._ The principle involved in the parable of the talents (Matt. xxv.) is embodied in the first intimation. The talents are in the first instance not won by the servant, but given by the master. So wisdom is specifically the gift of God (James i. 5). Those servants who use the talents well, are permitted to retain for their own use both the original capital and all the profit that has sprung from it; whereas he who made no profit is not allowed to retain the capital. Thus the Giver acts in regard to the wisdom which it is His own to bestow. The wisdom, with all the benefit it brings, is your own. Every instance of wise acting is an accumulation made sure for your own benefit. It cannot be lost. It is like water to the earth. The drop of water that trembled on the green leaf, and glittered in the morning sun, seems to be lost when it glitters in the air unseen; but it is all in safe keeping. It is held in trust by the faithful atmosphere, and will distil as dew upon the ground again, when and where it is needed most. Thus will every exercise of wisdom, though fools think it is thrown away, return into your own bosom, when the day of need comes round. Equally sure is the law that the evil which you do survives and comes back upon yourself. The profane word, the impure thought, the unjust transaction, they are gone like the wind that whistled past, and you seem to have nothing more to do with them. Nay, but they have more do with you. Nothing is lost out of God's world, physical or moral. When a piece of paper is consumed in the fire and vanishes in smoke, it seems to have returned to nothing. If it bore the only evidence of your guilt, you would be glad to see the last corner disappear before the officers of justice came in. All the world cannot restore that paper and read the dreaded lines again. The criminal breathes freely now no human tribunal can bring home his crime. But as the material of the paper remains undiminished in the mundane system, so the guilt which it recorded abides, held in