rubies. The heart of her husband trusteth in her, and he shall have no lack of gain. She doeth him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. . She riseth also while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household, and their task to her maidens. She layeth her hands

to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. Strength and dignity are her clothing; and she laugheth at the time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and the law of kindness is on her tongue. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children rise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her: Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."

The Hebrew wise men extol over and over again the blessings of contentment: "A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.” "Better is little with the fear of the Lord." "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." "Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.' Better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than a house full of feasting with strife."

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On the other hand, they were naturally very severe against boastful arrogance: "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." "Put not thyself forward in the presence of the king, and stand not in the place of great men: for better is it that it be said unto thee, Come up hither; than that thou shouldst be put lower in the presence of the prince, whom thine eyes have seen." And then follows this sarcastic, and yet at the same time truthful advice: "Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbor hath put thee to shame."

Here are two proverbs which make one think of the sayings of Poor Richard: "The north wind bringeth forth rain: so doth a backbiting tongue an angry countenance." "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it shall return upon him.”

Equally pithy are these proverbs against yielding to hasty temper: "Lay thine hand upon thy mouth. For the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife."

The inestimable advantages of kindness and tact in our dealings with men and women have surely never been more beautifully depicted than in the following: "A soft answer turneth away wrath." "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in baskets of silver." "Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones."

Here are two short poems which littérateurs would rave over if they found them in Theocritus or Vergil: "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, the face thereof was covered with nettles, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I beheld, and considered well: I saw, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep' so shall thy poverty come as a robber; and thy want as an armed man."

The above is a picture of neglect and decay; here is its opposite: "Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds: for riches are not forever; and doth the crown endure unto all generations? The hay is carried, and the tender grass showeth itself, and the herbs of the mountains are gathered in. The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field; and there will be goats' milk enough for thy food, and for the food of thy household; and maintenance for thy maidens.”

Space will not permit us to comment on an injunction that makes us think of St. Francis of Assisi, "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast," or the stern and solemn warning against those who break the fifth commandment, "Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in the blackest darkness." These and many other subjects are handled with a rare incisiveness of touch that will forever appeal to those who appreciate

wise, witty, and pointed sayings, when they are presented to us by veritable "masters of sentences." We must note, however, that the book of Proverbs is remarkably rich in humor, though few people realize this, owing to their conviction that to read the Bible for literary enjoyment is somehow or other to belittle its unique power and authority. Fortunately a change for the better is slowly but surely penetrating the minds of Christian people everywhere, so that now, along with the devotional, there also goes the literary study of the Bible. That this will be a tremendous gain no one who has ever approached his Bible from this point of view will for a moment deny or question.

When we try to sum up the value of the writings of the Hebrew wise men in the book of Proverbs, we find that it is difficult to exaggerate it. The sages touch life at many points. They are concerned not with the future, but with the present. The judgment day of the Lord is not, as with the prophets, in the future, but in the present, and is daily sifting, sorting, testing the children of men. Life is a continual day of judgment. The fool is forever falling into folly. The scorner is constantly being beaten with stripes. Pride is perpetually falling into a ditch, and sloth is always feeling the teeth of want. In fact, there is hardly a social type that is not represented in the human comedy of the book of Proverbs. Change their dress and language, and to-day we meet with the same men and women as cheered or disgusted, bored or inspired the wise men of Jerusalem and Samaria. Human nature is about the same after all, and the sluggard, the drunkard, the fool, the thief, the practical joker, the whisperer, the talebearer are with us to-day. We ought surely, then, to be thankful that there is in the Old Testament one book which treats of these things. Life with the most of us is made up of a succession of commonplaces, and there is no work of literature, ancient or modern, that with more unerring judgment strips the mask from folly, or glorifies the simple, ordinary duties of everyday life than does the book of Proverbs.

But it may be objected that this Hebrew wisdom is en

tirely utilitarian; that it says, "Be honest, because it is the best policy." It cannot be denied that the maxims of the book of Proverbs can be read in a utilitarian sense; but it would be unjust to the Jewish sages to say that they were only worldly wise, and nothing more. Back of their utilitarianism was their faith in God. They could not escape the genius of their race. There was always present the thought of God who would apportion what was just to the righteous and to the wicked. And, while an agnostic can go to the book of Proverbs and find there a very arsenal of canny, shrewd, worldly-wise maxims, yet if he is unprejudiced he will also find on the part of the writers an unutterable conviction that there is a God in heaven who slumbers not nor sleeps.

One other feature of the book, and we are done. The Hebrew wise men and sages, in their poring over the beauty, majesty, and power of Wisdom, came at last to personify her as a glorious female figure, a very Jewish Minerva! In a picture, strikingly bold and graphic, we have the contrast between the "Strange Woman" and Wisdom. Both appear on the streets and cry, but the pathway of one leadeth to Sheol, and the pathway of the other to life and joy.

Wisdom crieth aloud in the street,

She uttereth her voice in the broad places;
She crieth in the chief places of concourse;

At the entering in of the gates,

In the city, she uttereth her words:

How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?

And scorners delight them in scorning,

And fools hate knowledge?

Turn you at my reproof:

Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you,

I will make known my words unto you.

more precious than rubies: and none of the things that thou canst desire are to be compared to her. Length of days is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace!” GEORGE DOWNING SPARKS.

"ASTRÉE," THE FIRST FRENCH NOVEL.

THE renaissance of French fiction was later than that of French poetry or of French thought in other fields. A natural result of this is that when it came it was not, as the lyrics of the drama of the Pleiad had been, a classical revival, but it was made up from three main sources, Greek, Spanish, and Italian. The nature of these influences and of their first manifestations in France must be briefly considered before we can rightly estimate the first significant work of literary art in which they were combined, the "Astrée" of Urfé, whose first volumes appeared in the same year as Beroald de Verville's "Moyen de Parvenir" (1610), and from which it is customary and in a sense justifiable to date the beginning of the independent and unbroken evolution of French fiction.

This backward glance at the obscure origins of the "Astrée" has been made clear for us by the admirable, clear, and systematic work of Heinrich Koerting, in his introduction to his "History of the French Novel in the Seventeenth Century." The works that he has examined are in large part unattainable in America, and for the rest intrinsically dreary. I have been glad to rely in large measure on his statements, and have found very little elsewhere with which to supplement them. Indeed, this may be said for the entire period which he has covered, in which he is distinctly superior in knowledge and sagacity to the few Frenchmen who have followed him. Brunetière and Lanson are here less happy than usual, and the monograph of Lebreton on the French novel in the seventeenth century contains little that he might not have learned from his German predecessor, to whom I wish to express once more my constant debt for information and suggestion.

The foreign elements out of which the French ideal pastoral and chivalrous novel was to grow begin to show themselves first in the translation into French of the Spanish