The true prudence
I. IN THE PARENTAL RELATION. (Proverbs 19:18.)
1. The necessity of discipline. The exuberance of youth needs the hand of the pruner; the wildness of the colt must be early tamed, or never. Weak indulgence is the worst unkindness to children.
2. The unwisdom of excessive severity. Cruelty is not discipline; too great sharpness is as bed as the other extreme. Children are thus made base, induced to take up with bad company, and to surfeit and run to excess when they become their own masters.
II. IS THE RELATION OF SELF-GOVERNMENT.
1. The folly and injuriousness of passion. (Proverbs 19:19.) Not only in the harmful deeds and words it may produce towards others, but in the havoc it produces in one's own bosom. How fine the saying of Plato to his slave, "I would beat thee, but that I am angry"! "Learn of him who is meek and lowly of heart."
2. The wisdom of a teachable spirit. (Proverbs 19:20.) Never to be above listening to proffered advice from others, and to find in every humiliation and every failure an admonition from the Father of spirits,—this is life wisdom. And thus a store is being laid up against the time to come, that we may lay hold on eternal life.
III. PRUDENCE BUT A FINITE WISDOM. (Proverbs 19:21.) God is our best Counsellor; without him our prudence avails not, and along with all prudence there must be the recognition of his overruling, all-controlling wisdom. To begin with God is the true secret of success in every enterprise. May he prevent, or go before, us in all our doings!—J.