Holding aloof from evil
I. THE FOOL. (Proverbs 23:9.) There is "a time to keep silence." Truth may be desecrated in certain company by speech and honoured by silence. Pearls are not to be cast before swine. The silence of Christ was equally eloquent with his words. How much does the sentence convey, "He answered hint never a word"! Beyond a certain point explanations are worse than useless; the caviller only takes them as food for his folly and encouragement to his perversity.
II. THE OPPRESSOR. (Proverbs 23:10.) The property of the widow and the fatherless is in the protection of the Almighty. He is the Eternal Vindicator of down-trodden right. In the bright evangelical picture of conduct it is the very opposite of violence and oppression to the weak that is held up for our emulation: "To visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction." And the negative side is, in one word, "to keep one's self unspotted from the world."—J.