Proverbs 17

Proverbs 17:17

Friendship A friend loveth at all times, And a brother is born for adversity.—Proverbs 17:17.We were not made to live alone; God meant us to have friends.You must have noticed that even a baby—it may be your own little sister—singles out the people she likes best. Even if she could speak, I believe she would only give you a puzzled look if you asked her why she always wanted to be with certain individuals. She could not tell what she felt about them. With her it is just a case of—“I cannot understand: I love.”Friendship is an old story in the world. A Greek scholar wrote about it, Cicero composed a book on the subject, and some of you who are old enough to be looking into Bacon’s Essays may have noticed one on Friendship.Friendship will mean a great deal to you boys and girls. You know that people go into the other world alone; but through life everyone likes to be beside somebody, and that somebody is a friend.

It would feel strange to you, would it not, to have to go to school “year in, year out,” and never know what it was to have a “chum”? What could equal those walks home in the afternoon?

Your chum sometimes says little or nothing, you have no desire for him to speak; but you understand each other, and that is what matters.It makes all the difference if your friend is good and straight. Unfortunately the wrong kind of friends are often the most entertaining. They keep saying things that make you laugh, they give smart answers, they seem clever. But in the talk that makes you laugh today there may be evil tomorrow.There was once a very clever boy who went to school in Ayrshire. No one guessed how full of beautiful thoughts his mind was, or what a tender heart he had. When he grew old enough to hold the plough, he could not damage the nest of a little field mouse without feeling sorry.

But he made friends with a boy who did him harm; his conversation and the thoughts that it suggested made Robert Burns forget his better self. Afterwards, when life had become sad for him, Burns, referring to this companion, wrote in one of his letters, “His friendship did me a mischief.”We cannot always be suspicious of those we meet; but should a companion ever utter words you would not like your mother to hear, it is time to ask, “Will he be a good friend?

Is it safe for me to keep company with him?” A school friend must be a comrade in more senses than one. He marches with you; your hearts, in a sense, beat as one.I am suspicious of the boy or girl who has no friends. Napoleon is spoken of as a great man, but never as one who was loved. “He only,” said one of his courtiers who went to St. Helena with him, “cares for those from whom he expects some service.” Napoleon had no friends, for the friends of his youth were dead; and in the days of his power he had denied himself the solace and strength of friendship. “I have made courtiers; I have never pretended to make friends,’ he would say. No wonder one who was often near him at St. Helena said, “The Emperor is what he is; we cannot change his character.

It is because of that character that he has no friends, and so many enemies, and indeed that we are at St. Helena.”I spoke of having to enter the other world alone.

Do you think we can have no friend with us when at last we go? Many of you have come to love people whom you have never seen. You have heard what they have been to others, you have seen some of their letters. They were written perhaps to yourself. Things in those letters have given you courage, they have put an ambition in your heart to get to know this unseen friend better.In a short poem Browning speaks of such a friend, and the last line of it is—“What if this friend should happen to be God?”Boys and girls, God is the Friend who will be the “brother born for adversity.” He will stand by us in trouble. We need fear nothing—not even death— if we accept His offer of friendship.

Proverbs 17:22

A Good Medicine A merry heart is a good medicine.—Proverbs 17:22.I’m afraid you won’t find today’s text unless you are lucky enough to have a Revised Version of the Bible, because our text is given in another way in the Authorized Version. However, the boys and girls who have a Revised Version can look it up—they will find it in Proverbs 17:22—and the boys and girls who haven’t a Revised Version can easily remember it without reading it, for it is only seven words. “A merry heart is a good medicine.”Now I think I hear some of you saying, “Well, that’s too bad to speak to us about medicine from the pulpit! We know enough about medicine already. We know all the different kinds, and most of them are horrid. There’s the powdery kind that is always worst when you get to the bottom of the glass; and there’s the fizzy kind that seems to go up your nose; and there’s the brown kind out of a bottle, and it looks nasty and tastes nastier; and there’s the clear kind also out of a bottle, and it doesn’t look so bad, but just try it!—it makes your face screw up, it’s so bitter; and there are the pills, and the little browny-black things, like the bits of sea-weed that you crack on the rocks, and they simply won’t swallow; and there are heaps of other kinds, and we hate them all, and, please, we’d rather do without.” Ah! but the medicine we are going to speak about today, the medicine of the merry heart, is a really truly nice medicine, and easy to take. And the best thing about it is that it is not only good for yourself, it is good for other people.1.

The medicine of the merry heart is good for yourself.—It is like a sunshiny day, it makes things easier. You know how it sometimes seems easy to be good on a fine day, when the sun is shining and everything else is shining too.

Why, the very flowers are brighter and sweeter when the sky is blue, and somehow, going to school, you can’t help jumping and skipping because everything is so lovely and it is good to be alive. And all day it is the same. Things go right without trying. It’s the other way round on a grey wet day, when the sky is cloudy, and everything is dripping, and the rain gets down the back of your neck or under your umbrella, and everything is uncomfortable, and things go wrong, you can’t tell how. Well, this medicine of the merry heart makes every day a sunshiny day. It helps you to get through your lessons quickly and it helps you not to stick at difficulties. It knows that difficulties are things specially made to be got rid of. It always makes the best of even a bad job.

It whistles or sings at its work, and it sees fun in everything.Have you ever heard the story of the six flies?Three of them were on the inside of the window-pane, and the room was warm and cozy—just as a fly likes it best—and they were buzzing around very pleased with themselves; but on the outside of the window were other three flies, and the day was cold and wet, and the raindrops were chasing each other down the pane, and these flies looked as if they ought to be thoroughly miserable. Said the three inside flies, in a, superior sort of way, “Poor things! We art sorry for you being outside in such a day.” “Don’t you worry!” replied the outside flies. “We’re having the time of our lives dodging these raindrops.” You see the outside flies had taken a good dose of the medicine of the merry heart.2. This wonderful medicine is good not only for yourself hut for other people.—That’s a strange thing, isn’t it? Suppose you are ill, and so is the little boy next door. You take a dose of medicine and it makes you better, but you don’t expect it to make little Master Next-Door well too.

Now, the extraordinary thing about the bottle labeled “merry heart” is that if you take it, it makes you well, and ever so many other people besides. It’s a sort of infectious medicine.

If you have it other people can’t help catching it from you. And that is what makes a merry heart so valuable, for a merry heart means happiness, and happiness is one of the most precious things in the world—more precious than silver or gold, or diamonds, or rubies. The whole world is seeking it, but money can’t buy it. There are rich people who are very, very poor because they haven’t got it, and there are poor people who are very, very rich because it is theirs.Isn’t it rather fine to think that you can give other people one of the most precious things in the world? Yes, you can; for the merry heart is always a kind heart and a generous heart. It forgets about itself and thinks of others.

It tries to share its happiness, and, strangely enough, the more happiness it tries to give away, the more it seems to have for itself. Just try the experiment, and see if that is not true.3.

I said that we could not buy a merry heart. Where then shall we get it? For of course we all want it now that we know how tremendously nice it is. What do we do if we want ordinary medicine? We mix up something for ourselves, or we ask the doctor to give us a special dose. Well, that is just how we must set about getting a merry heart. We can either make it for ourselves or we can ask the Good Physician to give it to us. The first kind of merry heart isn’t at all a bad kind, but the second is far and away better.

The first we can make by mixing together cheerfulness and determination. If we drink that mixture daily, we shall not do badly; for there is no doubt that if we make up our minds to be cheerful we can be cheerful. Just pull up the corners of your mouth, and make up your mind to smile whatever happens, and you will be astonished at the result.Ah! but the second kind is even better and surer,for it is given us by Christ Himself; and because it is His it can never fail. The drawback of the first kind is that it is apt to fail just when we want it most. But the merry heart which Christ gives us for the asking will never fail, for it is made up of love, and hope, and trust in Him. If we have that kind of merry heart nothing can harm us. We shall keep it safe through all life’s sorrows and dangers, till we lay it at last at the feet of Him who gave it to us.

Proverbs 17:24

The Eyes Of A Fool The eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.—Proverbs 17:24.That is a funny place to keep your eyes, isn’t it? They would not be much use to you there, and it would be very inconvenient to have them so far away. Yet that is just where a great many people keep their eyes, and the Wise Man calls those who do so “fools”What does the Wise Man mean when he talks about people keeping their eyes in the ends of the earth? Of course he doesn’t mean that they have taken them out and posted them in a little box, marked “Fragile— with care,” to Australia, or New Zealand, or China. No, he intends to tell us that foolish people look for the best things far away. They keep gazing far off and imagine that what they see there is far better than what is near, and so they miss the good things that are close beside them.Once upon a time there lived on the banks of the Indus, far away in India, a man whose name was El Hafed.

He owned a little farm, and he lived there very happily and contentedly with his wife and his children.But one day a Persian priest arrived at the farm, and he spoke of the wonderful diamonds which were to be found in a distant land. One of these, no bigger than his thumb, he said, was worth more than all El Hafed possessed.Now when El Hafed heard of these marvelous treasures, he made up his mind to go in search of them.

So he left his little farm, he left his happy home and his wife and children, and he set out into the big world to look for the jewels.On and on he wandered, always searching, but he never found the diamonds. After many years he came to the farthest verge of the Mediterranean, and there he died.One day the Persian priest returned to the little farm on the banks of the Indus. But El Hafed’s wife and children had left it long since, and it was now owned by strangers.As he lay resting on a couch his eye lit upon something that flashed and sparkled on a shelf, and he sat up in astonishment. Then he said, “Did El Hafed find the diamond after all, or how does that come to be there?”And the farmer told him that the wonderful gem had been found in the little brook which ran through the farm.There are at least three good things that, like El Hafed, people seek far off when they should look for them close at hand.1. The first good thing is beauty. Some people search for beauty in distant lands and strange places.Of course there is no harm in looking for it there.

God has made all His world beautiful, and He has given it to us to make us glad. But the mistake those people sometimes make is that they forget to look for beauty at their own door.Boys and girls, don’t make that mistake.

Beauty lies all around us if only we have eyes to see it—in the sunshine and the cloud; in the rainbow and the dew; in the golden glory of the sunset sky and the silver radiance of the moonbeams; in the sparkling brook and the flowing river and the surging sea; in the budding leaves of spring and the glowing tints of autumn; in the tall tree and the wayside flower; in the colors of an insect and the flight of a bird; and in your mother’s smile.Don’t look for beauty just in the far-away things or the grand things. Look for it in the little common things of everyday life. God has put just as much love and care into the making of a tiny wild-flower as into the creation of a rare orchid; and perhaps the reason why He gave us so many of the things we call “common” is just because He knew they were the things we needed most. Don’t keep gazing to the ends of the earth in search of the beauty you may never see. You will miss the beauty that lies all round you, and over you, and underneath you, and that is the beauty God means you to see.2. Another good thing that fools look for in the ends of the earth is duty.Perhaps you fancy that duty isn’t a very nice thing.

It makes you think of a lot of disagreeable tasks that have got to be done because they must. Well, it hasn’t got a very pleasant name, but all the same duty is one of the very best things in the world.

It is really a sort of fairy princess clad in a sober garment, and if it were not for duty the world would fall to pieces. Just try to imagine what the world would be like if everybody did as they pleased, and nobody did as they ought.Now, duty is a thing that a great many people look for in the ends of the earth. They sit and dream of the fine deeds they are going to do later, they think of the splendid heroes they will be, and all the time they are overlooking the little plain duties that lie close at hand.Boys and girls, the true heroes and heroines of life are those who do the commonplace daily tasks faithfully and well. Your duty is not the thing that is far away. It is the thing that is next you. Perhaps it is just learning a lesson, or helping your mother to dust a room or wash the dishes.

Perhaps it is drying your little sister’s tears, or tying up her cut finger, or going to cheer a sick friend. Perhaps it is just trying to be kind and patient when other people are cross.

But however humble it may be, it is the finest thing you can do, and you are never likely to do those big faraway things well unless you do your best with the little near ones.Remember Jesus lived thirty years in Nazareth,working in a carpenter’s shop, and serving His father and mother, and it was not until God called Him that He went out into the world to teach, and to heal, and to comfort. Some day God may call you also to larger service, and then, if you have been faithful in the little things, you will be ready to go.3. I want to speak of one other good thing that foolish people seek in the ends of the earth, and that is happiness.You often hear people saying, “Oh, if only I were like So-and-so, if only I had his money, or his brains, or his chances I should be happy.” Sometimes I have met boys and girls who fancied they would be happy if they had as many fine things, or as grand a house to live in, or as much money to spend as some other boy or girl they know. Well, they certainly would not be happy if they took their discontented nature with them.For listen. Happiness is not far away, but within the reach of all of us. It consists not in having the things you like, but in liking the things you have.

Mr. Carnegie, the billionaire, once said that he had known several billionaires, but he had never seen one of them laugh heartily; and it isn’t the abundance of things we have that makes us happy but the being contented with what we have got.Do you know the beautiful legend of how the forget-me-not came by its name?

The story tells of how a youth was walking one day on a mountain-side when he saw a little blue flower lying at his feet. He picked it up, and very soon after he came to a cave in the mountain-side.On entering the cave he saw that it was sparkling with gold and precious stones. Some of these lay about in heaps on the floor, and near them sat a beautiful lady who told him to help himself. You may be sure he was not long in obeying her, but in gathering the gems he let fall the little blue flower he had found.When he had filled all his pockets he turned to go, and the lady called to him, “Forget not the best.” He looked all round, but he could see nothing that he thought better than what he already had, so he went on towards the entrance of the cave. Just as he reached it a feeble voice cried, “Forget me not.” It was the voice of the flower he had found on the mountain-side, but the cry was so weak that he did not hear it, and the next moment, with a terrible roar, the rocks at the entrance to the cave closed behind him, cutting him off for ever from the treasure.The little flower he had found and despised led the way into the cave, and the loss of it closed the door for ever.Boys and girls, “forget not the best.” Contentment is the magic flower that opens the door into the treasure-cave of happiness. It is a common little wild-flower that anyone may gather, but it is more precious than gold or gems; for if you don’t possess it, you will never be able to enter the wonderful cave.