I. THE WAY IN WHICH IT ACTS AS A PRESERVATIVE.

1. By taking up a central place in the consciousness. "When wisdom enters thy heart, and knowledge is dear to thy soul." Not as a stranger or mere guest, but a beloved and confidential intimate. The heart denotes here, as elsewhere, "the centre and organic basis of the collective life of the soul, the seat of sentiment, the starting point of personal self-determination." The soul, as used by Hebrew writers, denotes the entire assemblage of the passive and active principles of the inner life. Delitzsch terms the heart, as used in the Bible, "the birthplace of thought;" and thin is true, because thought springs out of the dim chaos of feeling as the defined crystals from the chemical mixture.

2. By counteractive force. If the inmost thing we know and feel be a sense of right and a sense of God, a pure sentiment and a lofty idea, this must exclude the baser feelings, and displace the images of pleasure and objects of desire which are unlawful and undivine. Them is watch and ward in the fortress of Man-soul against the enemy and the intruder. The "expulsive force of a new affection" operates. It is the occupied heart that alone is temptation proof. "Discretion shall watch over thee, prudence guard thee." The mind, directed to what is without, and feeling for its course among uncertainties, thus appears forearmed against dangers.

II. THE DANGERS FROM WHICH IT PRESERVES. Social dangers. In society lies our field of full moral development, both in sympathy with the good and in antipathy to the evil. Two dangers are particularized.

1. The influence of the bad man. We know men by their talk and by their actions - their habit in both; their "style," their "form," in the expressive language of the day.

(1) His talk is of "froward things," or "perversities" - cunning, crafty, malicious in spirit (ver. 12). Literally it is crooked talk, which is a relative term - the direct opposite of the "straightness" of ver. 9 being meant. Our moral intuitions appear in the mind under the analogy of relations in space, and are thus designated probably in all languages. The right line and the curve or zigzag represent what we feel about good and evil in conduct. The speech of evil insinuation, covert suggestion, bad tone, generally may be meant; or perhaps, rather, guilty topics of conversation. The East is more leisurely in its habits than are we; and the warning has peculiar adaptation to the unfilled hours of an easy life, and which bad talk so often wastes and corrupts.

(2) His habit of life. He forsakes the "straight paths" to walk in "dark ways," such as those alluded to by St. Paul (Romans 13:13; Ephesians 5:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:5). In the like sense that darkness is antipathetic to us, is moral evil (hence its appropriateness as an emblem); we may overcome the feeling partially, but only by doing ourselves a violence. It is a step further in self-perversion to "take pleasure in the execution of evil, and to make merry over wickedness." Human nature demands sympathy; the most depraved cannot do without it or the semblance of it. We are always craving the sight of that which reflects us; hence the sight of evil gives joy to the bad man, the sight of good enrages him. For he is a deformity. His ways are crooked, twisted all his mode of mind and life; a moral deformity. The conscience, armed with the healthy perception of the true, beautiful, and good, sees all this in the bad man, recognizes him for what he is, and so is proof against him. One great lesson of Goethe's 'Faust' is that the tempted man does not see the devil in human shape, because his moral temper has been first unstrung, and so his vision vitiated.

2. The solicitations of the bad woman. The expressions, "strange, foreign" (ver. 16), appear to designate her as the wife of another, an adulteress (comp. Proverbs 6:26; but the sense is disputed). To allegorize the passage is to weaken its force; for the actual dangers of youth are clearly indicated. She is depicted in the strongest light of reality. This is what she is in the view of the inspired conscience.

(1) Her infidelity to her husband and her God (ver. 17). For marriage is a bond, not only between two human beings, but between each and God. Affiance is the glory of womanhood; to break her plighted troth is to wreck all her true charm and beauty. "Companion of her youth" is a beautiful designation of the husband (Jeremiah 3:4; Psalm 55:14).

(2) Her dangerous arts. Oh, what can replace a youth defiled? or what more dangerous influence can there be than that of her whose "hatred is goaded by shame" - hatred against the virtue which confronts to reproach her? Her smooth tongue, flattering her victim with simulated admiration, and with the "hypocrisy of passion," is more deadly than the sword.

(3) Her deadly seductions. Death, the kingdom of the shades, the ghosts who lead, according to the view of the ancient world, a faint and bloodless existence below, is the end of her and the partakers of her sins. To Sheol, to Hades, the bourne whence no traveller returns, the steps of all her visitors tend. Her house seems ever to be tottering over the dark abyss. The truth held in this tragic picture is too obvious to need further illustration. Fatal to health of body, to peace of soul, to the very life itself, is the zymotic disease of lust. To the religious conscience thus the harlot appears; stripped of her paint and finery, her hypocrisy exposed, the poison of her being detected. It is the shadow of a life, and ends in emptiness, darkness, and ghostly gibbering. - J.

1. Their character. Their speech is corrupt. Their habit is corrupt. Their heart is corrupt. Their influence is corrupt.

2. Their peril. The spell of lust palsies the grasp of her victims. Everything dies under the influence of wickedness — self- respect, spiritual sensibility, mental freedom, the freshness, the vigour, and the beauty of life.

3. Their doom. They are rooted out from the esteem of the good, from the sphere of improvement, from the realm of mercy, and from the domain of hope.

II. THE ANTIDOTE. Wickedness is terribly powerful, but wisdom is mightier. Its mightiness in man, however, depends upon its right reception.

1. Wisdom guards the innocent. The way to keep out evil is to fill the soul with goodness.

2. It delivers the fallen. Heavenly wisdom in the soul is the only soul-redemptive force.

3. It guides the redeemed. Like the star to the mariner, it this wisdom shine within us it will guide us safely over the voyage of life.

(David Thomas, D.D.)