The Place and Power of a Son

‘The Proverbs of Solomon. A wise son maketh a glad father but a foolinh son is the heaviness of his mother.” — x. 1.

JHE Proverbs of Solomon.” Hitherto, although the style has been in the main proverbial, there has been a large measure of connection and continuity in the argument. At this stage we enter a new section of the book. Here we touch the edge of a vast miscellaneous treasure, contrived or collected by Solomon, and transmitted in safe keeping down to our own day. It is like a heap of wheat; the grains are small, but they are many; they lie close together, and yet each is a separate whole; they are fair to look upon, and good for food.

The first proverb is a characteristic specimen of its kind. Every reader may see at a glance how its words and clauses are poised upon each other, so as both to condense and reiterate the sentiment, — both to retain it on the memory and impress it on the mind. “A wise son maketh a glad father.” Do you hear this, young man 1 It is in your power to make your father glad, and God expects you to do it. Here is an object for your ambition; here is an investment that will insure an immediate return. Come now, make your choice. Whether wrill you try to please these fools who banter you here, or to gladden your father’s heart that is yearning for you there 1 He loved you in your childhood, and toiled for you all the best of his days. He was proud of you when you promised well, and clings fondly to the hope that you will be something yet. These companions that come between you and him — what have they done for you, and what would they do for you to-morrow, if you were in distress1? They would desert you, and mind their own pleasures. They have never lost a night’s rest by watching at your sick bed, and never will. But your father — what has he done, and yet will do? The command of God to you is that you gladden that father, and not grieve him. Your conscience countersigns that command now. Obey.

In former lessons we found out where the root of wisdom lies — in the fear of the Lord: here is one of its sweetest fruits — A son’s wisdom is a father’s joy! Alas, how often do we see a son in manhood becoming a burden which a father must bear, instead of a support that his weary heart may lean upon! A heavier burden this than was the helpless child.

“A foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.” It is difficult to deal with this word. The conception is easy, and the examples manifold; but though it is easy to comprehend, it is hard to express it. It is an almost unutterable thing. A son who breaks his mother’s heart — can this earth have any more irksome load to bear! Foolish son, do you ever allow yourself to think that you are bruising the bosom which you lay upon when you were a helpless infant? It is not your mother only with whom you have to deal. God put it into her heart to love you, to watch over you night and day, to bear with all your waywardness, to labour for you to the wasting of her own life. All this is God’s law in her being. Her Maker and yours knew that by putting these instincts into her nature for your good, he was laying on her a heavy burden. But He is just: He intended that she should be repaid. His system provides compensation for outlay. There are two frailties — a frailty of infancy, and a frailty of age. God has undertaken, in the constitution of his creatures, to provide for both. Where are his laws of compensation written 1 The counterpart laws answer each other from two corresponding tablets, His own hand-work both, as the curse and blessing echoed and re-echoed alternate from the sides of Ebal and Gerizim, when first the Hebrews entered the promised land. One is written on the fleshly table of the heart, and the other on the table of the ten commandments — both, and both alike, by the finger of God, A mother’s love! You do not read in the Decalogue, “Mother, take care of your infant.” So deeply is that law graven on a mother’s heart, that God our Saviour compares to it His own everlasting love to His redeemed (Isa. xlix. 15). To that law the safety of infancy has been intrusted by the author of our being. The bed provided for the child is its mother’s breast. There is the provision for humanity’s first period of feebleness, and where lies the security for the next? It is partly in nature too; but it would appear that He who knows what is in man, would not confide to that instinct the care of an aged parent. He spoke the command from the mountain that burned with fire; He engraved that command on the tables of the covenant, “Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long.” There, foolish son, there is thy mother’s title to her turn of cherishing. You dare not dispute her right, and you cannot withstand her Avenger. There will be compensation. All God’s laws re-adjust themselves, and woe to the atoms of dust that are caught resisting, and crushed between their dreadful wheels! How much more perfect and uniform is the parent’s instinctive love than the child’s commanded obedience, may be seen in all the experience of life, and is well embodied in the Spanish proverb, “One father can support ten sons, but ten sons cannot support one father.”

I never knew a mother. I have been an orphan, almost from the first opening of my eyes. If at any time my mind breaks loose from sober submission to my lot, and wanders into wishes for what cannot be, the keenest longing of my heart is that I had a mother. One of the fountains of affection within me has been sealed up from my birth; I would fain have an object to let it flow upon. Oh, how sweet it must be to a son in his manhood strength to be the gladness of his mother! Foolish sons are compassing sea and land to obtain pleasure, and trampling under their feet untasted a pleasure stronger, sweeter far, even to nature, than that which they vainly chase.

Let sons who are not prodigal — who seem to be fairly doing their filial duty, remember that their time for that duty is short and uncertain. Let those who now love and cherish a mother much, love and cherish her more. Occupy the talent, lest it be taken. Be yet more tender of your mother while you have her, lest you suffer by unavailing regret when it is too late — lest there should be thorns in your pillow the first night you lie down, after her voice is silent, and her eyes closed.