indicated must be computed so as to be sufficient for the payment of benefits and the expenses of administration of the association and the necessary reserves.

The principal questions raised by this suggested organization are whether there should be a central state organization, or a system of state supervised local and trade administration embodied in the proposed provisions; and if local and trade administration is to be adopted, whether combined committees representing employers and employees would obtain more practical results than a plan whereby the employers would pay for and manage the sickness care, and the employees the cash benefits?

Conclusion. I believe I have given you a sufficient outline of health insurance legislation to indicate at least the main problems connected with a system of compulsory health insurance. Perhaps also I have called to your attention enough facts connected with sickness among wage workers to justify the statement that no constructive social legislation is of more immediate practical importance than that which will embody some plan to relieve the working men and women of America from the ever present dread, not of sickness, but of the consequences of sickness, which are poverty and destitution.

SOME NOTES ON THE WISDOM LITERATURE OF

THE BIBLE

BY JOSIAH H. PENNIMAN

Vice-Provost of the University and Professor of
English Literature

What I shall endeavor to present to you today is not the consideration of any single topic but rather some thoughts on several topics connected with the study of certain portions of The Bible.

One of the most interesting of the many kinds of literature included in The Bible is that to which has been given the general title of Wisdom, or in Hebrew, Hokmah (non). In The Bible, including the Apocrypha, examples of Wisdom literature are found in Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom of Solomon, and in such works as the Sermon on the Mount, the Epistle of James, and such Psalms as the 49th and 104th, 139th. Psalms 14, 58, and 82 are gnomic poetry.

All wisdom is conceived of as coming from God, who imparts it to men. The efforts of men to understand God, and their own environment and experiences are expressed in the Wisdom books, an examination of which will show that, in general, the writer of Wisdom conceived of himself as bearing to his message a different relation from that borne by the Prophet to his message. The former speaks to this effect, "Hear me and I will tell you the results of my experience and observation," the latter, "Hear ye the word of the Lord" or "Thus saith the Lord." In the Wisdom books we have discussions of many problems of this life upon which experience throws light. We have the formulation of the results of this experience for the instruction of others, especially of the young by the old. The Wisdom books contain therefore "teachings," and in this connection

it is significant to note that at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount:

"the multitudes were astonished at his teaching, for

he taught them as one having authority, and not as
their scribes."-Matthew 7:28-29.

The purposes of life, how to obtain happiness, the relation of man to God, and of God to man, the relation of man to his neighbor, the connection between virtue and prosperity, between sin and adversity, these and other questions are discussed by the writers of Wisdom. Man desires definite beliefs by which he can with certainty regulate his life. What are those beliefs, and of them, which is the central all-important one? The result of man's thought is that goodness, manifested in various ways, is pleasing to God and therefore indissolubly connected with happiness, and that sin is displeasing to God, and indissolubly connected with unhappiness-but actual observation reveals the sufferings of good men, apparently without cause, and the apparent prosperity of bad men seems at variance with all ideas of justice here. The problems arising from such considerations are very clearly stated in the Bible.

That God is just and that he makes no unreasonable demand upon men is an idea repeated in The Bible. Micah, 6:8, utters the words:

"What doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly,
and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy
God."

Similar words are in Deuteronomy, 10:12.

Isaiah said, 56:1:

"Keep ye justice and do righteousness; for my salva-
tion is near to come, and my righteousness to be
revealed."

Hosea said, 6:6:

"I desire goodness and not sacrifice; and the knowl-
edge of God more than burnt offerings."

Peter said, Acts, 10:34-35:

"Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of
persons but in every nation he that feareth him and
worketh righteousness is acceptable to him."

Paul said, I Corinthians, 10:13:

"God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted
above that ye are able; but will with the temptation
make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to
endure it."

Jesus said, Matthew, 22:37-40:

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This
is the great and first commandment And a second
like unto it is this. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. On these two commandments the whole
law hangeth and the prophets."

The practical test of your religion or righteousness is found in the way in which you treat other people.

26. If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he
bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this
man's religion is vain.

27. Pure religion and undefiled before our God and
Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in
their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from
the world.-James 1:26-27.

20.

He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen. -I John 4:20.

The prevailing tone of the Bible is that of hope, based on a belief in the justice and mercy of God. There is no sustained note of despair among the many writers who gave us the Bible; even the author of Ecclesiastes, after his apparent pessimism, saying, 8:12-13:

"Though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and pro-
long his days, yet surely I know that it shall be
well with them that fear God, that fear before him;