The Wicked are Chaff.-MAT. 3. 12. Chaff is light and easily carried away by the wind; such are sinners, light in their behaviour, and easily carried away by the wind of temptation and persecution. It is of little value, and therefore given over to the fire, Mat. 3. 12. A pound of wheat is worth a hundredweight of chaff; the husk, or chaff, however, is of use to the corn in protecting the grain, so the world sometimes. protects the good. Grown together with the wheat for a time, the flail in threshing separates it, so the Judgment Day will for ever divide the sheep from the goats, Mat. 25. The wicked are also compared to bad money, Jer. 6. 30; to bad fish, Mat. 13. 48; to moth-eaten clothes, Is. 50. 9; to wells without water, 2 Pet. 2. Bengal. The white ant, the cat, and the wicked spoil good things. Veman.-Profitless are some men, and what though they be born in the world, and what though they die ? Are not the white ants of the hillock born also, and do they not die also? Bengal.-'Tis but threshing the chaff, i.e., labour in vain. Tamul.-Though a kalam of chaff be pounded, it will not become rice. Veman.-Even the poison-nut and the bitter margosa are useful as drugs; but the unfeeling vile wretch is utterly unprofitable. Sanskrit. To address a judicious remark to a thoughtless man is a mere threshing of chaff. Cheerfulness.-PROV. 17. 13. China.-A hut of reeds with mirth therein is better than a palace with grief therein. Modern Greek.-A hungry belly has no ears. Tamul.-Food without hospitality is a medicine. 2 Cor. 9.7. Turk.-Vinegar given is sweeter than honey. The Body a Clay House crushed before the Moth. JOB 4. 19. These words were spoken by a spirit from the other world, who addressed Job at midnight. The grave is called the house appointed for all living, Job 30. 23. The body is compared to a house of clay which is easily swept away by torrents, the walls of which, owing to rents, are the abodes of snakes. Swallows make their houses of clay. Manu calls the body "a mansion with bones for its rafters and beams; such a mansion let the soul cheerfully quit, as a tree leaves the bank of the river, or as a bird leaves the branch of a tree; thus he has his body delivered soon from the ravening shark the world." In Arabia the houses in general are built of white clay, and covered with reeds. Their foundations are laid in the dust or sand, the country affording no firmer basis on which to build; they are exposed to all the accidents of that climate, such as violent winds, and large moving pillars of sand, called sand-floods, by which they are liable to be blown down, or overwhelmed and crushed to the ground, together with their inhabitants, unless they can effect a timely escape. These desolating calamities more generally begin about sunrise, and usually continue till towards evening; and thus men perish from the morning to evening, without any one regarding it. Robbers easily dig through the walls of houses of clay, as is the case very often in Bengal. Job 24. 16. The moth is a small insect which noiselessly and gradually eats through garments, though very feeble, Job 27. 18. The rich are no more spared than the poor, but it especially attacks things not kept clean, and does its works secretly, spoils by degrees; so God gives cleanness of teeth, the palmer worm, the pestilence, Amos 4. 8; the moth eats the inside when the outside is good, so Sampson said when his locks were gone, I will rise up, Judg. 19, 20; so the Jews, 2 Kings 15. Small insects are a great plague. In Arabia and parts of India people drink bad water, from which comes an egg that produces a worm in the body, from which often comes palsy, gangrene, death. The clothes-moth is of a white, shining, silver, or pearl colour. It is clothed with shells, fourteen in number, and these are scaly. This insect eats woollen stuffs; it is produced from a grey speckled moth, that flies by night, creeps among woollens, and there lays her eggs, which, after a little time, are hatched as worms, and in this state they feed on their habitation, till they change into a chrysalis, and thence emerge into moths. The young moth, or moth-worm, upon leaving the egg which a papilio had lodged upon a piece of stuff, commodious for her purpose, finds a proper place of residence, grows and feeds upon the nap, and likewise builds with it an apartment, which is fixed to the groundwork of the stuff with several cords and a little glue. From an aperture in this habitation the moth-worm devours and demolishes all about him; and when he has cleared the place, he draws out all the fastenings of his tent; after which he carries it to some little distance, and then fixes it with the slender cords in a new situation. This perishing condition of a moth-eaten garment, as also of the insect itself, is referred to in Isa. 51. 6, 8: "The earth shall wax old as doth a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner." He who builds his fortunes by methods of injustice is by Job 27. 18 compared to the moth, which, by eating into the garment wherein it makes its habitation, destroys its own dwelling. The structure referred to is that provided by the insect, in its larva or caterpillar state, as temporary residence during its wonderful change from a chrysalis to a winged insect. C Urdu.-The body is a skin filled with wind. Bengal.-Plastering an old hut. Tamul.-The body is an inscription on water. The Wicked are Clouds without Water.-JUDE 12, 13. Wicked like clouds without water in four points :Clouds without water may be of some use in giving shade, but they do not fertilize the land, which full clouds, called the bottles of Heaven, Job 38. 37, do; they are empty, and easily carried away, as is seen in famines in India arising from droughts; they darken heaven, hence the day of the Lord is called clouds and darkness, when storms and lightning arise; the clouds are God's chariot, and He holds the winds in His fist, Prov. 30. 4. Christ is the bow in this cloud, as he was the pillar of cloud in the wilderness, the guide of His people, which had a dark side to the enemy and a bright one to friends. Clouds are sometimes very beautiful, but useless so a bad A Boaster like Clouds without Rain.-PROV. 25. 14. Such were the builders of Babel, Gen. II. 4–9. Bengal.—A pedlar in ginger getting tidings of his ship. Syriac.-Mount not a horse which does not belong to youi.e., boast not of an art you are ignorant of. Tamul.-He is on foot, his words are in a palankin. Tamul.—If a low-bred man obtain wealth he will carry an umbrella at midnight. Bengal. A devotee of yesterday, with matted hair down to his heels. Tamul.-A gold vessel does not sound, a brass one does. Bengal. A truly wealthy man, one plough to seven tailless oxen. Russian. Boast of the day in the evening, Jas. 4. 13. Sanskrit. The little fish splashes in even a mouthful of water. Arab.-A learned man without work is a cloud without rain. The Fickle like the Morning Cloud and Early Dew.Hos. 6. 4. The Lalita Vistara compares life to an autumnal cloud. The Shanti Shatak says: "As the lightning by its flashes merely drives away the darkness for an instant, so are those who decide for a while to root out sensual desires from their minds." The morning cloud is very beautiful with its golden hues, and colours shifting and changing every minute. Early in the morning every blade is glistening with the early dew, and the light clouds are painted with all those gorgeous colours by which they seem to prepare themselves for the return of their absent king, the sun! Thus beautiful is early piety, as in Samuel's and Timothy's case, though it did not pass away. But how soon do those hues and those jewels of the early morning pass away! Long before the sun has attained his meridian height, the sky has become cloudless, and the parched land seems in vain to thirst for the refreshing dew and the kindly shower. While in Egypt it rains sometimes only once in two years, were it not for the dews of night and inundations of the river, all vegetation would perish. Peter's resolution not to deny Christ passed away as a morning cloud before the sun of temptation; so did Judas's before the sun of gold. Telugu.-Like the post fixed in the mud, which swings to and fro. China.-Who stands still in mud sticks in it. Telugu.-Waking the master, giving the thief a stick. A Forgiving Spirit as Coals of Fire on an Enemy's Head.-PROV. 25. 21, 22. Metal is difficult to melt placed on the top of a fire of burning coals; it may be placed at the sides, still |