frankly their perplexities, and then to give a course of lectures on the general subject of these "Difficulties." The lectures were given to crowded houses on Sunday evenings, one in each month, for two successive seasons. It has been thought that good might be done by publishing selections from these lectures. A few of them have been taken, and the style somewhat changed from the spoken to the written form. The aim has been to give the results of careful study without the processes, to be as accurate in the statement of facts as if the work were to be used as a text-book, and yet to keep in mind the class of young men for whom it is designed. Every chapter, without an exception, has grown out of an actual conversation held with some young friend, or else out of some letter or message received from him. When delivered as lectures the author received repeated thanks from individuals to whom they were helpful. It is his prayer that God may make this little volume a blessing to those who read it. I CHAPTER I. THE YOUNG MAN'S BOOK. T is told of a certain publisher that he was in despair because a rival firm had issued so many excellent and successful books of advice to the young. He confided his perplexity to a friend. That friend advised him to select the finest paper and the clearest type, and then to reprint that book of the Bible known as "The Proverbs of Solomon" under the new and startling title of "Counsels for Young Men by a King." Whether the advice was followed, and whether if followed the venture was successful as a business speculation, is not known. But this is certain that if some would be disappointed at their first opening of such a volume, on further reading they would be compelled to admit that the old book was new, and that the new book * : was the freshest and richest of all the many volumes addressed to young men. in Solomon had the advantage of knowing thọroughly of the things about which he wrote. The son of a king, inheriting wealth, with princely tastes, with a love for learning, and a natural shrewdness in dealing with men, with manners courtly, elegant person, a close observer of all the things and all the men about him, he gathered up the wise sayings of the ages, and passing them through the mint of his own mind, he issued them, newly coined, for the moral and social and spiritual currency of all the world. The Psalms of David his father were for closet use and for temple service on the Sabbath. The Proverbs of Solomon, the son, were for out of door life on all the weekdays of the year. David helps us sing and pray, but Solomon tells us how to live wisely when the prayer and the worship are ended. His proverbs are the condensed and portable wisdom of the ages. The versatility of the author is amazing. He seems to have listened to the prattling of childhood and to the whispered accents of youthful lovers; to have put himself into sympathy with the trader in his store and the wife in her home, with the priest at the temple altar and the beggar at the temple gate; to have heard the |