4 Hear, O sons, a father's instruction,
and be attentive, that you may gain insight,
2 for I give you good precepts;
do not forsake my teaching.
3 When I was a son with my father,
tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,
4 he taught me and said to me,
“Let your heart hold fast my words;
keep my commandments, and live.
5 Get wisdom; get insight;
do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.
6 Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
love her, and she will guard you.
7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.
8 Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honour you if you embrace her.
9 She will place on your head a graceful garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.”
The words 'love her' in 6 raise an important consideration. In the course of learning any discipline, there is a stage at which the predominant awareness is of necessity that of hard slogging, and duty rather than delight is the keynote. In the early stages of lan- guage study, the hard chore of learning the construction of Latin verbs can be irksome and discouraging. It is only much later that the beauty and cadences of Virgil's hexame- ters captivate the mind, so that we sit down with the Aeneid and read it with the same delight that we experience with Wordsworth or Browning. It is like this also learning to play the piano: the early years of practice can be so much drudgery, with very little to show for it, but there comes a time when things become very different, and the hard slog to attain proficiency gives way to a new experience. Suddenly we are into wide open spaces, and a new world of enchantment and delight. This is certainly true also in spiri- tual life: we graduate, and come of age. And this is what this father desires for his son, in these verses. A word of qualification may perhaps be added here however, from a pas- toral point of view. Sometimes the delight in spiritual realities can fade, or be occluded for a season. What is one to do in such a situation? It does not mean that there has been spiritual backsliding, it may be that physical exhaustion and weariness have caused the condition, or depression, or some other such condition. But whatever the cause; the, prescription is plain and clear: it is our duty to maintain open lines of communication with the Lord, and in the fulfilment of duty (however little like it we may on occasion feel) peace can come; and duty will once again ultimately lead us into delight. This is something very important for us to learn in spiritual life.