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"A wise man’s heart is on his right hand; but a fool’s heart is at his left.”—Eccles. 10:2 HAVE always supposed that a man’s heart was on his left side, but here the Preacher declares that, if a man be wise, his heart is that is the side of honor. From time immemorial it has been the custom to place one we would compliment at our right. To carry the heart-life there, therefore, is to elevate and exalt it. The right hand is also the hand of power and command. With people physically normal the left hand is al ways weaker than the right. The ex hortation is that we put our spiritual life where it can exercise its sway over us.
on his right side. Does this mean that religion makes a man abnormal, re versing the natural order of things? Or is this a physiological mistake of the ancient author, one of the “Bible Blunders” that some people are fond of talking about? Neither. Does it not go without saying that reference is made here not to one’s physical, but to one’s spiritual heart? And what is that? A kingdom which comprises several constituent provinces. The Bible sometimes calls the mind the heart. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” It speaks of the will also as if it were the heart. “Keep thine heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” It refers to the con science as being the heart. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.” And the seat of the affections is likewise spoken of as being the heart. “Did not our heart burn within us while He ■ talked with us by the way?” All four of these departments of our being en ter into what the Preacher calls the heart. “Unite my heart to fear Thy name,” the Psalmist prays, and when it is thus united it is what we com monly speak of as the soul, or a man’s spiritual natui-e. It is this that a wise man wears at his right side. But why the right side? Because 1 Preached a t Immanuel P resbyterian Church, Los Angeles, December 6, 1914.
The right hand, again, is the hand of dexterity and achievement, which we wield the more readily and effect ively. By putting our heart, then, at our right hand, we shall have it where we can easily get at it and make use of it. The purport of this characteristic of a wise man thus becomes very clear. The man who carries his heart on his right hand, in a word, is one who keeps it in evidence, in use and in com mand. How many are thus wise? Eet us take a census. 1. The number of left-handed busi ness men, I fear, is out of all propor tion. I meet but few who are doing what a man told me some time ago was his life work. It was not cant, but the honest humble reply of one who was unmistakably a man of God. “What is your business?” I inquired of him; arid he immediately replied: “My business is serving the Lord, and I practice law incidentally for a live lihood.” If every Christian business man could say that, what a complete change the commercial world would undergo. How differently our clerks
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