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Pro_31:26 She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue [is] the law of kindness.
Ver. 26. She openeth her mouth with wisdom.] Her mouth is not always open, but duly shut and discreetly opened - her words are few, true, and ponderous; the stream and current of her conference tends either to wisdom or kindness - that is, to duties either of piety or charity. The Jesuits forbid women to speak of God and his ways, either in good sort or in bad, and to meddle only with the distaff. But the good women in both Testaments, Abigail, Hannah, Esther, the Virgin Mary, Priscilla, Lois, &c., never heard of this new doctrine. Tatianus tells us that in the primitive Church every age and sex among the Christians were Christian philosophers; yea, that the very virgins and maids, as they sat at their work in wool, were wont to speak of God’s word. And Nicephorus writes that the Christians, even as they laboured or journeyed, were wont to sing psalms, and that thereby there was at a certain time a Jew converted. {a} It were surely a great grace, saith Lambert the martyr: if we might have the word of God diligently and often spoken and sung unto us in such wise that women and children might understand it. {b} Then should it come to pass that craftsmen should sing spiritual psalms sitting at their work, the husbandman at his plough, the good housewife at her wheel, as wisheth St Jerome.
And in her tongue is the law of kindness.] It is worthy the mark, saith the chronicler, {c} that Edward I and his grandson, Edward III, the best of our kings, had the two best wives, ladies of excellent virtue, that drew evenly with them in all the courses of honour that appertained to their side. The first of these Edwards being traitorously wounded while he was yet prince in the Holy Land, as they called it, by the poisoned knife of an assassin, the Lady Eleanor his wife extracted the poison with her tongue, licking daily, while her husband slept, his rankling wounds, whereby they perfectly closed, and yet herself received no hurt {d} So sovereign a medicine is a wife’s tongue, anointed with the virtue of kindness and affection.
{a} Hist. Eccles., lib. iii. cap. 37.
{b} Acts and Mon., fol. 1015.
{c} Dan, 262.
{d} Speed, 646; Cavid. in Middlesex, fol. 432.