You will easily remark the difference of tone between the seriousness and pathos of the Hebrew prophet and the light and chaffing touch of Theophrastus.  “The Flatterer is a person,” says that satirist of Greek society, “who will say to you as he walks with you, ’Do you observe how people are looking at you?  This happens to no man in Athens but to you.  A fine compliment was paid you yesterday in the Porch.  More than thirty persons were sitting there when the question was started, Who is our foremost man?  Every one mentioned you first, and ended by coming back to your name.’  The Flatterer will laugh also at your stalest joke, and will stuff his cloak into his mouth as if he could not repress his amusement when you again tell it.  He will buy apples and pears and will give to your children when you are by, and will kiss them all and will say, ‘Chicks of a good father.’  Also, when he assists at the purchase of slippers he will declare that the foot is more shapely than the shoe.  He is the first of the guests to praise the wine and to say as he reclines next the host, ‘How delicate your fare always is’; and taking up something from the table, ‘Now, how excellent that is!’” And so on.  Yes, we have heard it all over and over again in Modern Athens also.  The Greek fable also of the fox and the crow and the piece of cheese is only another illustration of the truth that the God of truth and integrity never left Himself without a witness.  Our own literature also is scattered full of the Flatterer and his too willing dupes.  “Of praise a mere glutton,” says Goldsmith of David Garrick, “he swallowed what came.  The puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame.”  “Delicious essence,” exclaims Sterne, “how refreshing thou art to poor human nature!  How sweetly dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous passages to the heart.”  “He that slanders me,” says Cowper, “paints me blacker than I am, and he that flatters me whiter.  They both daub me, and when I look in the glass of conscience, I see myself disguised by both.”  And then he sings: 

   “The worth of these three kingdoms I defy
   To lure me to the baseness of a lie;
   And of all lies (be that one poet’s boast),
   The lie that flatters I abhor the most.”

Now, praise, which is one of the best and sweetest things in human life, so soon passes over into flattery, which is one of the worst things, that something must here be said and laid to heart about praise also.  But, to begin with, praise itself must first be praised.  There is nothing nobler than true praise in him who speaks it, and there is nothing dearer and sweeter to him who hears it.  God Himself inhabits the praises of Israel.  All God’s works praise Him.  Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me.  Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion.  Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.  Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders;