seen through all the littleness and worthlessness of all these things in themselves, and yet not been able to grasp that which alone could give them an enduring value, or compensate for their absence. "Vanity of "vanities, all is vanity." Doubt can find a place even in the sacred books; despair even in the heart of inspired wisdom. But along with this unbelieving cynical distress, are other voices gradually getting the better. First there is the profound experience of human life, expressing itself in strains of wisdom so refined, so serious, as to belong rather to a modern age, than to that when the book was composed. "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a 'time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time 'to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and 6 6 " 1 a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to "laugh; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to "keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a "time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace." How many of the worst controversies and scandals which have beset the history of the Church would have been spared, if this doctrine of the wise man had been remembered, that there is a proportion in all things; that what is right at one time is wrong at another; that what is wisdom in one age is folly in another! But there are strains of a still higher mood. Amidst the darkest gloom, there come, from time to time, counsels from an entirely opposite quarter. Cheerfulness, resignation, the call to do our duty, however dreary and 1 Eccl. iii. 1-8. 66 66 uncertain the future-the more cheerfully and actively, as the future is more dreary and more uncertain: “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine "with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works. .. Live joyfully with the wife that thou lovest all "the days of the life of thy vanity; for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labors which thou "takest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth "to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor "device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, "whither thou goest." And the tone of the book, as it draws to the end, becomes at once more harmonious with itself and more serious. "Rejoice, O young man, "in thy youth " (this still is to continue), “but "know thou that for all these things God will bring thee "unto judgment. Remove sorrow from thy heart, and 'put away evil from thy flesh . . . yet remember thy "Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days "come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt 66 say, I have no pleasure in them." There is a deep solemnity, but there is no murmur, in the description which follows of the end which awaits us all. "Then "shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the "spirit shall return to God who gave it."8 But even this is not the end. There is a yet simpler and nobler summary of the wide and varied experience of the manifold forms of human life, as represented in the greatness and the fall of Solomon. It is not "vanity "of vanities," it is not "rejoice and be merry," it is not even "wisdom and knowledge, and many proverbs, and "the words of the wise, even words of truth." "Of "making many books there is no end, and much study "is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion 3 Ibid. xii. 7. Eccl. ix. 7-10. 2 Ibid. xi. 9, 10; xii. 1. "of the whole matter." For all students of ecclesiastical history, for all students of theology, for all who are about to be religious teachers of others, for all who are entangled in the controversies of the present, there are no better words to be remembered than these, viewed in their original and immediate application. They are the true answer to all perplexities respecting Ecclesiastes and Solomon; they are no less the true answer to all perplexities about human life itself. "Fear God, and "keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty "of man. For God shall bring every work into judg "ment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or "whether it be evil."1 1 Eccl. xii. 12, 13, 14. |