{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_29971/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_29971","id":"gutenberg_29971","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29971","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Ecclesiastes -- Meditations","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOLD GROANS\n\nAND\n\nNEW SONGS\n\nBEING\n\nMeditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes\n\n\n\n\nby\n\nF. C. JENNINGS,\n\nNEW YORK.\n\n\n\n\nGlasgow:\n\nPICKERING & INGLIS, PRINTERS & PUBLISHERS,\n\nThe Publishing Office, 73 Bothwell Street.\n\nLONDON:\n\nS. BAGSTER & SONS, LTD., 15 Paternoster Row, E.C\n\n\n1920\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nThe chief object of a word of preface to the following notes is that\nthe reader may not expect from them more, or other, than is intended.\nThey are the result of meditations--not so much of a critical as a\ndevotional character--on the book, in the regular course of private\nmorning readings of the Scriptures--meditations which were jotted down\nat the time, and the refreshment and blessing derived from which, I\ndesired to share with my fellow-believers.  Some salient point of each\nchapter has been taken and used as illustrative of what is conceived as\nthe purpose of the book.  As month by month passed, however, the\nsubject opened up to such a degree that at the end, one felt as if\nthere were a distinct need entirely to re-write the earlier chapters.\nIt is, however, sent forth in the same shape as originally written; the\nreader then may accompany the writer, and share with him the delight at\nthe ever-new beauties in the landscape that each turn of the road, as\nit were, unexpectedly laid out before him.\n\nThere is one point, however, that it may be well to look at here a\nlittle more closely and carefully than has been done in the body of the\nbook, both on account of its importance and of the strong attack that\nthe ecclesiastical infidelity of the day has made upon it: I refer to\nits authorship.\n\nTo commence with the strongest position of the attack on the Solomon\nauthorship--necessarily the strongest, for it is directly in the field\nof verbal criticism--it is argued that because a large number of words\nare found in this book, found elsewhere alone in the post-exilian\nwriters, (as Daniel or Nehemiah,) therefore the author of the book must\nsurely be post-exilian too.  It would be unedifying, and is happily\nunnecessary, to review this in detail--with a literature so very\nlimited as are the Hebrew writings cotemporary with Solomon: these few,\ndealing with other subjects, other ideas, necessitating therefore\nanother character of words, it takes no scholar to see that any\nargument derived from this must necessarily be taken with the greatest\ncaution.  Nay, like all arguments of infidelity, it is a sword easily\nturned against the user.  As surely as the valleys lie hid in shadow\nlong after the mountain-tops are shining in the morning sun, so surely\nmust we expect evidences of so elevated a personality as the wise king\nof Israel, to show a fuller acquaintance with the language of his\nneighbors; and employ, when they best suited him, words from such\nvocabularies--words which would not come into general use for many a\nlong day; indeed until sorrow, captivity, and shame, had done the same\nwork for the mass, under the chastening Hand of God, as abundant\nnatural gifts had done for our wise and glorious author.\n\nThus the argument of Zoeckler--\"the numerous Aramaisms (words of Syriac\norigin) in the book are among the surest signs of its post-exile\norigin\"--is really turned against himself.  Were such Aramaisms\naltogether lacking, we might well question whether the writer were\nindeed that widely-read, eminently literary, gloriously intellectual\nindividual of whom it is said, \"his wisdom excelled the children of the\nEast country and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than all\nmen.\"  Surely, that Solomon shows he was acquainted with words other\nthan his own Hebrew, and made use of such words when they best suited\nhis purpose, is only what common-sense would naturally look for.  There\nis no proof whatever that the _words themselves_ were of late date.\nChristian scholars have examined them one by one as carefully, and\ncertainly at least as conscientiously, as their opponents; and show us,\nin result, that the words, although not familiar in the Hebrew\nvernacular, were in widely-current use either in the neighboring\nPersian or in that family of languages--Syriac and Chaldaic--of which\nHebrew was but a member.\n\nThe verdict of impartiality must certainly be \"not proven,\" if indeed\nit be not stronger than that, to the attempt to deny to Solomon the\nauthorship of Ecclesiastes based on the _words_ used.\n\nThe next method of argument is one in which we shall feel ourselves\nmore at home, inasmuch as it is not so much a question of scholarship,\nbut ordinary intelligent discernment.  Time and space forbid that I\nattempt here a full or detailed exhibit of the sentences, thoughts,\nideas in the book itself which are taken as being quite impossible to\nKing Solomon.  I will, however, attempt to give a representative few\nthat may stand for all.  In the body of the book I have touched, in\npassing, on the argument deduced from the words in the first chapter,\n\"_I was king;_\" so need only to ask my readers' attention to it there.\n\nThat \"he says of himself that he was wiser and richer than all before\nhim in Jerusalem points, under enlightened exposition, clearly to an\nauthor different to the historical Solomon.\"  Indeed!  If my readers\ncan appreciate the force of such an argument, they do more than can I.\nThat the writer should seek that his words should have the full force,\nhis experiences have the full weight that could only attach to one in\nevery way gifted to test all things to their uttermost, is taken as\nclear proof, \"under unbiased exposition,\" that the only one who was\n_exactly thus gifted was not the author_!  The claim to freedom from\nbias is in almost ludicrous harmony with such reasoning.\n\nAgain, \"that also which is said--chap. vii. 10--of the depravity of the\ntimes accords little with the age of Solomon, the most brilliant and\nprosperous of Israelitish history.\"  Another lovely example of\nrationalistic \"freedom from bias\"!  For what is this that is said of\nthe \"depravity of the times\" so inconsistent with the glory of\nSolomon's reign in chap. vii. 10?  \"Say not thou, What is the cause\nthat the former days were better than these?  For thou dost not inquire\nwisely concerning this.\"  And this is proof of the \"depravity of the\ntimes\"!--not proof, mark, of just that very thing that is the heart and\nsoul of the book: the weary, unsatisfied, empty heart of poor man\nlooking backward or forward for the satisfaction that the present\nalways fails to give \"under the sun,\" and which he, who was wiser than\nall who came before him, Solomon, warns his readers _against_!  Oh,\npoor blind rationalism! missing all the beauties of God's Word in its\nown exceeding cleverness, or--folly!  How would the present application\nof such reasoning sound!  The Victorian era is certainly one of the\nmost \"brilliant and prosperous of\" English \"history\"; hence no one can\never speak now of \"the good old times.\"  Such language is simply\nimpossible; we never hear it!  So if some astute reasoner of the future\ncomes across such allusion in any writings, it will be clear proof that\nthe author was _post-Victorian_!  Far more so if, as here, such writer\n_rebukes_ this tendency!\n\n\"Altogether unkingly sound the complaints in chap. iii. 17 ('I said in\nmy heart God shall judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a\ntime there for every purpose and for every work'); iv.; x. 5-7 (let my\nreader refer for himself to these), concerning unjust judges,\" etc.\n\"These are all lamentations and complaints natural enough in a\nsuffering and oppressed subject; but not in a monarch called and\nauthorized to abolish evil.\"  It is most difficult to deal seriously\nwith what, if the writer were not so very learned, we should call\nnonsense unworthy of a child.  Look at the verse to which he refers,\nand which I have quoted in full; and extract from it, if your \"biased\"\njudgment will permit, an \"unkingly complaint\" in any word of it!  And\nit is at such formidable arguments as this that some of us have been\ntrembling, fearing lest the very foundations must give way under the\nattack!  A little familiarity is all that is needed to beget a\nwholesome contempt.\n\nHere is one more interesting illustration of the \"unbiased,\"\n\"scientific\" reasoning of rationalism.  The object is, you know, to\n\"determine exactly the epoch and writer of the book;\" and this is how\nit must be done.  \"According to chaps, v. 1, and ix. 2, the temple\nworship was assiduously practised, but without a living piety of heart,\nand in a hypocritical and self-justifying manner; the complaints in\nthis regard remind us vividly of similar ones of the prophet\nMalachi--chap. i. 6, etc.\"  What then is the basis for all this\nverbiage about the temple worship?  Here it is: \"Keep thy foot when\nthou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give\nthe sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.\"  This\nsentence shows that it is impossible that Solomon wrote the book: there\nwere no \"fools\" in _his_ time, who were more ready to give a careless\nsacrifice than to hearken: all fools only come into existence _after\nthe exile_, in the days of Malachi!  And this is \"higher criticism\"!\n\n\nEnough as to this line.  We will now ask our learned friends, since\nSolomon has been so conclusively proved not to have written it, Who\ndid?  And when was it written?  Ah, now we may listen to a very medley\nof answers!--for opinions here are almost as numerous as the critics\nthemselves.  United in the one assurance that Solomon could not have\nwritten it, they are united in nothing else.  One is assured it was\nHezekiah, another is confident it was Zerubbabel, a third is convinced\nit was Jesus the son of Joiada--and so on.  \"All opinions,\" as Dr.\nLewis says, \"are held with equal confidence, and yet in every way are\nopposed to each other.  Once set it loose from the Solomon time, and\nthere is no other place where it can be securely anchored.\"\n\nThis brings us then to the positive assertion that from the evident\npurpose of the book, the _divine_ purpose, no other than Solomon could\nbe its author.  He must be of a nation taken out of the darkness and\nabominations of heathendom;--there was only one such nation,--he must\nthen be an _Israelite_.  He must live at an epoch when that nation is\nat the summit of its prosperity;--it never regained that epoch,--he\nmust then have lived _when_ Solomon lived.  He must, in his own person,\nby his riches, honor, wisdom, learning, freedom from external political\nfears, perfect capacity to drink of whatever cup this world can put\ninto his hand to the full--represent the very top-stone of that\nglorious time; and not one amongst all the sons of men answers to all\nthis but _Solomon the son of David, king in Jerusalem_.\n\n\nTo Him who is \"greater than Solomon\"--to Him who is \"above the sun\"--to\nHim whom it is the divine purpose of the book to highly exalt above\nall--would I commit this feeblest effort to show that purpose, and, as\nHis condescending grace permits, further it.    F. C. J.\n\n\n\n\nOLD GROANS AND NEW SONGS;\n\nOR,\n\n_MEDITATIONS ON ECCLESIASTES._\n\n\nPerhaps there is no book within the whole canon of Scripture so\nperplexing and anomalous, at first sight, as that entitled\n\"Ecclesiastes.\"  Its terrible hopelessness, its bold expression of\nthose difficulties with which man is surrounded on every side, the\napparent fruitlessness of its quest after good, the unsatisfactory\ncharacter, from a Christian standpoint, of its conclusion: all these\npoints have made it, at one and the same time, an enigma to the\nsuperficial student of the Word, and the arsenal whence a far more\nsuperficial infidelity has sought to draw weapons for its warfare\nagainst clear revelation.  And yet here it is, embedded in the very\nheart of those Scriptures which we are told were \"given by inspiration\nof God, and which are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for\ncorrection, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may\nbe perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.\"  Then with this\nprecious assurance of its \"profitableness\" deeply fixed in our hearts\nby a living faith, and in absolute dependence on that blessed One who\nis the one perfect Teacher, let us consider the book.\n\nFirst, then, let us seek to get all the light we can from all the\nexterior marks it bears before seeking to interpret its contents.  For\nour primary care with regard to this, as indeed with regard to every\nbook in the Bible, must be to discover, if possible, what is the object\nof the book,--from what standpoint does the writer approach his subject.\n\nAnd first we find it in that group of books through which the voice of\nman is prominent--Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles.  In these is heard\nthe music of man's soul; often--nay, mostly--giving sorrowful and\nstriking evidence of discord, in wail and groan, in tear and sigh; and\nyet again, in response evidently to the touch of some Master hand, that\nknows it well,--a tender, gracious, compassionate touch,--rising into a\nsong of sweetest harmony that speaks eloquently of its possibilities,\nand bears along on its chords the promise and hope of a complete\nrestoration.  But we shall search our book in vain for any such\nexpression of joy.  No song brightens its pages; no praise is heard\namid its exercises.  And yet perfectly assured we may be that, listened\nto aright, it shall speak forth the praise of God's beloved Son; looked\nat in a right light, it shall set off His beauty.  If \"He turns the\nwrath of man to praise Him,\" surely we may expect no less from man's\nsorrows and ignorance.  This, then, we may take it, is the object of\nthe book, to show forth by its dark background the glory of the Lord,\nto bring into glorious relief against the black cloud of man's need and\nignorance the bright light of a perfect, holy, revelation; to let man\ntell out, in the person of his greatest and wisest, when he, too, is at\nthe summit of his greatness, with the full advantage of his matured\nwisdom, the solemn questions of his inmost being; and show that\ngreatness to be of no avail in solving them,--that wisdom foiled in the\nsearch for their answers.\n\nThis, then, we will conclude, is the purpose of the book and the\nstandpoint from which the writer speaks, and we shall find its contents\nconfirm this in every particular.\n\nIt has been well said that as regards each book in holy writ the \"key\nhangs by the door,\"--that is, that the first few sentences will give\nthe gist of the whole.  And, indeed, pre-eminently is such the case\nhere.  The first verse gives us who the writer is; the second, the\nbeginning and ending of his search.  And therein lies the key of the\nwhole; for the writer is the son of David, the man exalted by Jehovah\nto highest earthly glory.  Through rejection and flight, through battle\nand conflict, had the Lord brought David to this excellence of glory\nand power.  All this his \"son\" entered into in its perfection and at\nonce.  For it is that one of his sons who speaks who is _king_, and in\n_Jerusalem_, the city of God's choice, the beautiful for situation, the\njoy of the whole earth.  Such is the story of verse 1.  Nothing could\npossibly go beyond the glory that is compassed by these few words.  For\nconsider them, and you will see that they ascribe \"_wisdom_, and\n_honor_, and _riches_, and _power_\" to him of whom they are spoken; but\nit is human wisdom and earthly power, all \"under the sun.\"  And now\nlisten to the \"song\" that should surely accompany this ascription; note\nthe joy of a heart fully and completely satisfied now that the pinnacle\nof human greatness is attained.  Here it is: \"Vanity of vanities,\"\nsaith the Preacher, \"vanity of vanities; all is vanity!\"  The word\n_hahvehl_ is always translated, as here, \"vanity.\"  It is sometimes\napplied to \"idols,\" as Deut. xxxii. 21, and would give the idea of\nemptiness--nothingness.  What a striking contrast!  Man has here all\nthat Nature can possibly give; and his poor heart, far from singing, is\n_empty_ still, and utters its sad bitter groan of disappointment.  Now\nturn and contemplate that other scene, where the true Son of David,\nonly now a \"_Lamb as it had been slain_,\" is the center of every\ncircle, the object of every heart.  Tears are dried at the mention of\nHis name, and song after song bursts forth, till the whole universe of\nbliss pours forth its joy, relieves its surcharged heart in praise.\n\"Vanity of vanities,\" saith the Preacher.  That is the _old_ groan.\n\"Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, for\nThou wast slain, and hast redeemed to God by Thy blood, out of every\nkindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made them kings\nand priests, and they shall reign over the earth.\"  That is the _new_\nsong.  Oh, blessed contrast!  Does it not make Him who Himself has\nreplaced the groan by the song precious?  Has it, then, no value?\n\nAnd this is just the purpose of the whole book, to furnish such\nstriking contrasts whereby the \"new\" is set off in its glories against\nthe dark background of the \"old,\"--rest against labor, hope against\ndespair, song against groan; and so the third verse puts this very\nexplicitly,--\"What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh\nunder the sun?\"\n\nThe wisest and the greatest of men is seeking for an answer to this\nquestion.  And this verse is too important in its bearing on the whole\nbook to permit our passing it without looking at that significant word\n\"profit\" a little closer.  And here one feels the advantage of those\nhelps that a gracious God has put into our hands in these days of\nspecial attack upon His revelation, whereby even the unlearned may, by\na little diligence, arrive at the exact shade of the meaning of a word.\nThe word \"profit,\" then, is, in the Hebrew, _yithrohn_, and is found in\nthis exact form only in this book, where it is translated \"profit,\" as\nhere, or \"excellency,\" as in chap. ii. 13.  The Septuagint translates\nit into a Greek one, meaning \"advantage,\" or perhaps more literally,\n\"that which remains over and above.\"  In Eph. iii. 20 it is rendered\n\"exceeding abundantly above.\"  Hence we gather that our word intends to\nconvey to us the question, \"After life is over, after man has given his\nlabor, his time, his powers, and his talents, what has he received in\nexchange that shall satisfy him for all that he has lost?  Do the\npleasures obtained during life fully compensate for what is spent in\nobtaining them?  Do they satisfy? and do they remain to him as \"profit\"\nover and above that expenditure?  In a word, what \"under the sun\" can\nsatisfy the longing, thirsting, hungering heart of man, so that he can\nsay, \"My heart is filled to overflowing, its restless longings are\nstilled, I have found a food that satisfies its hunger, a water that\nquenches its thirst\"?  A question all-important, surely, and it will be\nwell worth listening to the experience of this seeker, who is fitted\nfar above his fellows for finding this satisfactory good, if it can be\nfound \"under the sun.\"\n\nFirst, then, the Preacher, like a good workman, takes account of what\nmaterial he has to work with.  \"Have I,\" he says, \"any thing that\nothers have not had, or can I hope to find any thing that has not been\nbefore?\"  At once he is struck with that \"law of circuit\" that is\nstamped on every thing: generation follows generation; but no new\nearth, _that_ remains ever the same; the sun wheels ceaselessly in its\none course; the winds circle from point to point, but whirl about to\ntheir starting-place; the waters, too, follow the same law, and keep up\none unbroken circuit.  Where can rest be found in such a scene?  Whilst\nthere is unceasing change, nothing is _new_; it is but a repetition of\nwhat has been before, and which again soon passes, leaving the heart\nempty and hungry still.  Again, then, let us use this dark background\nto throw forward another scene.  See, even now, \"above the sun\" Him who\nis the Head and perfect Exponent of the creation called the _new_.  Is\nthere any law of constant unsatisfying circuit in Him?  Nay, indeed,\nevery sight we get of Him is _new_; each revelation of Himself\nperfectly satisfies, and yet awakens appetite for further views.\n\n  \"No pause, no change those pleasures\n    Shall ever seek to know;\n  The draught that lulls our thirsting\n    But wakes that thirst anew.\"\n\n\nOr, again, look at that blessed \"law of circuit\" spoken of in another\nway by one who has indeed been enlightened by a light \"above the sun\"\nin every sense of the word, in 2 Cor. ix.  It is not the circling of\nwinds or waters, but of \"grace\" direct from the blessed God Himself.\nMark the perfection stamped upon it both by its being a complete\ncircle--never ending, but returning again to its Source,--and by the\nnumerical stamp of perfection upon it in its seven distinct parts (or\nmovements) as shown by the sevenfold recurrence of the word \"all,\" or\n\"every,\" both coming from the same Greek word.\n\n1.  \"God is able to make _all_ grace abound unto you.\"  There is an\ninexhaustible _source_.  We may come and come and come again, and never\nfind _that_ fountain lowered by all our drafts upon it.  Sooner, far\nsooner, should the ocean be emptied by a teacup than infinite \"power\"\nand \"love\" be impoverished by all that His saints could draw from Him.\n_All_ grace.\n\n2.  \"That ye _always_.\"  There is no moment when this circle of\nblessing need stop flowing.  It is ever available.  No moment--by day\nor night, in the quiet of the closet or in the activities of the day's\nduties, when in communion with friends or in the company of foes,--when\nthat grace is not available.  At _all_ times.\n\n3.  \"Having _all_ sufficiency\"--perfect competence to meet just the\npresent emergency.  A sufficiency, let us mark, absolutely independent\nof Nature's resources,--a sufficiency beautifully illustrated by\n\"unlearned and ignorant\" Peter and John in the presence of the learned\nSanhedrim.  Let us rejoice and praise God as we trace these three\nglorious links in this endless chain of blessing.  _All_ sufficiency.\n\n4.  \"In _all_ things\" (or \"in every way\").  It is no matter from what\nside the demand may come, this precious grace is there to meet it.  Is\nit to deal with another troubled anxious soul, where human wisdom\navails nothing?  Divine wisdom and tact shall be supplied.  Courage if\ndanger presents itself, or \"all long-suffering with joyfulness\" if\nafflictions tear the heart.  In _all_ things.\n\n5.  \"May abound to _every_ good work.\"  Now filled to the brim, and\nstill connected with an inexhaustible supply, the vessel _must_\noverflow, and that on every side.  No effort, no toil, no weariness, no\ndrawing by mechanical means from a deep well; but the grace-filled\nheart, abiding (and that is the only condition) in complete dependence\nupon its God, naturally overflows on every side--to _all_ good work.\n\n6.  \"Being enriched in _every thing_\" (we omit the parenthesis,\nalthough full of its own divine beauty), (or, \"in every way\").  This is\nin some sort a repetition of No. 5, but goes as far beyond it as the\nword \"enriched\" is fuller than the word \"sufficient.\"  The latter fills\nthe vessel, as we have said, up to the brim; the former adds another\ndrop, and over it flows.  In view of these \"exceeding great and\nprecious promises,\" we may say,--\n\n  \"Oh wherefore should we do ourselves this wrong,\n  Or others, that we are not always strong?\"\n\nsince we may be enriched in _all_ things.\n\n7.  \"To _all_ bountifulness.\"  This stream of grace is never to\nstagnate, or it will lose all its character of blessing, as the manna\nhoarded for a second day \"bred worms, and stank.\"  Thus every single\nChristian becomes a living channel of blessing to all around, and the\ncircle is now completed, by once more returning to the point whence it\nstarted, \"Which causeth through us thanksgiving to God,\" and closes\nwith no weary wail of \"All things are full of labor,\" but joyful songs\nresound on every side, and at every motion of this circle of blessing\nascends \"thanksgiving to God.\"  For just exactly the same full measure\nis seen in the thanksgiving ascending at the end as in the grace\ndescending in the beginning.  There it \"abounded,\" filling the vessel\nfull till it overflowed in the same measure, \"abounding\" in blessings\nto others who needed, and these forthwith pass on the stream in\n\"abounding\" thanksgiving to God.  The apostle himself, as if he could\nnot suffer himself to be excluded from the circle of blessing, adds his\nown note at the close with \"Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable\ngift.\"  And shall we not, too, dear brother or sister now reading these\nlines, let our feeble voice be heard in this sweet harmony of praise?\nHas not this contrast between the new song and the old groan, again we\nmay ask, great value?\n\nHaving, then, seen in these first few verses the purpose of the book\nand the standpoint of the writer, we may accompany him in the details\nof his search.  First he repeats, what is of the greatest importance\nfor us to remember (v. 12), \"I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in\nJerusalem.\"  He would not have us forget that, should he fail in his\nsearch for perfect satisfaction, it will not be because he is not fully\nqualified both by his abilities and his position to succeed.  But\nInfidelity, and its kinsman Rationalism, raise a joyful shout over this\nverse; for to disconnect the books of the Bible from the writers whose\nname they bear is a long step toward overthrowing the authority of\nthose books altogether.  If the believer's long-settled confidence can\nbe proved vain in one point, and that so important a point, there is\ngood \"hope\" of eventually overthrowing it altogether.  So, with\nextravagant protestations of loyalty to the Scriptures, they, Joablike,\n\"kiss\" and \"stab\" simultaneously, wonderfully manifesting in word and\nwork that dual form of the evil one, who, our Lord tells us, was both\n\"liar and murderer from the beginning.\"  And many thousand professing\nChristians are like Amasa of old, their ear is well pleased with the\nfair sound of \"Art thou in health, my brother?\" and they, too, take \"no\nheed to the sword\" in the inquirer's hand.  Judas, too, in his day,\nillustrates strongly that same diabolical compound of \"deceit and\nviolence,\" only the enemy finds no unwary Amasa in Jesus the Lord.\n\"Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss\" tears the vail from him at\nonce; and in the same way the feeblest believer who abides in Him, is\nled of that same spirit; and \"good words and fair speeches\" do not\ndeceive, nor can betrayal be hidden behind the warmest protestations of\naffection.\n\nBut to return: \"How could,\" cries this sapient infidelity, which today\nhas given itself the modest name of \"Higher Criticism,\"--\"how could\nSolomon say, 'I _was_ king,' when he never ceased to be that?\"  Ah! one\nfears if that same Lord were to speak once more as of old, He would\nagain say, \"O fools and blind!\"  For is it not meet that the writer who\nis about to give recital of his experiences should first tell us what\nhis position _was_ at the very time of those experiences?  That at the\nvery time of all these exercises, disappointments, and groanings, he\n_was_ still the highest monarch on earth, king over an undivided\nIsrael, in Jerusalem, with all the resources and glories that accompany\nthis high station, pre-eminently fitting _him_ to speak with authority,\nand compelling _us_ to listen with the profoundest respect and\nattention.\n\nYes, this glorious monarch \"gives his heart\"--that is, applies himself\nwith singleness of purpose \"to seek and search out by wisdom concerning\nall things that are done under heaven.\"  No path that gives the\nslightest promise of leading to happiness shall be untrodden; no\npleasure shall be denied, no toil be shirked that shall give any hope\nof satisfaction or rest.  \"This sore travail hath God given to the sons\nof men to be exercised therewith.\"  That is, the heart of man hungers\nand thirsts, and he _must_ search till he does find something to\nsatisfy; and if, alas! he fail to find it in \"time,\" if he only drinks\nhere of waters whereof he \"that drinks shall thirst again,\" eternity\nshall find him thirsting still, and crying for one drop of water to\ncool his tongue.  But then with what bitter despair Ecclesiastes\nrecords all these searchings!  \"I have seen all the works that are done\nunder the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit,\" or\nrather, \"pursuit of the wind.\"  Exactly seven times he uses this term,\n\"pursuit of the wind,\" expressing perfect, complete, despairing failure\nin his quest.  He finds things all wrong, but he has no power of\nrighting them; \"that which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that\nwhich is wanting cannot be numbered.\"  But perhaps we may get the\nsecret of his failure in his next words.  He takes a companion or\ncounselor in his search.  Again exactly seven times he takes counsel\nwith this companion, \"_his own heart_,\"--\"I communed with my own\nheart.\"  That is the level of the book; the writer's resources are all\nwithin himself; no light from without save that which nature gives; no\ntaking hold on another; no hand clasped by another.  He and his heart\nare alone.  Ah! that is dangerous as well as dreary work to take\ncounsel with one's own heart.  \"Fool\" and \"lawless one\" come to their\nfoolish and wicked conclusions there (Ps. xiv. 1); and what else than\n\"folly\" could be expected in hearkening to that which is \"deceitful\nabove all things\"--what else than lawlessness in taking counsel with\nthat which is \"desperately wicked\"?\n\nTake not, then, for thy counselor \"thine own heart,\" when divine love\nhas placed infinite wisdom and knowledge at the disposal of lowly faith\nin the Lord Jesus Christ, \"who of God is made unto us wisdom,\" and \"in\nwhom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.\"\n\nBut does our Preacher find the rest he desires in the path of his own\nwisdom?  Not at all.  \"For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that\nincreaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.\"  \"Grief and sorrow\" ever\ngrowing, ever increasing, the further he treads that attractive and\ncomparatively elevated path of human wisdom.  Nor has Solomon been a\nlonely traveler along that road.  Thousands of the more refined of\nAdam's sons have chosen it; but none have gone beyond \"the king,\" and\nnone have discovered anything in it, but added \"grief and\nsorrow\"--sorrowful groan!  But the youngest of God's family has his\nfeet, too, on a path of \"knowledge,\" and he may press along that path\nwithout the slightest fear of \"grief or sorrow\" resulting from added\nknowledge.  Nay, a new song shall be in his mouth, \"_Grace_ and _peace_\nshall be multiplied _through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord_.\"\n(2 Pet. i. 2).  Blessed contrast!  \"Sorrow and grief\" multiplied\nthrough growth in human wisdom: \"Grace and peace\" multiplied through\ngrowth in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord!\n\nMy beloved reader, I pray you meditate a little on this striking and\nprecious contrast.  Here is Solomon in all his glory, with a brighter\nhalo of human wisdom round his head than ever had any of the children\nof men.  Turn to 1 Kings iv. 29:--\n\n\n\"And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and\nlargeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore.\n\nAnd Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the\neast country, and all the wisdom of Egypt.\n\nFor he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and\nChalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations\nround about.\n\nAnd he spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and\nfive.\n\nAnd he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto\nthe hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and\nof fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.\n\nAnd there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all\nkings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom.\"\n\n\nIs it not a magnificent ascription of abounding wisdom?  What field has\nit not capacity to explore?  Philosophy in its depths--poetry in its\nbeauties--botany and zoology in their wonders.  Do we envy him?  Then\nlisten to what his poor heart was groaning all that time: \"In much\nwisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth\nsorrow\"!  Now turn to _our_ portion above the sun--\"the knowledge of\nGod and of Jesus our Lord\": infinitely higher, deeper, lovelier, and\nmore wondrous than the fields explored by Solomon, in constant\nunfoldings of riches of wisdom; and each new unfolding bringing its own\nsweet measure of \"grace and peace.\"  Have not the lines fallen to us in\npleasant places?  Have we not a goodly heritage?  Take the feeblest of\nthe saints of God of today, and had Solomon in all his glory a lot like\none of these?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nThe wise man, having found that wisdom brought with it but increased\nsorrow, turns to the other side--to all those pleasures that the flesh,\nas we speak, enjoys.  Still, he gives us, as in chap. i., the result of\nhis search before he describes it: \"I said in my heart, 'Go to now; I\nwill prove thee [that is, I will see if I cannot satisfy thee,] with\nmirth; therefore enjoy pleasure:' and behold, this also is vanity.  I\nsaid of laughter, 'it is mad;' and of mirth, 'what doeth it?'\"  For he\nnow has tried wine, the occupation of laying out of vinyards, gardens,\nparks, the forming of lakes, and the building of houses, all filled\nwithout stint, with every thing that sense could crave, or the soul of\nman could enjoy.  The resources at his command are practically\nlimitless, and so he works on and rejoices in the labor, apparently\nwith the idea that now the craving within can be satisfied, now he is\non the road to rest.  Soon he will look round on the result of all his\nwork, and be able to say, \"All is very good; I can now rest in the full\nenjoyment of my labor and be satisfied.\"  But when he does reach the\nend, when every pleasure tried, every beauty of surrounding created,\nand he expects to eat the fruit of his work, instantly his mouth is\nfilled with rottenness and decay.  \"Then I looked on all the works that\nmy hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do; and,\nbehold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit; and there was no profit\nunder the sun.\"  Thus he groans again,--a groan that has been echoed\nand re-echoed all down the ages from every heart that has tried to fill\nthe same void by the same means.\n\nAh! wise and glorious Preacher, it is a large place thou art seeking to\nfill.  \"Free and boundless its desires.\"  Deeper, wider, broader than\nthe whole world, which is at thy disposal to fill it.  And thou mayest\nwell say, \"What can the man do that cometh after the king?\" for thou\nhadst the whole world and the glory of it at thy command in thy day,\nand did it enable thee to fill those \"free and boundless desires\"?  No,\nindeed.  After all is cast into that hungry pit, yawning and empty it\nis still.  Look well on this picture, my soul; ponder it in the secret\nplace of God's presence, and ask Him to write it indelibly on thy heart\nthat thou forget it not.  Then turn and listen to this sweet voice: \"If\nany man thirst\" (and what man does not?) \"let him come unto Me, and\ndrink.  He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his\nbelly shall flow rivers of living water.\"  Thirst not only quenched,\nbut water to spare for other thirsting ones,--the void not only filled,\nbut running over with a constant flow of blessing.  Who can express the\nglories of that contrast?\n\nPause, beloved reader: turn your eyes from the page, and dwell on it in\nthy spirit a little.  What a difference between \"no profit under the\nsun\" and \"never thirst\"!--a difference entirely due simply to coming to\nHim--Jesus.  Not a coming once and then departing from Him once more to\ntry again the muddy, stagnant pools of this world: no, but to pitch our\ntents by the palm-trees and the springing wells of Christ's presence,\nand so to drink and drink and drink again of Him, the Rock that follows\nHis people.  But is this possible?  Is this not mere imaginative\necstasy, whilst practically such a state is not possible?  No, indeed;\nfor see that man, with all the same hungry longings of Solomon or any\nother child of Adam; having no wealth, outcast, and a wanderer without\na home, but who has found something that has enabled him to say, \"I\nhave learned, in whatsoever state I am, to be content.  I know both how\nto be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere, and in all things,\nI am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to\nsuffer need.  I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth\nme.\" (Phil. iv. 11-13.)\n\nWhat, then, is the necessary logical deduction from two such pictures\nbut this: The Lord Jesus infinitely surpasses all the world in filling\nthe hungry heart of man.\n\nLook, oh my reader, whether thou be sinner or saint, to Him--to Him\nalone.\n\nThis, then, brings us to the twelfth verse of chapter two, which\nalready, thus early in the book, seems to be a summing up of his\nexperiences.  \"I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and\nfolly:\" that is I looked \"full face,\" or carefully considered, these\nthree things that I had now tested; and whilst each gave me only\ndisappointment and bitterness as to meeting my deepest needs, yet \"I\nsaw that there was a profit in wisdom over folly, as light is\nprofitable over darkness.\"  This then is within the power of human\nreason to determine.  The philosophy of the best of the heathen brought\nthem to exactly the same conclusion.  Socrates and Solomon, with many\nanother worthy name, are here in perfect accord, and testify together\nthat \"the wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in\ndarkness.\"  Not that men _prefer_ wisdom to folly; on the contrary;\nstill even human reason gives this judgment: for the wise man walks at\nleast as a _man_, intelligently; the spirit, the intelligence, having\nits place.  But how much further can reason discern as to the\ncomparative worth of wisdom or folly?  The former certainly morally\nelevates a man _now_; but here comes an awful shadow across reason's\npath: \"but I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them\nall.  Then said I in my heart, as it happeneth to the fool, so it\nhappeneth even to me: and why was I then more wise?  Then I said in my\nheart, that this also is vanity.\"  Ah! in this book in which poor man\nat his highest is allowed to give voice to his deepest questions, in\nwhich all the chaos, and darkness, the \"without form and void\" state of\nhis poor, distracted, disjointed being is seen; death is indeed the\nKing of Terrors, upsetting all his reasonings, and bringing the wisdom\nand folly, between which he had so carefully discriminated, to one\nlevel in a moment.  But here, death is looked upon in relation to the\n\"works\" of which he has been speaking.  Wisdom cannot guarantee its\npossessor the enjoyment of the fruits of his labors.  Death comes to\nhim as swiftly and as surely as to the fool, and a common oblivion\nshall, after a little, swallow the memory of each, with their works.\nThis thought the Preacher dwells upon, and as he regards it on every\nside, again and again he groans, \"This also is vanity.\" (_vv._ 19, 21,\n23.)  \"Therefore I hated life, yea, all my labor which I took under the\nsun,\" and \"therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all\nmy labor which I took under the sun.\"  For what is there in the labor\nitself?  Nothing that satisfies by itself.  It is only the anticipation\nof final satisfaction and enjoyment that can make up for the loss of\nquiet and ease now; prove _that_ to be a vain hope, and the mere labor\nand planning night and day are indeed \"empty vanity.\"\n\nThus much for labor \"under the sun,\" with self for its object, and\ndeath for its limit.  Now for the contrast again in its refreshing\nbeauty of the \"new\" as against the \"old\" \"Therefore, my beloved\nbrethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of\nthe Lord, forasmuch as ye know your labor is not in vain in the Lord.\"\n(1 Cor. xv. 58.)  \"All my labor vanity\" is the \"groan\" of the old, \"for\ndeath with its terrors cuts me off from my labor and I leave it to a\nfool.\"  \"No labor in vain\" is the song of victory of the new, for\nresurrection with its glories but introduces me to the precious fruit\nof those labors, to be enjoyed forever.\n\nOh my brethren, let us cherish this precious word, \"not in vain;\" let\nus be indeed \"persuaded\" of it, and \"embrace\" it, not giving up our\nglorious heritage, and going back, as the Christian world largely is in\nthis day, to the mere human wisdom that Solomon the king possessed\nabove all, and which only led then, as it must now and ever, to the\ngroan of \"vanity!\"  But \"_not_ in vain\" is ours.  No little one\nrefreshed with even a cup of cold water but that soon the fruit of even\nthat little labor of love shall meet its sweetest recompense in the\nsmile, the approval, the praise of our Lord Jesus; and that shall make\nour hearts full to overflowing with bliss; as we there echo and re-echo\nour own word: it was indeed, \"not in vain.\"\n\nThe chapter closes with the recognition that, apart from God, it is not\nin the power of man to get any enjoyment from his labor.  Our\ntranslation of verse 24 seems quite out of harmony with the Preacher's\nprevious experiences, and the verse would better read (as in Dr. Taylor\nLewis' metrical version):\n\n  \"The good is not in man that he should eat and drink\n  And find his soul's enjoyment in his toil;\n  This, too, I saw, is only from the hands of God.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nChapter three may be paraphrased, I think, somewhat in this way: Yes,\nlife itself emphasizes the truth that nothing is at one stay here;--all\n_moves_.  There is naught abiding, like the winds and waters that he\nhas noted in chapter one; man's life is but a wheel that turns: death\nfollows birth, and all the experiences between are but ever varying\nshades of good and evil, evil and good.  (Let us bear in mind this is\nnot faith's view, but simply that of human wisdom.  Faith sings a song\namidst the whirl of life:\n\n  \"With mercy and with judgment,\n  My web of time He wove;\n  And aye the dews of sorrow\n  Were lustred with His love.\")\n\n\nBut then if nothing thus rests as it is, it becomes a necessary\ndeduction that, if wisdom has collected, and labored, and built, folly\nwill follow to possess and scatter, what profit then in toiling?  For\nhe sees that this constant travail is of God who, in wisdom\ninscrutable, and not to be penetrated by human reasoning, would have\nmen exercised by these constant changes, whilst their hearts can be\nreally satisfied with no one of these things, beautiful as each may be\nin its time.  So boundless are its desires that he says, \"Eternity\" has\nbeen placed in that heart of man, and naught in all these\n\"time-changes\" can fill it.  Still he can see nothing better for man,\nthan that he should make the best of the present, for he cannot alter\nor change what God does or purposes, and everything he sees, speaks of\nHis purpose to a constant \"round,\" a recurrence of that which is past\n(as verse 15 should probably read.)\n\nBut still man's reason can make one more step now, one further\ndeduction from the _law of circuit_, as soon as God, even though He be\nknown only by nature's light, is introduced; and that is, the present\nwrong and injustice so evident here, must in some \"time\" in God's\npurposes, be righted; God Himself being the Judge.  This seems to be a\ngleam of real light, similar to the conclusion of the whole book.  Yes,\nfurther, this constant change--is there no reason for it?  Has God no\npurpose in it?  Surely to teach men the very lesson of their own\nmortality: that there is naught abiding--men and beasts are, as far as\nunaided human wisdom can see, on one level exactly as to that awful\nexit from this scene.  It is true there may be--and there are strong\ngrounds for inferring that there _is_--a wide difference between the\nspirit of man, and the spirit of beasts, although the bodies of each\nare formed of, and return to the dust; but who can tell this\nabsolutely?  Who has seen and told what is on the other side of that\ndread portal?  None.  So then, again says the wise Preacher, my wisdom\nsees only good in enjoying the present, for the future is shrouded in\nan impenetrable cloud, and none can pierce it.\n\nPrecious beyond expression becomes the glorious bright beam of divine\nrevelation, as against this dense and awful darkness of man's ignorance\non such a question.  How deep and terrible the groan here, \"For all is\nvanity.\"  Yet the pitch-dark background shall serve to throw into\nglorious relief, the glory of that light that is not from reason, or\nnature; but from Him who is the Father of Lights.  Yes, He bids us look\non this picture of the wisest of men, tracing man and beast to one end\nand standing before that awful door through which each has disappeared,\nconfessing his absolute inability to determine if there be any\ndifference between them.  Death surely triumphs here.  It is true that\nthere may be a possible distinction between the \"breath,\" or vital\nprinciple of each; but this uncertainty only adds to the mystery, and\nincreases a thousand fold the agonizing need for light.  God be thanked\nthat He has given it.  The darkest problem that has faced mankind all\nthrough the weary ages, has been triumphantly solved; and the sweetest\nsongs of faith ever resound about the empty tomb of the Lord Jesus--nay\nrather, about the glorious person of that risen Christ Himself, for He\nis Himself the leader of the Joy.  \"In the midst of the congregation\nwill I praise Thee.\"\n\nSo then, in sharp and blessed contrast to the wise man and his\ngroaning, let us lift our eyes up and ever up, past the tombs and\ngraves of earth; yea, past thrones and principalities, and powers in\nthe heavens; up and still up, even to the \"_throne of the Majesty on\nHigh_\" itself; and look on One sitting even there, a _Man_--oh mark it\nwell, for He has been of woman born--a _Man_,--for of that very One it\nwas once said, \"Is not this the carpenter?\"--now crowned with glory and\nhonor; and listen, for He speaks: \"I am He that liveth, and was dead,\nand behold I am alive for evermore.\"  Consider Him!  And whilst we look\nand listen, how does that word of the Preacher sound, \"A man hath no\npre-eminence above a beast!\"  And this is our portion, beloved reader.\nHe might indeed have had all the glory of that place, without the agony\nof the garden, without the suffering and shame of the cross, had He\nbeen content to enjoy it alone.  But no--He must have His own with Him;\nand now death has been abolished as to its terror and power, so that\nthe groan of old is replaced by the triumphant challenge: \"O death,\nwhere is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?\" (1 Cor. xv. 55.)\n\nThe resurrection of Jesus not only makes possible--not only makes\nprobable--but absolutely assures the glorious triumphant resurrection\nof His own who have fallen asleep: \"Christ the firstfruits, afterward\nthey are Christ's at His coming.\"  But further, is this \"falling\nasleep\" of the saint to separate him, for a time, from the conscious\nenjoyment of his Saviour's love?  Is the trysting of the saved one with\nhis Saviour to be interrupted for awhile by death?  Is his song\n\n  \"Not all things else are half so dear\n  As is His blissful presence here\"\n\nto be silenced by death?  Then were he a strangely conquered foe, and\nnot stingless, if for one hour he could separate us from the enjoyed\nlove of Christ.  But no, \"blessed be the Victor's name,\" not for a\nmoment.  \"Death is ours\" and \"absent from the body\" is only \"present\nwith the Lord.\"  So that we may answer the Preacher's word, \"A man hath\nno pre-eminence above a beast,\" with the challenge, To which of the\n_beasts_ said He at any time, \"This day shalt thou be with Me in\nparadise\"?\n\nLet the Preacher groan, \"all is vanity;\" the groan is in perfect--if\nsorrowful--harmony with the darkness and ignorance of human reason; but\n\"_singing_\" alone accords with _light_; \"Joy cometh _in the morning_,\"\nand if we but receive it, we have in \"Jesus Risen\" light enough for\nperpetual, unending, song.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nBut we must follow our Preacher, who can only turn away with bitterness\nfrom this closed door of Death, once more to take note of what is\n\"under the sun.\"  And sad and sorrowful it is to him to mark that the\nworld is filled with oppression.  He has already, in the previous\nchapter, noted that \"wickedness was there in the place of judgment and\niniquity in the place of righteousness,\" and the natural consequence of\nthis is oppression.  Wherever men have _power_ they use it to bring\nforth _tears_; therefore far better, cries Solomon, to be out of such a\nscene altogether; yea, better still, never to have come into it at all.\nHave we no sympathy with the Preacher here?  Does he not give\nexpression to one sad \"touch of nature that makes the whole world kin\"?\nDo we not recognize that he, too, was traveling through exactly the\nsame scene as we find ourselves to be in?  That tears were raining on\nthis crust of earth in that far-off time, exactly as they are to-day?\nYes, indeed, it was a tear-soaked earth he trod, as well as we.  But\nthen that other man was also in the same scene exactly, who said, too,\nthat it was certainly \"far better\" to be out of it; but--precious\ncontrast! _that_ was because of the loveliness and sweet attraction of\nOne known outside of it; whilst the very needs of others in the\nscene--those \"tears,\" in a way, of which the wise man speaks, and which\nhe knew no way of stopping--alone kept him in it, and made him consent\nto stay.  For Paul had \"heard a sweeter story\" than Solomon had ever in\nhis wisdom conceived; had \"found a truer gain\" than all Solomon's\nwealth could give him; and his most blessed business it was to proclaim\na glad tidings that should dry the tears of the oppressed, give them a\npeace that no oppressor could take away, a liberty outside all the\nchains of earth--a spring of joy that tyranny was powerless to affect.\n\nNow let us, by the grace and loving kindness of our God, consider this\na little closer, my readers.  We have concluded that we find this book\nincluded in the inspired volume for this very purpose, to exalt all\n\"the new\" by its blessed contrast with \"the old.\"  We may too, if we\nwill, look around on all the sorrows and tears of this sad earth, and\ngroan \"better would it be to be dead and out of it; yea, better never\nto have been born at all.\"  And a wise groan, according to human\nwisdom, this would be.\n\nBut when such wisdom has attained to its full, it finds itself far\nshort of the very \"foolishness of God\"; for, on the other hand we may,\nif we will, praise God with joyful heart that we are at least _in the\nonly place in the whole universe, where tears can be dried, and\ngladness be made to take their place_.  For is there oppression, and\nconsequent weeping, in heaven?  Surely not.  Tears there are, in\nplenty, in hell; for did not He who is Love say, \"there shall be\nweeping and gnashing of teeth\"?  But, alas! those tears can be\ndried--_never_.  But here Love can have its own way, and mourning ones\nmay learn a secret that shall surely gild their tears with a rainbow\nglory of light, and the oppressed and distressed, the persecuted and\nafflicted, may triumphantly sing, \"Who shall separate us from the love\nof Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine,\nor nakedness, or peril, or sword?  Nay, in all these things we are\n_more than conquerors_, through Him that loved us.\"  Ah, is there not,\ntoo, a peculiar beauty in those words \"more than conquerors\"?  What can\nbe more than a conqueror?  A ship driven out of its course by the\ntempest, with anchor dragging or cable parted, is no \"conqueror\" at\nall, but the reverse.  That ship riding out the gale, holding fast to\nits anchorage, is truly a conqueror; but that is all.  But the vessel\nbeing driven by the very tempest to the haven where it would be, is\nbetter off still, and thus \"more than conqueror.\"  So it is with the\nsaint now; the tempest drives him the closer to Him who is indeed his\ndesired haven, and thus he is more than conqueror.  Is not, then, this\nearth a unique place?--this life a wonderful time?  A few years\n(possibly a few hours) more, and we shall be out of the scene of sorrow\nand evil forever; nor can we then prove the power of the love of Christ\nto lift above the sorrow either ourselves or others.  O my soul, art\nthou redeeming the time--\"ransoming from loss\" (as it might literally\nbe worded) the precious opportunities that are around thee on every\nside, \"because the days are evil\"?  The very fact that the days are\nevil--that thou art in the place of tears--gives thee the\n\"opportunities.\"  When the days cease to be evil, those special\nopportunities, whatever may be the service of the redeemed, will be\ngone forever.\n\nBut the Preacher still continues his search \"under the sun,\" and turns\nfrom oppression and tears to regard what is, on the surface at least, a\ncomparatively happy lot--\"right work,\" by which a man has attained to\nprosperity and pre-eminence.  But as he looks closer at a case which,\nat first sight, seems to promise real satisfaction, he sees that there\nis a bitter sting connected with it,--a sting that at once robs it of\nall its attraction, and makes void all its promise of true rest,--for\n\"for this a man is envied of his neighbor.\"  His success is only cause\nof bitter jealousy, and makes him the object not of love, but of envy,\nto all about him.  Success, then, and a position of pre-eminence above\none's competitors, gained by skillful toil, is rather to be avoided as\nvanity and pursuit of the wind,--a grasping at an empty nothingness.\n\nIs the opposite extreme of perfect idleness any better?  No; for\nplainly the idler is a fool who \"eateth his own flesh\"; that is,\nnecessarily brings ruin upon himself.  So human wisdom here closes the\nmeditation with--what human wisdom always does take refuge in--the\n\"golden mean,\" as it is called, \"better a single handful with quiet\nrest, than both hands filled only by wearying toil and vexation of\nspirit.\"  And true enough this is, as every man who has tested things\nat all in this world will confirm.  Accumulation brings with it only\ndisappointment and added care,--everything is permeated with a common\npoison; and here the wisdom of the old is, in one sense, in full\nharmony with the higher wisdom of the new, which says \"godliness, with\ncontentment, is great gain,\" and \"having food and raiment, let us be\ntherewith content.\"\n\nIf we look \"above the sun,\" however, there is a scene where no sting\nlurks in all that attracts, as here.  Where God Himself approves the\ndesires of His people for more of their own, and says to them with\ngracious encouragement, \"covet earnestly the best gifts.\"  Yes; but\nmark the root-difference between the two: the skillful, or right labor,\nthat appears at first so desirable to the Preacher, is only for the\nworker's own advantage,--it exalts him above his fellows, where he\nbecomes a mark for their bitter envy; but these \"gifts\" that are to be\ncoveted are as far removed from this as the poles.  In that higher\nscene, the more a gift exalts \"self,\" the less is that gift.  The\n\"best\"--those which God calls \"best\"--are those that awake no envy in\nothers; but bring their happy owner lower and ever lower to the feet of\nhis brethren to serve them, to build _them_ up.  The Corinthians\nthemselves had the lesser gifts in the more showy \"tongues,\" and\n\"knowledge\"; but one family amongst them had the _greater_,--\"the\nhousehold of Stephanas,\" for it had addicted itself to the _service_ of\nthe saints.\n\nBut let us not leave this theme till we have sought to set our hearts\na-singing by a sight of Him who is, and ever shall be, the source as\nwell as the theme of all our songs.  We but recently traced Him in His\nglorious upward path till we found Him resting on the throne of the\nMajesty on high.  But \"he that ascended, what is it but that he also\ndescended?\"  So, beloved readers, though it may be a happily familiar\ntheme to many, it will be none the less refreshing to look at that\n\"right work\" of our blessed Lord Jesus, \"who, being in the form of God,\nthought it not robbery to be equal with God.\"  That is the glorious\nplatform--as we might, in our human way of speaking, say--upon which He\nhad abode all through the ages of the past.  He looks above--there is\nnone, there is nothing higher.  He looks on the same plane as\nHimself--He is equal with God.  There is His blessed, glorious place,\nat the highest pinnacle of infinite glory, nothing to be desired,\nnothing to be grasped at.\n\nHe moves; and every heart that belongs to that new creation awakens\ninto praise (oh, how different to the \"envy\" of the old!) as He takes\nHis first step and makes Himself of no reputation.  And as in our\nprevious paper we followed Him in His glorious upward path, so here we\nmay trace His no less glorious and most blessed path down and ever\nlower down, past Godhead to \"_no reputation_\"; past authority to\n_service_; past angels, who are servants, to _men_; past all the\nthrones and dignities of men to the manger at _Bethlehem and the lowest\nwalk of poverty_, till He who, but now, was indeed rich is become poor;\nnay, says of Himself that He has not where to lay His head.  No \"golden\nmean\" of the \"handful with quietness\" here!  Yes, and far lower still,\npast that portion of the righteous man, endless life,--down, down to\nthe humiliation of _death_; and then one more step to a death--not of\nhonor, and respect, and the peace, that we are told marks the perfect\nman and the upright, but the death of lowest shame, the criminal\nslave's death, the _cross_!  Seven distinct steps of perfect\nhumiliation!  Oh, consider Him there, beloved!  Mocked of all His foes,\nforsaken of all His friends!  The very refuse of the earth, the thieves\nthat earth says are too vile for her, heaping their indignities upon\nHim.  \"Behold the man,\" spat upon, stricken, and numbered with\ntransgressors; and, as we gaze, let us together listen to that divine\nvoice, \"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,\" for\nthat is _our_ \"right work,\" and there is no fear of a man being \"envied\nof his neighbor\" for right work of that kind.\n\nBut time and space would fail us to take up in detail all these\nprecious contrasts.  All Solomon's searches \"under the sun\" tell but\none story: There is nought in all the world that can satisfy the heart\nof man.  The next verse furnishes another striking illustration of\nthis.  He sees a solitary one, absolutely alone, without kith or kin\ndependent on him, and yet he toils on, \"bereaving his soul of good\" as\nunceasingly as when he first started in life.  Every energy is still\nstrained in the race for those riches that satisfy not at all.\n\"Vanity\" is the Preacher's commentary on the scene.  This naturally\nleads to the conclusion that solitude, at least, is no blessing; for\nman was made for companionship and mutual dependence, and in this is\nsafety.  (Verses 9 to 12.)\n\nVerses 13 to the end are difficult, as they stand in our authorized\nversion; but they speak, I think, of the striking and extraordinary\nvicissitudes that are so constant \"under the sun.\"  There is no lot\nabiding.  The king on his throne, \"old and foolish,\" changes places\nwith the youth who may even step from the humiliation of prison and\nchains to the highest dignity: then \"better is the poor and wise youth\nthan the old and foolish king.\"  But wider still the Preacher looks,\nand marks the stately march of the present generation with the next\nthat shall follow it; yea, there is no end of the succession of surging\ngenerations, each boastful of itself, and taking no joy in--that is,\nmaking little account of--that which has gone before.  Each, in its\nturn, like a broken wave, making way for its successor.  Boastful\npride, broken in death, but still followed by another equally boastful,\nor more so, which, in its turn, is humbled also in the silence of the\ngrave.  It is the same story of human changes as \"the youth\" and \"the\nking,\" only a wider range is taken; but \"vanity\" is the appropriate\ngroan that accompanies the whole meditation.  In this I follow Dr.\nLewis's version:--\n\n  Better the child, though he be poor, if wise,\n  Than an old and foolish king, who heeds no longer warning;\n  For out of bondage came the one to reign--\n  The other, in a kingdom born, yet suffers poverty.\n  I saw the living all, that walked in pride beneath the sun,\n  I saw the second birth that in their place shall stand.\n  No end to all the people that have gone before;\n  And they who still succeed, in them shall find no joy.\n      This, too, is vanity,--a chasing of the wind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nWith the opening of this chapter we come to quite a different theme.\nLike a fever-tossed patient, Ecclesiastes has turned from side to side\nfor relief and rest; but each new change of posture has only brought\nhim face to face with some other evil \"under the sun\" that has again\nand again pressed from him the bitter groan of \"Vanity.\"  But now, for\na moment, he takes his eyes from the disappointments, the evil\nworkings, and the sorrows, that everywhere prevail in that scene, and\nlifts them up to see how near his wisdom, or human reason, can bring\nhim to _God_.  Ah, poor bruised and wounded spirit!  Everywhere it has\nmet with rebuff; but now, like a caged bird which has long beaten its\nwings against its bars, at length turns to the open door, so now\nEcclesiastes seems at least to have his face in the right\ndirection,--God and approach to Him is his theme,--how far will his\nnatural reason permit his walking in it?  Will it carry him on to the\nhighest rest and freedom at last?\n\nThis, it strikes me, is just the point of view of these first seven\nverses.  Their meaning is, as a whole, quite clear and simple.  \"Keep\nthy foot,\"--that is, permit no hasty step telling of slight realization\nof the majesty of Him who is approached.  Nor let spirit be less\nreverently checked than body.  \"Be more ready to hear, than to give the\nsacrifice of fools.\"  Few be thy words, and none uttered thoughtlessly,\nfor \"God is in heaven and thou upon earth,\" and many words, under such\nan infinite discrepancy in position, bespeak a fool as surely as a\ndream bespeaks overcrowded waking hours.  Oh fear, then, to utter one\nsyllable thoughtlessly or without meaning, for One listens to whom a\nvow once uttered must be paid, for not lightly canst thou retract the\nspoken vow with the excuse \"It was unintentional,--it was not seriously\nmeant.\"  His Messenger or Angel is not so deceived; and quickly wilt\nthou find, in thy wrecked work and purposes astray, that it is _God_\nthou hast angered by thy light speech.  Then avoid the many words\nwhich, as idle dreams, are but vanity; but rather \"fear thou God.\"\n\nAfter weighing the many conflicting views as to verses 6 and 7, the\ncontext has led me to the above as the sense of the words.  Nor can\nthere be the slightest question as to the general bearing of the\nspeaker's argument.  Its central thought, both in position and\nimportance, is found in \"God is in heaven and thou upon earth,\ntherefore let thy words be few,\"--its weighty conclusion, \"Fear thou\nGod.\"\n\nNow, my beloved readers, there is a picture here well worth looking at\nattentively.  Regard him: noble in every sense of the word,--with\nclearest intellect, with the loftiest elevation of thought, with an\nabsolutely true conception of the existence of God.  Who amongst men,\nlet thought sweep as wide as it will amongst the children of Adam, can\ngo or has gone, beyond him?  What can man's mind conceive, he may ask,\nas well as man's hand do, that cometh after the King?  Yea, let our\nminds go over all the combined wisdom of all the ages amongst the wise\nof the world, and where will you find a loftier, purer, truer\nconception of God, and the becoming attitude of the creature in\napproaching Him than here?  For he is not a heathen, as we speak, this\nSolomon.  He has all that man, as man, could possibly have; and that\nsurely includes the knowledge of the existence of God,--His power\neternal, and His Godhead, as Romans i. clearly shows.  The heathen\nthemselves have lapsed from that knowledge.  \"_When they knew God_\" is\nthe intensely significant word of Scripture.  This is, indeed,\ndiametrically contrary to the teaching of modern science--that the\nbarbarous and debased tribes of earth are only in a less developed\ncondition--are on the way _upward_ from the lowest forms of life, from\nthe protoplasm whence all sprang, and have already passed in their\nupward course the ape, whose likeness they still, however, more closely\nbear!  Oh, the folly of earth's wisdom!  The pitiful meanness and\nlittleness of the greatest of modern scientific minds that have \"come\nafter the King\" contrasted even with the grand simple sublimity of the\nknowledge of Ecclesiastes.  For this Preacher would not be a proper\nrepresentative _man_ were he in debased heathen ignorance.  He could\nnot show us faithfully and truly how far even unaided human reason\ncould go in its recognition of, and approach to, God, if he had lost\nthe knowledge of God.  Low, indeed, is the level of man's highest, when\nin this state, as the Greeks show us; for whilst they, as distinct from\nthe Jews, made wisdom the very object of their search, downward ever do\nthey sink in their struggles, like a drowning man, till they reach a\nfoul, impure, diabolical mythology.  Their gods are as the stars for\nmultitude.  Nor are they able to conceive of these except as influenced\nby the same passions as themselves.  Is there any reverence in approach\nto such?  Not at all.  Low, sensual, earthly depravity marked ever that\napproach.  That is the level of the lapsed fallen wisdom of earth's\nwise.  How does it compare with Solomon's?  We may almost say as earth\nto heaven,--hardly that,--rather as hell to earth.  Solomon, then,\nclearly shows us the _highest possible conception of the creature's\napproach to his Creator_.  This is as far as man could have attained,\nlet him be at the summit of real wisdom.  His reason would have given\nhim nothing beyond this.  It tells him that man is a creature, and it\nis but the most simple and necessary consequence of this that his\napproach to his Creator should be with all the reverence and humility\nthat is alone consistent with such a relationship.\n\nBut high indeed as, in one point of view, this is, yet how low in\nanother, for is one heart-throb stilled?  One tormenting doubt removed?\nOne fear quieted?  One deep question answered?  One sin-shackle\nloosened?  _Not one_.  The distance between them is still the distance\nbetween earth and heaven.  \"God is in heaven, and thou upon earth.\"\nNor can the highest, purest, best of human reason, as in this wise and\nglorious king, bridge over that distance one span!  \"Fear thou God\" is\nthe sweetest comfort he can give,--the clearest counsel he can offer.\nConsider him again, I say, my brethren, in all his nobility, in all his\nelevation, in all his bitter disappointment and incompetency.\n\nAnd now, my heart, prepare for joy, as thou turnest to thy own blessed\nportion.  For how rich, how precious, how closely to be cherished is\nthat which has gone so far beyond all possible human conception,--that\nwondrous revelation by which this long, long distance 'twixt earth and\nheaven has been spanned completely.  And in whom?  JESUS, The Greater\nthan Solomon.  We have well considered the less,--let us turn to the\nGreater.  And where is that second Man to be found?  Afar off on earth,\nwith God in heaven?  No, indeed.  \"For when He had by Himself purged\nour sins He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high\"; and\n\"seeing, then, that we have a great high priest, that is passed\n_through the heavens_, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our\nconfession.\"  Oh, let us consider Him together, my brethren.  In\nholiest Light our Representative sits.  He who but now was weighted\nwith our guilt, and made sin for us, is in that Light ineffable,\nunapproachable.  Where, then, are the sins?  Where, then, the sin?\nGone for all eternity!  Nor does His position vary at all with all the\nvarying states, failings, coldness, worldliness, of His people here.\nWith holy calm, His work that has perfected them forever perfectly\nfinished, He _sits_, and their position is thus maintained unchanging.\nClearly, and without the shadow of the faintest mist to dim, the\ninfinite searching Light of God falls on Him, but sees nought there\nthat is not in completest harmony with Itself.  Oh, wondrous\nconception!  Oh, grandeur of thought beyond all the possibility of\nman's highest mind!  No longer can it be said at least to one Man,\nwoman-born though He be, \"God is in heaven, and thou upon earth\"; for\nHe, of the Seed of Abraham, of the house of David, is Himself in\nhighest heaven.\n\nBut one step further with me, my brethren.  We are in Him, there; and\nthat is our place, too.  The earthward trend of thought--the letting\nslip our own precious truth--has introduced a \"tongue\" into Christendom\nthat ought to be foreign to the Saint of heaven.  No \"place of worship\"\nshould the Christian know--nay, _can_ he really know--short of heaven\nitself.  For, listen: \"Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter\n_into the holiest_ by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way\nwhich He hath consecrated for us through the vail,--that is to say, His\nflesh,--and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw\nnear,\" etc.  We too, then, beloved, are not upon earth as to our\nworship, (let it be mixed with faith in us that hear).  Israel's \"place\nof worship\" was where her high priest stood, and our place of worship\nis where our great High Priest sits.  Jesus our Lord sowed the seed of\nthis precious truth when he answered the poor sinful woman of Samaria,\n\"The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at\nJerusalem, worship the Father.  But the hour cometh, and now is, when\nthe true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth,\nfor the Father seeketh such to worship Him.\"\n\nBut, then, are not \"words to be few\"?  Good and wise it was for Solomon\nso to speak; \"few words\" become the far-off place of the creature on\nearth before the glorious Majesty of the Creator in heaven.  But if\ninfinite wisdom and love have rent the vail and made a new and living\nway into the Holiest, does He now say \"few words\"?  Better, far better,\nthan that; for with the changed position all is changed, and not too\noften can His gracious ear \"hear the voice of His beloved\"; and, lest\nshrinking unbelief should still hesitate and doubt, He says plainly \"In\n_everything_, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your\nrequests be made known unto God.\"  For He has shown Himself fully, now\nthat vail is down,--all that He is, is revealed to faith; and a Heart\nwe find--with reverence and adoring love be it spoken--filled with\ntenderest solicitude for His people.  Letting them have cares only that\nthey may have His sympathy in a way that would not otherwise be\npossible; and thus again He invites \"casting all your care upon Him,\nfor He careth for you.\"  Nor is there a hint in the holiest, of\nweariness on God's part in listening to His people, nor once does He\nsay \"enough; now cease thy prayers and supplications.\"  How could He so\nspeak who says \"_Pray without ceasing_\"?  Then if, as assuredly we have\nseen, Solomon shows us the highest limit of human thought, reason, or\nconception, if we go even one step beyond, we have _exceeded_ human\nthought, reason, or conception; (and in these New Testament truths how\nfar beyond have we gone?)  And what does that mean but that we are on\nholy ground indeed, listening to a voice that is distinctly the voice\nof God,--the God who speaks to us, as He says, in order \"_that our joy\nmay be full_.\"\n\nBut the Preacher continues to give, in verses 8 and 9, such counsel as\nhe can to meet the discordant state of things everywhere apparent.\n\"When thou seest violent oppression exercised by those in authority,\"\nhe says, \"marvel not; think it not strange, as though some strange\nthing were happening; thou art only looking on a weed-plant that\neverywhere flourishes 'under the sun,' and still thou mayest remember\nthat these oppressors themselves, high though they be, have superiors\nabove them: yea in the ever-ascending scale of ranks and orders thou\nmayest have to go to the Highest--God Himself; but the same truth hold\ngood, and He shall yet call powers and governors to answer for the\nexercise of their authorities.  This for thy comfort, if thou lookest\n_up_; but, on the other hand, look _down_, and thou shalt see that\nwhich goes far to humble the highest; for even the king himself is as\ndependent as any on the field whence man's food comes.\"\n\nTrue, indeed, all this; but cold is the comfort, small cause for\nsinging it gives.  Our own dear apostle seems to have dropped for a\nmoment from his higher vantage-ground to the level of Solomon's wisdom\nwhen smarting under \"oppression and the violent perverting of\njudgment,\" he cried to the high priest, \"God [the higher than the\nhighest] shall smite thee, thou whited wall.\"  But we hear no joyful\nsinging from him in connection with that indignant protest.  On the\ncontrary, the beloved and faithful servant regrets it the next moment,\nwith \"I wist not, brethren.\"  Not so in the silent suffering of\n\"violent oppression\" at Philippi.  There he and his companion have\nsurely comfort beyond any that Solomon can offer, and the overflowing\njoy of their hearts comes from no spring that rises in this sad desert\nscene.  Never before had prisoners in that dismal jail heard aught but\ngroans of suffering coming from that inner prison, from the bruised and\nwounded prisoners whose feet were made fast in the stocks; but the\nSpirit of God notes, with sweet and simple pathos, \"the prisoners heard\nthem\"; and oh, how mighty the testimony to that which is \"above the\nsun\" was that singing!  It came from the Christian's proper\nportion,--your portion and mine, dear fellow-redeemed one,--for Jesus,\nour Lord Jesus, our Saviour Jesus, is the alone fountain of a joy that\ncan fill a human heart until it gives forth \"songs in the night,\" even\nin one of earth's foul abodes of suffering and oppression.  He is the\nportion of the youngest, feeblest believer.  Rich treasure!  Let us\nbeware lest any spoil us of that treasure, for we can only \"sing\" as we\nenjoy it.\n\nBut once more let us listen to what the highest, purest attainment of\nthe wisdom of man can give.  And now he speaks of wealth and the\nabundance of earthly prosperity which he, of all men, had so fully\ntested.  \"He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor\nhe that loveth abundance, with increase\"; and again there is the\nsorrowful groan, \"This is also vanity.\"  \"If goods increase,\" he\ncontinues, \"the household necessary to care for them increases\nproportionately, and the owner gets no further satisfaction from them\nthan their sight affords.  Nay, he who toils has a distinct advantage\nover the wealthy, who is denied the quiet repose the former enjoys.\"\nCarefully the Preacher has watched the miser heaping up ever, and\nrobbing himself of all natural enjoyment, until some disaster--\"evil\ntravail\"--sweeps away in a moment his accumulations, and his son is\nleft a pauper.  And such, at least, is every man he marks, be he never\nso wealthy, when the end comes.  Inexorable Death is, sooner or later,\nthe \"evil travail\" that strips him as naked as he came; and then,\nthough he has spent his life in selfish self-denial, filling his dark\ndays with vexation, sickness, and irritation, he is snatched from all,\nand, poor indeed, departs.  Such the sad story of Solomon's experience;\nbut not more sad than true, nor confined by any means to Scripture.\nWorld-wide it is.  Nor is divine revelation necessary to tell poor man\nthat silver, nor gold, nor abundance of any kind, can satisfy the\nheart.  Hear the very heathen cry \"_semper avarus eget_\"--\"the miser\never _needs_\"; or \"_Avarum irritat non satiat pecunia_\"--\"the wealth of\nthe miser satisfies not, but irritates.\"  But more weighty and\nfar-reaching is the word of revelation going far beyond the negation of\nthe king.  \"They that desire to be rich fall into temptation and a\nsnare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in\ndestruction and perdition, for the love of money is the root of all\nkinds of evil, which some reaching after have been led astray from the\nfaith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.\"\n\nBut let us pass to the last three verses of the chapter.  The Preacher\nhere says, in effect, \"Now attend carefully to what I tell thee of the\nresult of all my experience in this way.  I have discerned a good that\nI can really call comely or fair.  It is for a man to have the means at\nhis command for enjoyment, and the power to enjoy those means.  This\ncombination is distinctly the 'gift of God.'  From such an one all the\nevils that make up life pass off without eating deep into his being.  A\ncheerful spirit takes him off from the present evil as soon as it is\npast.  He does not think on it much; for the joy of heart within, _to\nwhich God responds_, enables him to meet and over-ride those waves of\nlife and forget them.\"\n\nThis is in perfect conformity with the whole scope of our book: and it\nis surely a mistake that the evangelical doctors and commentators make\nwhen they seek to extract truth from Solomon's writings that is never\nto be attained apart from God's revelation.  On the other hand, a large\nschool of German rationalists see here nothing beyond the teaching of\nthe Epicure: \"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.\"  Rather does\nit show the high-water mark of human reason, wisdom, and\nexperience,--having much in common with the philosophy of the world,\nbut going far beyond it; and then, at its highest, uttering some wail\nof dissatisfaction and disappointment, whilst the majestic height of\ndivine revelation towers above it into the very heavens, taking him who\nreceives it far above the clouds and mists of earth's speculations and\nquestionings into the clear sunlight of eternal divine truth.\n\nSo here Solomon--and let us not forget none have ever gone, or can ever\ngo, beyond him--gives us the result of his searchings along the special\nline of the power of riches to give enjoyment.  His whole experience\nagain and again has contradicted this.  Look at the 12th verse of this\nvery chapter.  \"The sleep of the laboring man is sweet, _but the\nabundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep_.\"  No, no.  In some\nway to get _joy_, he confesses he must have _God_.  He combines in\nthese verses these two ideas--\"Joy\" and \"God.\"  Look at them.  See how\nthey recur: four times the name of God, thrice a word for joy.  Now\nthis raises Solomon far far above the malarial swamps of mere\nepicureanism, which excluded God entirely.  It shows how perfect the\nharmony throughout the whole book.  It is again, let us recall it, the\nhigh-water mark of human reason, intelligence, and experience.  He\nreasons thus: (1) I have proved the vanity and unsatisfactory character\nof all created things in themselves, and yet can see no good beyond\ngetting enjoyment from them.  (2) The power, therefore, for enjoyment\ncannot be from the things themselves.  It must be from God.  He must\ngive it.  (3) This assumes that there must be some kind of accord\nbetween God and the heart, for God is the spring, and not the\ncircumstances without.  So far the power of human reason.  High it is,\nindeed; but how unsatisfactory, at its highest.  Consider all that it\nleaves unsaid.  Suppose this were where you and I were, my reader, what\nshould we learn of the way of attaining to this \"good that is fair\"?\nShall we ask Ecclesiastes one single question that surely needs clear\nanswer in order to attain it?\n\nI am a sinner: conscience, with more or less power, constantly accuses.\nHow can this awful matter of my guilt in the sight of that God, the\nconfessed and only source of thy \"good,\" be settled?  Surely this is\nabsolutely necessary to know ere I can enjoy thy \"good that is fair.\"\nNay, more: were a voice to speak from heaven, telling me that all the\npast were blotted out up to this moment, I am well assured that I could\nnot maintain this condition for the next moment.  Sin would well up\nfrom the nature within, and leave me as hopeless as ever.  I carry\n_it_--that awful defiling thing--with me, in me.  How is this to be\nanswered, Ecclesiastes?--or what help to its answer dost thou give?...\n\nAnd there is silence alone for a reply.\n\nOnce and only once was such a state possible.  Adam, as he walked in\nhis undefiled Eden, eating its fruit, rejoicing in the result of his\nlabor, with no accusing conscience, God visiting him in the cool of the\nday and responding to all his joy,--there is the picture of\nEcclesiastes' \"good that is fair.\"  Where else in the old creation, and\nhow long did that last?  No; whilst it is refreshing and inspiring to\nmark the beautiful intelligence and exalted reasoning of Ecclesiastes,\nrecognizing the true place of man in creation, dependent, and\nconsciously dependent, on God for \"life and breath and all things,\" as\nPaul spoke long afterwards, appealing to that in the heathen Athenians\nwhich even they were _capable_ of responding to affirmatively; yet how\nhe leaves us looking at a \"good that is fair,\" but without a word as to\nhow it is to be attained, in view of, and in spite of, sin.  That one\nshort word raises an impassable barrier between us and that fair good,\nand the more fair the good, the more cruel the pain at being so utterly\nseparated from it; but then, too, the more sweet and precious the love\nthat removes the barrier entirely, and introduces us to a good that is\nas far fairer than Solomon's as Solomon's is above the beasts.\n\nFor we, too, my dear readers, have our \"good that is fair.\"  Nor need\nwe fear comparison with that of this wisest of men.\n\nSurvey with me a fairer scene than any lighted by this old creation sun\ncan show, and harken to God's own voice, in striking contrast to poor\nSolomon's portraying its lovely and entrancing beauties for our\nenjoyment.\n\n\"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath\nblessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,\naccording as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the\nworld, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,\nhaving predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ\nto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of\nthe glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved:\nin whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins\naccording to the riches of His grace.\"\n\nDwell a little on this our own fair good; mark its sevenfold\nperfection; go up and down the land with me.  Let us press these grapes\nof Eshcol, and taste their excellence together.\n\n_First: Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world_.--A threefold\ncord, that is, indeed, not soon broken.  \"Chosen,\" God's own love and\nwisdom is the fount and spring whence all flows.  And that in blessed\nconnection with the dearest object of His love--\"in Him.\"  \"Before the\nfoundation of the world.\"  In the stability and changelessness of\nEternity,--before that scene that is, and ever was, characterized by\nchange, began,--with its mirth and sorrow, sunshine and shadow, life\nand death.  Blessed solid rock-foundation for all in God and Eternity.\n\n_Second: To be Holy_.--Separated from all the defilement that should\nafterwards come in.  Thus His electing love is always marked first by\nseparation from all evil.  It can never allow its object to be\nconnected with the slightest defilement.  The evil was allowed only\nthat He might reveal Himself as Love and Light in dealing with it.\n\n_Third: without blame_.--So thoroughly is all connected with past\ndefilement met that not a memory of it remains to mar the present joy.\nThe defilement of the old creation with which we were connected has\nleft never a spot nor a stain on the person that could offend infinite\nholiness.  Clean, every whit.  Bless the Lord, oh my soul!\n\n_Fourth: In love_.--Thus separated and cleansed from all defilement not\nmere complacency regards us.  Not merely for his own pleasure, as men\nmake a beautiful garden, and remove everything that would offend their\ntaste, but active love in all its divine warmth encircles us.  My\nreader, do you enjoy this fair good?  If you be but the feeblest\nbeliever it is your own.\n\n_Fifth: Adoption of Children_.--Closest kind of love, and that so\nimplanted in the heart as to put that responsive home-cry of \"Abba,\nFather,\" there, and on our lips.  Yet nothing short of this was the\n\"good pleasure of His will.\n\n_Sixth.--Taken into favor in the Beloved_: the wondrous measure of\nacceptance \"in the Beloved One.\"  Look at Him again.  All the glory He\nhad in eternity He has now, and more added to it.  Infinite complacency\nregards him.  That, too, is the measure of our acceptance.\n\n_Seventh_.--But no shirking that awful word,--no overlooking the awful\nfact of sin's existence.  No; the foundation of our enjoyment of our\nown fair good is well laid \"in whom we have redemption through His\nblood, _even the forgiveness of sins_.\"\n\nSin, looked at in infinite holy Light,--thoroughly looked at,--and\nBlood, precious Blood, poured out in atonement for it, and thus put\naway forever in perfect righteousness.\n\nNow may the Lord grant us to realize more fully, as we progress in our\nbook, the awful hopelessness that weighs on man's sad being, apart from\nthe blessed and infinitely gracious revelation of God.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nRemembering how far the writer of our book excels all who have ever\ncome after him, in ability, wisdom, or riches, his groans of\ndisappointment shall have their true weight with us, and act as\nlighthouse beacons, warning us from danger, or from spending the one\nshort fleeting life we have in treading the same profitless pathway of\ngroaning.\n\nSo chapter six opens, still on the same subject of wealth and its power\nto bless.  A sore evil, and one that weighs heavily on man, has Solomon\nseen: riches, wealth, and honor, clustering thick on the head of one\nperson, and yet God has withheld from him the power of enjoying it all.\nAs our own poet, Browning, writes that apt illustration of King Saul:\n\n                \"A people is thine,\n  And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head combine!\n  High ambition, and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them all,\n  Brought to blaze on the head of one creature--King Saul.\"\n\n\nSo sorrowful is this in our preacher's eyes, and so thoroughly does it\nbespeak a state of affairs under the sun in confusion, that Solomon\nventures the strongest possible assertion.  Better, he says, an\nuntimely birth, that never saw light, than a thousand years twice told,\nthus spent in vanity, without real good having been found.  How bitter\nlife must show itself to lead to such an estimate!  Better never to\nhave been born than pass through life without finding something that\ncan satisfy.  But this is not looking at life simply in itself, for\nlife in itself is good, as the same poet sings:\n\n  \"Oh, our manhood's prime vigor!  No spirit feels waste,\n  Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced.\n  Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,\n  The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock\n  Of the plunge in a pool's living water!\n  How good is man's life--the mere living! how fit to employ\n  All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!\"\n\n\nIt is because man has, of all the creation of God, an awful shadow\nhanging over him--\"death and darkness and the tomb,\" with the solemn,\nsilent, unknown \"beyond\" lying before him, robbing him of rest.  Angels\nhave present pure delight, with no such shadow possible--they die not.\nThe beast may enjoy his pasture, for no thought of a coming death\ndisturbs him.  Life may be full of a kind of enjoyment to such; but\nman, poor man, when awake to the possibilities of his own being, as it\nsurely becomes man to be (and that is just the point of this book--we\nare not looking upon man as a mere animal, but as a reasoning creature,\nand as such he), is robbed of present rest and enjoyment by an\ninevitable fate to which he is hastening, and from which there is no\npossible escape.  Do not all go to one place?--that vague \"Sheol,\"\nspeaking of the grave, and yet the grave, not as the _end_, but an\nindefinite shadowy existence beyond?  All, all go there; and with no\nlight on _that_, better, indeed, \"the untimely birth which came in\nvanity and departs in darkness;\" for this, at least, has the more rest.\nBitter groan this, indeed!\n\nFor the Preacher continues: \"Does man's labor satisfy him?  Can he get\nwhat is really 'good' from it?\"  No.  For never is his appetite filled\nso that it desires nothing more.  The constant return of its thirst\ndemands constant toil; and fool and wise must alike obey its call.\nThis is not confined to bodily food, but covers that bitter hunger and\nthirst of the heart, as the use of the word soul (margin) shows.  The\nlongings of the wise may be for a higher food.  He may aim above the\nmere sensual, and seek to fill his soul with the refined, but he\n_fails_, as indeed do all, even \"the poor man who knows to walk before\nthe living;\" that is, even the poor man who, with all the disadvantages\nof poverty, has wisdom enough to know how to live so as to command the\nrespect of his fellows.  Wise indeed must such be; but he, no more than\nthe fool, has found the \"good\" that forever satisfies hunger and\nthirst, and calms to rest the wandering of the soul, which, like the\nrestless swallow, is ever on the wing.  Man is made up of desire, and\none glimpse with the eyes, something seen, is at least something\nsecured, and it is better than all mere longing, which is vanity and\nthe pursuit of the wind.  For everything has long ago been named _from\nits own nature_; and in this way its name shows what it is.  Thus man,\ntoo, (Adam,) is, and ever has been, known from his name, from \"adamah,\"\nearth; his name so showing his mortality.  If thus he has been made by\nhis Creator, how vain for him to hope to escape his fate, for with Him\nno contention is possible.  What use, then, in many words (not things)\nsince they afford no relief as against that end? they only increase\nvanity.  Then the last sad wail of this subject: \"Who knoweth what is\nreally _good_--satisfying for man--during the few fleeting years of his\nvain life here, which he passes as a shadow; and when he is gone, who\ncan tell him what shall be after him under the sun\"?\n\nLet that wail sink down deep into our ears.  It is the cry that has\nbeen passed, in ever increasing volume, from heart to heart--every\nempty hollow heart of man echoing and re-echoing, \"Who will show us any\ngood?\"  Now turn and listen to One who came to answer that fully, and\nin His word to Mary, the sister of Lazarus, He does distinctly, in\nwords, answer it.  She had chosen the portion that He could call\n\"good.\"  And was that travail and toil, even in service for Himself?\nNo, that was rather her sister's portion; but a seat--expressive of\nrest--(consider it), a listening ear, whilst the Lord ministered to\nher;--and that is all that is needful!  What a contrast between this\npoor rich king, communing with his own heart to find out what is that\ngood portion for man; and the rich poor saint in blessed communion with\ninfinite Love, infinite Wisdom, infinite Power, and resting satisfied!\nSurely, Solomon in all his glory had no throne to be compared to hers,\nas she sat lowly \"at His feet.\"  And mark carefully, for thy soul's\ngood, that word of tender grace that the Lord said, This is \"needful.\"\nHe who had listened to the groan of man's heart through those long four\nthousand years, and knew its need fully and exactly, says that this\ngood portion must not be regarded as any high attainment for the few,\nbut as the very breath of life--for all.  If He knows that it is\nneedful for thee, then, my soul, fear not but that He will approve thy\ntaking the same place and claiming Mary's portion on the ground of thy\n_need alone_.\n\nYes, but does this really answer the root cause of the groan in our\nchapter?  Is the shadow of death dispelled by sitting at His feet!  Is\ndeath no longer the dark unknown?  Shall we learn lessons there that\nshall rob it of all its terrors, and replace the groan with song?  Yes,\ntruly, for look at the few significant foot-prints of that dear Mary's\nwalk after this.  See her at that supper made for the Lord at Bethany.\nHere Martha is serving with perfect acceptance--no word of rebuke to\nher now; she has learned the lesson of that day spoken of in the tenth\nof Luke.  But Mary still excels her, for, whilst sitting at His feet in\nthat same day of tenth of Luke, she has heard some story that makes her\ncome with precious spikenard to anoint His body for the burial!\nStrange act!  And how could that affectionate heart force itself calmly\nto anoint the object of its love for burial?  Ah! still a far sweeter\nstory must she have heard \"at His feet,\" and a bright light must have\npierced the shadow of the tomb.  For, look at that little company of\ndevoted women around His cross, and you will find no trace of the no\nless devoted Mary, the sister of Lazarus, there.  The other Marys may\ncome, in tender affection, but in the dark ignorance of unbelief, to\nsearch for Him, in His empty tomb on the third day.  She, with no less\ntender affection surely, is not there.  Is this silence of Scripture\nwithout significance, or are we to see the reason for it in that \"good\nportion\" she had chosen \"at His feet\"?--and there did she hear, not\nonly the solemn story of His cross leading her to anoint His body for\nthe burial, but the joyful story of His resurrection, so that there was\nno need for _her_ to seek \"the living amongst the dead;\"--she _knew_\nthat He was risen, and she, as long before, \"_sat still in the house_\"!\nOh, blessed calm!  Oh, holy peace!  What is the secret of it?  Wouldst\nthou learn it!  Sit, then, too, \"at His feet,\" in simple conscious\nemptiness and need.  Give Him the still more blessed part of\nministering to thee.  So all shall be in order.  Thou shalt have the\ngood portion that shall dispel all clouds of death, and pour over thy\nbeing heaven's pure sunlight of resurrection; and, with that Light,\nsong shall displace groan, whilst thy Lord shall have the still better\npart--His own surely--of giving; for \"more blessed it is to give than\nto receive.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nBut whilst the King has not that most blessed light, yet there are some\nthings in which he can discriminate; and here are seven comparisons in\nwhich his unaided wisdom can discern which is the better:--\n\n  1.  A good name            is better than precious ointment.\n  2.  The day of death       \"    \"     \"   the day of birth.\n  3.  The house of mourning  \"    \"     \"   the house of feasting.\n  4.  Borrow                 \"    \"     \"   laughter.\n  5.  The rebuke of the wise \"    \"     \"   the song of fools.\n  6.  The end of a thing     \"    \"     \"   the beginning.\n  7.  The patient in spirit  \"    \"     \"   the proud in spirit.\n\n\nLofty, indeed, is the level to which Solomon has attained by such\nunpopular conclusions, and it proves fully that we are listening in\nthis book to man at his highest, best.  Not a bitter, morbid, diseased\nmind, simply wailing over a lost life, and taking, therefore, highly\ncolored and incorrect views of that life, as so many pious commentators\nsay; but the calm, quiet result of the use of the highest powers of\nreasoning man, as man, possesses; and we have but to turn for a moment,\nand listen to Him who is greater than Solomon, to find His holy and\ninfallible seal set upon the above conclusions.  \"Blessed are the pure\nin heart,--they that mourn,--and the meek,\" is surely in the same\nstrain exactly; although reasons are there given for this blessedness\nof which Solomon, with all his wisdom, had never a glimpse.\n\nLet us take just one striking agreement, and note the contrasts: \"It is\nbetter to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of\nfeasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to\nhis heart.  Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the\ncountenance the heart is made better.  The heart of the wise is in the\nhouse of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.\"\nThat is, the loftiest purest wisdom of man recognizes a quality in\nsorrow itself that is purifying.  \"In the sadness of the face the heart\nbecometh fair.\"  In a scene where all is in confusion,--where Death, as\nKing of Terrors, reigns supreme over all, forcing his presence on us\nhourly, where wickedness and falsehood apparently prosper, and goodness\nand truth are forced to the wall,--in such a scene of awful disorder,\nlaughter and mirth are but discord, and grate upon the awakened\nspirit's ear with ghastly harshness.  Whilst an honest acceptance of\nthe truth of things as they are, looking Death itself full in the face,\nthe house of mourning not shunned, but sought out; the sorrow within is\nat least in harmony with the sad state of matters without; the\n\"ministration of death\" has its effect, the spirit learns its lesson of\nhumiliation; and this, says all wisdom, is \"_better_.\"\n\nAnd yet this very level to which Reason can surely climb by her own\nunaided strength may become a foothold for Faith to go further.  Unless\nWrong, Discord, and Death, are the normal _permanent_ condition of\nthings, then sorrow, too, is not the normal permanent state of the\nheart; but this merely remains a question, and to its answer no reason\nhelps us.  Age after age has passed with no variation in the fell\ndiscord of its wails, tears, and groans.  Generation has followed in\nthe footsteps of generation, but with no rift in the gloomy shadow of\ndeath that has overhung and finally settled over each.  Six thousand\nyears of mourning leave unaided Reason with poor hope of any change in\nthe future,--of any expectation of true comfort.  But then listen to\nthat authoritative Voice proclaiming, as no \"scribe\" ever could,\n\"Blessed are they that mourn, _for they shall be comforted_.\"  Ah,\nthere is a bright light breaking in on the dark clouds, with no\nlightning-flash of added storm, but a mild and holy ray,--the promise\nof a day yet to break o'er our sorrow-stricken earth, when there shall\nbe no need for mourning, for death no more shall reign, but be\nswallowed up in victory.\n\nBut turn over a few pages more, and the contrast is still further\nheightened.  The sun of divine revelation is now in mid-heaven; and not\nmerely future, but present, comfort is revealed by its holy and blessed\nbeam.  Come, let us enter now into the \"house of mourning,\" not merely\nto clasp hands with the mourners, and to sit there in the silence of\nEcclesiastes' helplessness for the benefit of our own hearts, nor even\nto whisper the promise of a future comfort, but, full of the comfort of\na present hope, to pour out words of comfort into the mourners' ears.\nTears still are flowing,--nor will we rebuke them.  God would never\nblunt those tender sensibilities of the heart that thus speaks the Hand\nthat made it; but He would take from the tears the bitterness of\nhopelessness, and would throw on them His own blessed Light,--a new\ndirect word of revelation from Himself,--Love and Light as He\nis,--till, like the clouds in the physical world, they shine with a\nglory that even the cloudless sky knows not.\n\n_First_, then, all must be grounded and based on faith in the Lord\nJesus.  We are talking to those who share with us in a common divine\nfaith.  _We believe that Jesus died_: but more, _we believe that He\nrose again_: and here alone is the foundation of true hope or comfort.\nThey who believe not or know not this are as absolutely hopeless--as\ncomfortless--as Ecclesiastes: they are \"the rest which have no hope.\"\nTrue divine Hope is a rare sweet plant, whose root is found _only_ in\nHis empty tomb, whose flower and fruit are in heaven itself.  Based on\nthis, comforts abound; and in every step the living Lord Jesus is seen:\nHis resurrection throws its blessed light everywhere.  If One has\nactually risen from the dead, what glorious possibilities follow.\n\nFor as to those who are falling asleep, is _He_ insensible to that\nwhich moves us so deeply?  Nay; He Himself has put them to sleep.  They\nare fallen asleep [not \"in,\" as our version says, but] _through_\n(_dia_) Jesus.  He who so loved them has Himself put them to sleep.  No\nmatter what the outward, or apparent, causes of their departure to\n_sight_, faith sees the perfect love of the Lord Jesus giving \"His\nbeloved sleep.\"  Sight may take note only of the flying stones as they\ncrush the martyr's body; mark, with horror, the breaking bone, the\nbruised and bleeding flesh; hear the air filled with the confusion of\nshouts of imprecation, and mocking blasphemy; but to faith all is\ndifferent: to her the spirit of the saint, in perfect calm, is enfolded\nto the bosom of Him who has loved and redeemed it, whilst the same Lord\nJesus hushes the bruised and mangled form to _sleep_, as in the holy\nquiet of the sanctuary.\n\nLet our faith take firm hold of this blessed word, \"fallen asleep\nthrough Jesus,\" for our comfort.  So shall we be able to instil this\ncomfort into the wounded hearts of others,--comforting them with the\ncomfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.  What would\nSolomon have given to have known this?\n\n_Second_, the mind must be gently loosened from occupation with itself\nand its own loss; and that by no rebuke or harsh word, so out of place\nwith sorrow, but by the _assumption_, at least, that it is for the loss\nthat the departed themselves suffer that we grieve.  It is because we\nlove them that our tears flow: but suppose we know beyond a question\nthat _they_ have suffered no loss by being taken away from this scene,\nwould not that modify our sorrow?  Yea; would it not change its\ncharacter completely, extracting bitterness from it?  So that blessed\nLord Himself comforted His own on the eve of His departure: \"If ye\nloved me, ye would rejoice because I go unto my Father, for my Father\nis greater than I.\"  The more you love me, the less--not the more--will\nyou sorrow.  Nay; you would change the sorrow into actual joy.  _The\nmeasure of the comfort is exactly the measure of the love_.  That is\nsurely divine.  So here, \"You are looking forward to the day when your\nrejected Lord Jesus shall be manifested in brightest glories: your\nbeloved have not missed their share in that triumph.  God will show\nthem the same \"path of life\" He showed their Shepherd (Ps. xvi.), and\nwill \"bring them with Him\" in the train of their victorious Lord.\n\n_Third_.  But is that triumph, that joy, so far off that it can only be\nseen through the dim aisles and long vistas of many future ages and\ngenerations?  Must our comfort be greatly lessened by the thought that\nwhile that end is \"sure,\" it is still \"very far off,\"--a thousand years\nmay--nay, some say, _must_--have to intervene; and must we sorrowfully\nsay, like the bereaved saint of old, \"I shall go to him, but he shall\nnot return to me\"?  Not at all.  Better, far better than that.  For\nFaith's cheerful and cheering voice is \"we who are alive and remain.\"\nThat day is so close ever to faith that there is nothing between us and\nit.  No long weary waiting expected; and that very _attitude_--that\nvery hope--takes away the \"weariness\" from the swift passing days.\nThose dear saints of old grasped and cherished this blessed hope that\ntheir saviour Lord would return even during their life.  Did they lose\nanything by so cherishing it?  Have we gained by our giving it up?  Has\nthe more \"reasonable\" expectation that, after all, the tomb shall be\nour lot as theirs, made our days brighter, happier, and so to speed\nmore quickly?  Has it made us more separate from the world, more\nheavenly in character, given us less in common with the worldling?  Has\nthis safe \"reasoning\" made us to abound in works of love, labors of\nfaith, and in patience of hope, as did the \"unreasonable\" and\n\"mistaken\" hope of His immediate coming the dear Thessalonians of old?\nFor look at the first chapter, and see how the \"waiting for the Son\nfrom heaven\" worked.  Again I ask, have we improved on this?  _Can_ we\nimprove upon it?  Was it not far better, then, for them--if these its\nhappy accompaniments--to hold fast, even to their last breath, that\nhope; and even to pass off this scene clasping it still fondly to their\nhearts, than our dimmed and dull faith with--it may be boldly said--all\nthe sad loss that accompanies this?\n\nHold it fast, my brethren, \"_We who are alive and remain_.\"  Let that\nbe the only word in our mouths, the only hope in our hearts.  It is a\ncup filled to the brim with comfort.  How they ring with life and hope\nin contrast with the dull, heavy, deathful word of poor\nEcclesiastes--\"For that is the end of all men\"!\n\nOh, spring up brighter in all our hearts, thou divinely given, divinely\nsustained Hope!\n\n_Fourth_.--\"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a\nshout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and\nthe dead in Christ shall rise first.\"\n\nAnother sweet and holy word of comfort.  We have seen Jesus putting His\nsaints to sleep, as to their bodies; and here we see the same Lord\nJesus Himself bidding them rise.  No indiscriminate general\nresurrection this: \"the dead in Christ\" alone are concerned: they rise\nfirst.  He who died for them knows them; and they, too, have known His\nvoice in life: that same voice now awakens them, and bids them rise as\neasily as the little damsel at the \"Talitha Cumi\"!  How precious is\nthis glorious word of the Lord!  How perfect the order!  No\nawe-inspiring trumpet, \"sounding long and waxing loud,\" as at Sinai of\nold, awakening the panic-stricken dead, and bidding them come to an\nawful judgment.  Such the picture that man's dark unbelief and guilty\nconscience have drawn.  Small comfort would we have for mourners were\nthat true.  God be thanked it is not.  Their Saviour's well-known voice\nthat our dead have loved shall awaken them, ringing full and true in\nevery tone and note of it with the love He has borne them.  Then the\nvoice of the Archangel Michael, the great marshal of God's victorious\nhosts shall range our ranks.  This accomplished, and all in the perfect\ndivine order of victory, the trumpet shall sound and the redeemed shall\nbegin their triumphant, blissful, upward flight.\n\n_Fifth_.--But the Spirit of God desires us to get and to give the\ncomfort of another precious word.  In no strange unknown company shall\nwe who are alive and remain start on that homeward journey, but\n\"together with them.\"  Who that has known the agony of broken\nheart-strings does not see the infinitely gracious tender comfort in\nthose three words, \"together with them\"?  There is reunion.  Once more\nwe shall be in very deed with those we love, with never a thought or\nfear of parting more to shadow the mutual joy.  In view of those three\nwords it were simple impertinence to question whether we shall\nrecognize our dear saints who have preceded us.  Not only would such a\nquestion rob them of their beauty, but of their very meaning.  They\nwould be empty and absolutely meaningless in such case.  Sure, beyond a\nperadventure, is it that our most cherished anticipations shall be far\nexceeded in that rapturous moment; for we can but reason from\nexperience, whilst here the sweetest communion has ever been marred by\nthat which there shall not be.\n\nHow sweet the prospect, my sorrowing bereaved readers!  We shall, as\nGod is true, look once more into the very faces of those we have known\nand loved in the Lord on earth.  They awake to recognition as Magdalene\nat the word \"Mary;\" not to a renewed earthly companionship, nor to a\nrelationship as known in the flesh, as poor Mary thought, but to a\nsweeter, as well as higher; a warmer, as well as purer communion; for\nthe tie that there shall bind us together is that which is stronger,\nsweeter than all others, even here,--Jesus Christ the Lord.\n\nBut stay!  Does this really meet fully the present sorrow?  Does it\ngive a satisfying comfort?  Is there not a lurking feeling of\ndisappointment that certain relationships with their affections are\nnever to be restored; therefore, in certain ways, \"recognition\" is not\nprobable?  For instance, a husband loses the companion of his life.  He\nshall, it is true, meet and recognize with joy a saint whom he knew on\nearth, but never again his _wife_.  That sweet, pure, human affection,\nis never to be renewed.  Death's rude hand has chilled that warmth\nforever.  The shock of death has extinguished it forevermore.  Is that\nexactly true?  Is that just as Scripture puts it?  Let us see.\n\nWe may justly reason that if, in the resurrection, relationships were\nexactly as here, sorrow would necessarily outweigh joy.  To find broken\nfamilies there would be a perpetuation of earth's keenest distresses.\nTo know that that break was irreparable would cause a grief unutterable\nand altogether inconsistent with the joy of the new creation.  Marriage\nthere is not, and hence all relationships of earth we may safely gather\nare not there.  But the natural affections of the soul of man have they\nabsolutely come to nothing?\n\nThat soul, connected as it is with that which is higher than\nitself--the spirit--is immortal, and its powers and attributes must be\nin activity beyond death.  It is the seat of the affections here, and,\nsurely, there too.  Why, then, shall not these affections there have\nfull unhindered play?  Let us seek to gather something from analogy.\nKnowledge has its seat in the spirit of man, and here he exercises that\nfaculty; nor does the spirit any more than the soul cease to exist; nor\nare its attributes therefore to be arrested.  Yet we read of knowledge\nin that scene, \"it shall vanish away.\"  And why?  Is it not because of\nthe perfect light that there shines?  Human knowledge is but a candle,\nand what worth is candlelight when the noonday sun shines?  It is\noverwhelmed, swallowed up, by perfect light.  It \"vanishes away,\"--is\nnot extinguished, any more than is human knowledge, by the shock of\ndeath or change; but perfection of Light has done away with the very\nappearance of imperfection.  Now is this not equally and exactly true\nof that other part of the divine nature--Love?  _Here_ we both know in\npart and love in part.  _There_ the perfection of Love causes that\nwhich is imperfect--the human affection of the soul--to \"vanish away.\"\nThe greater swallows up the less.  The infinite attraction of the Lord\nJesus--that \"glory\" which He prayed that we might see (John\nxvii.)--overwhelms all lower affections with no rough rude shock as of\ndeath, but by the very superabundance of the bliss.  His glory!  What\nis it but the radiant outshining of His infinitely blessed, infinitely\nattractive, divine nature,--Love and Light, Light and Love,--each\nswallowing up in their respective spheres every inferior imperfect\nreflection of them that we have enjoyed here in this scene of\nimperfection, leaving nothing to be desired, nothing missed; allowing\nperfect play to every human faculty and affection,--crushing,\nextinguishing none.  Death has not been permitted to annul these\nfaculties.  The perfect love of the Lord Jesus has outstripped them,\nswallowed them up in warmer affections, sweeter communion.\n\nThe coming of that precious Saviour is close: just as close is the\nfulfillment of those words, \"together with them.\"  \"He maketh the\nclouds His chariots,\" and in those chariots we are taken home\n\"together.\"\n\n_Sixth_.--\"To meet the Lord in the air.\"  Another word of divine\ncomfort, again.  How bold the assertion!  Its very boldness is\nassurance of its truth.  It becomes God, and God only, so to speak that\nHis people may both recognize His voice in its majesty and rest on His\nword.  No speculation; no argument; no deduction; no reasoning; but a\nbare, authoritative statement, startling in its boldness.  Not a\nsyllable of past Scripture on which to build and to give color to it;\nand yet _when_ revealed, _when_ spoken, in perfect harmony with the\nwhole of Scripture.  How absolutely impossible for any man to have\nconceived that the Lord's saints should be caught up to meet Him \"_in\nthe air_.\"  Were it not true, its very boldness and apparent\nfoolishness would be its refutation.  And what must be the character of\nmind that would even seek to invent such a thought?  What depths of\nawful wickedness it would bespeak!  What cruelty thus to attempt to\ndeceive the whole race!  What corruption, thus to speak false in the\nholiest matters, attaching the Lord's name to a falsehood!  The spring\nfrom which such a statement, if false, could rise must be corrupt\nindeed.  But, oh, how different in fact!  What severe righteousness!\nwhat depths of holiness! what elevated morality! what warmth of tender\naffection! what burning zeal, combined with the profoundest reasoning,\ncharacterize every word of the writer of this same statement!  Every\nword that he has written testifies that he has _not_ attempted to\ndeceive.\n\nThere is, perhaps, one other alternative: the writer may have _believed\nhimself_ thus inspired, and was thus self-deceived  But in this case\nfar gone in disease must his mind have been; nor could it fail\nconstantly to give striking evidence of being thus unhinged in other\nparts of his writings.  This is a subject with which unbalanced minds\nhave shown their inability to be much occupied without the most\nsorrowful evidences of the disease under which they suffer.  Let there\nbe independence of the Scriptures (as there confessedly is in this\ncase), and let man's mind work in connection with this subject of the\nLord's second coming, and all history has but one testimony: such minds\nbecome unbalanced, and feverish disquietude evidences itself by\nconstant recurrence to the one theme.  Find, on the other hand, one\nsingle instance, if you can, in which such a mind makes mention _once,\nand only once_, of that subject that has so overmastered every other as\nto have deceived him into the belief that falsehood is truth, his own\nimagination is the inspiration of the Spirit of God!\n\nHave you not wondered why this wondrous word of revelation occurs thus\nin detail once and only once?  Is it not one of the weapons of those\nwho contend against this our hope that we base too much on this\nisolated Scripture text?  Not that that is true, for all Scripture, as\nwe have said, is in perfect harmony and accord with it; but what a\nperfect, complete, thorough answer, this fact gives to the other\nalternative--that the writer was self-deceived.  This is impossible;\nor, like every other self-deceived man that ever lived, he would have\npressed his one theme in every letter, forced it on unwilling minds\nevery time he opened his mouth or took up his pen.\n\n  \"No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest\n  Till half mankind were like himself possessed.\"\n\n\n'Tis an attractive theme.  Long could we linger here, but we must pass\non; but before leaving, let us see if we were justified in saying that\nwhilst this word is based on no previous Scripture, yet, when spoken,\nit is in harmony with all.  First, then, is it not in perfect accord\nwith the peculiar character and calling of the Church?  Israel, as a\nnation, finds her final deliverance on the earth.  Her calling and her\nhopes have ever been limited to this scene.  Fitting then, indeed, it\nis that she be saved by her Deliverer's _feet standing once more on the\nMount of Olives_ (Zach. xiv. 4), and the judgment of the living nations\nshould then take place.  But with the Church, how different: her\nblessings heavenly; her character heavenly; her calling heavenly.  Is\nit not, then, in accord with this that her meeting with her Lord should\nbe literally heavenly, too?  Israel, exponent of the righteous\ngovernment of God, may rightly long to \"dip her foot in the blood of\nthe wicked.\"  Nor can she expect or know of any deliverance except, as\nof old, in victories in the day of battle.  The Church, exponent of the\nexceeding riches of His grace, is of another spirit; and our\ndeliverance \"in the air\" permits--nay, necessitates--our echoing that\ngracious word of our Lord, \"Father, forgive them.\"\n\nThen too, how beautifully this rapture follows the pattern of His whom\nthe Lord's people now are following even to a dwelling that has no name\nnor place on earth (John i. 38, 39).  The clouds received Him: they,\ntoo, shall receive us.  Unseen by the world He left the world, too busy\nwith its occupations to note or care for the departure of Him who is\nits Light.  So the poor feeble glimmer of the Lord's dear people now\nshall be lost, secretly, as it were, to the world in which they shine\nas lights, leaving it in awful gloomy darkness till the Day dawn and\nthe Sun arise.\n\nNor is illustration or type lacking.  In Enoch, caught up before the\njudgment of the flood, surely we may see a figure of the rapture of the\nheavenly saints before the antitype of the flood, the tribulation that\nis to try \"the dwellers upon the earth,\" as in Noah brought through\nthat judgment, a picture of the earthly ones.\n\nIn this connection, too, what could be more exquisitely harmonious than\nthe way in which the Lord thus presents Himself to the expectant faith\nof His earthly and heavenly people?  To the former the full plain Day\nis ushered in by the Sun of Righteousness arising with healing in His\nwings: for that Day they look.  To the latter, who are watching through\nthe long hours of the night, the Bright and Morning Star shining ere\nthe first beams of the Sun are thrown upon the dark world is the object\nof faith and hope.\n\nIs not the word that believers shall, \"meet the Lord in the air\" in\nabsolute accord with these different aspects of the Lord as Star and\nSun?  Most certainly it is.\n\nMore than at any other time, a solid foundation for comfort is needed\nin times of deep grief.  Then the hosts of darkness press round the\ndismayed spirit; clouds of darkness roll across the mental sky; the sun\nand all light is hidden; in the storm-wrack the fiery darts of the\nwicked one fall thick as rain.  Every long-accepted truth is\nquestioned; the very foundations seem to dissolve.  A firm foothold,\nindeed, must we have on which to stand at such a time.  Faith must be\nseen not at war with her poor blind--or at least short-sighted--sister\nReason, but in perfect accord, leading her, with her feebler powers, by\nthe hand.  But here is where the world's efforts to comfort--and,\nindeed, alas, the worldly Christians too--lack.  Sentimentalism abounds\nhere; and the poor troubled heart is told to stand fast on airy\nspeculations, and to distil comfort from wax-flowers, as it were,--the\ncreations of the imagination.  How solid the comfort here given in\ncontrast with all this.  _God_ speaks, and in the _Light_, that with\nclear yet gentle ray, exactly meets the needs of our present\ndistress,--in the _Love_ that in its infinite tenderness and beautiful\ndelicacy knows how to heal the wounded spirit,--in the grand\n_authority_ that rests on no other word or testimony for proof,--and\nyet in the perfect, absolute _harmony_ with the whole scope of His own\nholy word, we, His children, recognize again His voice; for never man\ncould speak thus, and we are comforted, and may comfort one another.\n\n_It is true_.  _It is divine_.  We shall meet the Lord in the air.\nHappy journey that, in such a company to such a goal,--to meet the\nLord!  Who can picture the joy of that upward flight?  What words\nextract the comfort of that meeting,--the Lord,--our Lord,--alone with\nHim,--\"together with them,\"--in the quiet chambers of the air!\n\n_Seventh_.--\"And so shall we ever be with the Lord.\"  There is an\neternity of unmingled bliss.  How short the time of separation, oh ye\nmourning ones, compared with this!  The pain is but for a moment,\nwhilst there is a far more exceeding and eternal weight of comfort.\n\nWhat a contrast!  Death is the sad, gloomy, mysterious, unknown\nboundary for all, groans Ecclesiastes, \"for that is the end of all\nmen.\"  There is no end to the joy of the redeemed, says Revelation; and\nFaith sings \"forever with the Lord.\"  What deep need of Himself has\nthis man's heart, that He has made.  If in this sad scene we get one\nray of true comfort it is when \"with Him\"; one thrill of true joy it is\nwhen \"with Him\"; one hour of true peace it is when \"with Him.\"  We were\nintended, meant, created, _to need Him_.  Let us remember that, and\nthen see the sweet comfort in that word, \"so shall we _ever_ be with\nthe Lord.\"  Man is at last, may it be said, in his _element_.  His\nspirit gets the communion that it needs--with Him forever; his soul,\nthe love it needs, in Him forever; his body the perfection it\nneeds--like Him forever!  Is not this revelation self-evidently of\nGod--worthy of Him--possible only to Him?\n\nAgain, let us ask what would Solomon have given for a song like this,\ninstead of his mournful, groan \"for death is the end of all men\"!\nAlas, as he goes on, he finds that even this is not the case, except as\nregards the scene \"under the sun.\"  He finds it impossible to escape a\nconclusion, as startling as it is logical, that there is another scene\nto which death may introduce, from which there is no escape.\n\nOur writer, ignorant as he confessedly is of this glorious light of\ndivine revelation, still speaks in praise of the feeble glimmer that\nhuman wisdom gives.  From his point of view, wealth and wisdom are both\ngood,--are a \"defense\" or \"shadow\" to their possessors; but still that\nwhich men generally esteem the most--wealth--is given the second place;\nfor knowledge, or wisdom, has in itself a positive virtue that money\nlacks.  It \"gives life to them that have it,\" animates, preserves in\nlife, modifies, at least in measure, the evils from which it cannot\naltogether guard its possessor; and, by giving equanimity to a life of\nchange and vicissitude, proves, in some sort, its own life-giving\nenergy.  How infinitely true this is with regard to Him who is absolute\ninfinite Wisdom, and who is our Life, it is our health and joy to\nremember.\n\nThe Preacher continues: Ponder the work of God, but you will find\nnothing in anything that you can _see_ that shall enable you to\nforecast the future with any certainty.  Adversity follows prosperity,\nand my counsel is to make the best use of both,--enjoy this when it\ncomes, and let that teach you that God's ways are inscrutable, nor can\nyou straighten out the tangle of His providences.  Evidently he\n_intends_ these vicissitudes that still follow no definite rule, so\nthat man may recognize his own ignorance and impotence.  In one word,\nreason as you may from all that you can _see_, and your reason will\nthrow no ray of light on God's future dealings.  And there again,\nhaving brought us face to face with a dense, impenetrable cloud,\nEcclesiastes leaves us.\n\nHow awful that dark cloud is, it is difficult for us now to realize, so\naccustomed are we to the light God's word has given.  But were it\npossible to blot out entirely from our minds all that Word has taught\nus, and place ourselves for a moment just by the side of our\n\"Preacher,\" look alone through _his_ eyes, recognize with him the\nexistence of the Creator whose glorious Being is so fully shown in all\nHis works, and yet with nothing whereby to judge of His disposition\ntoward us except what we _see_,--in the physical world the blasting\nstorm sweeping over the landscape that but now spoke only in its\nbeauties and bounties of His love and benevolence, leaving in its\ndesolating track, not only ruined homesteads and blighted harvests;\nbut, far worse, the destruction of all our hopes, of all the estimates\nwe had formed of Him.  In the world of providences the thoughts of His\nlove, based on yesterday's peace and prosperity, all denied and swept\naway by to-day's sorrows and adversities,--awful, agonizing\nuncertainty!  And, since all is surely in His hand, to be compelled to\nrecognize that He _permits_, at least, these alternations \"_to the end\nthat_ (with that express purpose) man should find nothing of what shall\nbe after Him\"!  Reason, or Intelligence, with all her highest powers,\nstands hopeless and helpless before that dark future, and wrings her\nhands in agony.\n\nBut look, my beloved reader, at that man who speeds his way with fleet\nand steady footfall.  His swift tread speaks no uncertainty nor doubt\nof mind.  Mark the earnest, concentrated, forward look.  His eye is\nupward, and something he sees there is drawing him with powerful\nmagnetic attraction quite contrary to the course or path of men at\nlarge.  He presses against the stream: the multitude are floating in\nthe other direction.  As with the kine of Bethshemesh, some hidden\npower takes him in a course quite contrary to all the ties or calls of\nmere nature.  Look at him,--irrespective of anything else, the figure\nitself is a grand sight.  The path he has chosen lies through the\nthorny shrubs of endurance, afflictions, necessities, distresses,\nstripes, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watchings, and fastings.  No\nsoft or winsome meadow-way this, nor one that any would choose, except\nhe were under some strong conviction,--whether true or false,--that\nwill surely be admitted.  For men have at rare times suffered much even\nin the cause of error; but never for that which they themselves _knew_\nto be false, and which at the same time brought them no glory,--nothing\nto feed their vanity, or pride, or exalt them in any way.  Admit, then,\nfor a moment, that he is self-deceived, under some strong delusion, and\nthat the object of which he is in pursuit is but a phantom.  Then mark\nthe path in which that phantom leads: it has turned him from being a\nblasphemer, persecutor, and an insolent, overbearing man (1 Tim. 1),\ninto one of liveliest affections, most tender sympathies, a lowly\nservant of all; it has given him a joy that no wave of trouble can\nquench, a song that dungeons cannot silence, a transparent truthfulness\nwhich permits a lie nowhere; and all this results from that which is in\nitself a delusion,--a lie!  Oh, holy \"delusion\"!  Oh, wondrous,\ntruth-loving, wonder-working \"lie\"!  Was ever such a miracle, that a\nfalsehood works truth?--that a delusion, instead of leading into marsh,\nor bog, or quicksand, as other will-o'-the-wisps ever and always have,\nleads along a morally elevated path where every footstep rings with the\nmusic of divine certainty, as though it trod upon a rock!  Such a\nmiracle, contrary to all reason, is worthy of acceptance only by the\nblind, childish, credulity of infidelity.  Whatever the object before\nhim, then, it is _real_; his convictions are soberly and well founded;\nhe runs his race to no visionary, misty goal; but some actual reality\nis the lode-star of his life.  Let us listen to his own explanation:\n\"forgetting those things that are being, reaching forth unto those that\nare before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling\nof God in Christ Jesus.\"  But Solomon, the wisest of the wise, groans\nno man can find out \"that which shall come after him\"; or, in other\nwords, that future of which Paul sings: I have heard a voice that has\ncalled from heaven, and looking up I have seen a Light that has\ndarkened every other.  One in beauty and attraction infinite,--to Him I\npress.  _He is before me_, and not till Him I reach will I rest.\nBlessed contrast!\n\nNow, my dear reader, let us also seek to keep our eye on that same\nObject, for the man at whom we have been looking is one just like\nourselves, with every passion that we have, and the One who drew him\ncan draw you and me,--Who satisfied him can satisfy us, for He who\nloved and died for him has loved and died for us.\n\nAnd since we are not now contemplating the wondrous cross, but His\nglory, let us sing together:--\n\n  Oh, my Saviour glorified!\n  Now the heavens opened wide\n  Show to Faith's exultant eye\n  One in beauteous majesty.\n\n  Worthy of the sweetest praise\n  That my ransomed heart can raise,\n  Is that Man in whom alone\n  God Himself is fully known.\n\n  For those clust'ring glories prove\n  That glad gospel \"God is Love,\"\n  Whilst those wounds, in glory bright,\n  Voice the solemn \"God is Light.\"\n\n  Holy Light, whose searching ray\n  Brings but into perfect day\n  Beauties that my heart _must_ win\n  To the Sinless once made Sin.\n\n  Hark, my soul!  Thy Saviour sings;\n  Catch the joy that music brings;\n  And, with that sweet flood of song,\n  Pour thy whisp'ring praise along.\n\n  For no film of shade above\n  Hides me now from perfect Love.\n  Deep assurance all is right\n  Gives me peace in perfect Light.\n\n  Find I then on God's own breast\n  Holy, happy, perfect rest,\n  In the person of my Lord,--\n  \"Ever be His name adored!\"\n\n  Oh, my Saviour glorified,\n  Turn my eye from all beside.\n  Let me but Thy beauty see,--\n  Other light is dark to me.\n\n\nBut the Preacher's experiences of anomalies are by no means ended.\nThese alternations of adversity and prosperity, he says, whilst there\nis no forecasting _when_ they will come, so there seems to be no\nsafeguard, even in righteousness and wisdom, against them.  They are\nnot meted out here at all on the lines of righteousness.  The just man\ndies in his righteousness, whilst the wicked lives on in his\nwickedness: therefore be not righteous overmuch; do not abstain, or\nwithdraw thyself, from the natural blessings of life, making it joyless\nand desolate; but then err not on the other side, going into folly and\nlicentiousness,--a course which naturally tends to cut off life itself.\nIt is the narrow way of philosophy: as said the old Latins, \"Medio\ntutissimus ibis,\" \"midway is safety\"; but Solomon is here again, as we\nhave seen before, on a far higher moral elevation than any of the\nheathen philosophers, for he has one sheet-anchor for his soul from the\nevils of either extreme, in the fear of God.\n\nAs for the despairing, hopeless groans of \"vanity,\" we, with our\nGod-given grace, learn to feel pity for our Author, so for his moral\nelevation do we admire him, whilst for his sincerity and love of truth\nwe learn to respect and love him.  See in the next few verses that\nclear, cold, true, reason of his, confessing the narrow limits of its\npowers, and yet the whole soul longs, as if it would burst all bars to\nattain to that which shall solve its perplexity.  \"Thus far have I\nattained by wisdom,\" he says, \"and yet still I cry for wisdom.  I see\nfar off the place where earth can reach and touch the heavens; but\nwhen, by weary toil and labor, I reach that spot, those heavens are as\ninimitably high above me as ever, and an equally long journey lies\nbetween me and the horizon where they meet.  Oh, that I might be wise;\nbut it was far from me.\"\n\nNow, in our version, the next verse reads very tamely and flat, in view\nof the strong emotion under which it is so clear that the whole of the\nbook was written.  \"That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can\nfind it out?\"  The Revised, both in text and margin, gives us a hint of\nanother thought, \"That which is, or hath been, is afar off,\" etc.  But\nother scholars, in company with the Targum and many an old Jewish\nwriter, lift the verse into harmony with the impassioned utterances of\nthis noble man, as he expresses in broken ejaculatory phrase his\nlongings and his powerlessness:\n\n  \"Far off, the past,--what is it?\n  Deep,--that deep!  Ah, who can sound?\n  Then turned I, and my heart, to learn, explore.\n  To seek out wisdom, reason--sin to know--\n  Presumption--folly--vain impiety.\n\n\nHe _must_ unravel the mystery, and turns thus, once more, with his sole\ncompanion, his own heart, to measure everything,--even sin, folly,\nimpiety,--and more bitter even than that bitter death that has again\nand again darkened all his counsel and dashed his hopes, is one awful\nevil that he has found.\n\nOne was nearest Adam in the old creation.  Taken _from_ his side, a\nliving one, she was placed _at_ his side to share with him his wide\ndominion over that fair, unsullied scene.  Strong where he was weak,\nand weak where he was strong, how evidently was she meant of an\nall-gracious and all-wise Creator as a true helpmeet for him: his\ncomplement--filling up his being.  But that old creation is as a vessel\nreversed, so that the highest is now the lowest,--the best has become\nthe worst,--the closest may be the most dangerous; and foes spring even\nfrom within households.  Intensified disorder and confusion!  When she\nwho was so clearly intended by her strength of affection to call into\nrightful play the affections of man's heart, whose very weakness and\ndependence should call forth his strength--alas, our writer has found\nthat that heart is too often a snare and a net, and those hands drag\ndown to ruin the one to whom they cling.  It is the clearest sign of\nGod's judgment to be taken by those nets and bands, as of his mercy, to\nescape them.  Thus evil ever works, dual--as is good--in character.\nOpposed to the Light and Love of God we find a liar and murderer in\nSatan himself; corruption and violence in man, under Satan's power.\nThe weaker vessel makes up for lack of strength by deception; and\nwhilst the man of the earth expresses the violence, so the woman of the\nearth has become, ever and always, the expression of corruption and\ndeceit, as here spoken of by our preacher, \"her heart snares and nets;\nher hands as bands.\"\n\nBut further in his search for wisdom, the Preacher has found but few\nindeed who would or could accompany him in his path.  A man here and\nthere, one in a thousand, would be his companion, but no single woman.\nThis statement strongly evidences that the gospel is outside his\nsphere; the new creation is beyond his ken.  He takes into no account\nthe sovereign grace of God, that in itself can again restore, and more\nthan restore, all to their normal conditions, and make the weaker\nvessel fully as much a vessel unto honor as the stronger, giving her a\nwide and blessed sphere of activity; in which love--the divine nature\nwithin--may find its happy exercise and rest.  Naturally, and apart\nfrom this grace, the woman does not give herself to the same exercise\nof mind as does the man.\n\nBut then, is it thus that man came from his Maker's hands?  Has He, who\nstamped His own perfection on all His works, permitted an awful hideous\nexception in the moral nature of man?  Does human reason admit such a\npossible incongruity?  No, indeed.  Folly may claim license for its\nlusts in the plea of a nature received from a Creator.  Haughty pride,\non the other hand, may deny that nature altogether.  The clearer,\nnobler, truer, philosophy of our writer justifies God, even in view of\nall the evil that makes him groan, and he says, \"Lo, this only have I\nfound, that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many\ninventions.\"\n\nInteresting as well as beautiful it is to hear this conclusion of man's\nreason, not at all in view of the exceeding riches of God's grace, but\nsimply looking at _facts_, in the light that Nature gives.  Man neither\nis, nor can be, an exception to the rule.  God has made him upright.\nIf not so now, it is because he has departed from this state, and his\nmany inventions, or _arts_ (as Luther translates the word\nsignificantly), his devices, his search after new things (but the word\n\"inventions\" expresses the thought of the original correctly), are so\nmany proofs of dissatisfaction and unrest.\n\nHe may, in that pride, which turns everything to its own glory, point\nto these very inventions as evidences of his progress; and in a certain\nway they do unquestionably speak his intelligence and immense\nsuperiority over the lower creation.  Yet the very invention bespeaks\nneed; for most truthful is the proverb, \"Necessity is the mother of\ninvention\"; and surely in the way of Nature _necessity_ is not a glory,\nbut a shame.  Let him glory in his inventions, then; and his glory is\nin his shame.  Adam in his Eden of delights, upright, content, thought\nnever of invention.  He took from God's hand what God gave, with no\nneed to make calls upon his own ingenuity to supply his longings.  The\nfall introduces the inventive faculty, and human ingenuity begins to\nwork to overcome the need, of which now, for the first time, man\nbecomes aware; but we hear no singing in connection with that first\ninvention of the apron of fig-leaves.  That faculty has marked his path\nthroughout the centuries.  Not always at one level, or ever moving in\none direction,--it has risen and fallen, with flow and ebb, as the\ntides; now surging upward with skillful \"artifice in brass and iron,\"\nand to the music of \"harp and organ,\" until it aims at heaven itself,\nand the Lord again and again interposes and abases by flood and\nscattering,--now ebbing, till apparently extinct in the low-sunken\ntribes of earth.  Its activity is the accompaniment usually of the\nlight that God gives, and which man takes, and turns to his own\nboasting, with no recognition of the Giver, calling it \"civilization.\"\nThe Lord's saints are not, for the most part, to be found amongst the\nline of inventors.  The seed of Cain, and not the seed of Seth,\nproduces them.  The former make the earth their home, and naturally\nseek to beautify it, and make it comfortable.  The latter, with deepest\nsoul-thirst, quenched by rills of living water springing not here; with\nheart-longings satisfied by an infinite, tender, divine Love, pass\nthrough the earth strangers and pilgrims, to the Rest of God.\n\nLet us glance forward a little.  The Church is not found on earth; but\nthe earth still is the scene of man's invention; and with that\nsurpassing boast \"opposing and exalting himself above all that is\ncalled God, or is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God\nshowing himself that he is God,\" he heads up his wickedness and\ningenuity together, in calling down fire from heaven and in making \"the\nimage of the beast to breathe.\"  (Rev. xiii. 14, 15.)  'Tis his last\ncrowning effort,--his day is over,--and the flood and the scattering of\nold shall have their awful antitype in an eternal judgment and\neverlasting abasing.\n\nBut the heavenly saints have been caught up to their home.  Is there\ninvention there?  Does human ingenuity still work?  How can it, if\nevery heart is fully satisfied, and nothing can be improved?  But then\nis all at one dead level?  No, surely; for \"discovery\" shall abide when\n\"invention\" has vanished away,--constant, never-ceasing \"discovery.\"\nThe unfoldings, hour by hour, and age by age, of a Beauty that is\ninfinite and inexhaustible,--the tasting a new and entrancing\nperfection in a Love in which every moment shows some fresh attraction,\nsome new sweet compulsion to praise!\n\nDiscovery is already \"ours,\" my reader--not invention; and each day,\neach hour, each moment, may be fruitful in discovery.  Every difficulty\nmet in the day's walk may prove but its handmaid; every trial in the\nday's path serve but to bring out new and happy discoveries.  Nay, even\ngrief and sorrow shall have their sweet discoveries, and open up to\nsight fountains of water hitherto altogether unknown, as with the\noutcast Egyptian mother in the wilderness of Paran, till we learn to\nglory in what hitherto was our sorrow, and to welcome infirmities and\nignorance, for they show us a spring of infinite Strength and a\nfountain of unfathomable Wisdom, that eternal Love puts at our service!\nOh, to grow in Faith's Discoveries!\n\nPhilip had a grand opportunity for \"discovery,\" in the sixth of John;\nbut, poor man, he lost it; for he fell back on creature resources, or,\nin other words, \"Invention.\"  Brought face to face with difficulty, how\ngood it would have been for him to have said, \"Lord Jesus, I am empty\nof wisdom, nor have I any resources to meet this need; but my heart\nrests in Thee: I joy in this fresh opportunity for Thee to display Thy\nglory, for thou knowest what Thou wilt do.\"  Oh, foolish Philip, to\ntalk of every one having a _little_, in that Presence of infinite Love,\ninfinite Power.  Do I thus blame him?  Then let this day see me looking\nupward at every difficulty, and saying \"Lord, Thou knowest what Thou\nwilt do.\"\n\n  The morning breaks, my heart awakes,\n    And many thoughts come crowding o'er me,--\n  What hopes or fears, what smiles or tears\n    Are waiting in that path before me?\n\n  Am I to roam afar from home,\n    By Babel's streams, in gloom despondent?\n  On sorrow's tree must my harp be\n    To grief's sad gusts alone respondent?\n\n  The mists hang dank, on front and flank,\n    My straining eye can naught discover;\n  But well I know that many a foe\n    Around that narrow path doth hover.\n\n  Nor this alone would make me groan,--\n    Alas, a traitor dwells within me;\n  With hollow smile and heart of guile\n    The world without, too, plots to win me.\n\n  Thus I'm beset with foes, and yet\n    I would not miss a single danger:\n  Each foe's a friend that makes me wend\n    My homeward way,--on earth a stranger.\n\n  For never haze dims _upward_ gaze,--\n    Oh, glorious sight! for there above me\n  Upon God's throne there sitteth One\n    Who died to save--who lives to love me!\n\n  And like the dew each dayspring new\n    That tender love shall onward lead me:\n  My thirst shall slake, yet thirst awake\n    Till every breath shall pant:--\"I need Thee.\"\n\n  No wisdom give; I'd rather live\n    In conscious lack dependent on Thee:\n  Each parting way I meet this day\n    Then proves my claim to call upon Thee.\n\n  No strength I ask, for Thine the task\n    To bear Thine own on Shepherd-shoulder.\n  Then Faith may boast when helpless most,\n    And greater need make weakness bolder.\n\n  Then Lord, thy breast is, too, my rest;\n    And there, as in my home, I'm hidden,--\n  Where quiet peace makes groanings cease,\n    And Zion's songs gush forth unbidden.\n\n  Yes, e'en on earth may song have birth,\n    And music rise o'er Nature's groanings,--\n  Whilst Hope new born each springing morn\n    Dispel with joy my faithless moanings.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nStill continues the praise of \"wisdom.\"  For if, as the last verses of\nthe previous chapters have shown, there be but very few that walk in\nher paths, she necessarily lifts those few far above the thoughtless\nmass of men; placing her distinguishing touch even on the features of\nher disciples, lighting them up with intelligence, and taking away the\nrudeness and pride that may be natural to them.\n\n\"Man's wisdom lighteth up his face--its aspect stern is changed.\"\n\nIf this, then, the result, listen to her counsels: \"Honor the king,\"\nnor be connected with any conspiracy against him.  It is true that\nauthorities are as much \"out of joint\" as everything else under the\nsun; and instead of being practically \"ministers of God for good,\" are\nbut too often causes of further misery upon poor man; yet wisdom\nteaches to wait and watch.  Everything has a time and season; and\ninstead of seeking to put matters right by conspiracy, await the turn\nof the wheel; for this is most sure, that nothing is absolutely\npermanent here--the evil of a tyrant's life any more than good.  His\npower shall not release him from paying the debt of nature; it helps\nhim not to retain his spirit.\n\n  This too I saw,--'twas when I gave my heart\n  To every work that's done beneath the sun,--\n  That there's a time when man rules over man to his own hurt.\n  'Twas when I saw the wicked dead interred,\n  And to and from the holy place (men) came and went.\n  Then straight were they forgotten in the city of their deeds.\n  Ah, this was vanity!\n\nThus our Preacher describes the end of the tyrant.  Death ends his\ntyranny, as it does, for the time being at least, the misery of those\nwho were under it.  Men follow him to his burial, to the holy place,\nreturn to their usual avocations--all is over and forgotten.  The\nsplendor and power of monarchy now show their hollowness and vanity by\nso quickly disappearing, and even their memory vanishing, at the touch\nof death.  And yet this retributive end is by no means speedy in every\ncase.  Sentence is often deferred, and the delay emboldens the heart of\nman to further wickedness.  Still, he says, \"I counsel to fear God,\nirrespective of present appearances.  I am assured this is the better\npart: fear God, and, soon or late, the end will justify thy choice.\"\n\nBeautiful and interesting it is thus to see man's unaided reason, his\nown intelligence, carrying him to this conclusion: that there is\nnothing better than to \"fear God;\" and surely this approves itself to\nany intelligence.  He has impressed the proofs of His glorious Being on\nevery side of His creature, man.  \"Day unto day uttereth speech;\" and\nthe Sun, that rejoiceth as a strong man to run his race, voices aloud,\nin his wondrous adaptations to the needs of this creation on which he\nshines, His Being--His eternal power and godhead.  Not only light but\nwarmth he brings, for \"there is nothing hid from the heat thereof,\" and\nin this twofold benevolence testifies again to his Creator, who is Love\nand Light.  Further, wherever he shines he manifests infinite\ntestimonies to the same truth.  From the tiny insect that balances or\ndisports itself with the joy of life in his beams, to the grandeur of\nthe everlasting hills, or the majesty of the broad flood of\nocean--all--all--with no dissentient, discordant voice, proclaim His\nbeing and utter His creative glory.  Nor does darkness necessarily veil\nthat glory: moon and stars take up the grand and holy strain; and what\nman can look at all--have all these witnesses reiterating day and\nnight, with ever-fresh testimonies every season, the same refrain,\n\n  \"The Hand that made us is divine,\"\n\nand yet say, even in His heart, \"There is no God!\" Surely all reason,\nall wisdom, human or divine, says \"Fool!\" to such.\n\nThus, step by step, human wisdom treads on, and, as here, in her most\nworthy representative, \"the king,\" concludes that it is most reasonable\nto give that glorious Creator the reverence due, and to \"fear\" Him.\n\nBut soon, very soon, poor reason has to stop, confounded.  Something\nhas come into the scene that throws her all astray: verse 14--\n\n  \"'Tis vanity, what's done upon the earth; for so it is,\n  That there are righteous to whom it haps as to the vile;\n  And sinners, too, whose lot is like the doings of the just.\n      For surely this is vanity, I said.\"\n\n\nYes, man's soul must be, if left to the light of nature, like that\nnature itself.  If the sky be ever and always cloudless, then may a\ncalm and unbroken faith be expected, when based on things seen.  But it\nis not so.  Storm and cloud again and again darken the light of nature,\nwhether that light be physical or moral; and under these storms and\nclouds reason is swayed from her highest and best conclusions; and the\ncontradictions without, are faithfully reflected within the soul.\n\n\"And so I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the\nsun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide\nwith him of his labor the days of his life, which God giveth him under\nthe sun.\"  Here we get the heralds of a storm indeed.  They are the\nfirst big drops that bespeak the coming flood that shall sweep our\nwriter from all reason's moorings; the play of a lightning that shall\nblind man's wisdom to its own light; the sigh of a wind that soon shall\ndevelop into a very blast of despair.\n\nWhat a contradiction to the previous sober conclusion, \"It shall be\nwell with them that fear God\"!  Now, seeing that there is no apparent\njustice in the allotment of happiness here, and the fear of God is\noften followed by sorrow, while the lawless as often have the easy\nlot,--looking on this scene, I say, \"Eat, drink, and be merry;\" get\nwhat good you can out of life itself; for all is one inextricable\nconfusion.\n\nOh, this awful tangle of providences!  Everything is wrong!  All is in\nconfusion!  There is law everywhere, and yet law-breaking everywhere.\nHow is it?  Why is it?  Is not God the source of order and harmony?\nWhence, then, the discord?  Is it all His retributive justice against\nsin?  Why, then, the thoroughly unequal allotment?  Here is a man born\nblind.  Surely this cannot be because he sinned before his birth!  But,\nthen, is it on account of his parents' sinning?  Why, then, do the\nguilty go comparatively free, and the guiltless suffer?  Sin, surely,\nis the only cause of the infliction.  So the disciples of old, brought\nface to face with exactly this same riddle, the same mystery, ask,\n\"Master, who did sin--this man, or his parents, that he was born\nblind?\"  \"Neither.\"  Another--higher, happier, more glorious reason,\nJesus gives: \"Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that\nthe works of God should be made manifest in him.\"  So the afflicted\nparents weep over their sightless babe; so they nurse him through his\nhelpless, darkened childhood, or guide him through his lonely youth,\ntheir hearts sorely tempted surely to rebel against the providence that\nhas robbed their offspring of the light of heaven.  Neighbors, too, can\ngive but little comfort here.  Why was he born blind?  Who did _the\nsin_ that brought this evident punishment?\n\nOh wait, sorrowing parents! wait, foolish friends!  One is even now on\nHis glorious way who shall with a word unravel the mystery, ease your\ntroubled hearts, quell each rebellious motion, till ye only sorrow that\never a disloyal thought of the God of Love and Light has been\npermitted; and, whilst overwhelming you with blessing, answer every\nquestion your hearts--nay, even your intelligences--could ask.\n\nOh wait, my beloved readers, wait!  We, too, look on a world still all\nin confusion.  Nay, ourselves suffer with many an afflictive stroke,\nwhose cause, too, seems hidden from us, and to contradict the very\ncharacter of the God we know.  One only is worthy to unlock this, as\nevery other, sealed book--wait!  He must make Himself known; _and,\napart from things being wrong, this were impossible_.  \"The works of\nGod must be made manifest.\"  Precious thought!  Blessed words!\nSightless eyes are allowed for a little season, that He--God--may\nmanifest _His_ work in giving them light--accompanied by an everlasting\nlight that knows no dimming.  Tears may fall in time, that God's gentle\nand tender touch may dry them, and that for ever and ever.  Nay, Death\nhimself, with all his awful powers shall be made to serve the same end,\nand, a captive foe, be compelled to utter forth His glory.  Lazarus is\nsuffering, and the sisters are torn with anxiety; but the Lord abides\n\"two days still in the same place where he\" is.  Death is allowed to\nhave his way for a little space--nay, grasp his victim, and shadow with\nhis dark wing the home that Jesus loves; and still He moves not.\nStrange, mysterious patience!  Does He not care?  Is He calmly\nindifferent to the anguish in that far-off cottage?  Has He forgotten\nto be gracious? or, most agonizing question of all, Has some inmate of\nthat home sinned, and chilled thus His love?  How questions throng at\nsuch a time!  But--patience!  All shall be answered, every question\nsettled--every one; and the glorious end shall fully, perfectly justify\nHis \"waiting.\"\n\nLet Death have his way.  The power and dignity of his Conqueror will\nnot permit Him to hasten.  For haste would bespeak anxiety as to the\nresult; and that result is in no sense doubtful.  The body of the\nbrother shall even see corruption, and begin to crumble into dust,\nunder the firm and crushing hand of Death.  Many a tear shall the\nsisters shed, and poor human sympathy tell out its helplessness.  But\nthe Victor comes!  In the calm of assured victory He comes.  And the\n\"express image of the substance\" of the Living God stands face to face\nas Man with our awful foe, Death.  And lo, He speaks but a\nword--\"Lazarus, come forth!\"--and the glory of God shines forth with\nexceeding brightness and beauty!  Oh, joyous scene! oh, bright figure\nof that morn, so soon approaching, when once again that blessed Voice\nshall lift itself up in a \"shout,\" that shall be heard, not in one, but\nin every tomb of His people, and once more the glory of God shall so\nshine in the ranks upon ranks of those myriads, that all shall again\nfully justify His \"waiting\"!\n\nIt was indeed a blessed light that shone into the grave of Lazarus.\nSuch was its glory, that our spirits may quietly rest forever; for we\nsee our Lord and Eternal Lover is Conqueror and Lord of Death.  Nor\nneed we ask, with our modern poet, who sings sweetly, but too much in\nthe spirit of Ecclesiastes,\n\n  Where wert thou, brother, those four days?\n  There lives no record of reply,\n  Which, telling what it is to die,\n  Had surely added praise to praise.\n\nThe resurrection of Lazarus does tell us what it is\n\nfor His redeemed to die.  It tells that it is but a sleep for the body,\ntill He come to awaken it,--that those who thus sleep are not beyond\nHis power, and that a glorious resurrection shall soon \"add praise to\npraise\" indeed.\n\nBut do not these blessed words give us a hint, at least, of the answer\nto that most perplexing of all questions, Why was evil ever permitted\nto disturb the harmony and mar the beauty of God's primal creation,\ndefile heaven itself, fill earth with corruption and violence, and\nstill exist even in eternity?  Ah, we tread on ground here where we\nneed to be completely self-distrustful, and to cleave with absolute\nconfidence and dependence to the revelation of Himself!\n\nThe works of God must be manifested; and He is Light and Love, and\nnothing but Light and Love.  Every work of His, then, must speak the\nsource whence it comes, and be an expression of Light or Love; and the\nend, when He shall again--finding everything very good--rest from His\nwork to enjoy that eternal sabbath, never to be broken, shall shew\nforth absolutely in heaven, in earth, and in hell, that He is Light and\nLove, and nothing but that.\n\nLight and Love!--blending, harmonizing, in perfect equal manifestation,\nin the cross of the Lord Jesus, and--Light now approving Love's\nactivity--in the righteous eternal redemption of all who believe on\nHim; banishing from the new creation every trace of sin, and its\ncompanion, sorrow; whilst the Lake of Fire itself shall prove the\nnecessity of its own existence to display that same nature of God, and\nnaught else--Love then approving the activity of Light, as we may say.\n\nAs Isaiah shows, in the millennial earth, in those\n\n  \"Scenes surpassing fable, and yet true--\n  Scenes of accomplished bliss\"--\n\nthere is still sorrowful necessity for an everlasting memorial of His\nrighteousness in \"the carcases of those men that have transgressed\nagainst me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be\nquenched; and (mark well the _sympathies_ of that scene) they shall be\nan abhorring to all flesh.\"  Love rejected, mercy neglected, truth\ndespised, or held in unrighteousness, grace slighted,--nothing is left\nwhereby the finally impenitent can justify their creation except in\nbeing everlasting testimonies to that side of God's nature, \"Light,\"\nwhilst \"Love,\" and all who are in harmony therewith, unfeignedly\n_approve_.  All shall be right.  None shall then be perplexed because\n\"there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the\nwicked; again, there be wicked men to whom it happeneth according to\nthe work of the righteous.\"  All shall be absolutely right.  No whisper\nshall be heard, even in hell itself, of the charges that men so boldly\nand blasphemously cast at His holy name now.\n\nGod is all in all.  His works are manifested; and whilst it is His\nstrange work, yet Judgment _is_ His work, as every age in Time has\nshown; as the Eternal age, too, shall show--in time, this judgment is\nnecessarily temporal; in eternity, where character, as all else, is\nfixed, it must as necessarily be _eternal_!\n\nSolemn, and perhaps unwelcome, but wholesome theme!  We live in a time\npeculiarly characterized by a lack of reverence for _all_ authority.\nIt is the spirit of the times, and against that spirit the saint must\never watch and guard himself by meditation on these solemn truths.\nFear is a godly sentiment, a just emotion, in view of the holy\ncharacter of our God.  \"I will forewarn whom ye shall fear,\" said the\nLord Jesus: \"Fear him which, after he hath killed, hath power to cast\ninto hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him.\"  The first Christians,\nwalking in _the fear of the Lord_ as well as the comfort of the Holy\nGhost, were multiplied; and when Annanias and Sapphira fell under God's\njudgment, great _fear_ came on all the _church_; whilst apostasy is\nmarked by men feeding, themselves without fear.\n\nAll shall be \"_right_.\"  It is the wrong and disorder and unrighteous\nallotment prevailing here that caused the groans of our writer.  Let us\nlisten to them.  Their doleful, despairing sound shall again add\nsweeter tone to the lovely music of God's revelation, speaking, as it\ndoes, of One who solves every mystery, answers every question, heals\nevery hurt; yea, snatches His own from the very grasp of Death; for all\nis _right_, for all is _light_, where Jesus is, and He is coming.\nPatience!  Wait!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nThe last two verses of Chapter VIII. connect with the opening words of\nthis chapter.  The more Ecclesiastes applies every faculty he has to\nsolve the riddle under the sun, robbing himself of sleep and laboring\nwith strong energy and will, he becomes only the more aware that that\nsolution is altogether impossible.  The contradictions of nature baffle\nthe wisdom of nature.  There is no assured sequence, he reiterates,\nbetween righteousness and happiness on the one hand, and sin and misery\non the other.  The whole confusion is in the sovereign hand of God, and\nthe righteous and the wise must just leave the matter there, for \"no\nman knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.\"  What\ndiscrimination is there here?  Do not all things happen alike to all?\nYes, further, does not Time, unchecked by any higher power, sweep all\nrelentlessly to one common end?  Love cannot be inferred from the \"end\"\nof the righteous, nor hatred from the \"end\" of the sinner; for it is\none and the same death that stops the course of each.  Oh, this is\nindeed an \"evil under the sun.\"\n\nDarker and darker the cloud settles over his spirit; denser and still\nmore dense the fogs of helpless ignorance and perplexity enwrap his\nintelligence.  For, worse still, do men recognize, and live at all\nreasonably in view of, that common mortality?  Alas, madness is in\ntheir hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead; and\nthen all hope for them, as far as can be seen, is over forever.  Dead!\nWhat does that mean?  It means that every faculty, as far as can be\nseen, is stilled forever.  The dead lion, whose majesty and strength,\nwhile living, would have even now struck me with awe, is less\nformidable as it lies there than a living dog.  So with the dead among\nmen: their hatred is no more to be feared, for it can harm nothing;\ntheir love is no more to be valued, for it can profit nothing; their\nzeal and energy are no more to be accounted of, for they can effect\nnothing; yea, all has come to an end forever under the sun.  Oh, the\nawfulness of this darkness!  \"Then I will give,\" continues\nEcclesiastes, \"counsel for this vain life in conformity with the dense\ngloom of its close.  Listen!  Go eat with joy thy bread, and merrily\ndrink thy wine; let never shade of sorrow mar thy short-lived pleasure;\nlet no mourning on thy dress be seen, nor to thy head be oil of\ngladness lacking; merrily live with her whom thy affection has chosen\nas thy life-companion, and trouble not thyself as to God's acceptance\nof thy works--that has been settled long ago; nor let a sensitive\nconscience disturb thee: whatsoever is in thy power to do, that do,\nwithout scruple or question;[1] for soon, but too soon, these days of\nthy vanity will close, and in the grave, whither thou surely goest, all\nopportunities for activity, of whatever character, are over, and\nthat--_forever_!\"\n\nStrange counsel this, for sober and wise Ecclesiastes to give, is it\nnot?  Much has it puzzled many a commentator.  Luther boldly says it is\nsober Christian advice, meant even now to be literally accepted, \"lest\nyou become like the monks, who would not have one look even at the\nsun.\"  Hard labor indeed, however, is it to force it thus into harmony\nwith the general tenor of God's word.\n\nBut is not the counsel good and reasonable enough under certain\nconditions?  And are not those conditions and premises clearly laid\ndown for us in the context here?  It is as if a whirlwind of awful\nperplexities had swept the writer with irresistible force away from his\nmoorings,--a black cloud filled with the terrors of darkness and death\nsweeps over his being, and out of the black and terrible storm he\nspeaks--\"Man has but an hour to enjoy here, and I know nothing as to\nwhat comes after, except that death, impenetrable death, ends every\ngeneration of men, throws down to the dust the good, the righteous, the\nsober, as well as the lawless, the false, and the profligate; ends in a\nmoment all thought, knowledge, love, and hatred;--then since I know\nnothing beyond this vain life, I can only say, Have thy fling;--short,\nshort thy life will be, and vain thou wilt find this short life; so get\nthy fill of pleasure here, for thou goest, and none can help thee, to\nwhere all activities cease, and love and hatred end forever.\"\n\nThis, we may say, based on these premises, and excluding all other, is\nreasonable counsel.  Does not our own apostle Paul confirm it?  Does he\nnot say, if this life be all, this life of vanity under the sun, then\nlet us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?  Yea, we who have turned\naside from this path of present pleasures are of all men most\nmiserable, if this vain life be all.\n\nAnd are we to expect poor unaided human wisdom to face these awful\nproblems of infinite depth without finding the strongest evidence of\nits utter incapacity and helplessness?  Like a feather in the blast,\nour kingly and wise preacher (beyond whom none can ever go) is whirled,\nfor the time being, from his soberness, and, in sorrow akin to despair,\ngives counsel that is in itself revolting to all soberness and wisdom.\nNothing could so powerfully speak the awful chaos of his soul;\nand--mark it well--_in that same awful chaos_ would you and I be at any\nmoment, my reader, if we thought at all, but for one inestimably\nprecious fact.  Black like unto the outer darkness is the storm-cloud\nwe are looking at, and the wild, despairing, yet sad counsel, to \"live\nmerrily\" is in strict harmony with the wild, awful darkness, like the\nsea-gull's scream in the tempest.\n\nLet us review a little the path of reasoning that has led our author to\nwhere he is; only we will walk it joyfully in the light of God.\n\n\"No man knoweth love or hatred by all that is before him.\"  We have\nlooked upon a scene where a holy Victim--infinitely holy--bowed His\nhead under the weight of a judgment that could not be measured.  It was\nbut a little while, and the very heavens could not contain themselves\nwith delight at His perfect beauty, His perfect obedience; but again,\nand yet again, were they opened to express the pleasure of the Highest\nin this lowly Man.  Now, not only are they closed in silence, but a\nhorror seems to enwrap all creation.  The sun, obscured by no\nearth-born cloud, gives out no spark nor ray of light; and in that\nsolemn darkness every voice is strangely hushed.  From nine till noon\nthe air was filled with revilings and reproaches--all leveled at the\none sinless Sufferer; but now, for three hours, these have been\nabsolutely silent, till at last one cry of agony breaks the stillness;\nand it is from Him who \"was oppressed and afflicted, yet opened not His\nmouth; was brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before\nher shearer is dumb, so opened He not His mouth:\"--\"Eli, Eli, lama\nsabachthani\"--\"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!\"\n\nThere, my beloved readers, look there!  Let that cross be before us,\nand then say, \"No man knoweth love or hatred by all that is before\nthem.\"  Are not both revealed there as never before?  Hatred!  What\ncaused the blessed God thus to change His attitude towards the One who\nso delighted Him that the heavens burst open, as it were, under the\nweight of that delight?  There is but one answer to that question.\n_Sin_.  Sin was there on that holiest Sufferer--mine, yours, my reader.\nAnd God's great hatred of sin is fully revealed there.  I know \"hatred\"\nwhen I see God looking at my sin on His infinitely holy, infinitely\nprecious, infinitely beloved Son.  * * * *\n\nLet us meditate upon, without multiplying words over this solemn theme,\nand turn to the Love that burns, too, so brightly there.  Who can\nmeasure the infinity of love to us when, in order that that love might\nhave its way unhindered, God forsakes the One who, for all the\ncountless ages of the eternal past, had afforded Him perfect \"daily\"\ndelight, was ever in His bosom--the only one in that wide creation who\ncould satisfy or respond, in the communion of equality, to His\naffections--and turns away from Him; nay, \"it pleased the Lord to\nbruise Him\"; \"He hath put Him to grief.\"  Ponder these words; and in\nview of who that crucified Victim was, and His relationship with God,\nmeasure, if you can, the love displayed there, the love in that one\nshort word \"so\"--\"God _so_ loved the world that He gave His only\nbegotten Son;\"--then, whilst viewing the cross, hear, coming down to us\nfrom the lips of the wise king, \"No man knoweth love or hatred.\"  Hush!\nEcclesiastes, hush!  Breathe no such word in such a scene as this.\nPardonable it were in that day, when you looked only at the disjointed\nchaos and tangle under the sun; but looking at that cross, it were the\nmost heinous sin, the most unpardonable disloyalty and treason, to say\nnow, \"No man knoweth love.\"  Rather, adoringly, will we say, \"In this\nwas manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His\nonly begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.\nHerein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent\nHis Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  And _we have known and\nbelieved the love that God has to us_.\"\n\nYea, now let \"all things come alike to all:\"--that tender Love shall\nshed its light over this stormy scene, and enable the one that keeps\n_it_ before him to walk the troubled waters of this life in quiet\nassurance and safety.  Death still may play sad havoc with the most\nsensitive of affections; but that Love shall, as we have before seen,\npermit us to weep tears; but not bitter despairing tears.  Further, it\nsheds over the spirit the glorious light of a coming Day, and we look\nforward, not to an awful impending gloom, but to a pathway of real\nlight, that pierces into eternity.  The Day!  We are of the Day!  The\ndarkness passes, the true light already shines!  Then listen, my\nfellow-pilgrims, to the _Spirit's_ counsel: \"But ye, brethren, are not\nin darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.  Ye are all\nthe children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the\nnight, nor of darkness.  Therefore, _let us not sleep_, as do others,\nbut _let us watch and be sober.  For they that sleep, sleep in the\nnight; and they that are drunken, are drunken in the night.  But let us\nwho are of the Day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and\nlove, and for an helmet the hope of salvation_.\"\n\nOur poor preacher, in the darkness of the cloud of death, counsels,\n\"merrily drink thy wine.\"  And not amiss, with such an outlook, is such\nadvice.  In the perfect Light of Revelation, lighting up present and a\nfuture eternity, well may we expect counsel as differing from this as\nthe light in which it is given differs from the darkness.  _\"The night\nis far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works\nof darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.  Let us walk\nhonestly, as in the Day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in\nchambering and wantonness, not in strife and envy.  But put on the Lord\nJesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts\nthereof_.\"  _Amen and Amen_.\n\nBut once again our Preacher turns; and now he sees that it is not\nassuredly possible for the advice he has given to be followed, and that\neven in this life neither work, device, knowledge, nor wisdom, are\neffective in obtaining good or in shielding their possessor from life's\nvicissitudes.  The swift--does he always win the race?  Are there no\ncontingencies that more than counterbalance his swiftness?  A slip, a\nfall, a turned muscle, and--the race is not to the swift.  The\nstrong--is he necessarily conqueror in the fight?  Many an unforeseen\nand uncontrollable event has turned the tide of battle and surprised\nthe world, till the \"fortune of war\" has passed into a proverb.  The\nskillful may not be able at all times to secure even the necessaries of\nlife; nor does abundance invariably accompany greater wisdom, whilst no\namount of intelligence can secure constant and abiding good.[2]\n\nTime and doom hap alike to all, irrespective of man's purposes or\nproposings, and no man knows what his hap shall be, since no skill of\nany kind can avail to guide through the voyage of life without\nencountering its storms.  From the unlooked-for quarter, too, do those\nstorms burst on us.  As the fishes suspect no danger till in the net\nthey are taken, and as the birds fear nothing till ensnared, so we poor\nchildren of Adam, when our \"evil time\" comes round, are snared without\nwarning.\n\nAbsolutely true this is, if life be regarded solely by such light as\nhuman wisdom gives: \"Time and doom happen alike to all.\"  The whole\nscene is like one vast, confused machine, amongst whose intricate\nwheels, that revolve with an irregularity that defies foresight, poor\nman is cast at his birth; and ever and anon, when he least expects it,\nhe comes between these wheels; and then he is crushed by some \"evil,\"\nwhich may make an end of him altogether or leave him for further\nsorrows.  All things seem to work confusedly for evil, and this caps\nthe climax of Ecclesiastes's misery.\n\nHere is the sequence of his reasoning:\n\nFirstly, There is no righteous allotment upon earth; the righteous\nsuffer here, whilst the unjust escape.  Nay,\n\nSecondly, There is an absolute lack of all discrimination in the death\nthat ends all; and,\n\nThirdly, So complete is that end, bringing all so exactly to one dead\nlevel, without the slightest difference; and so impenetrable is the\ntomb to which all go, that I counsel, in my despair, \"Eat, drink, and\nbe merry, irrespective of any future.\"\n\nFourthly, But, alas! that, too, is impossible; for no \"work, nor\ndevice, nor knowledge, nor wisdom,\" can assure freedom from the evil\ndoom that haps, soon or late, to all.\n\nIntensified misery! awful darkness indeed!  And our own souls tremble\nas we stand with Ecclesiastes under its shadow and respond to his\ngroanings.  For the same scene still spreads itself before us as before\nhim.  Mixed with the mad laughter and song of fools is the continued\ngroan of sorrow, pain, and suffering, that still tells of \"time and\ndoom.\"\n\nA striking instance of this comes to my hand even as I write; and since\nits pathetic sadness makes it stand out even from the sorrows of this\nsad world, I would take it as a direct illustration of Ecclesiastes's\ngroan.  At Nyack on the Hudson a Christian family retire to rest after\nthe happy services of last Lord's Day, the 21st of October--an unbroken\ncircle of seven children, with their parents.  Early on the following\nmorning, before it is light, a fire is raging in the house, and four of\nthe little children are consumed in the conflagration.  The account\nconcludes: \"The funeral took place at eleven o'clock to-day.\"  That is,\nin a little more than twelve hours after retiring to sleep, four of the\nmembers of that family circle were in their graves!  Here is an \"evil\ntime\" that has fallen suddenly indeed; and the sad and awful incident\nenables us to realize just what our writer felt as he penned the words.\nWith one stroke, in one moment, four children, who have had for years\ntheir parents' daily thought and care, meet an awful doom, and all that\nthose parents themselves have believed receives a blow whose force it\nis hard to measure.  Now listen, as the heathen cry, \"Where is now\ntheir God?\"  Why was not His shield thrown about them?  Had he not the\npower to warn the sleeping household of the impending danger?  Is He so\nbound by some law of His own making as to forbid his interfering with\nits working?  Worse still, was He indifferent to the awful catastrophe\nthat was about to crush the joy out of that family circle?  If His was\nthe power, was His love lacking?\n\nOh, awful questions when no answer can be given to them;--and nature\ngives no answer.  She is absolutely silent.  No human wisdom, even\nthough it be his who was gifted \"with a wise and understanding heart,\nso that none was like him before him, neither after him should any\narise like unto him,\" could give any answer to questions like these.\nAnd think you, my reader, that nature does not cry out for comfort, and\nfeel about for light at such a time?  Nor that the enemy of our souls\nis not quick in his malignant activity to suggest all kinds of awful\ndoubt?  Every form of darkness and unbelief is alive to seize such\nincidents, and make them the texts on which they may level their\nattacks against the Christian's God.\n\nBut is there really no eye to pity?--no heart to love?--no arm to save?\nAre men really subject to blind law--\"time and doom\"?\n\nHark, my reader, and turn once more to that sweetest music that ever\nbroke on distracted reason's ear.  It comes not to charm with a false\nhope, but with the full authority of God.  None but His Son who had\nlain so long in His Father's bosom that He knew its blessed heart-beats\nthoroughly, could speak such words--\"Are not five sparrows sold for two\nfarthings.\"  Here are poor worthless things indeed that may be truly\ncalled creatures of chance.  \"Time and doom\" must surely \"hap\" to\nthese.  Indeed no; \"not one of them is forgotten before God.\"  Ponder\nevery precious word in simple faith.  God's _memory_ bears upon it the\nlot of every worthless sparrow; it may \"fall to the ground,\" but not\nwithout Him.  He controls their destiny and is interested in their very\nflight.  If it be so with the sparrow, that may be bought for a single\nmite, shall the _saint_, who has been bought at a price infinitely\nbeyond all the treasures of silver and gold in the universe, even at\nthe cost of the precious blood of His dear Son,--shall _he_ be subject\nto \"time and doom\"?  Shall his lot not be shaped by infinite love and\nwisdom?  Yes, verily.  Even the very hairs of his head are all\nnumbered.  No joy, no happiness, no disappointment, no perplexity, no\nsorrow, so infinitesimally small (let alone the greatest) but that the\nOne who controls all worlds takes the closest interest therein, and\nturns, in His love, every thing to blessing, forcing \"_all to work\ntogether for good_,\" and making the very storms of life obedient\nservants to speed His children to their Home.\n\nFaith _alone_ triumphs here; but faith _triumphs_; and apart from such\ntests and trials, what opportunity would there be for faith _to_\ntriumph?  May we not bless God, then, (humbly enough, for we know how\nquickly we fail under trial,) that He _does_ leave opportunity for\nfaith to be in exercise and to get victories?\n\nGod first reveals Himself, and then says, as it were, \"Now let Me see\nif you have so learned what _I am_ as to trust _Me_ against all\ncircumstances, against all that you see, feel, or suffer.\"  And what\nvirtue there must be in the Light of God, when so little of it is\nneeded to sustain His child!  Even in the dim early twilight of the\ndawning of divine revelation, Job, suffering under a very similar and\nfully equal \"evil time,\" could say, \"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath\ntaken away, blessed be the name of the Lord:\" accents sweet and\nrefreshing to Him who values at an unknown price the confidence of this\npoor heart of man.  And yet what did Job know of God?  _He_ had not\nseen the cross.  _He_ had not had anything of the display of tenderest\nunspeakable love that have we.  It was but the _dawn_, as we may say,\nof revelation; but it was enough to enable that poor grief-wrung heart\nto cry, \"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.\"  Shall we, who enjoy\nthe very meridian of revelation light;--shall we, who have seen _Him\nslain for us_, say _less_?  Nay, look at the wondrous _possibilities_\nof our calling, my reader,--a song, nothing but a song will do now.\nNot quiet resignation only; but \"strengthened with all might, according\nto His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with\n_joyfulness_,\"--and that means a song.\n\nHow rich, how very rich, is our portion!  A goodly heritage is ours.\nFor see what our considerations have brought out: a deep _need_\nuniversally felt; for none escape the sorrows, trials, and afflictions,\nthat belong, in greater or less degree, to this life.\n\nThe highest, truest, human wisdom can only recognize the need with a\ngroan, for it finds no remedy for it--time and doom hap alike to all.\n\nGod shows Himself a little, and, lo! quiet, patience, and resignation\ntake the place of groaning.  The need _is_ met.\n\nGod reveals His whole heart fully, and no wave of sorrow, no billow of\nsuffering, can extinguish the joy of His child who walks with Him.\nNay, as thousands upon thousands could testify, the darkest hour of\ntrial is made the sweetest with the sense of His love, and tears with\nsong are mingled.\n\nOh, for grace to enjoy our rich portion more.\n\nBut to return to our book.  Its author rarely proceeds far along any\none line without meeting with that which compels him to return.  So\nhere; for he adds, in verses 13 to the end of the chapter, \"And yet I\nhave seen the very reverse of all this, when apparently an inevitable\ndoom, an 'evil time,' was hanging over a small community, whose\nresources were altogether inadequate to meet the crisis--when no way of\nescape from the impending destruction seemed possible--then, at the\nmoment of despair, a 'poor wise man' steps to the front (such the\nquality there is in wisdom), delivers the city, comes forth from his\nobscurity, shines for a moment, and, lo! the danger past, is again\nforgotten, and sinks to the silence whence he came.  But _this_ the\nincident proved to me, that where strength is vain, there wisdom shows\nits excellence, even though men as a whole appreciate it so little as\nto call upon it only as a last resource.  For let the fools finish\ntheir babbling, and their chief get to the end of his talking; then, in\nthe silence that tells the limit of their powers, the quiet voice of\nwisdom is heard again, and that to effect.  Thus is wisdom better even\nthan weapons of war, although, sensitive quality that it is, a little\nfolly easily taints it.\"\n\nCan we, my readers, fail to set our seal to the truth of all this?  We,\ntoo, have known something much akin to that \"little city with few men,\"\nand one Poor Man, the very embodiment of purest, perfect wisdom, who\nwrought alone a full deliverance in the crisis--a deliverance in which\nwisdom shone divinely bright; and yet the mass of men remember Him not.\nA few, whose hearts grace has touched, may count Him the chief among\nten thousand and the altogether lovely; but the world, though it may\ncall itself by His name, counts other objects more worthy of its\nattention, and the poor wise man is forgotten \"under the sun.\"\n\nNot so above the sun.  There we see the Poor One, the Carpenter's Son,\nthe Nazarene, the Reviled, the Smitten, the Spit-upon, the Crucified,\nseated, crowned with glory and honor, at the right hand of the Majesty\nin the heavens; and there, to a feeble few on earth, He sums up all\nwisdom and all worth, and they journey on in the one hope of seeing Him\nsoon face to face, and being with Him and like Him forever.\n\n\n\n[1] I believe this is distinctly the bearing of these words, and not as\nin our version.\n\n[2] There seems lo be an intensive force to these words, constantly and\nin each phase becoming stronger, in evident antithesis to the \"work,\ndevice, knowledge, and wisdom,\" that Ecclesiastes had just counseled to\nuse to the utmost in order to obtain \"good\" in this life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nThe climax of Ecclesiastes' exercises seems to have been reached in the\nprevious chapter.  The passionate storm is over, and now his thoughts\nripple quietly along in proverb and wise saying.  It is as if he said\n\"I was altogether beyond my depth.  Now I will confine myself only to\nthe present life, without touching on the things unseen, and here I can\npronounce with assurance the conclusion of wisdom, and sum up both its\nadvantages and yet inadequacy.\"\n\nThe proverbs that follow are apparently disjointed, and yet, when\nclosely looked at, are all connected with this subject.  He shows, in\neffect, that, take any view of life, and practically wisdom has\nmanifold advantages.\n\nVer. 1.  The least ingredient of folly spoils as with the corruption of\ndeath the greatest wisdom.  (There is only One whose name is as\nointment poured forth untainted.)\n\nVer. 2.  The wise man's heart is where it should be.  He is governed by\nhis understanding, (for the heart in the Old Testament is the seat of\nthe thought as well as of the affections, as the same word, \"_lehv_,\"\ntranslated \"wisdom\" in the next verse shows), a fool is all askew in\nhis own being.  His heart is at his left hand.  In other words, his\njudgment is dethroned.\n\nVer. 3.  Nor can he hide what he really is for any length of time.\n\"The way,\" with its tests, soon reveals him, and he proclaims to all\nhis folly.\n\nVer. 4.  Yielding to the powers above rather than rebelling against\nthem, marks the path of wisdom.  This may be an example of the testing\nof \"the way\" previously spoken of, for true wisdom shines brightly out\nin the presence of an angry ruler.  Folly leaves its place,--a form of\nexpression tantamount to rebelling, and may throw some light on that\nstupendous primal folly when angels \"left their place,\" or, as Jude\nwrites, \"kept not their first estate, but left their habitation,\" and\nthus broke into the folly of rebelling against the Highest.  For let\nany leave their place, and it means necessarily confusion and disorder.\nIf all has been arranged according to the will and wisdom of the\nHighest, he who steps out of the place assigned him rebels, and discord\ntakes the place of harmony.  The whole of the old creation is thus in\ndisorder and confusion.  All have \"left their place.\"  For God, the\nCreator of all, has been dethroned.  It is the blessed work of One we\nknow, once more to unite in the bonds of love and willing obedience all\nthings in heaven and in earth, and to bind in such way all hearts to\nthe throne of God, that never more shall one \"leave his place.\"\n\nVers. 5-7.  But rulers themselves under the sun are not free from\nfolly, and this shows itself in the disorder that actually proceeds\nfrom them.  Orders and ranks are not in harmony.  Folly is exalted, and\nthose with whom dignities accord are in lowly place.  It is another\nview of the present confusion, and how fully the coming of the Highest\nshowed it out!  A stable, a manger, rejection, and the cross, were the\nportion under the sun of the King of kings.  That fact rights\neverything even now, in one sense, to faith for the path closest to the\nKing must be really necessarily the _highest_, though it be in the\nsight of man the lowest.  Immanuel, the Son of David, walking as a\nservant up and down the land that was His own--The Lord Jesus, The Son\nof Man, having less than the foxes or birds of the air, not even where\nto lay his head,--Christ, the Son of God, wearied with His journey, on\nthe well of Sychar,--this has thrown a glory about the lowly path now,\nthat makes all the grandeur of the great ones of the earth less than\nnothing.  Let the light of His path shine on this scene, and no longer\nshall we count it an evil under the sun for folly and lawlessness to\nhave the highest place, as men speak, but rather count it greatest\nhonor to be worthy to suffer for His name, for we are still in the\nkingdom and patience of the Lord Jesus Christ,--not the Kingdom and\nGlory.  That shall come soon.\n\nVers. 8-10.  But then, Ecclesiastes continues, is there complete\nsecurity in the humbler ranks of life?  Nay, there is no occupation\nthat has not its accompanying danger.  Digging or hedging, quarrying or\ncleaving wood,--all have their peculiar difficulties.  Although there,\ntoo, wisdom is still evidently better than brute strength.\n\nVers. 11 to 15 turn to the same theme of comparison of wisdom and\nfolly, only now with regard to the use of the tongue.  The most gifted\ncharmer (lit. master of the tongue) is of no worth _after_ the serpent\nhas bitten.  The waters that flow commend the spring whence they issue.\nGrace speaks for the wise: folly, from beginning to end, proclaims the\nfool; and nowhere is that folly more manifested than in the\nboastfulness of assertion as to the future.\n\n  \"Predicting words he multiplies, yet man can never know\n  \"The thing that shall be; yea, what cometh after who shall tell?\n  \"Vain toil of fools!  It wearieth him,--this man who knoweth naught\n  \"That may befall his going to the city.\"\n\n\nThis seems to be exactly in line with the apostle James: \"Go to now, ye\nthat say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue\nthere a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain: ye who know not what\nshall be on the morrow.\"\n\nVers. 16-18.  The land is blessed or cursed according to her head.  A\nwell-marked principle in Scripture, which has evidently forced itself\non the notice of human wisdom in the person of Ecclesiastes.  A city\nflourishes under the wise diligence of her rulers, or goes to pieces\nunder their neglect and sensual revelry.  For the tendency to decay is\neverywhere under the sun, and no matter what the sphere,--high or low,\ncity or house,--constant diligence alone offsets that tendency.\n\nVer. 19.  The whole is greater than its part.  Money can procure both\nthe feast and the wine; but these are not, even in our preacher's view,\nthe better things, but the poorer, as chapter vii. has shown us.  We,\ntoo, know that which is infinitely higher than feasts and revelry of\nearth, and here money avails nothing.  \"Wine and milk,\" joy and food,\nare here to be bought without money and without price.  The currency of\nthat sphere is not corruptible gold nor silver, but the love that\ngives,--sharing all it possesses.  There it is love that answereth all\nthings:--the more excellent way, inasmuch as it covers and is the\nspring of all gifts and graces.  Without love, the circulating medium\nof that new creation, a man is poor indeed,--is worth nothing, nay,\n_is_ nothing, (1 Cor. xiii.) He may have the most attractive and showy\nof gifts: the lack of love makes the silver tongue naught but empty\nsound,--a lack of love makes the deepest understanding naught; and\nwhilst he may be a very model of what the world falsely calls charity,\ngiving of his goods to feed the poor, and even his body to be burned,\nit is love alone that gives life and substance to it all,--lacking love\nit profits nothing.  He who abounds most in loving, and consequent\nself-emptying, is the richest there.  The words of the Lord Jesus in\nLuke xii. confirm this: \"So is he that layeth up treasure for himself,\nand is not rich toward God.\"  The two are in direct contrast.  Rich\nhere--laying up treasure for one's self here--_is_ poverty there, and\nthe love that gives _is_ divine riches.  For he who loves most has\nhimself drunk deepest into the very nature of God, for God is Love, and\nhis heart fully satisfied with that which alone in all the universe can\never satisfy the heart of man, filled up,--surely, therefore,\nrich,--pours forth its streams of bounty and blessing according to its\nability to all about.  How thoroughly the balances of the sanctuary\nreverse the estimation of the world.\n\nBut, then, how may we become rich in that true, real sense?  To obtain\nthe money that \"answereth all things\" under the sun, men _toil_ and\n_plan_.  Perhaps as the balances of the sanctuary show that selfish\naccumulation here is poverty there, so the means of attaining true\nriches may be, in some sort, the opposite to those prevailing for the\nfalse--\"quietness and confidence.\"\n\nThe apostle, closing his beautiful description of charity, says:\n\"Follow after charity.\"  Ponder its value--meditate on its\nbeauties--till your heart becomes fascinated, and you press with\nlonging toward it.  But as it is difficult to be occupied with \"Love\"\nin the abstract, can we find anywhere an embodiment of love?  A person\nwho illustrates it in its perfection, in whose character every glorious\nmark that the apostle depicts in this 13th chapter of Corinthians is\nshown in perfect moral beauty--yea, who is in himself the one complete\nperfect expression of love.  And, God be thanked, we know One such;\nand, as we read the sweet and precious attributes of Love, we recognize\nthat the Holy Spirit has pictured every lineament of our Lord Jesus\nChrist.  Wouldst thou be rich, then, my soul?  Follow after, occupy\nthyself with, press toward, the Lord Jesus, till His beauties so\nattract as to take off thy heart from every other infinitely inferior\nattraction, and the kindling of His love shall warm thy heart with the\nsame holy flame, and thou shalt seek love's ease--love's rest--in\npouring out all thou hast in a world where need of all kinds is on\nevery side, and thus be \"rich toward God.\"  So may it be for the\nwriter, and every reader, to the praise of His grace.  Amen.\n\nWhere are we, in time, my readers?  Are we left as shipwrecked sailors\nupon a raft, without chart or compass, and know not whether sunken\nwreck or cliff-bound coast shall next threaten us?  No; a true divine\nchart and compass is in our hands, and we may place our finger upon the\nexact chronological latitude and longitude in which our lot is cast.\nMark the long voyage of the professing Church past the quiet waters of\nEphesus, where first love quickly cools and is lost; past the stormy\nwaves of persecution which drive her onward to her desired haven, in\nSmyrna; caught in the dangerous eddy, and drifted to the whirlpool of\nthe world in Pergamos, followed by the developed Papal hierarchy in\nThyatira, with the false woman in full command of the ship; past\nSardis, with its memories of a divine recovery in the Reformation of\nthe sixteenth century:--Philadelphia and Laodicea alone are left; and,\nwith mutual contention and division largely in the place of brotherly\nlove, who can question but that we have reached the last stage, and\nthat there is every mark of Laodicea about us?  This being so, mark the\nword of our Lord Jesus to the present state of the professing Church:\n\"Thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of\nnothing, but knowest not that thou art poor, and blind, and naked, and\nwretched, and miserable.\"  Yes, in the light of God, in the eyes of the\nLord, in the judgment of the sanctuary, we live in a day of _poverty_.\nIt is this which characterizes the day in which our lot is cast,--a\nlack of all true riches, whilst the air is filled with boastings of\nwealth and attainment.\n\nFurther, I can but believe that we whose eyes scan these lines are\npeculiarly in danger here.  Thyatira goes on to the very end.  Sardis\nis an offshoot from her.  Sardis goes on to the end.  Philadelphia is\nan offshoot from her.  Philadelphia goes on to the end, and is thus the\nstock from whence the proud self-sufficiency of Laodicea springs.  If\nwe (you and I) have shared in any way in the blessings of Philadelphia,\nwe share in the dangers of Laodicea.  Yea, he who thinks he represents\nor has the characteristics of Philadelphia, is most open to the boast\nof Laodicea.  Let us have to do--have holy commerce--with Him who\nspeaks.  Buy of Him the \"gold purified by the fire.\"  But how are we to\nbuy?  What can we give for that gold, when He says we are already poor?\nA poor man is a bad buyer.  Yes, under the sun, where toil and\nself-dependency are the road to wealth; but above the sun quietness and\nconfidence prevail, and the poor man is the best--the only--buyer.\nLook at that man in Mark's Gospel, chapter x., with every mark of\nLaodicea upon him.  _Blind_, by nature; _poor_, for he sat and _begged;\nnaked_, for he has thrown away his garment, and thus surely _pitiable,\nmiserable_, now watch him buy of the Lord.\n\n\"What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?\"\n\n\"Lord, that I might receive my sight.\"\n\n\"Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.\"\n\nAnd the transaction is complete; the contract is settled; the buying is\nover.  \"Immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the\nway.\"  Yes; there is just one thing that that poor, naked, blind man\nhas, that is of highest value even in the eyes of the Lord, and that is\nthe quiet confidence of his poor heart.  All Scripture shows that that\nis what God ever seeks,--the heart of man to return and rest in Him.\nIt is all that we can give in the purchase, but it buys all He has.\n\"All things are possible to him that believeth.\"  In having to do with\nthe Lord Jesus we deal with the rich One whose very joy and rest it is\nto give; and it is surely easy _buying_ from Him whose whole heart's\ndesire is to _give_.  Nothing is required but need and faith to\ncomplete the purchase.\n\n\"Need and Faith\" are our \"two mites.\"  They are to us what the two\nmites were to the poor widow--all our \"living,\" all we have.  Yet,\ncasting them into the treasury, God counts them of far more value than\nall the boasted abundance of Laodicea.  They are the servants, too,\nthat open all doors to the Lord.  They permit no barriers to keep Him\nat a distance.  That gracious waiting Lord then may enter, and sweet\ncommunion follow as He sups with poor \"Need and Faith\"--Himself\nproviding all the provender for that supper-feast.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nWe are drawing near the end, and to the highest conclusions of true\nhuman wisdom; and full of deepest interest it is to mark the character\nof these conclusions.  Reason speaks; that faculty that is rightly\ntermed divine, for its possession marks those who are \"the offspring of\nGod.\"  He is the Father of _spirits_, and it is in the spirit that\nReason has her seat; whilst in our Preacher she is enthroned, and now\nwith authority utters forth her counsels.  Here we may listen to just\nhow far she can attain, mark with deepest interest, and indeed\nadmiration, the grand extent of her powers; and at the same time their\nsorrowful limit,--note their happy harmony up to that limit, with her\nCreator; and then, when with baffled effort and conscious helplessness,\nin view of the deepest questions that ever stir the heart, she is able\nto find no answer to them, and groans her exceeding bitter cry of\n\"Vanity,\" _then_ to turn and listen to the grace and love of that\nCreator meeting those needs and answering those questions,--this is\ninexpressibly precious; and with the light thus given we must let our\nspirits sing a new song, for we are nigh to God, and it is still true\nthat \"none enter the king's gate clothed with sackcloth.\"  Joy and\npraise have their dwelling ever within those boundaries; for He\ninhabiteth the praises of His people.\n\nIn the first eight verses of our chapter we shall thus find man's\nReason running in a beautiful parallel with the divine, and yet in\nmarked contrast with the narrow, selfish, short-sighted policy of the\ndebased wisdom of this world.  Their broad teaching is very clear; look\nforward,--live not for the present; but instead of hoarding or laying\nup for the evil day, cast thy bread--that staff of life, thy\nliving--boldly upon the waters, it shall not be lost.  You have, in so\ndoing, intrusted it to the care of Him who loseth nothing; and the\nfuture, though perhaps far off, shall give thee a full harvest for such\nsowing.  But, to be more explicit, give with a free hand without\ncarefully considering a limit to thy gifts (\"a portion to seven and\nalso to eight\" would seem to have this bearing), for who knows when, in\nthe future, an evil time to thee may make thee the recipient of others'\nbounty.\n\nCan we but admire the harmony, I say again, between the voice of poor,\nfeeble, limited human wisdom and the perfect, absolute, limitless,\ndivine wisdom of New Testament revelation:\n\n\"For I mean not that other men be eased and ye burdened; but by an\nequality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for\ntheir want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want:\nthat there may be equality.\"  This is very closely in the same line.\nBut Solomon continues: Nay, see the lessons that Nature herself would\nteach (and he is no wise man, but distinctly and scripturally \"a fool,\"\nwho is deaf to her teachings, blind to her symbols).  The full clouds\nfind relief by emptying themselves on the parched earth, only to\nreceive those same waters again from the full ocean, after they have\nfulfilled their benevolent mission; and it is a small matter to which\nside, north or south, the tree may fall, it is there for the good of\nwhoever may need it there.[1]\n\nThe accidental direction of the wind determines which way it falls; but\neither north or south it remains for the good of man.  In like manner\nwatch not for favorable winds; dispense on every side, north and south,\nof thy abundance; nor be too solicitous as to the worthiness of the\nrecipients.  He who waits for perfectly favorable conditions will never\nsow, consequently never reap.  Results are with God.  It is not thy\ncare in sowing at exactly the right moment that gives the harvest; all\n_that_ is God's inscrutable work in nature, nor can man tell how those\nresults are attained.  Life in its commencements is as completely\nenshrouded in mystery now as then.  No science, no human wisdom has,\nor--it may be boldly added--ever can throw the slightest glimmer of\nclear light upon it.  Thy part is diligence in sowing, the harvest\nreturn is God's care.  \"In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening\nwithhold not thy hand\" is wisdom's counsel here, just as a higher\nwisdom teaches \"Preach the word: be instant in season and out of\nseason.\"\n\nThus human reason and divine wisdom \"keep step\" together till the\nformer reaches its limit; and very soon, in looking forward, is that\nlimit reached.  For listen now to her advice, consequent on the\nforegoing.  Therefore she says, Let not the enjoyment of the present\nblind thee to the future; for alas there stands that awful mysterious\nExit from the scene that has again and again baffled the Preacher\nthroughout the book.  And here again no science or human reason ever\nhas or ever can throw the faintest glimmer of clear light beyond it.\nThat time is still, at the end of the book, the \"days of darkness.\"  As\npoor Job in the day of his trial wails: \"I go whence I shall not\nreturn, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land of\ndarkness as darkness itself, and of the shadow of death, without any\norder, and where the light is as darkness.\"  So Ecclesiastes says, \"let\nhim remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many.\"  Oh sad and\ngloomy counsel!  Is _this_ what life is?  Its bright morning ever to be\nclouded,--its day to be darkened with the thoughts of its _end_?  Oh\nsorrowful irony to tell us to rejoice in the years of life, and yet\never to bear in mind that those years are surely, irresistibly,\ncarrying us on to the many \"days of darkness.\"  Yes, this is where the\nhighest intellect, the acutest reason, the purest wisdom of any man at\nany time has attained.  But\n\n  Where Reason fails, with all her powers,\n  There Faith prevails and Love adores.\n\n\nWhere the darkness by reason's light is deepest, there Love--Infinite\nand Eternal--has thrown its brightest beam, and far from that time\nbeyond the tomb being \"the days of darkness,\" by New Testament\nrevelation it is the one eternal blessed Day lit up with a Light that\nnever dims; yes, even sun and moon unneeded for \"The glory of God\nenlightens it, and the Lamb is the Light thereof.\"  Think of a\nChristian with that blessed hope of the coming of his Saviour to take\nhim to that well-lighted Home--His Father's House--with the sweet and\nholy anticipations of seeing His own blessed Face,--once marred and\nsmitten for him; of never grieving Him more, of sin never again to mar\nhis communion with Him, of happy holy companionship for eternity with\nkindred hearts and minds all tuned to the one glorious harmony of\nexalting \"Him that sits upon the throne and the Lamb,\"--of loving Him\nperfectly, of serving Him perfectly, of enjoying Him perfectly,--think\nof such a Christian saying, as He looks forward to this bliss, \"All\nthat cometh is _vanity_,\" and we may get some measure of the value of\nthe precious word of God.\n\nBut now with a stronger blow our writer strikes the same doleful chord:\n\"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in\nthe days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the\nsight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will\nbring thee into judgment.\"\n\nOne would think that there could be no possible misunderstanding the\nsorrowful irony of the counsel \"to walk in the ways of thy heart, and\nin the sight of thine eyes,\"--expressions invariably used in an evil\nsense (compare Num. xv. 39; Isa. lvii. 17); and yet, to be consistent\nwith the interpretation to similar counsel in other parts of the book,\nexpounders have sought to give them a _Christian_ meaning, as if they\nwere given in the light of revelation and not in the semi-darkness of\nnature.  But here the concluding sentence, \"know thou, that for all\nthese things God will bring thee into judgment,\" is quite unmistakable.\n\nBut here is indeed a startling assertion.  Where has our writer\nlearned, with such emphatic certainty, of a judgment to come?  Have we\nmistaken the standpoint whence our book was written?  Has the writer,\nafter all, been listening to another Voice that has taught him what is\non the other side of the grave?  Does Revelation make itself heard here\nat last?  Or may, perhaps, even this be in perfect harmony with all\nthat has gone before, and be one step further--almost the last\nstep--along the path that unaided (but not depraved) human Reason may\ntread?  In a word, does Nature herself give Reason sufficient light to\nenable her, when in right exercise, to discover a judgment-seat in the\nshadows of the future?\n\nThis is surely a question of deepest--yes, thrilling--interest; and, we\nare confident, must be answered in the affirmative.  It is to this\npoint that our writer has been climbing, step by step.  Nature has\ntaught him that the future must be looked at rather than the present;\nor, rather, the present must be looked at in the light of the future;\nfor that future corresponds _in its character_ to the present, as the\ncrop does to the seed, only exceeds it _in intensity_ as the harvest\nexceeds the grain sown.  Thus bread hoarded gives no harvest; or, in\nother words, he who lives for the present alone, necessarily, by the\nsimplest and yet strongest law of Nature, must suffer loss: _this is\nJudgment by Nature's law_.  This, too, is the keynote of every\nverse--\"the future,\" \"the future\"; and God, who is clearly discerned by\nReason as behind Nature, \"which is but the name for an effect whose\nCause is God,\"--God is clearly recognized as returning a harvest in the\n_future_, in strict and accurate accord with the sowing of the\n_present_.  This is very clear.  Then how simple and how certain that\nif this is God's irrefragable law in Nature, it must have its\nfulfillment too in the moral nature of man.  It has been one of the\nchief sorrows of the book that neither wrong nor confusion is righted\nhere, and those \"days of darkness\" to which _all_ life tends are no\ndiscriminative judgment, nor is there anything of the kind in a scene\nwhere \"all things come alike to all.\"  Then surely, most surely, unless\nindeed man alone sows without reaping,--alone breaks in as an exception\nto this law,--a thought not consonant with reason,--there must be to\nhim also a harvest of reaping according to what has been sown: in other\nwords a _Judgment_.  Although still, let us mark, our writer does not\nassume to say anything as to where or when that shall be, or how\nbrought about, this is all uncertain and indefinite: the fact is\n_certain_; and more clear will the outline of that judgment-seat stand\nout, as our writer's eyes become accustomed to the new light in which\nhe is standing,--the fact is already certain.\n\nSolemn, most solemn, is this; and yet how beautiful to see a true\nreason--but let us emphasize again not _depraved_, but exercising her\nroyal function of sovereignty over the flesh, not subject to\nit--drawing such true and sure lessons from that which she sees of the\nlaw of God in Nature.  It is a _reasonable_, although in view of sin, a\nfearful expectation; and with exactness is the word chosen in Acts:\nPaul _reasoned_ of judgment to come; and reason, with conscience,\nrecognized the force of the appeal, as \"Felix trembled.\"  Thus that\nsolemn double appointment of man: death and judgment has been discerned\nby Nature's light, and counsel is given in view of each.  We said that\nour writer had reached the climax of his perplexities in view of death\nin chap. ix. when he counseled us to \"merrily drink our wine\"; but now\njudgment discerned, death itself even not necessarily the end, at\nlength soberness prevails; and with an evident solemn sincerity he\ncounsels \"Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil\nfrom thy flesh, for childhood and youth are vanity.\"\n\n\n\n[1] The current interpretation of this clause, that it speaks of the\nfuture state of man after death, seems hardly in keeping with the\ncontext, and certainly not at all in keeping with the character and\nscope of the book.  Ecclesiastes everywhere confesses the strict\nlimitation of his knowledge to the present scene.  This is the cause of\nhis deepest groanings that he cannot pierce beyond it; and it would be\nentirely contrary for him here, in this single instance, to assume to\npronounce authoritatively of the nature of that place or state of which\nhe says he knows nothing.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nOur last chapter concluded with the words, \"For childhood and youth are\nvanity\": that is, childhood proves the emptiness of all \"beneath the\nsun,\" as well as old age.  The heart of the child has the same\nneeds--the same capacity in kind--as that of the aged.  _It needs God_.\nUnless it knows Him, and His love is there, it is empty; and, in its\nfleeting character, childhood proves its vanity.  But this makes us\nquite sure that if childhood can feel the need, then God has, in His\nwide grace, _met the need_; nor is that early life to be debarred from\nthe provision that He has made for it.  There are then the same\n_possibilities_ of filling the heart and life of the young child with\nthat divine love that fills every void, and turns the cry of \"Vanity\"\ninto the Song of Praise: \"Yea, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings\nThou hast perfected praise.\"\n\nBut our writer is by no means able thus to touch any chord in the young\nheart that shall vibrate with the music of praise.  Such as he has,\nhowever, he gives us: \"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy\nyouth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou\nshalt say, I have no pleasure in them.\"\n\nThis counsel must not be separated from the context.  It is based\nabsolutely and altogether on what has now been discerned: for not only\nis our writer a man of the acutest intelligence, but he evidently\npossesses the highest qualities of moral courage.  He shirks no\nquestion, closes his eyes to no fact, and least of all to that awful\nfact of man's compulsory departure from this scene which is called\n\"death.\"  But following on, he has found that even this cannot possibly\nbe all; there must be a _judgment_ that shall follow this present life.\nIt is in view of this he counsels \"Remember thy Creator in the days of\nthy youth,\" whilst the effect of time is to mature, and not destroy,\nthe powers He has given thee: for not forever will life's enjoyment\nlast; old age comes surely, and He who made thee, holds thy spirit in\nHis hand, so that whilst the body may return to dust, the spirit must\nreturn to Him who gave it.\n\nWe will only pause for a moment again to admire the glorious elevation\nof this counsel.  How good were it if the remembrance of a Creator-God,\nto whom all are accountable, could tone, with out quenching, the fire\nand energy of youthful years, and lead in the clean paths of\nrighteousness.  But, alas, how inadequate to meet the actual state of\nthings.  Solomon himself shall serve to illustrate the utter inadequacy\nof his own counsel.  What comfort or hope could he extract from it?\nHis were now already the years in which he must say \"I have no pleasure\nin them.\"  A more modern poet might have voiced his cry,--\n\n  \"My age is in the yellow leaf,\n  The bud, the fruit of 'life,' is gone:\n  The worm, the canker, and the grief,\n            Remain alone!\"\n\n\nHis youth was no more: its bright days were forever past, never to be\nrestored.  What remains, then, for Solomon, and the myriads like him?\nWhat shall efface the memory of those wasted years, or what shall give\na quiet peace, in view of the fast-coming harvest of that wild sowing?\nCan Reason--can any human Wisdom--find any satisfactory answer to these\nweighty questions?  _None_!\n\nVerses 2 to 7 beautifully and poetically depict the fall of the city of\nman's body under the slow but sure siege of the forces of Time.\nGradually, but without one moment's pause, the trenches approach the\nwalls.  Outwork after outwork falls into the enemy's hands, until he is\nvictor over all, and the citadel itself is taken.\n\nVerse 2.--First, clouds come over the spirit: the joyousness of life is\ndulled,--the exuberance of youth is quenched.  Sorrow follows quickly\non the heel of sorrow,--\"clouds return after rain.\"  Those waves that\nyouth's light bark rode gallantly and with exhilaration, now flood the\nlaboring vessel and shut out the light--the joy--of life.\n\nVerse 3.--Then the hands (the keepers of the house) tremble with\nweakness, and the once strong men (the knees) now feeble, bend under\nthe weight of the body they have so long borne.  The few teeth\n(grinders) that may remain fail to do their required service.  Time's\nfinger touches, too, those watchers from the turret-windows (the eyes):\nshade after shade falls over them; till, like slain sentinels that drop\nat their posts, they look out again never-more.\n\nVerse 4.--Closer still the enemy presses, till the close-beleaguered\nfortress is shut out from all communication with the outer world; \"the\ndoors are shut in the streets\"; the ears are dulled to all sounds.\nEven the grinding of the mill,[1] which in an eastern house rarely\nceases, reaches him but as a low murmur, though it be really as loud as\nthe shrill piping of a bird, and all the sweet melodies of song are no\nlonger to be enjoyed.\n\nVerse 5.--Time's sappers, too, are busily at work, although unseen,\ntill the effect of their mining becomes evident in the alarm that is\nfelt at the slightest need of exertion.  The white head, too, tells its\ntale, and adds its testimony to the general decay.  The least weight is\nas a heavy burden; nor can the failing appetite be again awakened.  The\nman is going to his age-long home[2]; for now those four seats of life\nare invaded and broken up--spinal-cord, brain, heart, and blood,--till\nat length body and spirit part company, each going whence it\ncame;--that, to its kindred dust; this, to the God who gave it.\n\nThus to the high wisdom of Solomon man is no mere beast, after all.  He\nmay not penetrate the Beyond to describe that \"age-long home,\" but\nnever of the _beast_ would he say \"the spirit to God who gave it.\"  But\nhis very wisdom again leads us to the most transcendent need of _more_.\nTo tell us this, is to lead us up a mountain-height, to a bridgeless\nabyss which we have to cross, without having a plank or even a thread\nto help us.  To God the spirit goes,--to God who gave it,--to Whom,\nthen, it is responsible.  But in what condition?  Is it conscious\nstill, or does it lose consciousness as in a deep sleep?  Where does it\nnow abide?  How can it endure the searching Light--the infinite\nholiness and purity--of the God to whom it goes?  How shall it give\naccount for the wasted years?  How answer for the myriad sins of life?\nHow reap what has been sown?  Silence here--no answer here--is awful\nindeed,--is _maddening_; and if reason does still hold her seat, then\n\"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,\" is alone consistent with the\nfearful silence to such questions, and the scene is fitly ended by a\ngroan.\n\nDeep even unto the shadow of death is the gloom.  Every syllable of\nthis last sad wail is as a funeral knell to all our hopes, tolling\nmournfully; and, like a passing bell, attending _them_, too, to their\n\"age-long home\"!\n\nOh, well for us if we have heard a clearer Voice than that of poor\nfeeble human Reason break in upon the silence, and, with a blessed,\nperfect, lovely combination of Wisdom and Love, of Authority and\nTenderness, of Truth and Grace, give soul-satisfying answers to all our\nquestionings.\n\nThen may we rejoice, if grace permit, with joy unspeakable; and, even\nin the gloom of this sad scene, lift heart and voice in a shout of\nvictory.  We, too, know what it is for the body thus to perish.  We,\ntoo, though redeemed, still await the redemption of the body, which in\nthe Christian is still subject to the same ravages of time,--sickness,\ndisease, pain, suffering, decay.  But a gracious Revelation has taught\nus a secret that Ecclesiastes never guessed at; and we may sing, even\nwith the fall of Nature's walls about us, \"Though our outward man\nperish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.\"  Yea, every apparent\nvictory of the enemy is now only to be answered with a \"new song\" of\njoyful praise.\n\nIt is true that, \"under the sun,\" the clouds return after the rain;\nand, because it is true, we turn to that firmament of faith where our\nLord Jesus is both Sun and Star, and where the light ever \"shineth more\nand more unto perfect day.\"\n\n_Let_ the keepers tremble, and the strong men bow themselves.  We may\nnow lean upon another and an everlasting Arm, and know another Strength\nwhich is even _perfected_ in this very weakness.\n\nThe grinders may cease because they are few; but their loss cannot\nprevent our feeding ever more and more heartily and to the fill on\nGod's Bread of Life.\n\n_Let_ those that look out of the windows be darkened: the inward eye\nbecomes the more accustomed to another--purer, clearer--light; and we\nsee \"that which is invisible,\" and seeing, we hopefully sing--\n\n  \"City of the pearl-bright portal,\n  City of the jasper wall,\n  City of the golden pavement,\n    Seat of endless festival,--\n  City of Jehovah, Salera,\n    City of eternity,\n  To thy bridal-hall of gladness,\n  From this prison would I flee,--\n          Heir of glory,\n  That shall be for thee and me!\"\n\n\n_Let_ doors be shut in the streets, and _let_ all the daughters of\nmusic be brought low, so that the Babel of this world's discord be\nexcluded, and so that the Lord Himself be on the _inside_ of the closed\ndoor, we may the more undistractedly enjoy the _supper of our life_\nwith Him, and He (the blessed, gracious One!) with us.  Then naught can\nprevent His Voice being heard, whilst the more sweet and clear (though\nstill ever faint, perhaps) may the echo to that Voice arise in melody\nwithin the heart, where God Himself is the gracious Listener!\n\n_Let_ fears be in the way, we know a Love than can dispel all fear and\ngive a new and holy boldness even in full view of all the solemn\nverities of eternity; for it is grounded on the perfect accepted work\nof a divine Redeemer--the faithfulness of a divine Word.\n\nThe very hoary head becomes not merely the witness of decay, and of a\nlife fast passing; but the \"almond-tree\" has another, brighter meaning\nnow: it is a figure of that \"crown of life\" which in the new-creation\nscene awaits the redeemed.\n\nIf appetite fail here, the more the inward longing, and the\nsatisfaction that ever goes hand in hand with it, may abound; and the\ninward man thus be strengthened and enlarged so as to have greater\ncapacity for the enjoyment of those pleasures that are \"at God's right\nhand for evermore.\"\n\nTill at length the earthly house of this tabernacle may be dissolved.\nDust may still return to dust, and there await, what all Creation\nawaits--the glorious resurrection, its redemption.  Whilst the\nspirit--yes, what of the spirit?  To God who gave it?  Ah, far better:\nto God who loved and redeemed it,--to Him who has so cleansed it by His\nown blood, that the very Light of God can detect no stain of sin upon\nit, even though it be the chief of sinners.  So amid the ruins of this\nearthly tabernacle may the triumphant song ascend above the snapping of\ncords, the breaking of golden bowls and pitchers, the very crash of\nnature's citadel: \"Oh, death, where is thy sting?  Oh, grave, where is\nthy victory?  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the\nlaw.  But thanks be to God that giveth us the victory through our Lord\nJesus Christ.\"\n\nThis meets--meets fully, meets satisfactorily--the need.  Now none will\ndeny that this need is deep,--_real_.  Hence it can be no mere\nsentiment, no airy speculation, no poetical imagination, no cunningly\ndevised fable that can meet that need.  _The remedy must be as real as\nthe disease, or it avails nothing_.  No phantom key may loosen so\nhard-closed a lock as this: it must be real, and be made for it.  For\nsuppose we find a lock of such delicate and complicated construction\nthat no key that can be made will adapt itself to all its windings.\nMany skilled men have tried their hands and failed,--till at length the\nwisest of all attempts it, and even he in despair cries \"vanity.\"  Then\nanother key is put into our hands by One who claims to have made the\nvery lock we have found.  We apply it, and its intricacies meet every\ncorresponding intricacy; its flanges fill every chamber, and we open it\nwith perfect facility.  What is the reasonable, necessary conclusion?\nWe say--and rightly, unavoidably say--\"He who made the lock must have\nmade the key.  His claim is just: they have been made by one maker.\"\n\nSo by the perfect rest it brings to the awakened conscience--by the\nquiet calm it brings to the troubled mind--by the warm love that it\nreveals to the craving heart--by the pure light that it sheds in\nsatisfactory answer to all the deep questions of the spirit--by the\nunceasing unfoldings of depths of perfect transcendent wisdom--by its\nadmirable unity in variety--by the holy, righteous settlement of sin,\nworthy of a holy, righteous God--by the peace it gives, even in view of\nwasted years and the wild sowing of the past--by the joy it maintains\neven in view of the trials and sorrows of the present--by the hope with\nwhich it inspires the future;--by all these we know that our key (the\nprecious Word that God has put into our hands) is a reality indeed, and\nas far above the powers of Reason as the heavens are above the earth,\ntherefore necessarily--incontestably--DIVINE!\n\nThis brings us to the concluding words of our book.  Now who has been\nleading us all through these exercises?  A disappointed sensualist?  A\ngloomy stoic?  A cynic--selfish, depressed?  Not at all.  Distinctly a\nwise man;--wise, for he gives that unequivocal proof of wisdom, in that\nhe cares for others.  It is the wise who ever seek to \"win souls,\" \"to\nturn many to righteousness.\"  \"Because the preacher was wise, he still\n_taught the people knowledge_.\"  No cynic is Ecclesiastes.  His\nsympathies are still keen; he knows well and truly the needs of those\nto whom he ministers: knows too, how man's wretched heart ever rejects\nits own blessing; so, in true wisdom, he seeks \"acceptable words\":\nendeavoring to sweeten the medicine he gives, clothes his counsel in\n\"words of delight\" (margin).  Thus here we find all the \"words of\ndelight\" that human wisdom _can_ find, in view of life in all its\naspects from youth to old age.\n\nFor whilst it is certainly difficult satisfactorily to trace the order\nin detail in the book,--and perhaps this is perfectly consistent with\nits character,--yet there can be no question but that it begins by\nlooking at, and testing, those sensual enjoyments that are peculiarly\nattractive to _youth_, and ends with the departure of all in _old age_,\nand, finally--dissolution.  There is, evidently, that much method.  We\nmay also, further, note that the body of the book is taken up with such\nthemes as interest men who are between these two extremes: occupations,\nbusiness, politics, and, as men speak, religion.  All the various\nstates and conditions of man are looked at: kings, princes, nobles,\nmagistrates, rich and poor, are all taken up and discussed in this\nsearch for the one thing that true human reason can call absolutely\n\"good\" for man.  Further method than this might perhaps be inconsistent\nwith the confusion of the scene \"under the sun\" he is regarding, and\nhis own inability to bring order out of the confusion.  There would be\nthus true method in the _absence_ of method, as the cry of \"Vanity,\"\ndoleful as it is, is alone in harmony with the failure of all his\nefforts.  Yes, for whilst here he speaks of \"words of delight,\" one can\nbut wonder to what he can refer, unless it be to something still to\ncome.  Thus far, as he has taken up and dropped, with bitter\ndiscouragement, subject after subject, his burdened, overcharged heart\ninvoluntarily has burst out with the cry, \"Vanity of vanities, all is\nvanity!\"  Words of delight!  Find one in all that we have gone over\nthat can be to a guilty sinner's ear a \"word of delight\"--such as it\ncan really _take in as meeting its needs_; for this seems to be the\nforce of the word here translated \"acceptable\": so perfectly adapted to\nthe needs of the heart it addresses that that heart springs joyfully to\nembrace it at once.  We have surely, thus far, found none such.  A\nJudge has been discerned in God; but small delight in this surely, if I\nam the sinner to be judged.\n\nVerses 11-14.  Wisdom's words are not known by quantity, but quality.\nNot many books, with the consequent weary study; but the right\nword--like a \"goad\": sharp, pointed, effective--and on which may hang,\nas on a \"nail,\" much quiet meditation.  \"Given, too, from one\nshepherd,\" hence not self-contradictory and confusing to the listeners.\nIn this way Ecclesiastes would evidently direct our most earnest\nattention to what follows: \"the conclusion of the whole matter.\"  Here\nis absolutely the highest counsel of true human wisdom--the climax of\nher reasonings--the high-water-mark of her attainments--the limit to\nwhich she can lead us: \"Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this\nis the whole duty of man.  For God shall bring every work into\njudgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be\nevil.\"\n\nWho will deny that this is indeed admirable?  Is there not a glorious\nmoral elevation in this conclusion?  Note how it gives the Creator-God\nHis rightful place; puts the creature, man, in the absolutely correct\nrelationship of obedience, and speaks with perfect assurance of a\ndiscriminative judgment where every single work, yes, \"secret thing,\"\nshall be shown out in its true character as it is good or evil in His\nholy sight: where everything that is wrong and distorted here shall be\nput right.\n\nIt is truly much, but alas for man if this were indeed the end.  Alas\nfor one, conscious of having sinned already, and broken His\ncommandments, whether those commandments be expressed in the ten words\nof the law, as given from Sinai, or in that other law which is common\nto all men, the work of which, \"written in their hearts,\" they\nshow--conscience.  There is no gleam of light, ray of hope, or grain of\ncomfort here.  A judgment to come, _assured_, can only be looked\nforward to, with, at the best, gloomy uncertainty, and awful\nmisgiving--if not with assured conviction of a fearful condemnation;\nand here our writer leaves us with the assurance that this is the\n\"conclusion of the whole matter.\"\n\nWho can picture the terrors of this darkness in which such a conclusion\nleaves us?  Guilty, trembling, with untold sins and wasted years\nbehind; with the awful consciousness that my very being is the corrupt\nfountain whence those sins flowed, and yet with a certain judgment\nbefore in which no single thing is to escape a divinely searching\nexamination: better had it been to have left us still asleep and\nunconscious of these things, and so to have permitted us to secure, at\nleast, what pleasure we could out of this present life \"under the sun,\"\nwithout the shadow of the future ever thrown over us;--yea, such\n\"conclusion\" leaves us \"of all men most miserable.\"\n\nI would, beloved reader, that we might by grace realize something of\nthis.  Nor let our minds be just touched by the passing thoughts, but\npause for a few minutes, at least, and meditate on the scene at this\nlast verse in the only book in our Bible in which man at his best and\nhighest, in his richest and wisest, is heard telling us his exercises\nas he looks at this tangled state of affairs \"under the sun\" and gives\nus to see, as nowhere else can we see, the very utmost limit to which\nhe, as such, can attain.  If this sinks down into our hearts, we shall\nbe the better prepared to apprehend and appreciate the grace that meets\nhim there at the edge of that precipice to which Reason leads but which\nshe cannot bridge.  Oh, blessed grace!  In the person of our royal\nPreacher we are here indeed at our \"wit's end\" in every sense of the\nword; but that is ever and always the place where another hand may lead\nus, where another Wisdom than poor feeble human Reason may find a way\nof escape, and \"deliver us out of our distresses.\"\n\nThen let us turn our ear and listen to another voice: \"For we must all\nappear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive\nthe things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it\nbe good or bad.\"  But stay.  Is this the promised grace of which even\nnow we spoke?  Is this the deliverance for which we hoped?  A\njudgment-seat still?--from which still no escape for any: and a\n\"reception\" according to the things done, whether they be good or bad!\nWherein does this differ from Solomon's \"conclusion of the whole\nmatter\"?  In just two words only--\"_Of Christ_.\"  It is now the\n\"judgment-seat of Christ.\"  Added terror, I admit, to His despisers and\nrejectors; but to you and me, dear fellow-believer, through grace the\ndifference these two words make is infinity itself.  For look at Him\nwho sits upon the judgment-seat;--be not afraid; regard Him patiently\nand well; He bears many a mark whereby you may know Him, and recognize\nin the Judge the very One who has Himself borne the full penalty of all\nyour sins.  See His hands and His feet, and behold His side!  You stand\nbefore _His_ judgment-seat.  Remember, too, the word He spake long ago,\nbut as true as ever, \"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth\nmy word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and\nshall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life\"--and\nas we thus remember both His word and His work, we may be fully\nassured, even as we stand here, that there must be a sense, and an\nimportant sense, in which judgment for us is passed forever.  I may not\nbe able to harmonize these Scriptures; but I will cleave, at least, to\nthat which I clearly understand; in other words, to that which meets my\npresent needs (for we only truly understand what meets our need);\nafterward, other needs may arise that shall make the other scriptures\nequally clear.  He bore my sins--the judgment of God has been upon Him,\ncannot, therefore, be upon me--into that judgment I shall never come.\n\nThen why is it written we must all appear (or rather \"be _manifested_,\"\nbe clearly shown out in true light) before the judgment seat of Christ?\nThere is just one thing I need before entering the joys of eternity.  I\nam, as Jacob in Genesis xxxv., going up \"to Bethel, to dwell there.\"  I\nmust know that everything is fully suited to the place to which I go.\nI need, _I must have_, everything out clearly.  Yes, so clearly, that\nit will not do to trust even my own memory to bring it out.  I need the\nLord \"who loved me and gave Himself for me\" to do it.  _He will_.  How\nprecious this is for the believer who keeps his eye on the Judge!  How\nblessed for him that ere eternity begins full provision is made for the\nperfect security of its peace--for a communion that may not be marred\nby a thought!  Never after this shall a suspicion arise in our hearts,\nduring the long ages that follow, that there is one thing--one secret\nthing--that has not been known and dealt with holily and righteously,\naccording to the infinite purity of the Judgment Seat of Christ.\nSuppose that this were not so written; let alone for a moment that\nthere never could be true discriminative rewards; might not memory be\nbusy, and might not some evil thought allowed during the days of the\nlife in the flesh, long, long forgotten, be suddenly remembered, and\nthe awful question arise, \"Is it possible that that particular evil\nthing has been overlooked?  It was subsequent to the hour that I first\naccepted Him for my Saviour.  I have had no thought of it since.  I am\nnot aware of ever having confessed it.\"  Would not _that_ silence the\nsong of Heaven, embitter even its joy, and still leave tears to be\nwiped away?  _It shall not be_.  All shall be out first.  All--\"every\nsecret thing.\"  Other Scriptures shall show us how these things are\ndealt with.  \"Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day\nshall declare it, because it (that is, the day) shall be revealed in\nfire, and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is.  If\nany man's work abide, he shall receive a reward.  If any man's work\nshall be burnt, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved,\nyet so as by fire.  If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God\ndestroy.\"  (1 Cor. iii.)\n\nThat day is revealed in fire, (Divine judgment,) and gold, silver,\nprecious stones--those works which are of God--alone can stand the\ntest.  All others burn like \"wood, hay, stubble.\"\n\nLook forward a little.  In the light of these Scriptures, see one\nstanding before that Judgment Seat.  He once hung by the side of the\nJudge Himself upon a cross on earth.  See his works being manifested.\nIs there one that can be found gold, silver, precious stones?  Not one.\nThey burn; they all burn: but mark carefully his countenance as his\nworks burn.  Mark the emotions that manifest themselves through the\never-deepening sense of the wondrous grace that could have snatched\nsuch an one as is there being manifested from the burning.  Not a sign\nof terror.  Not a question for a single instant as to his own salvation\nnow.  He has been with Christ, in the Judge's own company, for a long\ntime already, and perfectly established is his heart, in the love that\nsaid to him long ago, \"This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.\"\nNow as all his works burn, the fire within burns too, and he is well\nprepared to sing \"unto Him who loves us and washed us from our sins in\nHis own blood.\"  And yet stay:--Here is something at the very last.  It\nis his word, \"Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same\ncondemnation, and we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of\nour deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss.  Lord, remember me\nwhen Thou comest into Thy kingdom.\"  Gold! gold at last! as we may say;\nand he too receives praise of God.  Yes, not one that shall have the\nsolemn joy of standing before that tribunal but has, in some measure,\nthat praise.  For is it not written, \"then\" (at that very time) \"shall\nevery one have praise of God.\"  \"This honor have all his saints.\"\n\nWhere and when does this judgment of our works, then, take place?  It\nmust be subsequent to our rapture to the air of which we have spoken,\nand prior to our manifestation with Christ as sons of God.  For by all\nthe ways of God, through all the ages, those scenes could never be\ncarried out before an unbelieving hostile world.  Never has He exposed,\nnever will He so expose His saints.  All will be over when we come\nforth with Him to live and reign a thousand years.  \"The bride has made\nherself ready,\" and the robes in which she comes forth--the white\nlinen--are indeed the righteousnesses of the saints, but these have\nbeen \"washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.\"\n\nBut \"_all_\" must stand before Him; and not even yet has that been\nfulfilled.  Cain and the long line of rejectors of mercy and light,\never broadening as time's sad ages have passed till their path has been\ncalled the \"broad way,\" have not yet stood there.  Has death saved them\nfrom judgment?  No, for we read of the \"resurrection of judgment\"--the\njudgment that comes necessarily after death, and includes the dead, and\nonly the dead.  \"I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it,\nfrom whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was\nfound no place for them.  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand\nbefore God; and the books were opened, and another book was opened,\nwhich is the Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of those things\nwhich were written in the books, according to their works.  And the sea\ngave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the\ndead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to\ntheir works, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.  This\nis the second death.  And whosoever was not found written in the Book\nof Life was cast into the lake of fire.\"  Here, too, we see an exact,\nperfect, retributive, discriminating judgment.  The Book of Life bears\nnot the name of one here.  There is that one broad distinction between\nthe saved and the lost--the \"life-line,\" as we may call it.  How\ncarefully are we told at the very last of this Book of Life, that we\nmay most clearly understand, for our comfort, that the feeblest touch\nof faith of but the hem of His garment--perhaps not even _directly_ His\nPerson, but that which is seen surrounding His Person, as the visible\ncreation may be said to do--(Psalms cii. 25, 6) let any have touched\nHim there, and _life_ results.  His name is found in the Book of Life,\nand he shall not see the second death.  Apart from this--the second\ndeath: \"the lake of fire!\"\n\nAnd yet, whilst \"darkness and wrath\" are the common lot of the\nrejectors of \"light and love,\" there is, necessarily, almost infinite\ndifference in the degrees of that darkness and fierceness of that\nwrath, dependent exactly on the degree of rejection of light and love.\nAs our Lord tells us, \"he that knew his Lord's will, and prepared not\nhimself, shall be beaten with many stripes.  But he that knew not, and\ndid commit things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes.\nFor unto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required; and to\nwhom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.\"  All is\nabsolutely _right_.  Nothing more now to be _made_ right The ages of\neternity may roll in unbroken peace; with God--manifested in all the\nuniverse as light and love--all in all.\n\nAnd now, dear readers, the time has come to say farewell for a season\nto our writer and to each other.  Let this leave-taking not be with the\ngroans of Ecclesiastes' helplessness in our ears.  We have stood by his\nside and tested with him the sad unsatisfying pleasures connected with\nthe senses under the sun.  We have turned from them, and tried the\npurer, higher pleasures of the intellect and reason, and groaned to\nfind _them_ equally unsatisfying.  We have looked through his wearied\neyes at this scene, restless in its unending changes, and yet with\nnothing really new.  We have felt a little, with his sensitive,\nsympathetic heart, for the oppressed and down-trodden \"under the sun,\"\nand groaned in our helplessness to right their wrongs.  We have\ngroaned, too, at his and our inability to understand or solve the\ncontradictory tangle of life that seemed to deny either the providence\nor the goodness of a clearly recognized Creator.  We have followed with\nhim along many a hopeful path till it led us to a tomb, and then we\nhave bowed head with him, and groaned in our agonizing inability to\npierce further.  We have seen, too, with him that there is not the\nslightest discrimination in that ending of man's race, and worse, even\nthan groans to our ears, has been the wild, sad counsel of despair,\n\"Merrily drink thy wine.\"  But quickly recovering from this, we have\nwondered with great admiration as our guide's clear reason led him, and\nus, still on and on to discern, a final harvest-judgment that follows\nall earth's sowings.  But there, as we have stood beside him in spirit,\nbefore that awful judgment-seat to which he has led us, and turned to\nhim for one word of light or comfort in view of our sin and wrong\ndoings--the deepest need of all--we have been met with a silence too\ndeeply agonizing, even for the groan of vanity.  Groans, groans,\nnothing but groans, at every turn!\n\nAnd then with what relief--oh, what relief, ever increasing as the\nneeds increased--have we turned to the Greater than the greatest of men\n\"under the sun,\" and, placing the hand of faith in His, we have been\nled into other scenes, and have found every single need of our being\nfully, absolutely, satisfactorily met.  Our body if now the seat of sin\nand suffering, yet we have learned to sing in the joyful hope of its\nsoon being \"like Him forever.\"  Our soul's affections have in Him a\nsatisfying object, whilst His love may fill the poor, empty, craving\nheart till it runs over with a song all unknown under the sun,--our\nspirit's deep questions, as they have come up, have all been met and\nanswered in such sort that each answer strikes a chord that sounds with\nthe melody of delight;--till at last death itself is despoiled of his\nterrors, and our song is still more sweet and clear in the tyrant's\npresence, for he is no longer a \"king\" over us, but our \"servant.\"\nEven the deepest, most awful terror of all to sinners such as we--the\nJudgment-seat--has given us new cause for still more joyful singing;\nfor we have in that pure clear light recognized in God--our\nCreator-God, our Redeemer-God--a love so full, so true,--working with a\nwisdom so infinite, so pure,--in perfect harmony with a righteousness\nso unbending, so inflexible,--with a holiness not to be flecked or\ntarnished by a breath,--all combining to put us at joyful ease in the\nvery presence of judgment--to find there, as nowhere else possible, all\nthat is in God in His infinity told out, (\"love with us made perfect,\")\nand that means that all the creatures' responsive love must find sweet\nrelief in a song that it will take eternity itself to end.  In our\nFather's House we only \"begin to be merry,\" and end nevermore, as we\nsound the depths of a wisdom that is fathomless, know a \"love that\npasseth knowledge\";--singing, singing, nothing but singing, and ever a\nnew song!\n\nMay God, in His grace, make this the joyful experience of reader and\nwriter, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake!  Amen.\n\n\n\n[1] This differs from the usual interpretation, which makes this verse\na metaphor of the mouth and teeth.  This has been rejected above, not\nonly on account of the direct evidence of its faultiness, and the\nfanciful interpretation given to the \"sound of grinding,\" but for the\ntwofold reason that it would make the teeth to be alluded to _twice_,\nwhilst all reference to the equally important sense of \"hearing\" would\nbe omitted altogether.  I have therefore followed Dr. Lewis's metrical\nversion:--\n\n  \"And closing are the doors that lead abroad,\n  When the hum of the mill is sounding low,\n  Though it rise to the sparrow's note,\n  And voices loudest in the song, do all to faintness sink.\"\n\n\nAlthough, I might here add, I cannot follow this writer in his view\nthat Ecclesiastes is describing only the old age of the sensualist.\nRather is it man as man,--at his highest,--but with only what he can\nfind \"under the sun\" to enlighten him.\n\n[2] The word rendered above \"age-long,\" in our authorized version\n\"long,\"--\"man goeth to his _long_ home\"--is one of those suggestive\nwords with which the Hebrew Scriptures abound, and which are well worth\npondering with interest.  To transfer and not translate it into English\nwe might call it \"olamic,\" speaking of a cycle: having a limit, and yet\na shadowy, undefined limit.  The word therefore in itself beautifully\nand significantly expresses both the confidence, the faith of the\nspeaker as well as his ignorance.  Man's existence after death is\ndistinctly predicated.  The mere grave is not that olamic home; for the\nspirit would, in that case, be quite lost sight of; nor, indeed, is the\nspirit alone there,--the _man_ goes there.  It appears to correspond\nvery closely to the Greek word Hades, \"the Unseen.\"  Man has gone to\nthat sphere beyond human ken, but when the purposes of God are\nfulfilled, his abode there shall have an end: it is for an \"age,\" but\nonly an \"age.\"  All this seems to be wrapped up, as it were, in that\none phrase--_Beth-olam_, the age-long home.  How blessed for us the\nlight that has since been shed on all this.  In One case (and indeed\nalready more than in that One) that \"age\" has already come to an end,\nand the first fruits of that harvest with which our earth is sown has\neven now been gathered.  We await merely the completion of that\nharvest: \"Christ the first fruits: afterwards they that are Christ's,\nat His coming.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE BIBLE TRUTH PRESS, 63 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.\n\n\n\n\n  \"ABOVE THE SUN.\"\n\n  Cease, ye Saints, your occupation with the sorrow-scenes of earth;\n  Let the ear of faith be opened, use the sight of second birth.\n  Long your hearts have been acquainted with the tear-drop and the groan;\n  These are _weeds_ of foreign growing, seek the _flowers_ that are your own.\n\n  He who in the sandy desert looks for springs to quench his thirst\n  Finds his fountains are but slime-pits such as Siddim's vale accursed;\n  He who hopes to still the longing of the heart within his breast\n  Must not search within a scene where naught is at one moment's rest.\n\n  Lift your eyes _above_ the heavens to a sphere as pure as fair;\n  There, no spot of earth's defilement, never fleck of sin-stain there.\n  Linger not to gaze on Angels, Principalities, nor Powers;\n  Brighter visions yet shall greet you, higher dignities are ours.\n\n  All night's golden constellations dimly shine as day draws on,\n  And the moon must veil her beauties at the rising of the sun.\n  Let the grove be wrapt in silence as the nightingale outflings\n  Her unrivaled minstrelsy, th' eclipse of every bird that sings.\n\n  Michael, Israel's Prince, is glorious, clad in panoply of war;\n  *\"Who is as the God of Israel\" is his challenge near and far;\n  But a higher still than Michael soon shall meet your raptured gaze,\n  And ye shall forget his glories in _your_ Captain's brighter rays.\n\n* \"Michael\" means \"Who is as God.\"\n\n  List a moment to the music of the mighty Gabriel's voice,\n  With its message strange and tender, making Mary's heart rejoice.\n  Then on-speed, for sweeter music soon expectant faith shall greet:\n  His who chained another Mary willing captive at His feet.\n\n  But, let mem'ry first glance backward to the scenes \"beneath the sun,\"\n  How the fairest earthly landscape echoed soon some dying groan.\n  There the old-creation's story, shared between the dismal Three:\n  Sin and Suffering and Sorrow summed that Babel's history.\n\n  Now the contrast--vain ye listen for one jarring note to fall;\n  For each dweller in that scene's in perfect harmony with all.\n  Joy has here expelled all sadness, perfect peace displaced all fears--\n  All around that central Throne makes the true \"music of the spheres.\"\n\n  Now upsoar ye on faith's pinion, leave all creature things behind,\n  And approach yon throne of glory.  Love in Light ye there shall find;\n  For with thrill of joy behold One--woman-born--upon that Throne,\n  And, with deepest self-abasement, in _His_ beauties read your own.\n\n  Joyful scan the glories sparkling from His gracious Head to Feet;,\n  Never one that does not touch some tender chord of memory sweet;\n  And e'en heaven's music lacks till blood-bought ones _their_ voices raise\n  High o'er feebler angel choirs; for richer grace wakes nobler praise.\n\n  Vain the quest amongst the thronging of the heavenly angel band\n  For one trace of human kinship, for one touch of human hand;\n  'Mongst those spirits bright, ethereal, \"man\" would stand a man alone;\n  Higher must he seek for kinship--thought amazing--on God's Throne!\n\n  Does it not attract your nature, is it not a rest to see\n  One e'en there at glory's summit, yet with human form like thee?\n  Form assumed when love compelled Him to take up your hopeless case,\n  Form He never will relinquish; ever shall it voice His grace.\n\n  Wondrous grace! thus making heaven but our Father's house prepared;\n  Since, by One who tells God's love, in wounded human form 'tis shared.\n  See, His Head is crowned with glory! yet a glory not distinct\n  From an hour of deepest suffering, and a crown of thorns succinct.\n\n  Draw still closer, with the rev'rence born of love and holy fear;\n  Look into those tender eyes which have been dimmed with human tear--\n  Tears in which _ye_ see a glory hidden from th' Angelic powers;\n  Ours alone the state that caused them, their beauty then alone is ours.\n\n  Look once more upon that Head: finds memory no attraction there\n  In the time when, homeless-wandering, night-dews filled that very hair?\n  Brightest glories sparkle round it--crowned with honor now; and yet,\n  Once it found its only pillow on storm-tossed Gennesaret!\n\n  See that Hand! it once grasped Peter's as he sank beneath the wave,--\n  Snatched the widow's son at Nain from the portal of the grave,--\n  Touched with healing grace the leper, gave the light to him born dark.\n  _Deeper love to you is spoken in that nail-print--precious mark_!\n\n  Let your tender gaze now rest on those dear Feet that erstwhile trod\n  All the weary, painful journey leading Him _from_ God _to_ God;\n  Took Him in His gentle grace wherever need and suffering thronged,\n  Or one lonely soul was found who for the living water longed.\n\n  Those the very Feet once bathed with a pardoned sinner's tears,\n  And anointed, too, with spikenard speaking Mary's love and fears;\n  Took Him weary on His journey under Sychar's noontide heat,\n  Till the thirsty quenched His thirsting, and the hungry gave Him meat.\n\n  Blessed Feet! 'tis only _sinners_ see the depth of beauty there;\n  _Angels_ never have bowed o'er them with a penitential tear.\n  Angels may regard the nail-print, with a holy, reverent calm;\n  Ye who read the _love_ it tells of, _must_ break forth with thankful psalm.\n\n  Draw yet nearer, look more fondly; yea, e'en nestle and abide\n  In that covert from the storm-blast, in the haven of His Side.\n  That deep wound speaks man's great hatred, but His love surpassing great:\n  _There were focused, at one spear-point, all God's love and all man's hate_!\n\n  Rest, ye saints! your search is ended; ye have reached the source of peace.\n  By the side of Jesus risen, earth's dull cares and sorrows cease.\n  Here are Elim's wells and palm-trees, grateful shade and waters cool,\n  Whilst in Christ's deep love there's healing far beyond Bethesda's pool.\n\n  Closer, closer, cluster round Him, till the kindling of that Love\n  Melt your hearts to like compassions whilst amid like scenes ye move.\n  Only thus abiding in Him can ye fruitfulness expect,\n  Or, 'mid old-creation sorrows, new-creation love reflect.\n\n  Ever closer gather round Him, till \"the glory of that Light\"\n  Dims the old creation glitter, proves earth's glare to be but--night!\n  Gaze upon Him till His beauties wing your feet as on ye run,\n  Faith soon bursting into sight, in God's clear day \"Above the Sun.\"\n\n  F. C. J.\n\n\n\n\nWORKS BY J. G. BELLETT.\n\n_The Patriarchs._\n\nBeing meditations upon Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and\nJob; with The Canticles, and Heaven and Earth.\n\n435 pp.  Cloth, post-paid, $1.00.\n\n\n_The Evangelists._\n\nA study of the four gospels, \"tracing the varied glories of Christ, and\nto notice their characteristics, so as to distinguish the purpose of\nthe Spirit of God in each of them.\"\n\n500 pp.  Cloth, post-paid, $1.00.\n\n\n_The Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus._\n\nA precious little volume for all those who, like Mary, would sit at the\nSaviour's feet.\n\nCloth, gilt, post-paid, 50 cts.\n\n\n_The Son of God._\n\nA treatise dwelling on the eternal glories and Godhead of the Lord\nJesus Christ;--the \"Son that dwelleth in the bosom of the Father, He\nhath revealed Him.\"\n\nPaper, 35 cts.; cloth, 55 cts, post-paid.\n\n\n_Short Meditations_\n\nOn Various Subjects and Portions of Scripture.\n\nCloth, post-paid, $1.00.\n\n\n\n_Papers on the Lord's Coming._\n\nCONTENTS.--Introductory.--The Fact Itself.--The Double Bearing of the\nFact.--\"The Coming\" and \"The Day\"--The Two Resurrections.--The\nJudgment.--The Jewish Remnant.--Christendom.--The Ten Virgins.--The\nTalents.--Concluding Remarks.\n\nBy C. H. M.   Price, 15 cts.; cloth, 25 cts.\n\n\n_Eight Lectures on Prophecy._\n\nCONTENTS.--The Importance of Prophetic Study.--The Second Coming of\nChrist Premillenial.--God's Past Dealings with the Nation of\nIsrael.--The Return of the Jews.--The Millenial Reign of Christ.--The\nDistinct Calling and Glory of the Church.--The Predicted Corruption of\nChristianity, and its Final Results.--The Character and Doom of the\nGreat Gentile Powers.--The Hope of the Church, and her Removal before\nthe Apocalyptic Judgments.\n\nBy W. T.   Paper, 35 cts.; Cloth, 60 cts.\n\n\n_Changed in a Moment._\n\nA Dialogue on the Lord's Coming to gather up His Saints to meet Him in\nthe air, as distinct from His Coming to the Earth in Glory, and its\npresent bearing upon the Church of God in the world.\n\nBy H. T.   Price, 5 cts.\n\n\n_He Cometh with Clouds; or Every Eye Shall See Him._\n\nSequel to \"Changed in a Moment.\"  Price, 6 cts.\n\n\n\"_Awake!  Awake!  Behold, the Bride-groom Cometh._\"\n\n(Matt. xxv. 1-13.)\n\nBy C. S.  18 cts. per doz.\n\n\n_What God Has Said on the Second Coming of Christ and the End of the\nPresent Age._\n\nBy C. S.   Price, 6 cts.\n\n\n_The Millennial Reign of Christ._\n\nA Sequel to above.  By C. S.   Price, 6 cts.\n\n\n_The Lord's Dealings with the Convict Daniel Mann._\n\nBy P. J. L.  (New Edition, 45th thousand.)  Price, 4 cts.\n\n\n\n_Postage extra--10 cts. per dollar.  Catalogue sent on application._\n\n\n\n\nA New Library of Helpful Volumes for Bible Students.\n\n\nThe Beresford Books.\n\n_Uniform Size, Crown 8vo.  Uniform Binding, Half-Bound Style.  Uniform\nPrice, Half-Crown each._\n\n\nThe Gospel and its Ministry: a Handbook of Evangelical Truth.  By\nROBERT ANDERSON, C.B., LL.D., Author of \"Human Destiny,\" &c.\n\nTypical Foreshadowings in Genesis; or, The World to Come, and the\nDivine Preparation for it.  By WILLIAM LINCOLN, Author of Lectures on\nthe Revelation, St. John, &c.  [_In the Press_.\n\nAbundant Grace: Select Addresses on Salvation, Warfare, Life, and Hope.\nBy W. P. MACKAY, M.A., author of _Grace and Truth_.  With Biographical\nSketch of Author.\n\n\"I am Coming\": a Book of that Blessed Hope.  By Dr. JAMES H. BROOKES,\nEditor of _The Truth_.\n\nTruths for To-Day: Seventeen Addresses on Fundamental Truths, by Dr.\nNeatby, Dr. M'Killiam, Robert Anderson, LL.D., Alex. Stewart, F. C.\nBland, G. F. Trench, H. Groves, &c.\n\nAlways Abounding; or, Recollections of the Life and Labours of the late\nGeorge Brealey, the Evangelist of the Blackdown Hills.  By W. J. H.\nBREALEY.  Introduction by H. GROVES, Kendal.\n\nThe Books of the Bible: Their unity as one Volume, their diversity of\npurpose, and the spiritual import of each.  By Dr. W. P. MACKAY, of\nHull, Author of \"Grace and Truth.\"\n\nOld Groans and New Songs; or, Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes.\nBy F. C. JENNINGS, New York.\n\nLays of Life and Hope: Poems on the Atonement, Advocacy, and Appearing\nof our Lord Jesus Christ, in relation to Salvation, Pilgrimage, and the\nBlessed Hope.  By WM. BLANE.\n\nThe Final Crisis of the Age: The Apocalypse, or Book of Revelation,\nconsidered as such, by THOMAS RYAN, Dublin.\n\nNow and for Ever: Addresses on Truths relating to \"Yesterday, To-day,\nand For Ever.\"  By T. SHULDHAM HENRY, M.A.\n\n\n\nGLASGOW: PICKERING & INGLIS, 73 BOTHWELL ST.","title":"Old Groans and New Songs: Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":44534}