{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39913/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39913","id":"gutenberg_39913","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39913","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Ecclesiastes -- Commentaries","Bible. Ecclesiastes -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.","Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Julia Neufeld and\nthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images\ngenerously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian\nLibraries)\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nText enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\nSmall capital text has been replaced with all capitals.\n\n\n\n\n  EDITED BY THE REV.\n  W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.,\n  _Editor of \"The Expositor.\"_\n\n\n  THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES,\n  BY\n  SAMUEL COX, D.D.\n\n\n  TORONTO:\n  WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORY AND BIBLE DEP\u00d4T,\n  CORNER OF YONGE AND TEMPERANCE STREETS.\n  1890.\n\n  THE BOOK\n\n  OF\n\n  ECCLESIASTES.\n\n  _WITH A NEW TRANSLATION._\n\n  BY\n\n  SAMUEL COX, D.D.,\n\n  AUTHOR OF COMMENTARIES ON JOB, RUTH, ETC.\n\n  \"_Omnia vanitas, pr\u00e6ter amare Deum, et illi soli servire._\"\n\n        --ST. AUGUSTINE.\n\n  TORONTO:\n  WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORY AND BIBLE DEP\u00d4T,\n  CORNER OF YONGE AND TEMPERANCE STREETS.\n  1890.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe Lectures on which this book is founded were delivered\nfive-and-twenty years ago, and were published in A.D. 1867.[1] For\nmore than twenty years the book has been out of print, a large first\nedition having been speedily sold out. No other edition was issued\nowing to the fact that my publisher soon passed into another\nprofession. I have often been asked to reprint it, but have always\nfelt that, before reprinting, I must rewrite it. Till of late,\nhowever, I could not command leisure for the task. But when, at the\ncommencement of this year, the Editor of THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE did me\nthe honour to ask permission to reprint it, that he might include it\nin this excellent series, I had leisure at command, and cheerfully\ndevoted it to the revision of my work. Among the more recent\ncommentaries I have read with this purpose in view, those which I\nhave found most helpful and suggestive were that of Delitzsch, that by\nDr. Wright, that of Dean Plumptre, and the fine fragment contributed\nto THE EXPOSITOR by Dr. Perowne, the Dean of Peterborough. In the\npreface to the former edition I dwelt on my indebtedness to the\ncommentary of Dr. Ginsburg, published in A.D. 1861. In my judgment it\nstill remains by far the best, the most thorough and the most sound.\nIt has but one serious defect; it is addressed to scholars, and so\nabounds in learning and erudition that it can never come into popular\nuse. Indeed even now, although during the last twenty years there has\nbeen an immense advance in the study and exposition of Holy Writ, and\nmany able and learned men have devoted themselves to the service of\nthe general public, I know of no commentary on this Scripture which\nreally meets the wants of the unlettered. I cannot but hope,\ntherefore, that _the Quest of the Chief Good_ may still serve a useful\npurpose, and that, in its revised form, it may be found helpful to\nthose who most need help.\n\n  [1] _The Quest of the Chief Good._ A Popular Commentary on the book\n  ECCLESIASTES, with a New Translation. By Samuel Cox. London: Arthur\n  Miall.\n\nIn rewriting the book I have retained as much as I could of its\nearlier form, lest the vivacity of a first exposition of the Scripture\nshould be lost. And, indeed, the alterations I have had to make are\nbut slight for the most part, though I have in many places altered,\nand, I hope, amended both the translation and the commentary: but\nthere are one or two additions--they will be found on pages 20-26,\nand, again, in certain modifications of the exposition of Chapter\nXII., verses 9-12, on pages 279-305; dealing mainly with the structure\nof _Ecclesiastes_--which may, I trust, be found useful not to the\ngeneral reader alone. Since the original edition appeared I have had\nto study the Book of Job, most of the Psalms, many of the Prophetical\nwritings, and some of the Proverbs; and it was inevitable that in the\ncourse of these pleasant studies I should arrive at clearer and more\ndefinite conceptions on the structure of Hebrew poetry. These I now\nplace at the service of my readers, and submit to the judgment of\nscholars and critics.\n\nAnother and much more important result of these subsequent studies has\nbeen that I can now speak with a more assured confidence of the theme\nof this Scripture, and of its handling by the Author. None of the\nscholars who have recently commented on the Book doubt that it _is_\nthe quest of the chief good which it sets forth; and though some of\nthem arrange and divide it differently, yet, on the whole and in the\nmain, they are agreed that this quest is urged in Wisdom, in\nPleasure, in Devotion to Public Affairs, in Wealth and in the Golden\nMean; and that it ends and rests in the large noble conclusion, that\nonly as men reverence God, and keep his commandments, and trust in his\nlove, do they touch their true ideal, and find a good that will\nsatisfy and sustain them under all changes, even to the last. The\nassent to this view of the Book was by no means general a quarter of a\ncentury ago; but it is so wide now, and is sanctioned by the authority\nof so many schools of learning, that I think no reader of the\nfollowing pages need be disturbed by misgivings as to the accuracy of\nthe main lines of thought here set forth.\n\nFew Scriptures of the Old Testament are so familiar to the general\nreader as _Ecclesiastes_; and that mainly, I think, because it\naddresses itself to a problem which is \"yours, mine, every man's.\"\nMany more quotations from it have entered into our current speech than\nhave been taken from _Job_, for example, although _Job_ is both a much\nlarger and a much finer poem than this--\"the finest poem,\" as a great\nliving poet has said, \"whether of the modern or of the antique world.\"\nIt is a Book which can never lose its interest for men until the last\nconflict in the long strife of doubt has led in the final victory of\nfaith; and seems, in especial, to adapt itself to the conditions and\nwants of the present age. It deals with the very questions which are\nin all our minds, and offers a solution of them, and, so far as I\nknow, the only solution, in which those who have \"eternity in their\nhearts\" can rest. May all who study it, with such help as the\nfollowing pages afford, find rest to their souls, and be drawn from\nthe heat and strife of thought into the calm and hallowed sanctuary\nwhich it throws open to our erring feet.\n\n  THE HOLME, HASTINGS,\n  _October 1890_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                           PAGES\n\n  I. THE INTRODUCTION                                       1-66\n\n    \u00a7 1. _On the Authorship, Form, Design, and\n    Contents of the Book_                                   3-32\n\n    \u00a7 2. _On the History of the Captivity_                 32-66\n\n    (1) The Babylonian Period                              38-43\n    (2) The Persian Period                                 43-66\n\n\n  II. THE TRANSLATION                                     67-110\n\n    \u00a7 1. _The Prologue_                                    69-70\n\n    \u00a7 2. _The First Section_: or, The Quest of\n    the Chief Good in Wisdom and in\n    Pleasure                                               71-76\n\n    \u00a7 3. _The Second Section_: or, The Quest in\n    Devotion to the Affairs of Business                    77-86\n\n    \u00a7 4. _The Third Section_: or, The Quest in\n    Wealth and in the Golden Mean                          87-96\n\n    \u00a7 5. _The Fourth Section_: or, The Quest\n    Achieved                                              97-108\n\n    \u00a7 6. _The Epilogue_                                 109, 110\n\n\n  III. THE EXPOSITION                                    111-335\n\n    \u00a7 1. THE PROLOGUE                                    113-126\n\n    \u00a7 2. THE FIRST SECTION: or, _The Quest in\n    Wisdom and in Pleasure_                              127-141\n\n    _(a) The Quest in Wisdom_                            127-133\n\n    _(b) The Quest in Pleasure_                          133-137\n\n    _(c) Wisdom and Pleasure Compared_                   138-140\n\n    _(d) The Conclusion_                                140, 141\n\n    \u00a7 3. THE SECOND SECTION: or, _The Quest in\n    Devotion to the Affairs of Business_                 142-186\n\n    (_a_) The Quest obstructed by Divine Ordinances      143-145\n\n    (_b_) And by Human Injustice and Perversity          145-151\n\n    (_c_) It is rendered hopeless by the base\n    Origin of Human Industries                          151, 152\n\n    (_d_) Yet these are capable of a nobler\n    Motive and Mode                                      153-158\n\n    (_e_) So also a happier and more effective\n    Method of Worship is open to Man;                    158-160\n\n    (_f_) And a more helpful and consolatory\n    Trust in the Divine Providence                       161-164\n\n    (_g_) The Conclusion                                164, 165\n\n  APPLICATION                                            165-186\n\n    (_a_) Devotion to Business springs from\n    Jealous Competition:                                168, 169\n\n    (_b_) It tends to form a Covetous Temper;            169-171\n\n    (_c_) To produce a Materialistic Scepticism;         171-173\n\n    (_d_) To make Worship Formal and Insincere;         173, 174\n\n    (_e_) And to take from Life its Quiet and\n    Innocent Enjoyments                                  175-179\n\n    (_f_) The Correctives of this Devotion are,\n\n    (1) A Sense of its Perils;                          179, 180\n\n    (2) And the Conviction that it is\n    opposed to the Will of God\n    as expressed--\n\n    (_a_) In the Ordinances of\n    his Providence,                                          180\n\n    (_b_) In the Wrongs which\n    He permits Men to inflict\n    upon us;                                                 181\n\n    (_c_) But above all in the\n    immortal Cravings which He\n    has quickened in the Soul                           182, 183\n\n    (_g_) Practical Maxims deduced from this\n    View of the Business-Life                            184-186\n\n    (1) A Maxim on Co-operation                              184\n\n    (2) A Maxim on Worship                              184, 185\n\n    (3) A Maxim on Trust in God                         185, 186\n\n    \u00a7 4. THE THIRD SECTION: or, _The Quest in\n    Wealth and in the Golden Mean_                       187-228\n\n    (A) _The Quest in Wealth_                            188-193\n\n    (_a_) The Man who makes Riches his\n    Chief Good is haunted by Fears\n    and Perplexities:                                    188-190\n\n    (_b_) For God has put Eternity into his\n    heart;                                              190, 191\n\n    (_c_) And much that he gains only feeds\n    Vanity;                                             191, 192\n\n    (_d_) Neither can he tell what it will be\n    Good for him to have,                                    192\n\n    (_e_) Nor foresee what will become of his\n    Gains                                               192, 193\n\n    (B) _The Quest in the Golden Mean_                   193-209\n\n    (_a_) The Method of the Man who seeks a\n    Competence                                           195-199\n\n    (_b_) The Perils to which it exposes him             199-207\n\n    (1) He is likely to compromise\n    Conscience:                                         200, 201\n\n    (2) To be indifferent to Censure:                    201-203\n\n    (3) To despise Women:                                203-205\n\n    (4) And to be indifferent to Public\n    Wrongs                                               205-207\n\n    (_c_) The Preacher condemns this Theory\n    of Human Life                                        207-209\n\n    APPLICATION                                          209-228\n\n    (A) _The Quest in Wealth_                            212-218\n\n    (_a_) The Man who makes Riches his Chief\n    Good is haunted by Fears and\n    Perplexities                                        213, 214\n\n    (_b_) Much that he gains only feeds Vanity          214, 215\n\n    (_c_) He cannot tell what it will be Good\n    for him to have;                                         215\n\n    (_d_) Nor foresee what will become of his\n    Gains:                                              215, 216\n\n    (_e_) And because God has put Eternity\n    into his heart, he cannot be content\n    with Temporal Gains                                  216-218\n\n    (B) _The Quest in the Golden Mean_                   218-228\n\n    (_a_) The Method of the Man who seeks a\n    Competence                                           220-222\n\n    (_b_) The Perils to which it exposes him             222-226\n\n    (1) He is likely to compromise Conscience:           222-224\n\n    (2) To be indifferent to Censure:                        224\n\n    (3) To despise Women:                                    225\n\n    (4) And to be indifferent to Public\n    Wrongs                                                   226\n\n    (_c_) The Preacher condemns this Theory\n    of Human Life                                       227, 228\n\n    \u00a7 5. THE FOURTH SECTION: or, _The Quest\n    Achieved_                                            229-275\n\n    (_a_) The Chief Good not to be found in\n    Wisdom:                                              230-234\n\n    (_b_) Nor in Pleasure:                               234-237\n\n    (_c_) Nor in Devotion to Affairs and its\n    Rewards:                                             237-246\n\n    (_d_) But in a wise Use and a wise Enjoyment\n    of the Present Life,                                 247-256\n\n    (_c_) Combined with a stedfast Faith in\n    the Life to come                                     256-275\n\n    \u00a7 6. THE EPILOGUE: _In which the Problem\n    of the Book is conclusively Solved_                  276-335\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\n\n\n\u00a7 1. _ON THE AUTHORSHIP, FORM, DESIGN, AND CONTENTS OF THE BOOK._\n\n\nThose who raise the question, \"Is life worth living?\" answer it\nby--living on; for no man lives simply to proclaim what a worthless\nand wretched creature he is. But for the most part the question is\nmooted in a merely academical and not very sincere spirit. And to the\ndainty and fastidious pessimist who goes about to imply his own\nsuperiority by declaring that the world which contents his fellows is\nnot good enough for him, there still seems no better reply than the\nrough but rousing and wholesome rebuke which Epictetus gave to such as\nhe some nineteen centuries ago, reminding them that there were many\nexits from the theatre of life, and advising them, if they disliked\nthe \"show\", to retire from it by the nearest door of escape, and to\nmake room for spectators of a more modest and grateful spirit.\n\nOf the pessimists of his time he demands, \"Was it not God who brought\nyou here? And as what did He bring you? Was it not as a mortal? Was\nit not as one who was to live with a little portion of flesh upon the\nearth, and to witness his administration--to behold the great\nspectacle around you for a little while? After you have beheld the\nsolemn and august spectacle as long as is permitted you, will you not\ndepart when He leads you out, adoring and thankful for what you have\nheard and seen? For you the solemnity is over. Go away, then, like a\nmodest and grateful person. Make room for others.\"\n\n\"But why,\" urges the pessimist, \"did He bring me into the world on\nthese hard terms?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" replies Epictetus, \"if you don't like the terms, it is always in\nyour power to leave them. _He_ has no need of a discontented\nspectator. He will not miss you much, nor we either.\"\n\nBut if any man lift the question into a more sincere and noble form by\nasking, \"_How_ may life be made worth living, or _best_ worth\nliving?\"--in other words, \"What is the true ideal, and what the chief\ngood, of man?\"--he will find no nobler answer to it, and none more\nconvincingly and persuasively put, than that contained in this\nScripture, which modern pessimists are apt to quote whenever they want\nto \"approve\" their melancholy hypothesis \"with a text.\" From\nSchopenhauer downward, this Book is constantly cited by them as if it\nconfirmed the conclusion for which they contend, Taubert even going\nso far as to find \"a catechism of pessimism\" in it. Their assumption,\nhowever, is based on a total misapprehension of the design and drift\nof Ecclesiastes of which no scholar should have been guilty, and of\nwhich it is hard to see how any scholar could have been guilty had he\nstudied it as a whole, instead of carrying away from it only what he\nwanted. So far from lending any countenance to their conclusion of\ndespair, it frankly traverses it--as I hope to show, and as many have\nshown before me--and lands us in its very opposite; the conclusion of\nthe whole matter with the Hebrew Preacher being, that whoso cultivates\nthe virtues of charity, diligence, and cheerfulness, because God is in\nheaven and rules over all, _he_ will not only find life well worth\nliving, but will pursue its loftiest ideal and touch its true\nblessedness.\n\nWhen scholars and \"philosophers\" have fallen into a mistake so radical\nand profound, it is not surprising that the unlettered should have\nfollowed their leaders into the ditch, and taken this Scripture to be\nthe most melancholy in the Sacred Canon, instead of one of the most\nconsolatory and inspiriting, for want of apprehending its true aim.\nBeyond all doubt, there is a prevailing ground-tone of sadness in the\nBook; for through by far the larger part of its course it has to deal\nwith some of the saddest facts of human life--with the errors which\ndivert men from their true aim, and plunge them into a various and\ngrowing misery. But the voice which sinks so often into this tone of\nsadness is the voice of a most brave and cheerful spirit, a spirit\nwhose counsels can only depress us if we are seeking our chief good\nwhere it cannot be found. For the Preacher, as we shall see, does not\ncondemn the wisdom or the mirth, the devotion to business or the\nacquisition of wealth, in which most men find \"the chief good and\nmarket of their time,\" as in themselves vanities. He approves of them;\nhe shows us how we may so pursue and so use them as to find them very\npleasant and wholesome; how we may so dispense with them, if they\nprove beyond our reach, as none the less to enjoy a very true and\nabiding content. His constant and recurring moral is that we _are_ to\nenjoy our brief day on earth; that God _meant_ us to enjoy it; that we\nare to be up and doing, with a heart for any strife, or toil, or\npleasure; not to sit still and weep over broken illusions and defeated\nhopes. Our lower aims and possessions become vanities to us only when\nwe seek in them that supreme satisfaction which He who has \"put\neternity into our hearts\" designed us to find only in Him and in\nserving Him. If we love and serve Him, if we gratefully acknowledge\nHim to be the Author of \"every good gift and every perfect boon,\" if\nwe seek first his kingdom and righteousness; in fine, if we are\nChristian in more than name, the study of this Book should not make\nus sad. We should find in it a confirmation of our most intimate\nconvictions, and incentives to act upon them. But if we do not hold\nour wisdom, our mirth, our labour, our wealth as the gifts and\nordinances of God for our good, if we permit them to usurp his seat\nand become as gods to us, then indeed this Book will be sad enough for\nus, but no whit sadder than our lives. It will be sad, and will make\nus sad, yet only that it may lead us to repentance, and through\nrepentance to a true and lasting joy.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is to be feared that the popular misconception of this singular and\nmost instructive Scripture goes much farther than this, and extends to\nquestions much more superficial than that of the temper or spirit it\nbreathes. If, for example, the average reader of the Bible were asked,\nWho wrote this Scripture? when was it written? to whom was it\naddressed? what is its general scope and design? his answer, I\nsuppose, would be: \"Solomon wrote this Book; of course, therefore, it\nwas written in his lifetime, and addressed to the men over whom he\nruled; and his design in writing it was to reveal his own experience\nof life for their instruction.\" And yet in all probability no one of\nthese answers is true, or anywhere near the truth. According to the\nmost competent judges, the Book Ecclesiastes was not written by\nSolomon, nor for centuries after his death; it was addressed to a\ngeneration of feeble and oppressed captives, who had been carried away\ninto exile, or had lately returned from it, and not to the free\nprosperous nation which rose to its highest pitch in the reign of the\nWise King. It is a dramatic representation of the experience of a\nJewish sage, who deliberately set himself to discover and pursue the\nchief good of man in all the provinces and along all the avenues in\nwhich it is commonly sought, eked out by what he supposed or tradition\nreported Solomon's experience to have been; and its design was to\ncomfort men who were groaning under the heaviest wrongs of Time with\nthe bright hope of Immortality.\n\nTo scholars versed in the niceties of the Oriental languages, the most\nconvincing proof of the comparatively modern date and authorship of\nthe Book is to be found in its words, and idioms, and style. The base\nforms of Hebrew and the large intermixture of foreign terms, phrases,\nand turns of speech which characterize it--these, with the absence of\nthe nobler rhythmic forms of Hebrew poetry, are held to be a\nconclusive demonstration that it was written during the Rabbinical\nperiod, at a time long subsequent to the Augustan age in which Solomon\nlived and wrote. The critics and commentators whose names stand\nhighest[2] tell us that it would be just as easy for them to believe\nthat Hooker wrote Blair's Sermons, or that Shakespeare wrote the plays\nof Sheridan Knowles, as to believe that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes.\nAnd of course on such questions as these we can only defer to the\nverdict of men who have made them the study of their lives.\n\n  [2] Rosenm\u00fcller, Ewald, Knobel, De Wette, Delitzsch, Ginsburg, with\n  many other competent judges, are agreed on this point; and even those\n  who in part differ from them differ only in assigning the Book to a\n  date still farther removed from the time of Solomon. There are but few\n  scholars who now contend for the Solomonic authorship, and hardly any\n  of these are, I think, in the first rank.\n\nBut with all our deference for learning, we have so often seen the\nconclusions of the ripest scholars modified or reversed by their\nsuccessors, and we all know \"questions of words\" to be capable of so\nmany different interpretations, that probably we should still hold our\njudgment in suspense, were there no arguments against the traditional\nhypothesis such as plain men use and can understand. There are many\nsuch arguments, however, and arguments that seem to be of a conclusive\nforce.\n\nAs, for instance, this: The whole social state described in this Book\nis utterly unlike what we know to have been the condition of the\nHebrews during the reign of Solomon, but exactly accords with the\ncondition of the captive Israelites, who, at the disruption of the\nHebrew monarchies, were carried away into Babylonia. Under Solomon\nthe Hebrew State touched its highest point. His throne was surrounded\nby statesmen of tried sagacity; his judges were incorrupt. Commerce\ngrew and prospered, till gold became as common as silver had been, and\nsilver as common as brass. Literature flourished, and produced its\nmost perfect fruits. And the people, though heavily taxed during the\nlater years of his reign, enjoyed a security, a freedom, an abundance\nunknown whether to their fathers or to their children. \"Judah and\nIsrael were many in number as the sands by the sea, eating, drinking,\nand making merry.... And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man\nunder his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all\nthe days of Solomon\" (1 Kings iv. 20, 25). But as we read this Book we\ngather from it the picture of a social state in which kings were\nchildish, and princes addicted to revelry and drunkenness (x. 16);\ngreat fools were lifted to high places and rode on stately horses,\nwhile nobles were degraded and had to tramp through the mire (x. 6,\n7); the race was not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor\nriches to the intelligent, nor favour to the learned (ix. 11). The\nmost eminent public services were suffered to pass unrewarded, and\nwere forgotten the moment the need for them was passed (ix. 14, 15).\nProperty was so insecure that to amass wealth was only to multiply\nextortions, and to fall a prey to the cupidity of princes and judges,\ninsomuch that the sluggard who folded his hands, so long as he had\nbread to eat, was esteemed wiser than the diligent merchant who\napplied himself to the labours and anxieties of traffic (iv. 5, 6).\nLife was as insecure as property, and stood at the caprice of men who\nwere slaves to their own lusts; a hasty word spoken in the divan of\nany one of the satraps, or even a resentful gesture, might provoke the\nmost terrible outrages (viii. 3, 4; x. 4). The true relation between\nthe sexes was violated; the ruling classes crowded their harems with\nconcubines, and even the wiser sort of men took to themselves any\nwoman they desired; while, with cynical injustice, they first degraded\nwomen, and then condemned them as alike and altogether bad, their\nhands chains, their love a snare (vii. 26, 28; ix. 9). The oppressions\nof the time were so constant, so cruel, and life grew so dark beneath\nthem, that those who died long ago were counted happier than those who\nwere still alive; while happier than either were those who had not\nbeen born to see the intolerable evils on which the sun looked calmly\ndown day by day (iv. 1-3). In fine, the whole fabric of the State was\nfast falling into ruin and decay, through the greed and sloth of\nrulers who taxed the people to the uttermost in order to supply their\nwasteful luxury (x. 18, 19); while yet, so dreadful was their tyranny\nand their spies so ubiquitous, that no man dared to breathe a word\nagainst them even to the wife of his bosom and in the secrecy of the\nbed-chamber (x. 20): the only consolation of the oppressed was the\ngrim hope that a time of retribution would overtake their tyrants,\nfrom which neither their power nor their craft should be able to save\nthem (viii. 5-8).\n\nNothing would be more difficult than to accept this as a picture of\nthe social and political features of the Hebrew commonwealth during\nthe reign of Solomon, or even during those later years of his reign in\nwhich his rule grew hard and despotic. Nothing can well be more\nincredible than that this should be intended as a picture of his\nreign, save that it should be a picture _drawn by his own hand_! To\nsuppose Solomon the author of this Scripture is to suppose that the\nwisest of kings and of men was base enough to pen a deliberate and\nmalignant libel on himself, his time, and his realm! On the other\nhand, the description, dark and lurid as it is, exactly accords with\nall we know of the terrible condition of the Jews who wept in\ncaptivity by the waters of Babylon under the later Persian rule, or\nwere ground under the heels of the Persian satraps after their return\nto the land of their fathers. In all probability, therefore, as our\nmost competent authorities are agreed, the Book is a poem rather than\na chronicle, written by an unknown Hebrew author, during the\nCaptivity or shortly after the Return, certainly not before B.C. 500,\nand probably somewhat later.[3]\n\n  [3] The _fourth_ century B.C. is, I think, its most probable date. In\n  his recent exposition of Ecclesiastes, the Dean of Wells attempts to\n  bring the date down to about B.C. 240. But his arguments are so\n  curious and fanciful, and his conclusion is based so largely on\n  conjecture, and on dubious similarities of phrase in the language of\n  the Hebrew Preacher, and of some of the later philosophers of Greece,\n  that I suspect very little weight will be attached to his gallant\n  attempt to breathe new life into the moribund hypothesis of the\n  ingenious Mr. Tyler. Delitzsch, for example, a high and recognized\n  authority, declares that there is \"not a trace of Greek influence\" in\n  this Scripture, though Dr. Plumptre finds so many. But though neither\n  his hypothesis nor his confessedly conjectural biography of the\n  unknown author carries the force of \"sober criticism,\" there is much\n  in his Commentary which will be found very helpful.\n\nNor is this inference, drawn from the style and general contents of\nthe Book, unsupported by verses in it which at first sight seem\naltogether opposed to such an inference. All the special and direct\nindications of authorship are to be found either in the first or in\nthe last chapter.\n\nThe very first verse runs, \"The words of the Preacher, son of David,\nKing in Jerusalem.\" Now, David had only one son who was King in\nJerusalem, viz. Solomon; the verse, therefore, seems to fix the\nauthorship on Solomon beyond dispute. Nevertheless, the conclusion is\nuntenable. For (1) in his known and admitted works the Wise King\ndistinctly claims to be their author. The Book of Proverbs commences\nwith \"The Proverbs of _Solomon_,\" and the Canticles with \"The Song of\nSongs, which is _Solomon's_.\" But the book Ecclesiastes does not once\nmention his name, though it speaks of a \"son of David,\" _i.e._ one of\nDavid's descendants. Instead of calling this son of David Solomon, it\ncalls him \"Coheleth,\" or, as we translate the word, \"The Preacher.\"\nNow, the word Coheleth[4] is not a masculine noun, as the name of a\nman should be, but the feminine participle of an unused conjugation of\na Hebrew verb which means \"to collect,\" or \"to call together.\" It\ndenotes, not an actual man, but an abstraction, a personification, and\nis probably intended to denote one who calls a congregation round him,\n_i.e._ a preacher, _any_ preacher, preacher _in the abstract_. (2)\nThis \"son of David,\" we are told, was \"King _in Jerusalem_;\" and the\nphrase implies that the Book was written at a time when there either\nwere or had been kings _out of_ Jerusalem, when Jerusalem was not the\nonly site of a Hebrew throne, and therefore after the disruption of\nSolomon's realm into the rival kingdoms of Israel and Judah. (3)\nAgain, we find Coheleth affirming (i. 12), \"I _was_ King over Israel\nin Jerusalem,\" and (i. 16), \"I acquired greater wisdom than _all_ (all\n_kings, i.e._, say the critics) who were before me in Jerusalem.\" But\nto say nothing of the questionable modesty of the latter sentence if\nit fell from the pen of Solomon, he was only the second occupant of\nthe throne in Jerusalem; for Jebus, or Jerusalem, was only conquered\nfrom a Philistine clan by his father David. And if there had been only\none, how could he speak of \"all\" who preceded him? (4) And still\nfurther, the tense of the verb in \"I was King over Israel\" can only\ncarry the sense \"I was King, but am King no more.\" Yet we know that\nSolomon reigned over Israel to the day of his death, that there never\nwas a day on which he could have strictly used such a tense as this.\nSo clear and undisputed is the force of this tense that the rabbis,\nwho held Solomon to be the author of Ecclesiastes, were obliged to\ninvent a fable or tradition to account for it. They said, \"When King\nSolomon was sitting on the throne of his kingdom, his heart was\ngreatly lifted up within him by his prosperity, and he transgressed\nthe commandments of God, gathering to him many horses, and chariots,\nand riders, amassing much gold and silver, and marrying many wives of\nforeign extraction. Wherefore the anger of the Lord was kindled\nagainst him, and He sent against him Ashmodai, the ruler of the\ndemons; and he drave him from the throne of his kingdom, and took away\nthe ring from his hand (Solomon's ring is famous for its marvellous\npowers in all Oriental fable), and sent him forth to wander about the\nworld. And he went through the villages and cities, with a staff in\nhis hand, weeping and lamenting, and saying, 'I am Coheleth; I was\nbeforetime Solomon, and reigned over Israel in Jerusalem; but now I\nrule over only this staff.'\" It is a pretty and pathetic fable, but it\nis a fable; and though it proves nothing else, we may fairly infer\nfrom it that, even in the judgment of the rabbis, the book\nEcclesiastes must, on its own showing, have been written after Solomon\nhad ceased to be King, _i.e._ after he had ceased to live.\n\n  [4] Plumptre writes the word Koheleth, and Perowne Quoheleth. Which of\n  the three initial letters should be used is of little consequence, and\n  hence I retain the form in most common use. _Ecclesiastes_ is simply\n  its Greek equivalent.\n\nIn the Epilogue (xii. 9-12) the Author of the Book lifts the dramatic\nmask from his face, and permits us to see who he really is; a mask,\nlet me add, somewhat carelessly worn, since we see nothing of it in\nthe last ten chapters of the Book. Although he has written in a\nfeigned name, and, without asserting it, has so moulded his phrases,\nat least in the earlier chapters of his work, as to suggest to his\nreaders that he is, if not Solomon himself, at least Solomon's\nmouthpiece, attributing the garnered results of his experience to one\ngreater than himself, that they may carry the more weight--just as\nBrowning speaks in the name of Rabbi Ben Ezra, for instance, or Fra\nLippo Lippi, or Abt Vogler, borrowing what he can of outward\ncircumstance from the age and class to which they belong, and yet\nreally uttering his own thought and emotion through their lips--he now\nconfesses that he is no king of an age long past, but a rabbi, a sage,\na teacher, a master, who has both made some proverbs of his own and\ncollected the wise sayings of others who had gone before him, in order\nthat he might carry some little light and comfort to the sorely bested\nmen of his own generation and blood.[5] In short, he has exercised his\nright as a poet, or \"maker,\" to embody the results of his wide and\nvaried experience of life in a dramatic form, but is careful to let us\nknow, before he takes leave of us, that it is a fictitious or dramatic\nSolomon, and not Solomon himself, to whom we have been listening\nthroughout.\n\n  [5] See the commentary on these verses for a fuller exposition of his\n  real claims and position.\n\nSo that all the phrases in the Book which are indicative of its\nauthorship confirm the inference drawn from its style and its\nhistorical contents; viz. that it was not written by Solomon, nor in\nhis reign, but by an unknown sage of a long-subsequent period, who, by\na dramatic impersonation of the characteristic experiences of the son\nof David, or rather of his own experiences blended with the Solomonic\ntraditions and poured into their moulds, sought to console and\ninstruct his oppressed fellow-countrymen.\n\nBut perhaps the most convincing argument in favour of this conclusion\nis that, when once we think of it, we cannot possibly accept the\nSolomon set before us in Ecclesiastes as the Solomon depicted in the\nhistorical books of Scripture. Solomon the son of David, with all his\nwisdom, played the fool. The foremost man and Hebrew of his time, he\ngave his heart to \"strange women,\" and to gods whose ritual was not\nonly idolatrous, but cruel, dark, impure. In his pursuit of science,\nunless the whole East belie him, he ran into secret magical arts,\nincantations, divinations, an occult intercourse with the powers of\nill. In all ways he departed from the God who had enriched him with\nthe choicest gifts, and sank, through luxury, extravagance, and\nexcess, first into a premature old age,[6] and then into a death so\nunrelieved by any sign of penitence, or any promise of amendment, that\nfrom that day to this rabbis and divines have discussed his final\ndoom, many of them leaning to the darker alternative. This\n\n      \"uxorious king, whose heart, though large,\n  Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell\n  To idols foul,\"\n\nis the Solomon of history. But the Solomon of Ecclesiastes is a sage\nwho represents himself as conducting a series of moral experiments for\nthe good of mankind, in order that, with all the weight of manifold\nexperience, he may teach men what is that good and right way which\nalone leads to peace. However hardly we may think of the Wise King who\nwas guilty of so many follies, we can scarcely think of him as such a\nfool that he did not know his sins to be sins, or as such a knave that\nhe deliberately endeavoured to palm them off on other ages, not as\ntransgressions of the Divine Law, but as a series of delicate\nphilosophic experiments which he was good enough to conduct for the\nbenefit of the race.\n\n  [6] Solomon could not have been more than sixty years of age when he\n  died, yet it was not till he was \"_old_\" that his wives \"turned away\n  his heart from the Lord his God\" (1 Kings xi. 4).\n\nOn the whole, then, we conclude that in this Book Solomon is taken as\nthe Hebrew type of wisdom, the wisdom which is based on large and\nvaried experience; and that this experience is here dramatized, in so\nfar as the writer could conceive it, for the instruction of a race\nwhich from first to last, from the fable of Jotham to the parables of\nour Lord, were accustomed to receive instruction in fictitious and\ndramatic forms. Its author was not Solomon, but one of \"the wise\"\nwhose name can no longer be recovered; it was written, not in the time\nof Solomon, _i.e._ about 1000 B.C., but some five or six centuries\nlater: and it was addressed not to the wealthy and peaceful citizens\nwhose king held his court in Jerusalem, but to their degenerate and\nenfeebled descendants during the period of the Persian supremacy.[7]\n\n  [7] \"It may be regarded as beyond doubt that it was written under the\n  Persian domination\" (Delitzsch).\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDoubtless many of the prevailing misapprehensions of the meaning,\nauthorship, and animating spirit of the Book are due, in some measure,\nto the singular form into which it is thrown. It belongs to what is\nknown as the Chokma, _i.e._ the Gnomic school, as opposed to the\nLyrical school of Hebrew poetry. The Jewish, like Oriental literature\nin general, early assumed this form, which seems to have a natural\naffinity with the Eastern mind. Grave men, who made a study of life or\nwho devoted themselves to a life of study, were likely to be\nsententious, to compress much thought into few words, especially in\nthe ages in which writing was a somewhat rare accomplishment, or in\nwhich, as in the Hebrew schools, instruction was given by a living\nvoice. No doubt they began with coining sage or witty aphorisms,\ngenerally lit up with a happy metaphor, each of which was complete in\nitself. Such sayings, as memorable and portable, no less than as\nstriking for beauty and \"matterful\" for meditation, would commend\nthemselves to an age in which books were few and scarce. They are to\nbe found in abundance in the proverbs of all ancient races, and in the\nBook of Proverbs which bears the name of Solomon, and many of the more\ndidactic and elaborate Psalms; while the Book of Job preserves many of\nthe sayings current among the Arabs and the Egyptians. But with the\nHebrews this literary mode took what is, so far as I am aware, a\nsingular and unparalleled development, from the time of Solomon\nonwards, rising to its highest pitch in the Book of Job, and sinking\nto its lowest--within the limits of the Canon at least--in the\ncramping over-ingenuities of the acrostic Psalms, and in such proverbs\nas those attributed to Agur the son of Jakeh.\n\nThis development has not as yet, I think, attracted the attention it\ndeserves; at least I have nowhere met with any formal recognition of\nit. Yet, undoubtedly, while at first the Hebrew sages were content to\ncompress much wit or wisdom into the small compass of a _gnome_, which\nthey polished like a gem, leaving each to shine by its own lustre and\nto make its own unaided impression, there rose in process of time men\nwho saw new and great capacities in this ancient literary form, and\nset themselves to string their gems together, to arrange their own or\nother men's proverbs so aptly and artistically that they enhanced each\nother's beauty, while at the same time they compelled them to carry a\nlogical and continuous stream of thought, to paint an elaborate\npicture, to build up a lofty yet breathing personification (that of\nWisdom, for example, in Proverbs viii.), to describe a lengthened and\nvaried ethical experience (as in Ecclesiastes), and even to weave them\ninto a large and sublime poem, like that of Job, which has never been\nexcelled. The reluctance with which this form lends itself to the\nnobler functions of literature, the immense difficulty of the\ninstrument which many of the Hebrew poets wielded, will become\napparent to any one who should try the experiment. We have a goodly\ncollection of proverbs, drawn from many sources, foreign as well as\nnative, in the English tongue. Let any man endeavour so to set or\narrange them, or a selection from them, as to produce a fine poem on a\nlofty theme, and he at least will not underrate the difficulty of the\ntask, even though we should concede to him the right to _make_\nproverbs where he could not find them to his mind. Yet to many of the\nfinest Hebrew poets the very restrictions of this form seem to have\npossessed a charm such as the far less rigid and encumbering laws of\nthe sonnet, or even of the triolet and other fanciful poetic wares of\nmodern times, have exerted on the minds of many of our own poets.[8] A\ncareful student of the Chokma school might even, I believe, trace the\ngrowth of this art, from its small beginnings in the earlier gnomic\nsayings of the Wise, to its culmination in the Book of Job; and, in so\ndoing, would confer a boon on all students of Holy Writ.[9]\n\n  [8] The nearest analogy in English literature to this triumphant use\n  of the proverb of which I can think is Pope's use of the couplet--in\n  every way a much lesser feat, however; while its burlesque or\n  caricature may be found in Tupper's _Proverbial Philosophy_.\n\n  [9] In the Book of Proverbs, for instance, he would find, in addition\n  to the incomparable personification of Wisdom to which I have already\n  referred, many examples of the proverb proper, many detached sayings\n  whose underlying thought is illustrated by a stroke of imagination;\n  such as that (chap. xxv. 11) in which the enhanced beauty of an\n  appropriate word when spoken at the opportune moment is compared with\n  the golden fruit of the orange when set in its frame of silver blooms\n  (_Expositions_, vol. iv.). He would also find some of those small\n  picturesque descriptions produced by an artistic sequence of\n  proverbs--the same theme being sometimes worked over by different\n  artists, in different ages, one and the same moral being enforced by\n  wholly different designs; as, for instance, where Solomon (chap. vi.\n  6-11) enforces the duty of a forethoughtful industry by a picture of\n  the ant and her prudent ways; while an unknown sage of a later date\n  (chap. xxiv. 30-34) appends precisely the same moral, expressed in the\n  same words, to his graphic picture of the Sluggard's garden (THE\n  EXPOSITOR, _Second Series_, vol. vi.). Moreover, if he turn to chapter\n  xxx. he will see how this form of art, which once soared so high, was\n  capable of sinking into a kind of puerile conundrum--with its three\n  too wonderful things, and its four little things which yet are\n  wise--while its moral tone remained pure and high. And, finally, in\n  the exposition of the Epilogue to Ecclesiastes he will find how, after\n  sinking so low, it rose once more, in the hands of the later rabbis,\n  into many beautiful forms of fable, and exhortation, and parable.\n\nIt is to this school that the Preacher belongs, as he himself informs\nus in the Epilogue to his fine Poem. He set himself, he says, \"_to\ncompose_, _to collect_, and _to arrange many proverbs_\" (xii. 9),\nrejecting any that were not \"words of truth,\" preferring, as was\nnatural in a time so dark, such as were \"words of comfort\" (xii. 10),\nand seeking his sayings both from the sages who stood by the old ways\nand those who looked for the new (xii. 11). And, of course, the\narranging of his awkward and inelastic material was far more\ndifficult than collecting it--arranging it so as to compel it to tell\nhis story, and carry his argument to its lofty close. It is Story, the\nsculptor and poet, I believe, who says that \"the best part of every\nwork of art is unseen,\" unexpressed, inexpressible in tones, or verse,\nor colours: it is that invisible something which lends it dignity,\nspirit, life, that \"style\" which, in this case, is in very deed the\nman. And the best part of Coheleth's noble work is this art of\narranging his gnomic sayings in the best order, the order in which\nthey illuminate each other most brightly and contribute most\neffectively to the total impression. Hence, both in translating and in\nendeavouring to interpret him, whenever I have had to choose between\nrival renderings or meanings, I have made it a rule to prefer that\nwhich most conduced to the logical sequence of his work or carried the\nfiner sense, deeming that at least so much as this was due to so great\na master, and entertaining no fear that I could invent any meaning\nwhich would outrun his intention.\n\nIn fine, if I were to gather up into a few sentences the impression\nwhich \"much study\" of this Scripture has left on my mind as to the\nmanner in which the author worked upon it, I should say: that\nCoheleth, a man of much of Solomon's original \"largeness of heart\" and\na great lover of wisdom, set himself to collect the scattered sayings\nof the sages who were before him. He took the traditional story of\nSolomon as the ground and framework of his poem, at least at the\noutset, though he seems to have soon laid it aside, and endeavoured so\nto assort and arrange the proverbs he had collected that each would\nlead up to the next; while each group of them would describe some of\nthe ways in which men commonly pursued the chief good, ways in most of\nwhich Solomon was at least reputed to have travelled far. Finding gaps\nwhich could not be well filled up from his large and various\ncollection, he bridged them over with proverbs of his own composing,\ntill he had got a sufficient account of each of the main adventures of\nthat Quest. And, then, he put adventure after adventure together in\nthe order in which they best led up to his great conclusion.\n\nIn all this I have said nothing, it is true, of that \"inspiration of\nthe Almighty\" which alone gives man understanding of spiritual things.\nBut why should not \"He who worketh all,\" and has deigned to use every\nform of literary art by which men teach their fellows, move and\ninspire a lover of wisdom to collect and arrange the sayings of the\nWise, if by these he could carry truth and comfort to those who were\nin sore need of both? And where, save from heaven and from Him who\nrules in heaven, could Coheleth have learned the great secret--the\nsecret of a retributive life beyond the grave? Even the best and\nwisest of the Hebrews saw that life only \"as through a glass, darkly;\"\nand even their fitful and imperfect conception of it seems always to\nhave been--as in the case of David, Job, Isaiah--an immediate gift\nfrom God, and a gift so large that even their hands of faith could\nhardly grasp it. No one need doubt the inspiration of a Scripture\nwhich affirms, not only that God is always with us, passing a present\nand effective judgment on all we do, but also that, when this life is\nover, He will bring every deed and every secret thing into judgment,\nwhether it be good or whether it be bad. That was not an everyday\nthought with the Jewish mind. We find it only in men who were moved by\nthe Holy Ghost to accept the teaching of his providence or the\nrevelation of his grace.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs for the design of the Book, no one now doubts that it sets before\nus the search for the _summum bonum_, the quest of the Chief Good. Its\nmain immediate intention was to deliver the exiled Jews from the\nmisleading ethical theories and habits into which they had fallen,\nfrom the sensualism and the scepticism occasioned by their imperfect\nconception of the Divine ways, by showing them that the true good of\nlife is not to be secured by philosophy, by the pursuit of pleasure,\nby devotion to traffic or public affairs, by amassing wealth; but that\nit results from a temperate and thankful enjoyment of the gifts of the\nDivine bounty, and a cheerful endurance of toil and calamity, combined\nwith a sincere service of God and a steadfast faith in that future\nlife in which all wrongs will be righted and all the problems which\nnow task and afflict us will receive a triumphant solution. Availing\nhimself of the historical and traditional records of Solomon's life,\nhe depicts, under that disguise, the moral experiments which he has\nconducted; depicts himself as having put the claims of wisdom, mirth,\nbusiness, wealth, to a searching test, and found them incompetent to\nsatisfy the cravings of the soul; as attaining no rest nor peace until\nhe had learned a simple enjoyment of simple pleasures, a patient\nconstancy under heavy trials, heartfelt devotion to the service of\nGod, and an unwavering faith in the life to come.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe contents of the Poem are, or may be, distributed into a Prologue,\nFour Acts or Sections, and an Epilogue.\n\nIn the Prologue (chap. i., vv. 1-11), Coheleth states the Problem to\nbe solved.\n\nIn the First Section (chap. i., ver. 12--chap. ii., ver. 26), he\ndepicts the endeavour to solve it by seeking the Chief Good in Wisdom\nand in Pleasure.\n\nIn the Second Section (chap. iii., ver. 1--chap. v., ver. 20), the\nQuest is pursued in Traffic and Political Life.\n\nIn the Third Section (chap. vi., ver. 1--chap. viii., ver. 15), the\nQuest is carried into Wealth and the Golden Mean.\n\nIn the Fourth Section (chap. viii., ver. 16--chap. xii., ver. 7), the\nQuest is achieved, and the Chief Good found to consist in a tranquil\nand cheerful enjoyment of the present, combined with a cordial faith\nin the future, life.\n\nAnd in the Epilogue (chap. xii., vv. 8-14) he summarises and\nemphatically repeats this solution of the Problem.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was very natural that the Problem here discussed should fill a\nlarge space in Hebrew thought and literature; that it should be the\ntheme of many of the Psalms and of many of the prophetic \"burdens\", as\nwell as of the Books Ecclesiastes and Job. For the Mosaic revelation\ndid teach that virtue and vice would meet suitable rewards now, in\nthis present time. At the giving of the Law Jehovah announced that He\nwould show mercy to the thousands of those who kept his commandments,\nand that He would visit the iniquities of the disobedient upon them.\nThe Law that came by Moses is crowded with promises of temporal good\nto the righteous, and with threatenings of temporal evil to the\nunrighteous. The fulfilment of these threatenings and promises is\ncarefully marked in the Hebrew chronicles; it is the supplication\nwhich breathes through the recorded prayers of the Hebrew race, and\nthe theme of their noblest songs; it is their hope and consolation\nunder the heaviest calamities. What, then, could be more bewildering\nto a godly and reflective Jew than to discover that this fundamental\narticle of his faith was questionable, nay, that it was contradicted\nby the commonest facts of human life as life grew more complex and\ninvolved? When he saw the righteous driven before the blasts of\nadversity like a withered leaf, while the wicked lived out all their\ndays in mirth and affluence; when he saw the only nation that\nattempted obedience to the Law groaning under the miseries of a\ncaptivity embittered by the cruel caprices of rulers who could not\neven rule themselves, and unrelieved by any hope of deliverance, while\nheathen races revelled in the lusts of sense and power unrebuked: when\n_this_ seemed to be the rule of providence, the _law_ of the Divine\nadministration, and not that better rule revealed in his Scriptures,\nis it any wonder that, forgetting all corrective and balancing facts,\nhe was racked with torments of perplexity; that, while some of his\nfellows plunged into the base relief of sensualism, he should be\nplagued with doubts and fears, and search eagerly through all avenues\nof thought for some solution of the mystery?\n\nNor, indeed, is this problem without interest for us; for we as\npersistently misinterpret the New Testament as the Hebrews did the\nOld. We read that \"whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;\"\nwe read that \"the meek shall inherit the earth;\" we read that for\nevery act of service done to Christ we shall receive \"a hundredfold\nnow, in this present time;\" and we are very prompt with the gross,\ncareless interpretation which makes such passages mean that if we are\ngood we shall have the good things of this life, while its evil things\nshall be reserved for the evil. Indeed, we are trained--or, perhaps I\nshould say, until recently we _were_ trained--in this interpretation\nfrom our earliest years. Our very spelling-books are full of it, and\nare framed on the model of \"Johnny was a good boy, and he got\nplum-cake; but Tommy was a bad boy, and he got the stick.\" Nearly all\nour story-books have a similar moral: it is always, or almost always,\nthe good young man who gets the beautiful wife and large estate, while\nthe bad young man comes to a bad end. Our proverbs are full of it, and\naxioms such as \"Honesty is the best policy,\" a pernicious half-truth,\nare for ever on our lips. Our art, in so far as it is _ours_, is in\nthe same conspiracy. In Hogarth, for instance, as Thackeray has\npointed out, it is always Francis Goodchild who comes to be Lord Mayor\nand poor Jem Scapegrace who comes to the gallows. And when, as life\npasses on, we discover that it is the bad boy who often gets the\nplum-cake, and the good boy who goes to the rod; that bad men often\nhave beautiful wives and large estates, while good men fail of both;\nwhen we find the knave rising to place and authority, and honest\nGoodchild in the workhouse or the _Gazette_, then there rise up in our\nhearts the very doubts and perplexities and eager painful questions\nwhich of old time troubled the Psalmist and the Prophet. We cry out\nwith Job--\n\n  \"It is all one--therefore will I say it,\n  The guilty and the guiltless He treateth alike;\n  The deceiver and the deceived both are his;\"\n\nor we say with the Preacher,--\n\n  \"This is the greatest evil of all that is done under the sun\n    That there is one fate for all;\n  The same fate befalleth to the righteous and to the wicked,\n    To the good and pure and to the impure,\n  To him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not:\n    As is the good so is the sinner,\n  And he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath.\"\n\nAnd it is well for us if, like the Hebrew poet, we can resist this\ncruel temptation, and hold fast the integrity of our faith; if we can\nrest in the assurance that, after all and when all is done, \"the\nlittle that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many\nwicked;\" that God has something better than wealth and lucky haps for\nthe good, and merciful correctives of a more sovereign potency than\npenury and mishaps for the wicked. If we have this faith, our study of\nEcclesiastes can hardly fail to deepen and confirm it; if we are not\nso happy as to have it, Coheleth will give us sound reasons for\nembracing it.\n\n\n\u00a7 2. _ON THE HISTORY OF THE CAPTIVITY._\n\nIf we may now assume the Book Ecclesiastes to have been written, not\nin the time of Solomon, but during, or soon after, the Babylonian\nCaptivity, our next duty is to learn what we can of the social,\npolitical, and religious conditions of the two races among whom the\nJews were thrown when they were carried away from the land of their\nfathers. That they learned much, as well as suffered much, while they\nsat by the waters of Babylon; that they emerged from their long exile\nwith a profound attachment to the Word of God, such as their fathers\nhad never known, and with many precious additions to that Word, is\nbeyond a doubt. As plants grow fastest by night, so men make their\nmost rapid growth in knowledge and in faith when times are dark and\ntroubled. And all students of this period are at one in affirming that\nduring the Captivity a radical and most happy change passed upon the\nHebrew mind. They came out of it with a hatred of idolatry, a faith in\nthe life beyond the grave, a pride in their national Law, a hope in\nthe advent of the great Deliverer and Redeemer, with which the elder\nPsalmists and Prophets had failed to inspire them, but which\nhenceforth they never wholly relinquished. With the religious there\nwas blended an intellectual advance. Books and teachers were sought\nand honoured as never heretofore. Schools and synagogues grew up in\nevery town and village in which they dwelt. \"Of making of many books\nthere was no end.\" Education was compulsory. Study was regarded as\nmore meritorious than sacrifice, a scholar as greater than a prophet,\na teacher as greater than a king, if at least we may trust proverbs\nwhich were current among them. Before the Captivity one of the least\nliterate of nations--noble as their national literature was, at its\nclose the Jews were distinguished by their zeal for culture and\neducation.\n\nTo trace the progress of this marvellous revival of letters and\nreligion--a renaissance and a reformation in one--would be a most\nwelcome task, had we the materials for it and the skill to use them.\nBut even the scanty materials that exist lie scattered through the\nhistorical and literary remains of many different races--in the\ncylinders, sculptures, paintings, inscriptions, tombs, shrines of\nNineveh, Babylon, Behistun, and Persepolis, in the Zendavesta, in the\npages of Herodotus and the earlier Greek historians, in Josephus, in\nthe Apocrypha, in the Talmud, and in at least a dozen of the Old\nTestament books; and some of these \"sources\" are very far as yet from\nhaving been explored and mastered. Hence the history of this period\nstill remains to be written, and will probably be largely conjectural\nwhenever, if ever, it is written. Yet what period is of graver\ninterest to the student of the Bible? If we could recover its history,\nit would throw a new and most welcome light on well-nigh one-half of\nthe Old Testament Scriptures, if not on all.\n\nHappily, a brief sketch of it, such as is well within any man's reach,\nwill suffice to show how, from their contact with the Babylonian and\nPersian races, the Jews received literary and religious impulses which\ngo far to account for the marvellous changes which swept over them,\nand enable us to read the Preacher intelligently, and see how his\nsocial and political allusions exactly correspond with what we know\nof the time.[10]\n\n  [10] For this sketch I am largely indebted to Rawlinson's _Five Great\n  Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World_, and his commentary on\n  _Herodotus_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAbout a hundred and twenty years after the destruction of the kingdom\nof Israel by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria (B.C. 719), the kingdom of\nJudah fell before Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon (B.C. 598-596). The\ncity, palace, and temple of Jerusalem were levelled in a common ruin;\nthe nobles, priests, merchants, and skilled artisans, all the pith and\nmanhood of Judah, were carried away captive; only a few of the most\nabject of the people were left to mourn and starve amid the ravaged\nfields. Nothing could present a more striking contrast to their native\nland than the region to which the Jews were deported. Instead of a\nsmall picturesque mountain-country, with its little cities set on\nhills or on the brink of precipitous ravines, they entered on a vast\nplain, fertile beyond all precedent indeed, and abounding in streams,\nbut with nothing to break the monotony of level flats save the high\nwalls and lofty towers of one enormous city. For Babylonia proper was\nsimply an immense plain, lying between the Arabian Desert and the\nTigris, and of an extent somewhat under that of Ireland. But though\nof a limited area as compared with the vast empire of which it was the\ncentre, by its amazing fertility it was capable of sustaining a\ncrowded population. It was watered not only by the great rivers Tigris\nand Euphrates, but by their numerous affluents, many of which were\nthemselves considerable streams; it was \"a land of brooks and\nfountains.\" On this rich alluvial plain, amply supplied with water,\nand under the fierce heat of the sun, wheat and barley, with all kinds\nof grain, yielded a return far beyond all modern parallel. The capital\ncity of this fertile province was the largest and the most magnificent\nof the ancient world, standing on both sides of the Euphrates, as\nLondon stands on both sides of the Thames, and covering at least a\nhundred square miles.\n\nIn this country and city (for \"Babylon\" stands for both in the Bible),\nso unlike the sunny cliffs and scattered villages of their native\nhome, the Jews, who, like all hill-races, cherished a passionate\naffection for the land of their fathers, spent many bitter years. On\nthe broad featureless plain they pined for \"the mountains\" of Judea\n(Ezekiel xxxvi.; Psalm cxxxvii.); they sat down by the waters and wept\nas they remembered \"the hill of the Lord.\" They do not seem, however,\nto have been handled with exceptional harshness by their captors. They\nwere treated as colonists rather than as slaves. They were allowed to\nlive together in considerable numbers, and to observe their own\nreligious rites. They took the advice of the prophet Jeremiah (xxix.\n4-7), who had warned them that their exile would extend over many\nyears, and built houses, planted gardens, married wives, and brought\nup children; they \"sought the peace of the city\" in which they were\ncaptives, \"and prayed for it,\" knowing that in its peace they would\nhave peace. If many of them had to labour gratuitously on the great\npublic works--and this labour was exacted of most of the conquered\nraces--many rose, by fidelity, thrift, diligence, to places of trust,\nand amassed considerable wealth. Among those who filled high posts in\nthe household or administration of the successive monarchs of Babylon\nwere Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; Zerubbabel, Ezra,\nNehemiah, and Mordecai; Tobit--if indeed Tobit be a real and not a\nfictitious person--and his nephew Achiacharus.\n\nBut who were the people, and what were the social and political\nconditions of the people, among whom the Hebrew captives lived? The\ntwo leading races with whom they were brought in contact were the\nBabylonians--an offshoot from the ancient Chaldean stock--and the\nPersians. The history of the Captivity divides itself into two main\nperiods, therefore, the Persian and the Babylonian, at each of which\nwe must glance.\n\n1. _The Babylonian Period._--For more than fifty years after they were\ncarried away captive, the Jews served a Chaldean race, and were\ngoverned by Assyrian despots, of whom Nebuchadnezzar[11] was by far\nthe greatest whether in peace or war. It is hardly too much to say\nthat but for him the Babylonians would have had no place in history. A\ngreat soldier, a great statesman, a great builder and engineer, he\nknew how to consolidate and adorn his vast empire, an empire which is\nsaid to have \"extended from the Atlantic to the Caspian, and from\nCaucasus to the Great Sahara.\" We owe our best conception of the\npersonal character and public life of this great despot to the Book of\nDaniel. Daniel, although a Jew and a captive, was the vizier of the\nBabylonian monarch, and retained his post until the Persian conquest,\nwhen he became the first of \"the three presidents\" of the new empire.\nHe therefore paints Nebuchadnezzar from the life. And in his Book we\nsee the great King at the head of a magnificent court, surrounded by\n\"princes, governors, and captains, judges, treasurers, councillors,\nand sheriffs,\" waited on by \"well-favoured\" eunuchs, attended by a\ncrowd of astrologers and \"wise men\" who interpret to him the will of\nHeaven. He wields an absolute power, and disposes with a word of the\nlives and fortunes of his subjects, even the highest and most\nprincely. All offices are in his gift. He can raise a slave to the\nsecond place in his kingdom (Daniel, to wit), and impose a foreigner\n(again, Daniel) on the priestly college as its head. Of so enormous a\nwealth that he makes an image of pure gold ninety feet high and nine\nfeet broad, he lavishes it on public works--on temples, gardens,\ncanals, fortifications--rather than on personal indulgence. Religious\nafter a fashion, he wavers between \"the God of the Jews\" and the deity\nafter whom he was named and whom he calls _his_ god. In temper he is\nhasty and violent, but not obstinate; he suddenly repents of his\nsudden resolves; he is capable of bursts of gratitude and devotion no\nless than of fierce accesses of fury, and displays at times a piety\nand self-abasement astonishing in an Oriental despot. His\nsuccessors--Evil-Merodach, Neriglissar, Laborosoarchod, Nabonadius,\nand Belshazzar--need not detain us. Little is known of them, and, with\none exception, their reigns were very short; and their main task seems\nto have been the erection of vast and sumptuous structures such as\nNebuchadnezzar had been wont to rear. Probably none of the Babylonian\nmonarchs save Nebuchadnezzar made any deep impression on the Hebrew\nmind.\n\n  [11] Instead of _Nebuchadnezzar_ Jeremiah and Ezekiel use the form\n  _Nebuchadrezzar_, which is nearer to the original _Nabu-Kuduri-utzur_,\n  _i.e._ \"Nebo is the protector against misfortune.\"\n\nAnd, indeed, the people of Babylon were much more likely than their\ndespots to influence the Hebrew captives; for with them they would be\nbrought into daily contact. Now the Babylonians were marked by a\nsingular intellectual ability. Keen to know, patient to observe, exact\nand laborious in their researches, they could hardly fail to teach\nmuch to subject races, and to inspire them with some desire for\nknowledge. They had carried the sciences of mathematics and astronomy\nto a high pitch of perfection. They are said to have determined,\nwithin two seconds, the exact length of the solar year, and not to\nhave been far wrong in the distances at which they computed the sun,\nmoon and planets from the earth; and they compiled a serviceable\ncatalogue of the fixed stars. The Hebrew prophets often refer to their\n\"wisdom and learning.\" They excelled in architecture. Two of their\nvast works, the walls of Babylon, and the hanging gardens, were\nreckoned among \"the seven wonders\" of the ancient world. Their skill\nin manufacturing and arranging enamelled bricks has never yet been\nequalled.[12] In all mechanical arts, indeed, such as cutting stones\nand gems, casting gold and silver, blowing glass, modelling vases and\nware, weaving carpets and muslins and linen, they take a very high\nplace among the nations of antiquity. With manufacturing and artistic\nskill they combined the spirit of enterprise and adventure which leads\nto commerce. They were addicted to maritime pursuits; the \"cry,\" or\njoy, \"of the Chaldeans is in their ships,\" says Isaiah (xliii. 14);\nand Ezekiel (xvii. 4) calls Babylonia \"a land of traffic,\" and its\nchief city \"a city of merchants.\"\n\n  [12] There is a curious allusion to these enamelled bricks, and the\n  admiration the Jews conceived for them, in Ezekiel xxiii. 14-16.\n\nBut a larger, and probably the largest, class of the people must have\nbusied themselves with the toils of agriculture; the broad Chaldean\nplain being famous, from the time of the Patriarchs to the present\nday, for an amazing and almost incredible fertility. Wheat, barley,\nmillet, and sesame, all flourished with astonishing luxuriance, the\nground commonly yielding a hundredfold, two hundredfold, and even\nampler rewards for the toil of the husbandman.\n\nWith these abundant sources of wealth at their command, the people\nnaturally grew luxurious and dissolute. \"The daughter of the\nChaldeans,\" says Isaiah (xlvii. 1-8), \"is tender and delicate,\" given\nto pleasures, apt to live carelessly; her young men, says Ezekiel\n(xxiii. 15), are dandies, \"exceeding in dyed attire,\" painting their\nfaces, and wearing earrings. Chastity, in our modern sense of the\nterm, was unknown.[13] The pleasures of the table and of the couch were\ncarried to excess. Yet, like many other Eastern races, the Babylonians\nhid under their soft luxurious exterior a fierceness very formidable to\ntheir foes. The Hebrew Prophets (Hab. i. 6-8; Isaiah xiv. 16) describe\nthem as \"a bitter and hasty,\" a \"terrible and dreadful\" people, \"fiercer\nthan the evening wolves,\" a people whose tramp \"made the earth tremble,\nand did shake kingdoms;\" and all the historians of the time charge them\nwith a thirst for blood which often took the most savage and inhuman\nforms.\n\n[13] See _Herodotus_, book i., chap. 199; _Strabo_, xvi., p. 1058;\n  and the _Book of Baruch_, vi. 43.\n\nOf the horrible licence and cruelty of the worship of Bel, Merodach,\nand Nebo, which did much to foster the fierce and cruel temper of the\npeople, it is not necessary, it is hardly possible, to speak. Roughly\ntaken, it was the service of the great forces of Nature by a wanton\nindulgence of the worst passions of man. It is enough to know that in\nBabylon idolatry took forms which made all forms of idolatry\nhenceforth intolerable to the Jews; that now, once for all, they\nrenounced that worship of strange gods to which they and their fathers\nhad always hitherto been prone. This of itself was an immense advance,\na great gain. Nor was it their only gain; for if by contact with the\nidolatrous Babylonians the Jews were driven back on their own Law and\nScripture, their intercourse with a people of so active an intellect\nand a learning so deep and wide led them to study the Word of Jehovah\nin a new and more intelligent spirit.\n\nNor is it less obvious that in the social and political conditions of\nthe Babylonians we have a key to many of the allusions to public life\ncontained in Ecclesiastes. The great empire, indeed, presents\nprecisely those elements which, in degenerate times and under feebler\ndespots, must inevitably develop into the disorder, and misery, and\ncrime which Coheleth depicts.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n2. _The Persian Period._--The conquest of Babylon by the Persians, led\nby the heroic Cyrus, is, thanks to Daniel, one of the most familiar\nincidents of ancient history, so familiar that I need not recount it.\nBy this conquest Cyrus--\"the Shepherd, the Messiah, of the Lord,\" as\nIsaiah (xliv. 28; xlv. 1) terms him--became the undisputed master of\nwell-nigh the whole known world of the time. Nor does he seem to have\nbeen unworthy of his extraordinary position. Of all ancient Oriental\nmonarchs, out of the Hebrew pale, he bears the highest repute. Even\nthe Greek authors, for the most part, represent him as energetic and\npatient, magnanimous and modest, and of a religious mind. \u00c6schylus\ncalls him \"kindly\" or \"generous.\" Xenophon selected him as a model\nprince for all races. Plutarch says that \"in wisdom, and virtue, and\ngreatness of soul he appears to have been in advance of all kings.\"\nDiodorus makes one of his speakers say that Cyrus gained his\nascendency by his self-command and good-feeling and gentleness. Simple\nin his habits, brave, and of a most just, humane, and clement spirit,\nhe hated the cruel and lascivious idols of the East, and worshipped\none only God, \"the God of heaven.\" There is none like him in the\nantique world, none at least among the kings and princes of that\nworld. And when, at the conquest of Babylon, he discovered in the\ncaptive Jews a race that also hated idols, and served one Lord, and\nknew a law of life as pure as his own, or even purer, we need feel no\nsurprise either that he broke their bands in sunder and set them free\nto return to their native land, or that they saw in this pure and\nnoble nature, this virtuous and religious prince, \"a servant of\nJehovah,\" and even a partial and shadowy resemblance to that Divine\nDeliverer and Redeemer for whose advent they had been taught to look.\n\nCyrus was sixty years of age when he took Babylon (B.C. 539), and died\nten years after his conquest. He was succeeded by men utterly unlike\nhimself, so unlike that the Persian nobles revolted from them, and\nplaced Darius Hystaspes, the heir of an ancient dynasty, on the\nthrone. As Cyrus was the soldier of the Persians, so Darius was their\nstatesman. He it was who founded the \"satrapial\" form of\nadministration; _i.e._ instead of governing the various provinces of\nhis empire through native princes, he placed Persian satraps over\nthem, these satraps being charged with the collection of the public\nrevenue, the maintenance of order, and the administration of justice;\nin fact, he governed the whole Eastern world very much as we govern\nIndia. The internal organization of his vast unwieldy empire was the\ngreat work of Darius through his long reign of six-and-thirty years;\nbut the event by which he is best remembered, and which proved to be\nfruitful in the most disastrous results to the State, was the opening\nof that fatal war with Greece, which at last, and under his feeble and\ndegenerate successors, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, and the rest, reached its\nclose in the downfall of the Persian empire. We need not linger over\nthe details of the story. It will be enough, for our purpose, to say\nthat from the accession of Xerxes down to the conquest of the Persian\nempire by Alexander the Great--a stretch of a hundred and fifty\nyears--that empire was declining to its fall. Its history towards the\nend was a mere succession of intrigues and insurrections, conspiracies\nand revolts. \"Battle, murder, and sudden death\" are its staple. The\nrestraints of law and order grew ever weaker. The satraps were\npractically supreme in their several provinces, and used their power\nto extort enormous wealth from their miserable subjects. Eunuchs and\nconcubines ruled in the palace. Manliness died out; the Persians were\nno longer taught \"to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth;\"\ncunning and treachery took its place. The scene grows more and more\npitiful, till at last the welcome darkness rushes down, and hides the\nignoble agony of perhaps the vastest and wealthiest empire the world\nhas seen.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut we must turn from the despots and their adventures to form some\nslight acquaintance with the people, the Persian people who, by the\nconquest of Cyrus, became the ruling class in the empire, always\nremembering, however, that the Babylonians must have remained by\nmyriads both in the capital and in the provinces, and would continue\nto exert their influence on Hebrew thought and activity.\n\nIn all moral and religious qualities the Persians were far in advance\nof the Chaldeans, though they were probably behind them in many\ncivilized arts and crafts. They were famous for their truthfulness and\nvalour. The Greeks[14] confessed the Persians to be their equals in\n\"boldness and warlike spirit\"--\u00c6schylus[15] calls them \"a\nvaliant-minded people\"--while they are lavish in praise of the Persian\nveracity, a virtue in which they themselves were notably deficient. To\nthe Persians God was \"the Father of all truth;\" to lie was shameful\nand irreligious. They disliked traffic because of its haggling,\nequivocation, and dishonest shifts. \"Their chief faults,\" and even\nthese were not developed till they became masters of the world, \"were\nan addiction to self-indulgence and luxury, a passionate _abandon_ to\nthe feeling of the hour whatever it might be, and a tameness and\nsubservience in all their relations toward their princes which seem to\nmoderns incompatible with self-respect and manliness.\" Patriotism came\nto mean mere loyalty to the monarch; the habit of unquestioning\nsubmission to his will, and even to his caprice, became a second\nnature to them. The despotic humour natural in \"a ruling person\" was\nthus nourished till it ran to the wildest excess. \"He was their lord\nand master, absolute disposer of their lives, liberties, and property,\nthe sole fountain of law and right, incapable himself of doing wrong,\nirresponsible, irresistible--a sort of God upon earth; one whose\nfavour was happiness, at whose frown men trembled, before whom all\nbowed themselves down with the lowest and humblest obeisance.\" No\nsubject could enter his presence save by special permission, or\nwithout a prostration like that of worship. To come unbidden was to be\ncut down by the royal guards, unless, as a sign of grace, he extended\nhis golden sceptre to the culprit. To tread on the king's carpet was a\ngrave offence; to sit, even unwittingly, on his seat a capital crime.\nSo slavish was the submission both of nobles and of people that we are\nrequired on good authority to accredit such stories as these: wretches\nbastinadoed by the king's order declared themselves delighted that his\nmajesty had condescended to remember them; a father, whose innocent\nson was shot by the despot in pure wantonness, had to crush down his\nnatural indignation and grief, and to compliment the royal archer on\nthe accuracy of his aim.\n\n  [14] _Herodotus_, ix. 62.\n\n  [15] \u00c6schyl., _Pers._, 94.\n\nDespising trade and commerce as menial and degrading, the ruling caste\nof a vast empire, with a monopoly of office and boundless means of\nwealth at their command, accustomed to lord it over subject races, of\na high spirit and a faith comparatively pure, their very prosperity\nwas their ruin, as it has been that of many a great nation. In their\nearlier times, they were noted for their sobriety and temperance.\nContent with simple diet, their only drink was water from the pure\nmountain streams; their garb was plain, their habits homely and hardy.\nBut their temperance soon gave place to an immoderate luxury.[16] They\nacquired the Babylonian vices, and adopted at least the licence of the\nBabylonian rites. They filled their harems with wives and concubines.\nFrom the time of Xerxes onwards they grew nice and curious of\nappetite, eager for pleasure, effeminate, dissolute.\n\n  [16] \"There is no nation which so readily adopts foreign customs as\n  the Persians.... As soon as they hear of any luxury they instantly\n  make it their own.... Each of them has several wives, and a still\n  larger number of concubines.\"--(_Herodotus_ book i., chap. 135).\n\nWith the growth of luxury on the part of the nobles and the people,\nthe fear of the despot, at whose mercy all their acquisitions stood,\ngrew more intense, more harassing, more degrading. Xerxes and his\nsuccessors were utterly reckless in their exercise of the absolute\npower conceded to them, and delegated it to favourites as reckless as\nthemselves. No noble however eminent, no servant of the State however\nfaithful or distinguished, could be sure that he might not at any\nmoment incur a displeasure which would strip him of all he possessed,\neven if it did not also condemn him to a cruel and lingering death.\nOut of mere sport and wantonness, to relieve the tedium of a weary\nhour, the despot might slay him with his own hand. For the crime, or\nassumed crime, of one person a whole family, or class, or race might\nbe cut off unheard. Of the lengths to which this cruelty and caprice\nmight go we have a sufficient example in the Book of Esther. The\nAhasuerus of that singular narrative was, there can hardly be any\ndoubt, the Xerxes of secular history--the very names, unlike as they\nsound, are the same name differently pronounced by two different\nraces.[17] And all that the Book of Esther relates of the despot who\nrepudiates a wife because she will not expose herself to the drunken\nadmiration of a crowd of revellers, who raises a servant to the\nhighest honours one day and hangs him the next, who commands the\nmassacre of an entire race and then bids them inflict a horrible\ncarnage on those who execute his decree, exactly accords with the\nGreek narratives which depict him as scourging the sea for having\nbroken down his bridge over the Hellespont, beheading the engineers\nwhose work was swept away by a storm, wantonly putting to death the\nsons of Pythias, his oldest friend, before their father's eyes; as\nfirst giving to his mistress the splendid robe presented to him by his\nqueen, and then giving up to the queen's barbarous vengeance the\nmother of his mistress; as shamefully misusing the body of the heroic\nLeonidas, and, after his defeat by the Greeks, giving himself up to a\ncriminal voluptuousness and offering a reward to the inventor of any\nnew pleasure.\n\n  [17] Their common root is the Sanscrit _Kshatra_, a king; in the\n  Persepolitan inscriptions this word appears as Ks\u00e9rsh\u00e9, and from this\n  both the Hebrew _Achashuerash_ (Ahasuerus) and the Greek _Xerxes_\n  would easily be formed.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Book Ecclesiastes was written certainly not before the reign of\nXerxes (B.C. 486-465), and probably many years after it, a period in\nwhich, bad as were the conditions of his time, the times grew ever\nmore lawless, the despotism more intolerable, the violence and\nlicentiousness of the subordinate officials more unblushing. But at\nwhatever period within these limits we may place it, all we have\nlearned of the Babylonians and the Persians during the later years of\nthe Captivity and the earlier years of the Exile (during which the\nJews were still under the Persian rule) is in entire correspondence\nwith the social and political state depicted by the Preacher. The\nabler and more kindly despots--as Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes--showed a\nsingular favour to the Jews. Cyrus published a decree authorizing them\nto return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple, and enjoining the\nofficials of the empire to further them in their enterprise; Darius\nconfirmed that decree, despite the malignant misrepresentations of the\nSamaritan colonists; Artaxerxes held Ezra and Nehemiah in high esteem,\nand sent them to restore order and prosperity to the city of their\nfathers and its inhabitants. But a large number, apparently even a\nlarge majority, of the Jews, unable or disinclined to return, remained\nin the various provinces of the great empire, and were of course\nsubject to the violence and injustice from which the Persians\nthemselves were not exempt. \"Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities,\nall is vanity!\" cries the Preacher till we grow weary of the mournful\nrefrain. Might he not well take that tone in a time so out of joint,\nso lowering, so dark?\n\nThe Book is full of allusions to the Persian luxury, to the Persian\nforms of administration, above all, to the corruptions of the later\nyears of the Persian empire, and the miseries they bred. Coheleth's\nelaborate description (ii. 4-8) of the infinite variety of means by\nwhich he sought to allure his heart unto mirth--his palaces,\nvineyards, paradises, with their reservoirs and fountains, crowds of\nattendants, treasures of gold and silver, the harem full of beauties\nof all races--seems taken direct from the ample state of some\nluxurious Persian grandee. His picture of the public administration\n(v. 8, 9), in which \"superior watcheth over superior, and superiors\nagain watch over them,\" is a graphic sketch of the satrapial system,\nwith its official hierarchy rising grade above grade, which was the\nwork of Darius.[18] When the animating and controlling spirit of that\nsystem was taken away, when weak foolish despots sat on the throne,\nand despots just as foolish and weak ruled in every provincial divan,\nthere ensued precisely that political state to which Coheleth\nperpetually refers.[19] Iniquity sat in the place of judgment, and in\nthe place of equity there was iniquity (iii. 16); kings grew childish,\nand princes spent their days in revelry (x. 16); fools were lifted to\nhigh place, while nobles were degraded; and slaves rode on horses,\nwhile their quondam masters tramped through the mire (x. 6, 7). There\nwas no fair reward for faithful service (ix. 11). Death brooded in the\nair, and might fall suddenly and unforeseen on any head, however high\n(ix. 12). To correct a public abuse was like pulling down a wall: some\nof the stones were sure to fall on the reformer's feet, from some\ncranny a serpent was sure to start out and bite him (x. 8, 9). To\nbreathe a word against a ruler, even in the strictest privacy, was to\nrun the hazard of destruction (x. 20). A resentful gesture, much more\na rebellious word, in the divan was enough to ensure outrage. In\nshort, the whole political fabric was fast falling into disrepair and\ndecay, the rain leaking through the rotting roof, while the miserable\npeople were ground down with ruinous exactions, in order that their\nrulers might revel on undisturbed (x. 18, 19). It is under such a\npernicious and ominous maladministration of public affairs, and the\nappalling miseries it breeds, that there springs up in the hearts of\nmen that fatalistic and hopeless temper to which Coheleth gives\nfrequent expression. Better never to have been born than to live a\nlife so cramped and thwarted, so full of perils and fears! Better to\nsnatch at every pleasure, however poor and brief, than seek, by\nself-denial, by virtue, by integrity, to accumulate a store which the\nfirst petty tyrant who gets wind of it will sweep off, or a reputation\nfor wisdom and goodness which will be no protection from, which will\nbe only too likely to provoke, the despotic humours of men \"dressed in\na little brief authority.\"\n\n  [18] \"The political condition of the people which this Book\n  presupposes is that in which they are placed under satraps\"\n  (Delitzsch).\n\n  [19] It would be possible to collect from the Psalms of this date\n  materials for a description of the wrongs and miseries inflicted on\n  the Jews, and of their keen sense of them, quite as graphic and\n  intense as that of the Preacher. Here are a few phrases hastily culled\n  from them. The oppressors of Israel are described as being \"clothed\n  with cruelty as with a garment,\" as \"returning evil for good, and\n  hatred for good-will.\"\n\n    \"Lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth;\n    Render to the proud their desert.\n    They prate, they speak arrogantly;\n    All the workers of iniquity boast themselves.\n    They break in pieces Thy people, O Lord,\n    And afflict Thine heritage.\n    They slay the widow and the stranger,\n    And murder the fatherless.\n    And they say, The Lord shall not see,\n    Neither shall the God of Jacob consider\" (xciv.).\n\n    \"I am bowed down and brought very low;\n    I go mourning all the day long:\n    Truly I am nigh unto falling,\n    And my heaviness is ever before me\" (xxxviii.).\n\n    \"My days consume away like smoke,\n    And my bones are burned up like as a firebrand;\n    My heart is smitten down and withered like grass,\n    So that I forget to eat my bread\" (cii.).\n\n    \"I am helpless and poor,\n    And my heart is wounded within me\" (cix.).\n\n  Most of the \"imprecatory\" Psalms belong to this period; and the\n  terrible wrongs of the Captivity, though they may not justify, in\n  large measure explain and excuse, that desire for vengeance which has\n  given so much offence to some of our modern critics.\n\nIf even Shakespeare,[20] in an unrestful and despairing mood strangely\nforeign to his serene temperament, beheld\n\n          \"desert a beggar born,\n  And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,\n  And purest faith unhappy forsworn,\n  And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,\n  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,\n  And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,\n  And strength by limping sway disabled,\n  And art made tongue-tied by authority,\n  And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,\n  And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,\n  And captive good attending captain ill;\"\n\nif, \"tired with all these,\" he cried for \"restful death,\" we can\nhardly wonder that the Preacher, who had fallen on times so evil that,\ncompared with his, Shakespeare's were good, should prefer death to\nlife.\n\n  [20] Sonnets, LXVI.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut there is another side to this sad story of the Captivity, another\nand a nobler side. If the Jews suffered much from Persian misrule,\nthey learned much and gained much from the Persian faith. In its\nearlier form the religious creed whose documents Zoroaster afterwards\ncollected and enlarged in the Zendavesta was probably the purest of\nthe ancient heathen world; and even when it was corrupted by the baser\nadditions of later times, its purer form was still preserved in songs\n(G\u00e2th\u00e2s) and traditions. There can be no reasonable doubt that it\nlargely affected the subsequent faith of the Hebrews, not indeed\nteaching them any truth they had not been taught before, but\nconstraining them to recognize truths in their Scriptures which\nhitherto they had passed over or neglected.\n\nIn its inception the Persian creed and practice were a revolt against\nthe sensuous and sensual worship of the great forces of Nature into\nwhich most Eastern religions, often pure enough, in their primitive\nforms, had degenerated, and, in especial, from the base forms into\nwhich the Hindus had degraded that primitive faith which is still to\nbe recovered from the Rig-Veda. It acknowledged persons, real\nspiritual intelligences, in place of mere natural powers; and it drew\nmoral distinctions between them, dividing these ruling intelligences\ninto good and bad, pure and impure, benignant and malevolent,--an\nimmense advance on the mere admiration of whatever was strong. Nay, in\nsome sense, the Persian faith affirmed monotheism against polytheism;\nfor it asserted that one Great Intelligence ruled over all other\nintelligences, and through them over the universe. This Supreme\nIntelligence, which the Persians called Ahura-mazda (Ormazd), is the\ntrue Creator, Preserver, Governor, of all spirits, all men, all\nworlds. He is \"good,\" \"holy,\" \"pure,\" \"true,\" \"the Father of all\ntruth,\" \"the best Being of all,\" \"the Master of Purity,\" \"the Source\nand Fountain of all good.\" On the righteous He bestows \"the good mind\"\nand everlasting happiness; while He punishes and afflicts the evil.\nHis worshippers were to the last degree intolerant of idolatry. They\nsuffered no image to profane their temples; their earliest symbol of\nDeity is almost as pure and abstract as a mathematical sign, a circle\nwith wings; the circle to denote the eternity of God, and the wings\nhis omnipresence. Under this Supreme Lord, \"the God of heaven,\" they\nadmitted inferior beings, angels and archangels, whose names mark them\nout as personified Divine attributes, or as faithful servants who\nadminister some province of the Divine empire.\n\nTo win the favour of the God of heaven it was requisite to cultivate\nthe virtues of purity, truthfulness, industry, and a pious sense of\nthe Divine presence; and these virtues must spring from the heart, and\ncover thought as well as word and deed. His worship consisted in the\nfrequent offering of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving; in the\nreiteration of certain sacred hymns; in the occasional sacrifice of\nanimals which, after being presented before Ormazd, furnished forth a\nfeast for priest and worshipper; and in the performance of a mystic\nceremony (the _Soma_), the gist of which seems to have lain in a\ngrateful acknowledgment that the fruits of the earth, typified by the\nintoxicating juice of the Homa plant, were to be received as the gift\nof Heaven. A sentence or two from one of the hymns[21] of which there\nare many in the Zendavesta, will show better than many words to how\nhigh a pitch Divine worship was carried by the Persians: \"We worship\nThee, Ahura-mazda, the pure, the master of purity. We praise all good\nthoughts, all good words, all good deeds which are or shall be; and we\nlikewise keep clean and pure all that is good. O Ahura-mazda, thou\ntrue happy Being! We strive to think, to speak, and to do only such\nthings as may be best fitted to promote the two lives\" (_i.e._ the\nlife of the body and the life of the soul).\n\n  [21] Haug's _Essays_, pp. 162-3, quoted by Rawlinson.\n\nIn this course of well-doing the faithful were animated and confirmed\nby a devout belief in the immortality of the soul and a conscious\nfuture existence. They were taught that at death the souls of men,\nboth good and bad, travelled along an appointed path to a narrow\nbridge which led to Paradise; over this bridge only pious souls could\npass, the wicked falling from it into an awful gulf in which they\nreceived the due reward of their deeds. The happy souls of the good\nwere helped across the long narrow arch by an angel,[22] and as they\nentered Paradise a great archangel rose from his throne to greet each\nof them with the words, \"How happy art thou, who hast come to us from\nmortality to immortality!\"\n\n  [22] This helpful angel is by no means peculiar to the Persian faith.\n  All the imaginative races of antiquity conceived of a being more\n  divine than man, though originally not equal to the gods, who guided\n  the departed soul on its lonely journey through the dark interspaces\n  of death. Theut conducted the released spirit of the Egyptian to the\n  judgment-seat. Hermes performed the same kind office for the Greeks,\n  Mercury for the Romans. Yama was the _nekropompos_ of the Hindus, and\n  the Persians retained the legend. The Rig-Veda represents him as the\n  first man who passed through death to immortality, and as therefore\n  the best guide of other men. Nor is it doubted that the Persians\n  derived their belief in a future life from the primitive Hindu creed.\n  If their faith was, as I have said, a revolt from the degenerate forms\n  of Hindu worship, it was also a return to its more ancient forms, as\n  religious reformations are apt to be. The fathers of the Aryan stock\n  had an unwavering assurance of a future life. In his Essay on the\n  _Funeral Rites of the Brahmans_, Max M\u00fcller cites a sort of liturgy\n  with which the ancient Hindu used to bid farewell to his deceased\n  friend while the body lay on the funeral pyre, which is, surely, very\n  noble and pathetic: \"Depart thou, depart thou by the ancient paths, to\n  the place whither our fathers have departed. Meet with the ancient\n  ones (the Pitrs); meet with the Lord of Death; obtain thy desires in\n  heaven. Throw off thine imperfections; go to thy home. Become united\n  with a body; clothe thyself in a shining form. Go ye; depart ye;\n  hasten ye from hence\" (Rig-Veda x. 14).\n\n  To which, as choral responses, might be added, \"Let him depart to\n  those for whom flow the rivers of nectar. Let him depart to those who\n  through meditation have obtained the victory, who by fixing their\n  thoughts on the unseen have gone to heaven.... Let him depart to the\n  mighty in battle, to the heroes who have laid down their lives for\n  others, to those who have bestowed their goods on the poor\" (Rig-Veda\n  x. 154).\n\n  As the body was consumed on the pyre the friends of the dead chanted a\n  hymn in which, after having bidden his body return to the various\n  elements from which it sprang, they prayed, \"As for his unborn part,\n  do Thou, Lord (Agni), quicken it with Thy heat; let Thy flame and Thy\n  brightness kindle it: convey it to the world of the righteous.\"\n\n  It was from this pure and lofty source that the Persians drew their\n  faith in the better life to be.\n\n  Max M\u00fcller also quotes as the prayer of a dying Hindu woman, \"Place\n  me, O Pure One, in that everlasting and unchanging world where light\n  and glory are found. Make me immortal in the world in which joys,\n  delights, and happiness abide, where the desires are obtained\"\n  (Atharda Veda xii. 3, 17).\n\n  Cremation itself bore witness to the Hindu faith in immortality, since\n  they held that \"the fire which set free the spiritual element from the\n  superincumbent clay, completed the third or heavenly birth,\" the\n  second birth having been achieved when men set themselves to a\n  faithful discharge of their religious duties.\n\nThis wonderfully pure creed was, however, in process of time,\ncorrupted in many ways. First of all, \"the sad antithesis of human\nlife,\" the conflict between light and darkness, good and evil--the\nstanding puzzle of the world--led the votaries of Ormazd to _dualism_.\nOrmazd loved and created only the good. The evil in man, and in the\nworld, must be the work of an enemy. This enemy, Ahriman\n(Augr\u00f4-maniyus), has been seeking from eternity to undo, to mar and\nblast, the fair work of the God of heaven. He is the baleful author of\nall evil, and under him are spirits as malignant as himself. Between\nthese good and evil powers there is incessant conflict, which extends\nto every soul and every world. It will never cease until the great\nDeliverer arise--for even of _Him_ the Persians had some dim\nprevision--who shall conquer and destroy evil at its source, all\nthings then rounding to their final goal of good.\n\nAnother corrupting influence had its origin in a too literal\ninterpretation of the names given to the Divine Being, or the\nqualities ascribed to Him, by the founders of the faith. Ormazd, for\nexample, had been described as \"true, _lucid_, _shining_, the\noriginator of all the best things, of the spirit in nature and of the\ngrowth in nature, _of the luminaries and of the self-shining\nbrightness which is in the luminaries_.\" From these epithets and\nascriptions there sprang in later days the worship of the sun, then of\nfire, as a type of God--a worship still maintained by the disciples of\nZoroaster, the Ghebers and the Parsees. And from this point onward the\nold sad story repeats itself; once more we have to trace a pure and\nlofty primitive faith along the grades through which it declines to\nthe low, base level of a sensuous idolatry. The Magians, always the\nbitter enemies of Zoroastrianism, held that the four elements--fire,\nair, earth, and water--were the only proper objects of human\nreverence. It was not difficult for them to persuade those who already\nworshipped fire, and were beginning to forget of Whom fire was the\nsymbol, to include in their homage air, water, and earth. Divination,\nincantations, the interpretation of dreams and omens soon followed,\nwith all the dark shadows which science and religion cast behind them.\nAnd then came the lowest deep of all, that worship of the gods by\nsensual indulgence to which idolatry gravitates, as by a law.\n\nNevertheless, we must remember that, even at their worst, the Persians\npreserved the sacred records of their earlier faith, and that their\nbest men steadily refused to accept the base additions to it which the\nMagians proposed. Corrupt as in many respects many of them became, the\nconquest of Babylon was the death-blow to the sensual idol-worship\nwhich had reigned for twenty centuries on the Chaldean plain; it never\nwholly recovered from it, though it survived it for a time. From that\ndate it declined to its fall: \"Bel bowed down; Nebo stooped; Merodach\nwas broken in pieces\" (Isa. xlvi. 1; Jer. l. 2). The nobler monarchs\nof Persia were true disciples of the primitive creed of their race. It\nwas similarity of creed which won their favour for the Hebrew\ncaptives. In the decree which enfranchised them (Ezra i. 2, 3) Cyrus\nexpressly identifies Ormazd, \"the God of heaven,\" with Jehovah, the\nGod of Israel; he says, \"_The Lord God of heaven_ hath given me all\nthe kingdoms of the earth, and He hath charged me to build _Him_ a\nhouse at Jerusalem.\" Nor was this belief in one God, whose temple was\nto be defiled by no image even of Himself, the only point in common\nbetween the better Persians, such as Cyrus and Darius, and the better\nJews. There were many such points. Both believed in an evil spirit\ntempting and accusing men; in myriads of angels, all the host of\nheaven, who formed the armies of God and did his pleasure; in a tree\nof life and a tree of knowledge, and a serpent the enemy of man; both\nshared the hope of a coming Deliverer from evil, the belief in an\nimmortal and retributive life beyond the grave, and a happy Paradise\nin which all righteous souls would find a home and see their Father's\nface. These common faiths and hopes would all be points of sympathy\nand attachment between the two races; and it is to this agreement in\nreligious doctrine and practice that we must ascribe the striking\nfacts that the Persians, ordinarily the most intolerant of men, never\npersecuted the Jews; and that the Jews, ordinarily so impatient of\nforeign domination, never made a single attempt to cast off the\nPersian yoke, but stood by the declining empire even when the Greeks\nwere thundering at its gates.\n\nOn one question all competent historians and commentators are agreed;\nviz. that the Jews gained immensely in the clearness and compass of\ntheir religious faith during the Captivity. That, which was the\npunishment, was also the term, of their idolatry; into that sin they\nnever afterwards fell. Now first, too, they began to understand that\nthe bond of their unity was not local, not national even, but\nspiritual and religious; they were spread over every province of a\nforeign empire, yet they were one people, and a sacred people, in\nvirtue of their common service of Jehovah and their common hope of\nMessiah's advent. This hope had been vaguely felt before, and just\nprevious to the Captivity Isaiah had arrayed it in an unrivalled\nsplendour of imagery; now it sank into the popular mind, which needed\nit so sorely, and became a deep and ardent longing of the national\nheart. From this period, moreover, the immortality of the soul and the\nlife beyond death entered distinctly and prominently into the Hebrew\ncreed. Always latent in their Scriptures, these truths disclosed\nthemselves to the Jews as they came into contact with the Persian\ndoctrines of judgment and future rewards. Hitherto they had thought\nmainly, if not exclusively, of the temporal rewards and punishments by\nwhich the Mosaic law enforced its precepts. Henceforth they saw that,\nin time and on earth, human actions are not carried to their final\nand due results; they looked forward to a judgment in which all wrongs\nshould be righted, all unpunished sins receive their recompense, and\nall the sufferings of the good be transmuted into joy and peace.\n\nNow this, as we shall see, is the very moral of the Book Ecclesiastes,\nthe triumphant climax to which it mounts. The endeavour of Coheleth is\nto show how evil and good were blended in the human lot, evil so\nlargely preponderating in the lot of many of the good as to make life\na curse unless it were sustained by hope; to give hope by assuring the\nHebrew captives that \"God takes cognizance of all things,\" and \"will\nbring every work to judgment,\" good or bad; and to urge on them, as\nthe conclusion of his Quest, and as the whole duty of man, to prepare\nfor that supreme audit by fearing God and keeping his commandments.\nThis was the light he was commissioned to carry into their great\ndarkness; and if the lamp and the oil were of God, it is hardly too\nmuch to say that the spark which kindled the lamp was taken from the\nPersian fire, since that too was of God. Or, to vary the figure, and\nmake it more accurate, we may say that the truths of the future life\nlay hidden in the Hebrew Scriptures, and that it was by the light of\nthe Persian doctrine of the future that the Jews, stimulated by the\nmental culture and activity acquired in Babylon, discovered them in\nthe Word.\n\nIt is thus, indeed, that God has taught men in all ages. The Word\nremains ever the same, but our conditions change, our mental posture\nvaries, and with our posture the angle at which the light of Heaven\nfalls on the sacred page. We are brought into contact with new races,\nnew ideas, new forms of culture, new discoveries of science, and the\nfamiliar Word forthwith teems with new meanings, with new adaptations\nto our needs; truths unseen before, though they were always there,\ncome to view, deep truths rise to the surface, mysterious truths grow\nsimple and plain, truths that jangled on the ear melt into harmony;\nour new needs stretch out lame hands of faith, and find an unexpected\nbut ample supply; and we are rapt in wonder and admiration as we\nafresh discover the Bible to be the Book for all races and for all\nages, an inexhaustible fountain of truth and comfort and grace.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSLATION.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROLOGUE.\n\n_IN WHICH THE PROBLEM OF THE BOOK IS INDIRECTLY STATED._\n\nCHAP. I., vv. 1-11.\n\n\n  1 The words of the Preacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem.\n\n  2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher;\n  Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,\n\n  3 Since man hath no profit from all his labour\n  Which he laboureth under the sun![23]\n\n    [23] Just as we speak of this \"sublunary world,\" so \"under the sun\" is\n    the characteristic designation of the earth throughout this Book.\n\n  4 One generation passeth, and another generation cometh;\n  While the earth abideth for ever.\n\n  5 The sun also riseth, and the sun goeth down;\n  And panteth toward the place at which it will rise again.\n\n  6 The wind goeth toward the south, and veereth to the north;\n  It whirleth round and round;\n  And the wind returneth on its course.\n\n  7 All the streams run into the sea, yet the sea is not full;\n  To the place whence the streams came, thither they return again.\n\n  8 All things are weary with toil. Man cannot utter it.\n  The eye can never be satisfied with seeing,\n  Nor the ear with hearing.\n\n  9 What hath been will be,\n  And that which is done is that which will be done;\n  And there is no new thing under the sun.\n\n  10 If there be anything of which it is said, \"Behold, this is new!\"\n  It hath been long ago, in the ages that were before us.\n\n  11 There is no remembrance of those who have been;\n  Nor will there be any remembrance of men who are to come\n  Among those that will live after them.\n\n\n\n\nFIRST SECTION.\n\n_THE QUEST OF THE CHIEF GOOD IN WISDOM AND IN PLEASURE._\n\nCHAP. I., v. 12, to CHAP. II., v. 26.\n\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest in Wisdom._ Ch. i., vv. 12-18.]\n\n  12 I, the Preacher, was King over Israel, in Jerusalem:\n\n  13 And I applied my heart to survey and search by wisdom\n  Into all that is done under heaven:\n  This sore task hath God given to the children of men,\n  To exercise themselves therewith.\n\n     VER. 13. _To survey and search into, etc._ The verbs\n     indicate the broad extent which his researches covered, and\n     the depth to which they penetrated.\n\n  14 I have considered all the works that are done under the sun,\n  And, behold, they are all vanity and vexation of spirit.\n\n     VER. 14. _Vexation of spirit._ Literally, \"striving after\n     the wind.\" But the time-honoured phrase, \"vexation of\n     spirit,\" sufficiently expresses the writer's meaning; and it\n     seems better to retain it than, with the Revised Version, to\n     introduce the Hebrew metaphor, which has a somewhat novel\n     and foreign sound.\n\n  15 That which is crooked cannot be set straight,\n  And that which is lacking cannot be made up.\n\n  16 Therefore I spake to my heart, saying,\n  Lo, I have acquired greater wisdom\n  Than all who were before me in Jerusalem,\n  My heart having seen much wisdom and knowledge;\n\n  17 For I had given my heart to find knowledge and wisdom.\n  I perceive that even this is vexation of spirit;\n\n     VER. 17. _To find knowledge and wisdom._ Both the Authorized\n     and Revised Versions render \"to know wisdom, and to know\n     _madness and folly_.\" The latter clause, however, violates\n     both the sense and the grammatical construction. The word\n     translated \"to know\" is not an infinitive, but a noun, and\n     should be rendered \"knowledge;\" the word translated \"folly\"\n     means \"prudence,\" and the word translated \"madness\" hardly\n     means more than \"folly.\" The text, too, seems corrupt. The\n     sense of the passage is against it, I think, as it now\n     stands; for the design of the Preacher is simply to show the\n     insufficiency of wisdom and knowledge, not to prove folly\n     foolish. On the whole, therefore, it seems better to follow\n     the high authority which arranges the text as it is here\n     rendered. The Hebraist will find the question fully\n     discussed in _Ginsburg_.\n\n  18 For in much wisdom is much sadness,\n  And to multiply knowledge is to multiply sorrow.\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest in Pleasure._ Ch ii., vv. 1-11.]\n\n  1 Then I said to my heart,\n  Go to, now let me prove thee with mirth,\n  And thou shalt see pleasure:\n  And, lo, this too is vanity!\n\n  2 To mirth I said, Thou art mad!\n  And to pleasure, What canst thou do?\n\n  3 I thought in my heart to cheer my body with pleasure,\n  While my spirit guided it wisely,\n  And to lay hold on folly,\n  Till I should see what it is good for the sons of men to do under heaven,\n  Through the brief day of their life.\n\n  4 I gave myself to great works;\n  I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards;\n\n  5 I made me gardens and parks,\n  And I planted in them all manner of fruit-trees;\n\n  6 I made me tanks of water,\n  From which to water the groves:\n\n  7 I bought me men-servants and maid-servants,\n  And had servants born in my house.\n  I had also many herds of oxen and sheep,\n  More than all who were before me in Jerusalem:\n\n  8 I heaped up silver and gold,\n  And the treasures of kings and of kingdoms:\n  I got me men-singers and women-singers;\n  And took delight in many fair concubines:\n\n  9 So that I surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem,\n  My wisdom abiding with me;\n\n  10 And nothing that my eyes desired did I withhold from them,\n  I did not keep back my heart from any pleasure;\n  For my heart took joy in all my toil,\n  And this was my portion therefrom.\n\n  11 But when I turned to look on all the works which my hands had wrought,\n  And at the labour which it cost me to accomplish them,\n  Behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit,\n  And there was no profit under the sun.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _Wisdom and Pleasure compared._ Ch. ii., vv. 12-23.]\n\n  12 Then I turned to compare wisdom with madness and folly--\n  And what can he do that cometh after the king\n  Whom they made king long ago?--\n\n  13 And I saw that wisdom excelleth folly\n  As far as light excelleth darkness:\n\n  14 The wise man's eyes are in his head,\n  While the fool walketh blindly.\n  Nevertheless I knew that the same fate will befall both.\n\n  15 Therefore I spake with my heart:\n  \"A fate like that of the fool will befall me, even me;\n  To what end, then, am I wiser?\"\n  And I said to my heart:\n  \"This too is vanity,\n\n  16 For there is no more remembrance of the wise man than of the fool;\n  For both will be forgotten,\n  As in time past so also in days to come:\n  And, alas, the wise man dieth even as the fool!\"\n\n  17 So life became hateful to me, for a sore burden was upon me,\n  Even the labour which I wrought under the sun;\n  Since all is vanity and vexation of spirit:\n\n  18 Yea, I hated all the gain which I had gained under the sun,\n  Because I must leave it to the man who shall come after me,\n\n  19 And who can tell whether he will be a wise man or a fool?\n  Yet shall he have power over all my gain\n  Which I have wisely gained under the sun:\n  This too is vanity.\n\n  20 Then I turned and gave my heart up to despair\n  Concerning all the gain which I had gained under the sun;\n\n  21 For here is a man who hath laboured wisely, and prudently,\n        and dexterously,\n  And he must leave it as a portion to one who hath not laboured therein:\n  This also is vanity and a great evil;\n\n  22 For man hath nothing of all his heavy labour,\n  And the vexation of his heart under the sun,\n\n  23 Since his task grieveth and vexeth him all his days,\n  And even at night his heart hath no rest:\n  This too is vanity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _The Conclusion._ Ch. ii., vv. 24-26.]\n\n  24 There is nothing better for a man than to eat and to drink,\n  And to let his soul take pleasure in his labour.\n  But even this, I saw, cometh from God;\n\n  25 For who can eat,\n  And who enjoy himself, apart from Him?\n\n  26 For to the man who is good before Him,\n  He giveth wisdom and knowledge and joy;\n  But to the sinner He giveth the task to gather and to heap up,\n  That he may leave it to him who is good before God:\n  This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.\n\n\n\n\n_SECOND SECTION._\n\n_THE QUEST OF THE CHIEF GOOD IN DEVOTION TO THE AFFAIRS OF BUSINESS._\n\nCHAP. III., v. 1, to CHAP. V., v. 20.\n\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest obstructed by Divine Ordinances_; Ch. iii., vv.\n1-15.]\n\n  1 There is a time for all things,\n  And a season for every undertaking under heaven:\n\n  2 A time to be born, and a time to die;\n  A time to plant, and a time to pluck up plants;\n\n  3 A time to kill, and a time to heal;\n  A time to break down, and a time to build up;\n\n  4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh;\n  A time to mourn, and a time to dance;\n\n  5 A time to cast stones, and a time to gather up stones;\n  A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;\n\n  6 A time to get, and a time to lose;\n  A time to keep, and a time to throw away;\n\n  7 A time to rend, and a time to sew;\n  A time to be silent, and a time to speak;\n\n  8 A time to love, and a time to hate;\n  A time for war, and a time for peace:\n\n  9 He who laboureth hath therefore no profit from his labours.\n\n  10 I have considered the task which God hath given to the sons of men,\n  To exercise themselves withal:\n\n  11 He hath made everything beautiful in its season;\n  He hath also put eternity into their heart;\n  Only they understand not the work of God from beginning to end.\n\n  12 I found that there was no good for them but to rejoice,\n  And to do themselves good all their life;\n\n  13 But also that, if a man eat and drink,\n  And take pleasure in all his labour,\n  It is a gift of God.\n\n  14 I found too that whatever God hath ordained continueth for ever;\n  Nothing can be added to it,\n  And nothing taken from it:\n  And God hath so ordered it that men may fear before Him.\n\n  15 That which is hath been,\n  And that which is to be was long ago;\n  For God recalleth the past.\n\n[Sidenote: _And by Human Injustice and Perversity._ Ch. iii., v. 16.\nCh. iv., v. 3.]\n\n  16 Moreover, I saw under the sun\n  That there was iniquity in the place of justice,\n  And in the place of equity there was iniquity.\n\n  17 I said to mine heart:\n  \"God will judge the righteous and the wicked,\n  For there is a time for everything and for every deed with Him.\"\n\n  18 Yet I said to my heart of the children of men:\n  \"God hath sifted them,\n  To show that they, even they, are but as beasts.\n\n  19 For a mere chance is man, and the beast a mere chance,\n  And they are both subject to the same chance;\n  As is the death of the one, so is the death of the other;\n  And both have the same spirit:\n  And the man hath no advantage over the beast,\n  For both are vanity:\n\n  20 Both go to the same place;\n  Both sprang from dust, and both turn into dust:\n\n  21 And who knoweth whether the spirit of man goeth upward,\n  Or the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth?\"\n\n     VER. 21. The question is here, as so often in Hebrew, the\n     strongest form of negative. As in ver. 19 the Preacher\n     affirms of man and beast that \"both have the same spirit,\"\n     and, in ver. 20, that \"both go to the same place,\" so, in\n     this verse, he emphatically denies that there is any\n     difference in their destination at death.\n\n  22 Wherefore I saw that there is nothing better for man\n  Than to rejoice in his labours;\n  For this is his portion:\n  And who shall give him to see what will be after him?\n\n[Sidenote: iv.]\n\n  1 Then I turned to consider once more\n  All the oppressions that are done under the sun:\n  I beheld the tears of the oppressed,\n  And they had no comforter;\n  And their oppressors were violent,\n  Yet had they no comforter:\n\n  2 And I accounted the dead who died long ago\n  Happier than the living who are still alive;\n\n  3 While happier than either is he who hath not been born,\n  Who hath not seen the evil which is done under the sun.\n\n[Sidenote: _It is rendered hopeless by the base Origin of Human\nIndustries._ Ch. iv., vv. 4-8.]\n\n  4 Then too I saw that all this toil,\n  And all this dexterity in toil,\n  Spring from man's rivalry with his neighbour:\n  This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.\n\n  5 The sluggard foldeth his hands,\n  Yet he eateth his meat:\n\n  6 Better a handful of quiet\n  Than two handsful of labour with vexation of spirit.\n\n  7 And again I turned, and saw a vanity under the sun:\n\n  8 Here is a man who hath no one with him,\n  Not even a son or a brother;\n  And yet there is no end of all his labour,\n  Neither are his eyes satisfied with riches:\n  For whom, then, doth he labour and deny his soul any of his wealth?\n  This too is vanity and an evil work.\n\n[Sidenote: _Yet these are capable of a nobler Motive and Mode._ Ch.\niv., vv. 9-16.]\n\n  9 Two are better than one,\n  Because they have a good reward for their labour:\n\n  10 For if one fall, the other will lift up his fellow;\n  But woe to the lonely one who falleth\n  And hath no fellow to lift him up!\n\n  11 Moreover, if two sleep together, they are warm;\n  But he that is alone, how can he be warm?\n\n  12 And if an enemy assail the one, two will withstand him.\n  And a threefold cord is not easily broken.\n\n  13 Happier is a poor and wise youth\n  Than an old and foolish king\n  Who even yet has not learned to take warning;\n\n  14 For he goeth forth from the prison to the throne,\n  Although he was born a poor man in the kingdom.\n\n  15 I see all the living who walk under the sun\n  Flocking to the youth who stood up in his stead;\n\n  16 There is no end to the multitude of the people over whom he ruleth:\n  Nevertheless those who live after him will not rejoice in him;\n  For even this is vanity and vexation of spirit.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _So also a nobler and happier Mode of Worship is open to\nmen:_ Ch. v., vv. 1-7.]\n\n  1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the House of God;\n  For it is better to obey than to offer the sacrifice of fools,\n  Who know not when they do evil.\n\n  2 Do not hurry on thy mouth,\n  And do not force thy heart to utter words before God;\n  For God is in heaven, and thou upon earth:\n  Therefore let thy words be few.\n\n  3 For as a dream cometh through much occupation,\n  So foolish talk through many words.\n\n  4 When thou vowest a vow unto God,\n  Defer not to pay it;\n  For he is a fool whose will is not steadfast.\n  Pay that which thou hast vowed.\n\n  5 Better that thou shouldest not vow\n  Than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.\n\n  6 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin,\n  And say not before the Angel, \"It was an error:\"\n  For why should God be angry at thine idle talk\n  And destroy the work of thy hands?\n\n     VER. 6. _Before the Angel._ That is, before the Angel who,\n     as the Hebrews thought, presided over the altar of worship,\n     and who was present even when only two or three met for the\n     study of the Law: to study the Law being in itself an act of\n     worship.\n\n  7 For in many words, as in many dreams, there is vanity:\n  But fear thou God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _And a more helpful and consolatory Trust in the Divine\nProvidence._ Ch. v., vv. 8-17.]\n\n  8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor,\n  And the perversion of justice in the State,\n  Be not dismayed thereat;\n  For superior watcheth superior,\n  And superiors again watch over them:\n\n  9 And the advantage for the people is, that it extendeth to all,\n  For even the king is servant to the field.\n\n     VER. 9. Some commentators prefer another possible reading of\n     this difficult verse: _But the profit of a land is every way\n     a king devoted to the field, i.e._ a lover and promoter of\n     good husbandry. This reading, however, does not, I think,\n     harmonise so well with the context as that given above.\n\n  10 He that loveth silver is never satisfied with silver,\n  Nor he that clingeth to riches with what they yield:\n  This too is vanity;\n\n  11 For when riches increase they increase that consume them:\n  What advantage then hath the owner thereof,\n  Save the looking thereupon with his eyes?\n\n  12 Sweet is the sleep of the husbandman,\n  Whether he eat little or much;\n  While abundance suffereth not the rich to sleep.\n\n  13 There is a great evil which I have seen under the sun--\n  Riches hoarded up by the rich\n  To the hurt of the owner thereof:\n\n  14 For the riches perish in some unlucky adventure,\n  And he begetteth a son when he hath nothing in his hand:\n\n  15 As he cometh forth from the womb of his mother,\n  Even as he cometh naked,\n  So also he returneth again,\n  And taketh nothing from his labour\n  Which he may carry away in his hand.\n\n  16 This also is a great evil,\n  That just as he came so he must go.\n  For what profit hath he who laboureth for the wind?\n\n  17 Yet all his days he eateth in darkness,\n  And is much perturbed, and hath vexation and grief.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _The Conclusion._ Ch. v., vv. 18-20.]\n\n  18 Behold, that which I have said holds good,--\n  That it is well for man to eat and to drink\n  And to enjoy the good of all his labour wherein he laboureth\n        under the sun,\n  Through the brief day of his life which God hath given him:\n  For this is his portion.\n\n  19 And I have also said,\n  That a man to whom God hath given riches and wealth,\n  If He hath also enabled him to eat thereof,\n  And to take his portion and to rejoice in his labour;--\n  This is a gift of God:\n\n  20 He doth not fret because the days of his life are not many,\n  For God hath sanctioned the joy of his heart.\n\n\n\n\nTHIRD SECTION.\n\n_THE QUEST IN WEALTH AND IN THE GOLDEN MEAN._\n\nCHAPS. VI., VER. 1, TO VIII., VER. 15.\n\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest in Wealth. He who makes Riches his Chief Good is\nhaunted by Fears and Perplexities_: Ch. vi., vv. 1-6.]\n\n  1 There is another evil which I have seen under the sun,\n  And it weigheth heavily upon men:\n\n  2 Here is a man to whom God hath given riches and wealth and abundance,\n  So that his soul lacketh nothing of all that it desireth;\n  And God hath not given him the power to enjoy it,\n  But a stranger enjoyeth it:\n  This is vanity and a great evil.\n\n  3 Though one beget a hundred children,\n  And live many years,\n  Yea, however many the days of his years,\n  Yet if his soul be not satisfied with good,\n  Even though the grave did not wait for him,\n  Better is an abortion than he:\n\n  4 For this cometh in nothingness and goeth in darkness,\n  And its memory is shrouded in darkness;\n\n  5 It doth not even see and know the sun:\n  It hath more rest than he.\n\n  6 And if he live twice a thousand years and see no good:--\n  Do not both go to the same place?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _For God has put Eternity into his Heart_; Ch. vi., vv.\n7-10.]\n\n  7 All the labour of this man is for his mouth;\n  Therefore his soul cannot be satisfied:\n\n  8 For what advantage hath the wise man over the fool,\n  Or what the poor man over the stately magnate?\n\n     VER. 8. _The magnate._ Literally, \"he who knoweth to walk\n     before the living;\" some \"great person,\" some man of eminent\n     station, who is much in the eye of the public.\n\n  9 It is better, indeed, to enjoy the good we have\n  Than to crave a good beyond our reach:\n  Yet even this is vanity and vexation of spirit.\n\n     VER. 9. _To enjoy the good we have_, etc. Literally, \"Better\n     is that which is seen by the eyes (the present good) than\n     that which is pursued by the soul (the distant and uncertain\n     good).\"\n\n  10 That which hath been was long since ordained;\n  And it is very certain that even the greatest is but a man,\n  And cannot contend with Him who is mightier than he.\n\n[Sidenote: _And much that he gains only feeds Vanity;_]\n\n  11 Moreover there are many things which increase vanity:\n  What advantage then hath man?\n\n[Sidenote: _Nor can he tell what will become of his Gains._]\n\n  12 And who knoweth what is good for man in life,\n  The brief day of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow?\n  And who can tell what shall be after him under the sun?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest in the Golden Mean. The Method of the Man who\npursues it._ Ch. vii., vv. 1-14.]\n\n  1 A good name is better than good nard,\n  And the day of death better than the day of one's birth:\n\n  2 It is better to go to the house of mourning\n  Than to the house of feasting,\n  Because this is the end of every man,\n  And the living should lay it to heart:\n\n     VER. 2. \"Because _this_ is the end;\" _i.e._ the death\n     bewailed in the house of mourning.\n\n  3 Better is serious thought than wanton mirth,\n  For by a sad countenance the heart is bettered:\n\n  4 The heart of the wise therefore is in the house of mourning,\n  But in the house of mirth is the heart of fools.\n\n  5 It is better for a man to listen to the reproof of the wise\n  Than to listen to the song of fools;\n\n  6 For the laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot:\n  This also is vanity.\n\n     VER. 6. _The laughter of fools_, etc. There is a play on\n     words in the original which cannot be reproduced in English.\n     Dean Plumptre, following the lead of Delitzsch, proposes as\n     the nearest equivalents, \"As crackling nettles under\n     kettles,\" or \"As crackling stubble makes the pot bubble.\"\n\n  7 Wrong-doing maketh the wise man mad,\n  As a bribe corrupteth the heart.\n\n  8 The end of a reproof is better than its beginning,\n  And patience is better than pride;\n\n  9 Therefore hurry not on thy spirit to be angry:\n  For anger is nursed in the bosom of fools.\n\n  10 Say not, \"How is it that former days were better than these?\"\n  For that is not the part of wisdom.\n\n  11 Wisdom is as good as wealth,\n  And hath an advantage over it for those who lead an active life:\n\n     VER. 11. _Those who lead an active life._ Literally, \"those\n     who see the sun,\" _i.e._ those who are much in the sun, who\n     lead a busy active life, are much occupied with traffic or\n     public affairs.\n\n  12 For wisdom is a shelter,\n  And wealth is a shelter;\n  But the advantage of wisdom is\n  That it fortifieth the heart of them that have it.\n\n     VER. 12. _Fortifieth the heart; i.e._ quickens life, a new\n     life, a life which keeps the heart tranquil and serene under\n     all chances and changes.\n\n  13 Consider moreover the work of God,\n  Since no man can straighten that which He hath made crooked.\n\n  14 In the day of prosperity be thou content;\n  And in the day of adversity\n  Consider that God hath made this as well as that,\n  In order that man should not be able to foresee that which is to come.\n\n     VER. 14.: _In the day of prosperity_, etc. Literally, \"in\n     the day of good be in good.\" It may be rendered \"in the good\n     day be of good cheer.\" _This as well as that; i.e._\n     adversity as well as prosperity. God sends both in order\n     that, not foreseeing what will come to pass, we may live in\n     a constant and humble dependence on Him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _The Perils to which it exposes him._ (1) _He is likely to\ncompromise Conscience_: Ch. vii., vv. 15-20.]\n\n  15 In my fleeting days I have seen\n  Both the righteous die in his righteousness,\n  And the wicked live long in his wickedness:\n\n  16 Be not too righteous therefore,\n  Nor make thyself too wise lest thou be abandoned;\n\n  17 Be not very wicked, nor yet very foolish,\n  Lest thou die before thy time:\n\n  18 It is better that thou shouldest lay hold of this\n  And also not let go of that;\n  For whoso feareth God will take hold on both.\n\n     VER. 18. _This ... and that._ _This__ refers to the folly\n     and wickedness of ver. 17, and _that_ to the wisdom and\n     righteousness of ver. 16. _Take hold on both._ Literally,\n     \"go along with both.\"\n\n  19 This wisdom alone is greater strength to the wise\n  Than an army to a beleaguered city;\n\n     VER. 19. _This wisdom_: viz. the moderate common-sense view\n     of life which has just been described. _Than an army_, etc.\n     Literally, \"Than _ten_ (_i.e._ many) mighty men in a city.\"\n\n  20 For there is not a righteous man on earth\n  Who doeth good and sinneth not.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: (2) _To be indifferent to Censure_: Ch. vii., vv. 21, 22.]\n\n  21 Moreover seek not to know all that is said of thee,\n  Lest thou hear thy servant speak evil of thee;\n\n     VER. 21. _Seek not to know_, etc. Literally, \"Give not thy\n     _heart_ (even if thy ears) to all words that are uttered.\"\n\n  22 For thou knowest in thine heart\n  That thou also hast many times spoken evil of others.\n\n  23 All this wisdom have I tried;\n  I desired a higher wisdom, but it was far from me;\n\n  24 That which was far off remaineth far off,\n  And deep remaineth deep:\n  Who can find it out?\n\n[Sidenote: (3) _To despise Women_; Ch. vii., vv. 25-29.]\n\n  25 Then I and my heart turned to know this wisdom\n     And diligently examine it--\n     To discover the cause of wickedness, vice,\n     And that folly which is madness:\n\n  26 And I found woman more bitter than death;\n     She is a net;\n     Her heart is a snare, and her hands are chains:\n     Whoso is good before God shall escape her,\n     But the sinner shall be taken by her.\n\n  27 Behold, what I have found, saith the Preacher--\n     Taking things one by one to reach the result--\n\n  28 I have found one man among a thousand,\n     But in all that number a woman have I not found:\n\n  29 Lo, this only have I found,\n     That God made man upright,\n     But that they seek out many devices.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: (4) _And to be indifferent to Public Wrongs._ Ch. viii.,\nvv. 1-13.]\n\n  1 Who is like the wise man?\n    And who like him that understandeth the interpretation of this saying?\n    The wisdom of this man maketh his face bright,\n    And his rude features are refined.\n\n     VER. 1. _This saying_: _i.e._ that which follows. _And his\n     rude features_, etc. Culture lends an air of refinement to\n     the face, carriage, manners.\n\n  2 I say then, Obey the king's commandment,\n    And the rather because of the oath of fealty:\n  8?\n\n     VER. 2. _The oath of fealty._ Literally, \"the oath by God.\"\n     The Babylonian and Persian despots exacted an oath of\n     loyalty from conquered races. Each had to swear by the god\n     he worshipped.\n\n  3 Do not throw off thine allegiance,\n    Nor resent an evil word,\n    For he can do whatsoever he please;\n\n     VER. 3. _Do not throw off_, etc. Literally, \"Do not hurry\n     from his presence, or even stand up because of an evil\n     word.\" To stand up in the divan of an Eastern despot is a\n     sign of resentment; to rush from it a sign of disloyalty and\n     rebellion.\n\n  4 For the word of a king is mighty;\n    And who shall say to him, \"What doest thou?\"\n\n  5 Whoso keepeth his commandment will know no evil.\n    Moreover the heart of the wise man foreseeth a time of retribution--\n\n  6 For there is a time of retribution for all things--\n    When the tyranny of man is heavy upon him:\n\n  7 Because he knoweth not what will be,\n    And because no one can tell him when it will be.\n\n     VER. 7. _Because he knoweth not_; _i.e._ the tyrant does not\n     know. The sense seems to be: Retribution is all the more\n     certain because, in his infatuation, the despot does not\n     foresee the disastrous results of his tyranny, and because\n     no one can tell him when or how they will disclose\n     themselves.\n\n  8 No man is ruler over his own spirit,\n    To retain the spirit,\n    Nor has he any power over the day of his death;\n    And there is no furlough in this war,\n    And no craft will save the wicked.\n\n  9 All this have I seen,\n    Having applied my heart to all that is done under the sun.\n\n     VER. 9.: _All this have I seen; i.e._ all this retribution\n     on tyrants and the consequent deliverance of the oppressed.\n\n  10 But there is a time when a man ruleth over men to their hurt.\n  Thus I have seen wicked men buried,\n  And come again;\n  And those who did right depart from the place of the holy,\n  And be forgotten in the city:\n  This also is vanity.\n\n     VER. 10.: But the Preacher has also seen times when\n     retributive justice did _not_ overtake the oppressors, when\n     they _came again_ in the persons of children as wicked and\n     tyrannical as themselves.\n\n  11 Because sentence against an evil deed is not executed forthwith,\n  The heart of the sons of men is set in them to do evil.\n\n     VER. 11.: _Because sentence_, etc. \"God does not always pay\n     on Saturdays,\" says an old Italian proverb.\n\n  12 Though a sinner do evil a hundred years,\n  And groweth old therein,\n  Yet I know that it shall be well with those who fear God,\n  Who truly fear before Him;\n\n  13 And it shall not be well with the wicked,\n  But, like a shadow, he shall not prolong his days,\n  Because he doth not fear before God.\n\n[Sidenote: _Therefore the Preacher condemns this View of Human Life._]\n\n  14 Nevertheless, this vanity doth happen on the earth,\n  That there are righteous men who have a wage like that of the wicked,\n  And there are wicked men who have a wage like that of the righteous:\n  This too, I said, is vanity.\n\n  15 And I commended mirth,\n  Because there is nothing better for man under the sun\n  Than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry;\n  For this will go with him to his work\n  Through the days of his life,\n  Which God giveth him under the sun.\n\n     VER. 15.: \"And _this_ will go with him:\" viz. this clear\n     enjoying temper, than which, as yet, the Preacher has found\n     \"nothing better.\"\n\n\n\n\nFOURTH SECTION.\n\n_THE QUEST OF THE CHIEF GOOD ACHIEVED._\n\nCHAP. VIII., VER. 16, TO CHAP. XII., VER. 7.\n\n\n[Sidenote: _The Chief Good not to be found in Wisdom_:\n\nCh. viii., v. 16.-Ch. ix., v. 6.]\n\n  16 As then I applied my heart to acquire wisdom,\n  And to see the work which is done under the sun--\n  And such a one seeth no sleep with his eyes by day or by night:\n\n  17 I saw that man cannot find out all the work of God\n  Which is done under the sun;\n  Though man labour to discover it,\n  He cannot find it out;\n  And though the wise may say he understandeth it\n  Nevertheless he hath not found it out.\n\n     VER. 17.: To illustrate this verse Dean Plumptre happily\n     quotes Hooker's noble and familiar words: \"Dangerous it were\n     for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of\n     the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to\n     make mention of His name, yet our soundest knowledge is to\n     know that we know Him not as indeed He is, neither can know\n     Him, and our safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence,\n     when we confess without confession that His glory is\n     inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach.\"\n\n[Sidenote: ix.]\n\n  1 For all this have I taken to heart and explored,\n  That the righteous, and the wise, and their labours are in the\n        hand of God:\n  They know not whether they shall meet love or hatred;\n  All lies before them.\n  All are treated alike;\n\n     VER. 1.: _They know not whether they shall meet love or\n     hatred_ may mean that even the wisest cannot tell whether\n     they shall meet (1) the love or the enmity of God, as shown\n     in adverse or favourable providences; or (2) the things\n     which they love or hate; or (3) the love or the hatred of\n     their fellows. The last of the three seems the most likely.\n\n     _All lies before them; i.e._ all possible chances, changes,\n     events. Only God can determine or foresee what is coming to\n     meet them.\n\n  2 The same fate befalleth to the righteous and to the wicked,\n  To the good and pure and to the impure,\n  To him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not;\n  As with the good so is it with the sinner,\n  With him that sweareth as with him who feareth an oath.\n\n  3 This is the greatest evil of all that is done under the sun,\n  That there is one fate for all:\n  And that, although the heart of the sons of men is full of evil,\n  And madness is in their hearts through life,\n  Yet, after it, they go to the dead;\n\n     VER. 3.: The words of this verse do not, as they stand, seem\n     to carry on the logical sequence of thought. The Preacher's\n     complaint is that even the wise and the good are not\n     exempted from the common fate, not that the foolish and\n     reckless are exposed to it. The text may be corrupt; but\n     Ginsburg is content with it. A good reading of it, however,\n     is still wanting.\n\n  4 For who is exempted?\n  To all the living there is hope,\n  For a living dog is better than a dead lion;\n\n  5 For the living know that they shall die,\n  But the dead know not anything;\n  And there is no more any compensation to them,\n  For the very memory of them is gone:\n\n  6 Their love, too, no less than their hatred and rivalry, hath perished;\n  And there is no part for them in ought that is done under the sun.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _Nor in Pleasure:_ Ch. ix., vv. 7-12.]\n\n  7 Go, then, eat thy bread with gladness,\n  And drink thy wine with a merry heart,\n  Since God hath accepted thy works:\n\n  8 Let thy garments be always white;\n  Let no perfume be lacking to thy head:\n\n  9 And enjoy thyself with any woman whom thou lovest\n  All the days of thy life\n  Which He giveth thee under the sun,\n  All thy fleeting days:\n  For this is thy portion in life,\n  And in the labour which thou labourest under the sun.\n\n     VER. 9.: \"Enjoy thyself with _any_ woman.\" The word here\n     rendered \"woman\" does not mean \"wife.\" And as the Hebrew\n     Preacher is here speaking under the mask of the lover of\n     pleasure, this immoral maxim is at least consistent with the\n     part he plays. More than one good critic, however, read \"a\n     wife\" for \"any woman.\"\n\n  10 Whatsoever thine hand findeth to do,\n  Do it whilst thou art able;\n  For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Hades,\n  Whither thou goest.\n\n  11 Then I turned and saw under the sun,\n  That the race is not to the swift,\n  Nor the battle to the strong;\n  Nor yet bread to the wise,\n  Nor riches to the intelligent,\n  Nor favour to the learned;\n\n  12 But time and chance happen to all,\n  And that man doth not even know his time:\n  Like fish taken in a fatal net,\n  And like birds caught in a snare,\n  So are the sons of men entrapped in the time of their calamity,\n  When it falleth suddenly upon them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _Nor in Devotion to Public Affairs and its Rewards_: Ch.\nix., v. 13-Ch. x. v. 20.]\n\n  13 This wisdom also have I seen under the sun,\n  And it seemed great to me--\n\n  14 There was a little city,\n  And few men in it,\n  And a great king came against it and besieged it,\n  And threw up a military causeway against it:\n\n  15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man,\n  And he saved that city by his wisdom;\n  Yet no one remembered this same poor man.\n\n  16 Therefore say I,\n  Though wisdom is better than strength,\n  Yet the wisdom of the poor is despised,\n  And his words are not listened to:\n\n  17 Though the quiet words of the wise have much advantage\n  Over the vociferations of a fool of fools,\n  And wisdom is better than weapons of war,\n  Yet one fool destroyeth much good:\n\n[Sidenote: x.]\n\n  1 As a dead fly maketh sweet ointment to stink,\n  So a little folly overpowereth (much) wisdom and honour.\n\n  2 Nevertheless the mind of the wise man turns toward his right hand,\n  But the mind of the fool to his left;\n\n  3 For so soon as the fool setteth his foot in the street\n  He betrayeth his lack of understanding;\n  Yet he saith of every one (he meeteth), \"He is a fool!\"\n\n     VER. 3.: _Setteth his foot in the street._ Literally,\n     \"walketh in the road.\" The sentence seems to be a proverb\n     used to denote the extreme stupidity of the fool who, the\n     very moment he leaves his house, is bewildered, cannot even\n     find his way from one familiar spot to another, and sees his\n     own folly in every face he meets.\n\n  4 If the anger of thy ruler be kindled against thee,\n  Resent it not:\n  Patience will avert a graver wrong.\n\n     VER. 4.: _Resent it not._ Literally, \"Quit not thy\n     place.\"--See note on chapter viii., ver. 3.\n\n  5 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun,\n  An outrage which only a ruler can commit:\n\n  6 A great fool is lifted to high place,\n  While the noble sit degraded:\n\n  7 I have seen servants upon horses,\n  And masters walking like servants on the ground.\n\n     VER. 7.: To ride upon a horse is still a mark of distinction\n     in many Eastern States. In Turkish cities, till of late, no\n     Christian was permitted to ride any nobler beast than an ass\n     or a mule: so neither were the Jews, in the Middle Ages, in\n     any Christian city.\n\n  8 Yet he that diggeth a pit shall fall into it;\n  And whoso breaketh down a wall a serpent shall bite him;\n\n  9 He who pulleth down stones shall be hurt therewith;\n  And whoso cleaveth logs shall be cut.\n\n  10 If the axe be blunt, and he do not whet the edge,\n  He must put on more strength;\n  But wisdom should teach him to sharpen it.\n\n     VER. 10.: Ginsburg renders this difficult and much-disputed\n     passage thus: \"If the axe be blunt, and he do not sharpen it\n     beforehand, he shall only increase the army; the advantage\n     of repairing hath wisdom,\" and explains it as meaning: \"If\n     any insulted subject lift a blunt axe against the trunk of\n     despotism, he will only make the tyrant increase his army,\n     and thereby augment his own sufferings; but it is the\n     prerogative of wisdom to repair the mischief which such\n     precipitate folly occasions.\" I have offered what seems a\n     simpler explanation in the comment on this passage, and have\n     tried to give a simpler, yet not less accurate, rendering in\n     the text. But there are almost as many readings of this\n     difficult verse as there are critics; and it is impossible\n     to do more than make a hesitating choice among them.\n\n  11 If the serpent bite because it is not charmed,\n  There is no advantage to the charmer.\n\n     VER. 11.: _The charmer._ Literally, \"the master of the\n     tongue.\" The allusion of the phrase is of course to the\n     subtle cantillations by which the charmer drew, or was\n     thought to draw, serpents from their \"lurk,\" and to render\n     them harmless.\n\n  12 The words of the wise man's mouth win him grace;\n  But the lips of a fool swallow him up,\n\n  13 For the words of his mouth are folly at the beginning,\n  And end in malignant madness.\n\n  14 The fool is full of words,\n  Though no man knoweth what shall be,\n  Either here or hereafter:\n  And who can tell him?\n\n  15 The work of a fool wearieth him,\n  For he cannot even find his way to the city.\n\n     VER. 15.: _He cannot even find his way to the city_; a\n     proverbial saying. It denotes the fool who has not wit\n     enough even to keep a high road, to walk in the beaten path\n     which leads to a capital city. The thought was evidently\n     familiar to Jewish literature; for Isaiah (xxxv. 8) speaks\n     of the way of holiness as a highway in which \"wayfaring men,\n     _though fools_, shall not err.\"\n\n  16 Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child,\n  And thy princes feast in the morning!\n\n  17 Happy art thou, O land, when thy king is noble,\n  And thy princes eat at due hours,\n  For strength and not for revelry!\n\n  18 Through slothful hands the roof falleth in,\n  And through lazy hands the house lets in the rain.\n\n     VERS. 18, 19.: _And money pays for all; i.e._ the money of\n     the people. The slothful prodigal rulers, under whose\n     mal-administration the whole fabric of the State was fast\n     falling into decay, extorted the means for their profligate\n     revelry from their toil-worn and oppressed subjects. It is\n     significant of the caution induced by the extreme tyranny of\n     the time, that the whole description of its political\n     condition is conveyed in proverbs more enigmatical than\n     usual, and capable of being interpreted in more senses than\n     one.\n\n  19 They turn bread, and wine, which cheereth life, into revelry;\n  And money has to pay for all.\n\n  20 Nevertheless revile not the king even in thy thoughts,\n  Nor a prince even in thy bed-chamber,\n  Lest the bird of the air carry the report,\n  And the winged tribes tell the story.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _But in a wise Use and a wise Enjoyment of the Present\nLife_; Ch. xi., vv. 1-8.]\n\n  1 Cast thy bread upon the waters,\n  For in time thou mayest find the good of it;\n\n  2 Give a portion to seven, and even to eight,\n  For thou knowest not what calamity may come upon the earth.\n\n  3 When the clouds are full of rain,\n  They empty it upon the earth;\n  And when the tree falleth, toward south or north,\n  In the place where the tree falleth there will it lie.\n\n  4 Whoso watcheth the wind shall not sow,\n  And he who observeth the clouds shall not reap;\n\n  5 As thou knowest the course of the wind\n  As little as that of the embryo in the womb of the pregnant,\n  So thou knowest not the work of God,\n  Who worketh all things.\n\n  6 Sow, then, thy seed in the morning,\n  And slack not thy hand in the evening,\n  Since thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that,\n  Or whether both shall prove good:\n\n  7 And the light shall be sweet to thee,\n  And it shall be pleasant to thine eyes to behold the sun:\n\n  8 For even if a man should live many years,\n  He ought to rejoice in them all,\n  And to remember that there will be many dark days;\n  Yea, that all that cometh is vanity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _Combined with a stedfast Faith in the Life to come._ Ch.\nxi., v. 9-Ch. xii., v. 7.]\n\n  9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth,\n  And let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth;\n  And pursue the ways of thine heart,\n  And that which thine eyes desire;\n  And know that for all these\n  God will bring thee into judgment:\n\n  10 Banish, therefore, care from thy mind,\n  And put away sadness from thy flesh,\n  For youth and manhood are vanity.\n\n[Sidenote: xii.]\n\n  And remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth,\n  Before the evil days come,\n  And the years approach of which thou shalt say,\n  \"I have no pleasure in them;\"\n\n  2 Before the sun groweth dark,\n  And the light, and the moon, and the stars;\n  And the clouds return after the rain:\n\n  3 When the keepers of the house shall quake,\n  And the men of power crouch down;\n  When the grinding-maids shall stop because so few are left,\n  And the women who look out of the lattices shall be shrouded in darkness,\n  And the door shall be closed on the street:\n\n     VER. 3.: _The women who look out of the lattices; i.e._ the\n     luxurious ladies of the harem looking through their windows\n     to see what is going on outside. Compare Judges v. 28; 2\n     Samuel vi. 16; and 2 Kings ix. 30.\n\n  4 When the sound of the mills shall cease,\n  And the swallow fly shrieking to and fro,\n  And all the song-birds drop silently into their nests.\n\n     VER. 4.: _The swallow_, etc. Literally, \"_the_ bird shall\n     arise for a noise,\" _i.e._ the bird which flies abroad and\n     makes a noise at the approach of a tempest: viz. the\n     swallow. _All the songbirds._ Literally, \"all the daughters\n     of song,\" a Hebraism for birds.\n\n  5 There shall be terror at that which cometh from the height,\n  And fear shall beset the highway:\n  The almond also shall be rejected,\n  And the locust be loathed,\n  And the caper-berry provoke no appetite;\n  Because man goeth to his long home,\n  And the mourners pace up and down the street;--\n\n     VER. 5.: _From the height, i.e._ from heaven. _The locust be\n     loathed._ It is commonly assumed that the locust was only\n     eaten by the poor; but Aristotle (_Hist. Anim._, v. 30)\n     names them as a delicacy, and Ginsburg affirms that they are\n     still considered so by the cultivated and well-to-do Arabs.\n     _His long home._ Literally, \"his _eternal_ home,\" the domus\n     \u00e6terna of the early Christian tombs.\n\n  6 Before the silver cord snappeth asunder,\n  And the golden bowl escapeth;\n  Before the pitcher be shattered at the fountain,\n  And the wheel is broken at the well;\n\n  7 And the body is cast into the earth from which it came,\n  And the spirit returneth to God who gave it.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EPILOGUE.\n\n_IN WHICH THE PROBLEM OF THE BOOK IS CONCLUSIVELY SOLVED._\n\nCHAP. XII., VV. 8-14.\n\n\n  8 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher,\n  All is vanity!\n\n  9 And not only was the Preacher a wise man;\n  He also taught the people wisdom,\n  And compared, collected, and arranged many proverbs.\n\n  10 The Preacher sought out words of comfort,\n  And wrote down in uprightness words of truth.\n\n  11 The words of the Wise are like goads,\n  And those of the Masters of the Assemblies like spikes driven home,\n  Given out by the same Shepherd.\n\n  12 And of what is more than these, my son, beware;\n  For of making of many books there is no end,\n  And much study is a weariness to the flesh.\n\n  13 The conclusion of the matter is this;--\n  That God taketh cognisance of all things:\n  Fear Him, therefore, and keep his commandments,\n  For this it behoveth every man to do,\n\n     VER. 13.: _God taketh cognisance of all things._ Literally,\n     \"Everything is noted\" or \"heard,\" _i.e._ by God the Judge.\n     Ginsburg conjectures, not without reason, as I think, that\n     the Sacred Name was omitted from this clause of the verse\n     simply because the Author wished to reserve it for the more\n     emphatic clause which follows it. Many good scholars,\n     however, read the clause as meaning simply, \"The conclusion\n     of the matter, _when all has been heard,\" i.e._ which even\n     the Sages can adduce.\n\n  14 Since God will bring every deed to the judgment\n  Appointed for every secret thing,\n  Whether it be good or whether it be bad.\n\n\n\n\nEXPOSITION.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROLOGUE.\n\n_IN WHICH THE PROBLEM OF THE BOOK IS INDIRECTLY STATED._\n\nCHAP. I., VV. 1-11.\n\n\nThe search for the _summum bonum_, the quest of the Chief Good, is the\ntheme of the Book Ecclesiastes. Naturally we look to find this theme,\nproblem, this \"riddle of the painful earth,\" distinctly stated in the\nopening verses of the Book. It is stated, but not distinctly. For the\nBook is an autobiographical poem, the journal of the Preacher's inward\nlife set forth in a dramatic form. \"A man of ripe wisdom and mature\nexperience, he takes us into his confidence. He unclasps the secret\nvolume, and invites us to read it with him. He lays before us what he\nhas been, what he has thought and done, what he has seen and felt and\nsuffered; and then he asks us to listen to the judgment which he has\ndeliberately formed on a review of the whole.\"[24] But that he may the\nmore reservedly lay bare his heart to us, he uses the Poet's\nprivilege, and presents himself to us under a mask and wrapped in\nSolomon's ample mantle. And a dramatic poet conveys his conceptions of\nhuman character and circumstance and action, not by direct picturesque\ndescriptions, but, placing men before us \"in their habit as they\nlived,\" he makes them speak to us, and leaves us to infer their\ncharacter and condition from their words.\n\n  [24] Dean Perowne, in _The Expositor_, First Series, vol. ix.\n\nIn accordance with the rules of his art, the dramatic Preacher brings\nhimself on the stage of his poem, permits us to hear his most\npenetrating and characteristic utterances, confesses his own most\nsecret and inward experiences, and thus enables us to conceive and to\njudge him. He is true to his artistic canons from the outset. His\nprologue, unlike that of the Book of Job, is cast in the dramatic\nform. Instead of giving us a clear statement of the moral problem he\nis about to discuss, he opens with the characteristic utterances of\nthe man who, wearied with many futile endeavours, gathers up his\nremaining strength to recount the experiments he has tried and the\nconclusion he has reached. Like Browning, one of the most dramatic of\nmodern poets, he plunges abruptly into his theme, and speaks to us\nfrom the first through \"feigned lips.\" Just as in reading the\n_Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister_, or the _Epistle of Karshish, the\nArab Physician_, or a score other of Browning's Poems, we have first\nto glance through it in order to collect the scattered hints which\nindicate the speaker and the time, and then laboriously to think\nourselves back, by their help, into the time and conditions of the\nspeaker, so also with this Hebrew poem. It opens abruptly with \"words\nof the Preacher,\" who is at once the author and the hero of the drama.\n\"Who is he,\" we ask, \"and what?\" \"When did he live, and what place did\nhe fill?\" And at present we can only reply, He is the voice of one\ncrying in the wilderness of Oriental antiquity, and saying, \"Vanity of\nvanities! _all_ is vanity!\"[25] For what intent, then, does his voice\nbreak the long silence? Of what ethical mood is this pathetic note the\nexpression? What prompts his despairing cry?\n\n  [25] Compare Horace (Od. iv. 7, 9): _Pulvis et umbra sumus_.\n\nIt is the old contrast--old as literature, old as man--between the\nordered steadfastness of nature and the disorder and brevity of human\nlife. The Preacher gazes on the universe above and around him. The\nancient earth is firm and strong beneath his feet. The sun runs his\nrace with joy, sinks exhausted into its ocean bed, but rises on the\nmorrow, like a giant refreshed with old wine, to renew its course. The\nvariable and inconstant wind, which bloweth where it listeth, blows\nfrom the same quarters, runs through the very circuit which was its\nhaunt in the time of the world's grey fathers. The streams which ebb\nand flow, which go and come, run along time-worn beds and are fed from\ntheir ancient source. But man, \"to one point constant never,\" shifts\nfrom change to change. As compared with the calm uniformity of nature,\nhis life is a mere phantasy, passing for ever through a tedious and\nlimited range of forms, each of which is as unsubstantial as the\nfabric of a vision, many of which are as base and sordid as they are\nunreal, and all of which, for ever in a flux, elude the grasp of those\nwho pursue them, or disappoint those who hold them in their hands.\n\"All is vanity; for man has no profit,\" no adequate and enduring\nreward, \"for all his labour;\" literally, \"no balance, no surplus, on\nthe balance-sheet of life:\" less happy, because less stable, than the\nearth on which he dwells, he comes and goes, while the earth goes on\nfor ever (vv. 2-4).\n\nThis painful contrast between the ordered stability of nature and the\nchangeful and profitless disorder of human life is emphasized by a\ndetailed reference to the large natural forces which rule the world,\nand which abide unchanged, although to us they seem the very types of\nchange. The figure of ver. 5 is, of course, that of the racer. The sun\nrises every morning to run its course, pursues it through the day,\n\"pants,\" as one well-nigh breathless, toward its goal, and sinks at\nnight into its subterraneous bed in the sea; but, though exhausted and\nbreathless at night, it rises on the morrow refreshed, and eager, like\na strong, swift man, to renew its daily race. In ver. 6 the wind is\nrepresented as having a regular law and circuit, though it now blows\nSouth, and now veers round to the North. The East and West are not\nmentioned, probably because they are tacitly referred to in the rising\nand setting sun of the previous verse: all the four quarters are\nincluded between the two. In ver. 7 the streams are described as\nreturning on their sources; but there is no allusion here, as we might\nsuppose, to the tides,--and indeed tidal rivers are comparatively\nrare,--or to the rain which brings back the water evaporated from the\nsurface of the streams and of the sea. The reference is, rather, to an\nancient conception of the physical order of nature held by the Hebrew\nas by other races, according to which the ocean, fed by the streams,\nsent back a constant supply through subterraneous passages and\nchannels, in which the salt was filtered out of it; through these they\nsupposed the rivers to return to the place whence they came. The\nruling sentiment of these verses is that, while all the natural\nelements and forces, even the most variable and inconstant, renew\ntheir strength and return upon their course, for frail man there is no\nreturn; permanence and uniformity characterise _them_, while\ntransitoriness and instability mark _him_ for their own. They seem to\nvanish and disappear; the sun sinks, the winds lull, the streams run\ndry; but they all come back again: for him there is no coming back;\nonce gone, he is gone for ever.\n\nBut it is vain to talk of these or other instances of the weary yet\nrestless activity of the universe; \"man cannot utter it.\" For, besides\nthese elemental illustrations, the world is crowded with illustrations\nof incessant change, which yet move within narrow bounds and do\nnothing to relieve its sameliness. So numerous are they, so\ninnumerable, that the curious eye and inquisitive ear of man would be\nworn out before they had completed the tale of them: and if eye and\near could never be satisfied with hearing and seeing, how much less\nthe slower tongue with speaking (ver. 8)? All through the universe\nwhat hath been still is and will be; what was done is done still and\nalways will be done; the sun still running the same race, the winds\nstill blowing from the same points, the streams still flowing between\nthe same banks and returning by the same channels. If any man suppose\nthat he has discovered new phenomena, any natural fact which has not\nbeen repeating itself from the beginning, it is only because he is\nignorant of that which has been from of old (vv. 9, 10).[26] Yet,\nwhile in nature all things return on their course and abide for ever,\nman's day is soon spent, his force soon exhausted. _He_ does not\nreturn; nay, he is not so much as remembered by those who come after\nhim. Just as we have forgotten those who were before us, so those who\nlive after us will forget us (ver. 11). The burden of all this\nunintelligible world lies heavily on the Preacher's soul. He is weary\nof the world's \"everlasting sameness.\" The miseries and confusions of\nthe human lot baffle and oppress his thoughts. Above all, the contrast\nbetween Nature and Man, between its massive and stately permanence and\nthe frailty and brevity of our existence, breeds in him the despairing\nmood of which we have the keynote in his cry, \"Vanity of vanities,\nvanity of vanities, all is vanity!\"\n\n  [26] So Marcus Aurelius (_Meditt._, xi. 1): \"They that come after us\n  will see nothing new; and they who went before saw nothing more than\n  we have seen.\"\n\nYet this is not the only, not the inevitable, mood of the mind as it\nponders that great contrast. _We_ have learned to look upon it with\nother, perhaps with wider, eyes. We say, How grand, how soothing, how\nhopeful is the spectacle of nature's uniformity! How it lifts us above\nthe fluctuations of inward thought, and gladdens us with a sense of\nstability and repose! As we see the ancient inviolable laws working\nout into the same gracious and beautiful results day after day and\nyear by year, and reflect that \"what has been will be,\" we are\nredeemed from our bondage to vanity and corruption; we look up with\ncomposed and reverent trust to Him who is our God and Father, and\nonward to the stable and glorious immortality we are to spend with\nHim; we argue with Habakkuk (chap. i. ver. 12), \"Art not _Thou_ from\neverlasting, O Lord our God, our Holy One? _We_ shall not die,\" but\nlive.\n\nBut if we did not know the Ruler of the universe to be our God and\nFather; if our thoughts had still to \"jump the life to come\" or to\nleap at it with a mere guess; if we had to cross the gulf of death on\nno more solid bridge than a Peradventure; if, in short, our life were\ninfinitely more troubled and uncertain than it is, and the true good\nof life and its bright sustaining hope were still to seek, how would\nit be with us then? Then, like the Preacher, we might feel the\nsteadfastness and uniformity of nature as an affront to our vanity and\nweakness. In place of drinking in hope and composure from the fair\nvisage and unbroken order of the universe, we might deem its face to\nbe darkened with a frown or its eye to be glancing on us with bitter\nirony. Instead of finding in its inevitable order and permanence a\nhopeful prophecy of _our_ recovery into an unbroken order and an\nenduring peace, we might passionately demand why, on an abiding earth\nand under an unchanging heaven, we should die and be forgotten; why,\nmore inconstant than the variable wind, more evanescent than the\nparching stream, one generation should go never to return, and another\ngeneration come to enjoy the gains of those who were before them, and\nto blot their memory from the earth.\n\nThis, indeed, _has_ been the impassioned protest and outcry of every\nage. Literature is full of it. The contrast between the tranquil\nunchanging sky, with its myriads of pure lustrous stars, which are\nalways there and always in a happy concert, and the frailty of man\nrushing blindly through his brief and perturbed course has lent its\nground-tones to the poetry of every race. We meet it everywhere. It is\nthe oldest of old songs. In all the many languages of the divided\nearth we hear how the generations of men pass swifty and stormfully\nacross its bosom, \"searching the serene heavens with the inquest of\ntheir beseeching looks,\" but winning no response; asking always, and\nalways in vain, \"Why are we thus? why are we thus? frail as the moth,\nand of few days like the flower?\" It is this contrast between the\nserenity and the stability of nature and the frailty and turbulence of\nman which afflicts Coheleth and drives him to conclusions of despair.\nHere is man, \"so noble in reason, so infinite in faculty, in\napprehension so like a god,\" longing with an ardent intensity for the\npeace which results from the equipoise and happy occupation of his\nvarious powers; and yet his whole life is wasted in labours and\ntumults, in perplexity and strife; he goes to his grave with his\ncravings unsatisfied, his powers untrained, unharmonised, knowing no\nrest till he lies in the narrow bed from which is no uprising! What\nwonder if to such an one as he \"this goodly frame, the earth, seems\nbut a sterile promontory\" stretching out a little space into the dark,\ninfinite void; \"this most excellent canopy, the air ... this brave\no'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,\"\nnothing but \"a foul, pestilential congregation of vapours\"? What\nwonder if, for him, the very beauty of nature should turn into a\nrepulsive hideousness, and its steadfast, unchanging order be held a\nsatire on the disorder and vanity of his life?\n\nSolomon, moreover,--and Solomon in his premature old age, sated and\nweary, is the mask under which the Preacher conceals his natural\nface,--had had a large experience of life, had tried its ambitions,\nits lusts, its pursuits and pleasures; he had tested every promise of\ngood which it held forth, and found them all illusory; he had drunk of\nevery stream, and found no pure living water with which he could slake\nhis thirst. And men such as he, sated but not satisfied, jaded with\nvoluptuous delights and without the peace of faith, commonly look out\non the world with haggard eyes. They feed their despair on the\nnatural order and purity which they feel to be a rebuke to the\nimpurity of their own restless and perturbed hearts. Many of us have,\nno doubt, stood on Richmond Hill, and looked with softening eyes on\nthe rich pastures dotted with cattle, and broken with clumps of trees\nthrough which shoot up village spires, while the full, placid Thames\nwinds in many a curve through pasture and wood. It is not a grand or\nromantic scene; but on a quiet evening, in the long level rays of the\nsetting sun, it is a scene to inspire content and thankful, peaceful\nthoughts. Wilberforce tells us that he once stood in the balcony of a\nvilla looking down on this scene. Beside him stood the owner of the\nvilla, a duke notorious for his profligacy in a profligate age; and as\nthey looked across the stream, the duke cried out, \"O that river!\nthere it runs, on and on, and I so weary of it!\" And _there_ you have\nthe very mood of this Prologue; the mood for which the fair, smiling\nheavens and the gracious, bountiful earth carry no benediction of\npeace, because they are reflected from a heart all tossed into\ncrossing and impure waves.\n\nAll things depend on the heart we bring to them. This very contrast\nbetween Nature and Man has no despair in it, breeds no dispeace or\nanger in the heart at leisure from itself and at peace with God.\nTennyson, for instance, makes a merry musical brook sing to us on this\nvery theme.\n\n  \"I come from haunts of coot and hern,\n    I make a sudden sally\n  And sparkle out among the fern,\n    To bicker down a valley.\n\n  \"I chatter over stony ways\n    In little sharps and trebles,\n  I bubble into eddying bays,\n    I babble on the pebbles.\n\n  \"I chatter, chatter as I flow\n    To join the brimming river;\n  _For men may come and men may go,\n    But I go on for ever_.\n\n  \"I steal by lawns and grassy plots,\n    I slide by hazel covers;\n  I move the sweet forget-me-nots\n    That grow for happy lovers.\n\n  \"I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance\n    Among my skimming swallows;\n  I make the netted sunbeams dance\n    Against my sanded shallows.\n\n  \"I murmur under moon and stars\n    In brambly wildernesses;\n  I linger by my shingly bars;\n    I loiter round my cresses.\n\n  \"And out again I curve and flow\n    To join the brimming river;\n  _For men may come and men may go\n    But I go on for ever_.\"\n\nIt is the very plaint of the Preacher set to sweet music. He murmurs,\n\"One generation passeth, and another generation cometh, but the earth\nabideth for ever;\" while the refrain of the Brook is,--\n\n  \"For men may come and men may go,\n    But I go on for ever.\"\n\nYet we do not feel that the Song of the Brook should feed any mood of\ngrief and despair. The tune that it sings to the sleeping woods all\nnight is \"a cheerful tune.\" By some subtle process we are made to\nshare us bright, tender hilarity, though we too are of the men that\ncome and go. Into what a fume would the Hebrew Preacher have been\nthrown had any little \"babbling brook\" dared to sing this saucy song\n_to him_. He would have felt it as an insult, and have assumed that\nthe merry, innocent creature was \"crowing\" over the swiftly passing\ngenerations of men. But, for the Christian Poet, the Brook sings a\nsong whose blithe dulcet strain attunes the heart to the quiet\nharmonies of peace and good-will.\n\nAgain I say all depends on the heart we turn to nature. It was because\nhis heart was heavy with the memory of many sins and many failures,\nbecause too the lofty Christian hopes were beyond his reach, that this\n\"son of David\" grew mournful and bitter in her presence.\n\nThis, then, is the mood in which the Preacher commences his quest of\nthe Chief Good. He is driven to it by the need of finding that in\nwhich he can rest. As a rule, it is only on the most stringent\ncompulsions that we any of us undertake this high Quest. Of their\nprofound need of a Chief Good most men are but seldom and faintly\nconscious; but to the favoured few, who are to lead and mould the\npublic thought, it comes with a force they cannot resist. It was thus\nwith Coheleth. He could not endure to think that those who have \"all\nthings put under their feet\" should lie at the mercy of accidents from\nwhich their realm is exempt; that _they_ should be the mere fools of\nchange, while _that_ abides unchanged for ever. And, therefore, he set\nout to discover the conditions on which they might become partakers of\nthe order and stability and peace of nature; the conditions on which,\nraised above all the tides and storms of change, they might sit calm\nand serene even though the heavens should be folded as a scroll and\nthe earth be shaken from its foundations. This, and only this, will he\nrecognise as the Chief Good, the Good appropriate to the nature of\nman, because capable of satisfying all his cravings and supplying all\nhis wants.\n\n\n\n\nFIRST SECTION.\n\n_THE QUEST OF THE CHIEF GOOD IN WISDOM AND IN PLEASURE._\n\nCHAP. I., VER. 12, TO CHAP. II., VER. 26.\n\n\nOppressed by his profound sense of the vanity of the life which man\nlives amid the play of permanent natural forces, Coheleth sets out on\nthe search for that true and supreme Good which it will be well for\nthe sons of men to pursue through their brief day; the good which will\nsustain them under all their toils, and be \"a portion\" so large and\nenduring as to satisfy even their vast desires.\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest in Wisdom._ Ch. i., vv. 12-18.]\n\n1. And, as was natural in so wise a man, he turns first to _Wisdom_.\nHe gives himself diligently to inquire into all the actions and toils\nof men. He will ascertain whether a larger acquaintance with their\nconditions, a deeper insight into the facts, a more just and complete\nestimate of their lot, will remove the depression which weighs upon\nhis heart. He devotes himself earnestly to this Quest, and acquires a\n\"greater wisdom than all who were before him.\"\n\nThis wisdom, however, is not a scientific knowledge of facts or of\nsocial and political laws, nor is it the result of philosophical\nspeculations on \"the first good or the first fair,\" or on the nature\nand constitution of man. It is the wisdom that is born of wide and\nvaried experience, not of abstract study. He acquaints himself with\nthe facts of human life, with the circumstances, thoughts, feelings,\nhopes, and aims of all sorts and conditions of men. He is fain to know\n\"all that men do under the sun,\" \"all that is done under heaven.\" Like\nthe Arabian Caliph, \"the good Haroun Alraschid,\" we may suppose that\nCoheleth goes forth in disguise to visit all quarters of the city; to\ntalk with barbers, druggists, calenders, porters, with merchants and\nmariners, husbandmen and tradesmen, mechanics and artizans; to try\nconclusions with travellers and with the blunt wits of home-keeping\nmen. He will look with his own eyes and learn for himself what their\nlives are like, how they conceive of the human lot, and what, if any,\nare the mysteries which sadden and perplex them. He will ascertain\nwhether _they_ have any key that will unlock his perplexities, any\nwisdom that will solve his problems or help him to bear his burden\nwith a more cheerful heart. Because his depression was fed by every\nfresh contemplation of the order of the universe, he turns from nature\nto \"the proper study of mankind.\"\n\nBut this also he finds a heavy and disappointing task. After a wide\nand dispassionate scrutiny, when he has \"seen _much_ wisdom and\nknowledge,\" he concludes that man has no fair reward \"for all his\nlabour that he laboureth under the sun,\" that no wisdom avails to set\nstraight that which is crooked in human affairs, or to supply that\nwhich is lacking in them. The sense of vanity bred by his\ncontemplation of the stedfast round of nature only grows more profound\nand more painful as he reflects on the numberless and manifold\ndisorders which afflict humanity. And hence, before he ventures on a\nnew experiment, he makes a pathetic appeal to the heart which he had\nso earnestly applied to the search, and in which he had stored up so\nlarge and various a knowledge, and confesses that \"even this is\nvexation of spirit,\" that \"in much wisdom is much sadness,\" and that\n\"to multiply knowledge is to multiply sorrow.\"\n\nAnd whether we consider the nature of the case or the conditions of\nthe time in which this Book was written, we shall not be surprised at\nthe mournful conclusion to which he comes. For the time was full of\ncruel oppressions and wrongs. Life was insecure. To acquire property\nwas to court extortion. The Hebrews, and even the conquering race\nwhich ruled them, were slaves to the caprice of satraps and\nmagistrates whose days were wasted in revelry and in the unbridled\nindulgence of their lusts. And to go among the various conditions of\nmen groaning under a despotism like that of the Turk, whose foot\nstrikes with barrenness every spot on which it treads; to see all the\nfair rewards of honest toil withheld, the noble degraded and the\nfoolish exalted, the righteous trodden down by the feet of the wicked;\nall this was not likely to quicken cheerful thoughts in a wise man's\nheart: instead of solving, it could but complicate and darken the\nproblems over which he was already brooding in despair.\n\nAnd, apart from the special wrongs and oppressions of the time, it is\ninevitable that the thoughtful student of men and manners should\nbecome a sadder as he becomes a wiser man. To multiply knowledge, at\nleast of this kind, _is_ to multiply sorrow. We need not be cynics and\nleave our tub only to reflect on the dishonesty of our neighbours, we\nneed only go through the world with open and observant eyes in order\nto learn that \"in much wisdom is much sadness.\" Recall the wisest of\nmodern times, those who have had the most intimate acquaintance with\nman and men, Goethe and Carlyle for example; are they not all touched\nwith a profound sadness?[27] Do they not look with some scorn on the\ncommon life of the mass of men, with its base passions and pleasures,\nstruggles and rewards? and, in proportion as they have the spirit of\nChrist, is not their very scorn kindly, springing from a pity which\nlies deeper than itself? Did not even the Master Himself, though full\nof ruth and grace, share their feeling as He saw publicans growing\nrich by extortion, hypocrites mounting to Moses' chair, subtle, cruel\nfoxes couched on thrones, scribes hiding the key of knowledge, and the\nblind multitude following their blind leaders into the ditch?\n\n  [27] P\u00e8re Lacordaire has a fine passage on this theme. \"Weak and\n  little minds find here below a nourishment which suffices for their\n  intellect and satisfies their love. They do not discover the emptiness\n  of visible things because they are incapable of sounding them to the\n  bottom. But a soul which God has drawn nearer to the Infinite very\n  soon feels the narrow limits within which it is pent; it experiences\n  moments of inexpressible sadness, the cause of which for a long time\n  remains a mystery; it even seems as though some strange concurrence of\n  events must have chanced in order thus to disturb its life; and all\n  the while the trouble comes from a higher source. In reading the lives\n  of the Saints, we find that nearly all of them have felt that sweet\n  melancholy of which the ancients said _that there was no genius\n  without it_. In fact, melancholy is inseparable from every mind that\n  looks below the surface and every heart that feels profoundly. Not\n  that we should take complacency in it, for it is a malady that\n  enervates when we do not shake it off; and it has but two\n  remedies--_Death or God_.\" Elsewhere, still quite in the spirit of the\n  Preacher, he says: \"Every day I feel more and more that all is vanity.\n  _I cannot leave my heart in this heap of mud._\"\n\nNay, if we look out on the world of to-day, can we say that even the\nmajority of men are wise and pure? Is it always the swift who win the\nrace, and the strong who carry off the honours of the battle? Do none\nof our \"intelligent lack bread,\" nor any of the learned favour? Are\nthere no fools lifted to high places to show with how little wisdom\nthe world is governed, and no brave and noble breasts dinted by the\nblows of hostile circumstances or wounded by \"the slings and arrows of\noutrageous fortune\"? Are all our workmen diligent and all our masters\nfair? Are no false measures and balances known in our markets, and no\nfrauds on our exchanges? Are none of our homes dungeons, with fathers\nand husbands for jailors? Do we never hear, as we stand without, the\nsound of cruel blows and the shrieks of tortured captives? Are there\nno hypocrites in our Churches \"that with devotion's visage sugar o'er\"\na corrupt heart? And do the best men always gain the highest place and\nhonour? Are there none in our midst who have to bear--\n\n                \"The whips and scorns of time,\n  The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,\n  The pangs of despised love, the laws delay.\n  The insolence of office, and the spurns\n  That patient merit of the unworthy takes\"?\n\nAlas, if we think to find the true Good in a wide and varied knowledge\nof the conditions of men, their hopes and fears, their struggles and\nsuccesses, their loves and hates, their rights and wrongs, their\npleasures and their pains, we shall but share the defeat of the\nPreacher, and repeat his bitter cry, \"Vanity of vanities, vanity of\nvanities, all is vanity!\" For, as he himself implies at the very\noutset (ver. 13), \"this sore task,\" this eternal quest of a wisdom\nwhich will solve the problems and remove the inequalities of human\nlife, is God's _gift_ to the children of men,--this search for a\nsolution they never reach. Age after age, unwarned by the failure of\nthose who took this road before them, they renew the hopeless quest.\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest in Pleasure._ Ch. ii., vv. 1-11.]\n\n2. But if we cannot reach the object of our Quest in Wisdom, we may,\nperchance, find it in Pleasure. This experiment also the Preacher has\ntried, tried on the largest scale and under the most auspicious\nconditions. Wisdom failing to satisfy the large desires of his soul,\nor even to lift it from its depression, he turns to mirth.[28] Once\nmore, as he forthwith announces, he is disappointed in the result. He\npronounces mirth a brief madness; in itself, like wisdom, a good, it\nis not the Chief Good; to make it supreme is to rob it of its natural\ncharm.\n\n  [28] So Goethe's _Faust_, after having failed to solve the insoluble\n  problems of life by study and research, \"plunges deep in pleasure,\"\n  that he \"may thus still the burning thirst of passionate desire.\"\n\nNot content with this general verdict, however, he recounts the\ndetails of his experiment, that he may deter us from repeating it.\nSpeaking in the person of Solomon and utilising the facts of _his_\nexperience, Coheleth claims to have started in the quest with the\ngreatest advantages; for \"what can he do who cometh after the king\nwhom they made king long ago?\" He surrounded himself with all the\nluxuries of an Oriental prince, not out of any vulgar love of show and\nostentation, nor out of any strong sensual addictions, but that he\nmight discover wherein the secret and fascination of pleasure lay, and\nwhat it could do for a man who pursued it wisely. He built himself\nnew, costly palaces, as the Sultan of Turkey used to do almost every\nyear. He laid out paradises, planted them with vines and fruit-trees\nof every sort, and large shady groves to screen off and attemper the\nheat of the sun.[29] He dug great tanks and reservoirs of water, and\ncut channels which carried the cool vital stream through the gardens\nand to the roots of the trees. He bought men and maids, and surrounded\nhimself with the retinue of servants and slaves requisite to keep his\npalaces and paradises in order, to serve his sumptuous tables, to\nswell his pomp: _i.e._ he gathered together such a train of ministers,\nattendants, domestics, indoor and outdoor slaves, as is still thought\nnecessary to the dignity of an Oriental \"lord.\" His herds of flocks, a\nmain source of Oriental wealth, were of finer strain and larger in\nnumber than had been known before. He amassed enormous treasures of\nsilver and gold, the common Oriental hoard. He collected the peculiar\ntreasures \"of kings and of the kingdoms;\" whatever special commodity\nwas yielded by any foreign land was caught up for his use by his\nofficers or presented to him by his allies.[30] He hired famous\nmusicians and singers, and gave himself to those delights of harmony\nwhich have had a peculiar charm for the Hebrews of all ages. He\ncrowded his harem with the beauties both of his own and of foreign\nlands. He withheld nothing from them that his eyes desired, and kept\nnot his heart from any pleasure. He set himself seriously and\nintelligently to make happiness his portion; and, while cherishing or\ncheering his body with pleasures, he did not rush into them with the\nblind eagerness \"whose violent property foredoes itself\" and defeats\nits own ends. His \"mind guided him wisely\" amid his delights; his\n\"wisdom helped him\" to select, and combine, and vary them, to enhance\nand prolong their sweetness by a certain art and temperance in me\nenjoyment of them.\n\n  [29] \"One such pleasaunce as this there was at Etam, Solomon's\n  Belvedere, as Josephus informs us (_Antiq._, VIII. 7, 3). Thither it\n  was the custom of the king, he says, to resort when he made his\n  morning excursions from the city, clad in a white garment, and driving\n  his chariot, surrounded by his body-guard of young men in the flower\n  of their age, clad in Tyrian purple, and with gold dust strewed upon\n  their hair, so that their whole head sparkled when the sun shone upon\n  it, and mounted upon horses from the royal stables, famed for their\n  beauty and fleetness.\"--Dr. Perowne, _The Expositor_, First Series,\n  vol. x.\n\n  [30] In speaking of the Persian revenue, Rawlinson says that besides a\n  definite money payment, \"a payment, the nature and amount of which\n  were also fixed, had to be made in kind, each province being required\n  to furnish that commodity, or those commodities, for which it was most\n  celebrated,\"--as, for example, grain, sheep, cattle, mules, fine\n  breeds of horses, beautiful slaves. _The Five Great Monarchies_, vol.\n  iv., chap. vii., p. 421.\n\n  \"He built his soul a lordly pleasure-house,\n    Wherein at ease for aye to dwell;\n  He said, 'Oh Soul, make merry and carouse,\n    Dear Soul, for all is well!'\"\n\nAlas, all was _not_ well, though he took much pains to make and think\nit well. Even his choice delights soon palled upon his taste, and\nbrought on conclusions of disgust. Even in his lordly pleasure-house\nhe was haunted by the grim, menacing spectres which troubled him\nbefore it was built. In the harem, in the paradise he had planted,\nunder the groves, beside the fountains, at the sumptuous banquet,--a\nbursting bubble, a falling leaf, an empty wine cup, a passing blush,\nsufficed to bring back the thought of the brevity and the emptiness of\nlife. When he had run the full career of pleasure, and turned to\ncontemplate his delights and the labour they had cost him, he found\nthat these also were vanity and vexation of spirit, that there was no\n\"profit\" in them, that they could not satisfy the deep, incessant\ncraving of the soul for a true and lasting Good.\n\nIs not his sad verdict as true as it is sad? We have not his wealth of\nresources. Nevertheless there may have been a time when our hearts\nwere as intent on pleasure as was his. We may have pursued whatever\nsensuous, intellectual, or aesthetic excitements were open to us with\na growing eagerness till we have lived in a whirl of craving and\nstimulating desire and indulgence, in which the claims of duty have\nbeen neglected and the rebukes of conscience unheeded. And if we\n_have_ passed through this experience, if we have been carried for a\ntime into this giddying round, have we not come out of it jaded,\nexhausted, despising ourselves for our folly, disgusted with what once\nseemed the very top and crown of delight? Do we not mourn, our after\nlife through, over energies wasted and opportunities lost? Are we not\nsadder, if wiser, men for our brief frenzy? As we return to the sober\nduties and simple joys of life, do not _we_ say to Mirth, \"Thou art\nmad!\" and to Pleasure, \"What canst thou do for us?\" Yes, our verdict\nis that of the Preacher, \"Lo, this too is vanity!\" _Non enim\nhilaritate, nec lascivia, nec visu, aut joco, comite levitatis, sed\ns\u00e6pe etiam tristes firmitate, et constantia sunt beati._[31]\n\n  [31] Cicero, _De Fin._, Lib. II., Cap. 20.\n\n[Sidenote: _Wisdom and Mirth compared._ Ch. ii., vv. 12-23.]\n\nIt is characteristic of the philosophic temper of our Author, I think,\nthat, after pronouncing Wisdom and Mirth vanities in which the true\nGood is not to be found, he does not at once proceed to try a new\nexperiment, but pauses to compare these two \"vanities,\" and to reason\nout his preference of one over the other. _His_ vanity is wisdom. For\nit is only in one respect that he puts mirth and wisdom on an\nequality, viz. that they neither of them are, or lead up to, the\nsupreme Good. In all other respects he affirms wisdom to be as much\nbetter than pleasure as light is better than darkness, as much better\nas it is to have eyes that see the light than to be blind and walk in\na constant gloom (VV. 12-14). It is because wisdom is a light and\nenables men to see that he accords it his preference. It is by the\nlight of wisdom that he has learned the vanity of mirth, nay, the\ninsufficiency of wisdom itself. But for that light he might still be\npursuing pleasures which could not satisfy, or laboriously acquiring a\nknowledge which would only deepen his sadness. Wisdom had opened his\neyes to see that he must seek the Good which gives rest and peace in\nother regions. He no longer goes on his Quest in utter blindness, with\nall the world before him where to choose, but with no indication of\nthe course he should, or should not, take. He has already learned that\ntwo large provinces of human life will not yield him what he seeks,\nthat he must expend no more of his brief day and failing energies on\nthese.\n\nTherefore wisdom is better than mirth. Nevertheless it is not best,\nnor can it remove the dejections of a thoughtful heart. Somewhere\nthere is, there must be, that which is better still. For wisdom cannot\nexplain to him why the same fate should befall both the sage and the\nfool (ver. 15), nor can it abate the anger that burns within him\nagainst an injustice so obvious and flagrant. Wisdom cannot even\nexplain why, even if the sage must die no less than the fool, both\nmust be forgotten wellnigh as soon as they are gone (vv. 16, 17); nor\ncan it soften the hatred of life and its labours which this lesser yet\npatent injustice has kindled in his heart. Nay, wisdom, for all so\nbrightly as it shines, throws no light on an injustice which, if of\nlower degree, frets and perplexes his mind,--why a man who has\nlaboured prudently and dexterously and has acquired great gains\nshould, when he dies, leave all to one who has not laboured therein,\nwithout even the poor consolation of knowing whether he will be a wise\nman or an idiot (vv. 19-21). In short, the whole skein of life is in a\ndismal tangle which wisdom itself, dearly as he loves it, cannot\nunravel; and the tangle is that man has no fair \"profit\" from his\nlabours, \"since his task grieveth and vexeth him all his days, and\neven at night his heart hath no rest;\" and when he dies he loses all\nhis gains, such as they are, for ever, and cannot so much as be sure\nthat his heir will be any the better for them. \"This also is vanity\"\n(vv. 22, 23).\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _The Conclusion._ Ch. ii. vv. 24-26.]\n\nAnd yet, good things are surely good, and there is a wise and gracious\nenjoyment of earthly delights. It is right that a man should eat and\ndrink, and take a natural pleasure in his toils and gains. Who,\nindeed, has a stronger claim than the labourer himself to eat and\nenjoy the fruit of his labours? Still, even this natural enjoyment is\nthe gift of God; apart from his blessing the heaviest toils will\nproduce but a scanty harvest, and the faculty of enjoying that harvest\nmay be lacking. It _is_ lacking to the sinner; _his_ task is to heap\nup gains which the good will inherit. But he that is good before God\nwill have the gains of the sinner added to his own, with wisdom to\nenjoy both.[32] This, whatever appearances may sometimes suggest, is\nthe law of God's giving: that the good shall have abundance, while\nthe bad lack; that more shall be given to him who has wisdom to use\nwhat he has aright, while from him who is destitute of this wisdom,\neven that which he hath shall be taken away. Nevertheless even this\nwise use and enjoyment of temporal good does not and cannot satisfy\nthe craving heart of man; even this, when it is made the ruling aim\nand chief good of life, is vexation of spirit.\n\n  [32] This affirmation, so surprising at first sight, is also made by\n  Job (chap. xxvii., vv. 15, 16), \"This is the doom of the wicked man\n  from God.... Though he heap up silver like dust, and gather robes as\n  mire, that which he hath gathered shall the righteous wear, and the\n  innocent shall divide his silver.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus the First Act of the Drama closes with a negative. The moral\nproblem is as far from being solved as at the outset. All we have\nlearned is that one or two avenues along which we urge the Quest will\nnot lead us to the end we seek. As yet the Preacher has only the _ad\ninterim_ conclusion to offer us, that both Wisdom and Mirth are good,\nthough neither, nor both combined, is the supreme Good; that we are\ntherefore to acquire wisdom and knowledge, and to blend pleasure with\nour toils; that we are to believe pleasure and wisdom to be the gifts\nof God, to believe also that they are bestowed, not in caprice, but\naccording to a law which deals out good to the good and evil to the\nevil. We shall have other opportunities of weighing and appraising his\ncounsel--it is often repeated--and of seeing how it works into and\nforms part of Coheleth's final solution of the painful riddle of the\nearth, the baffling mystery of life.\n\n\n\n\nSECOND SECTION.\n\n_THE QUEST OF THE CHIEF GOOD IN DEVOTION TO THE AFFAIRS OF BUSINESS._\n\nCHAP. III., VER. 1, TO CHAP. V., VER. 20.\n\n\nI. If the true Good is not to be found in the School where Wisdom\nutters her voice, nor in the Garden in which Pleasure spreads her\nlures: may it not be found in the Market, in devotion to Business and\nPublic Affairs? The Preacher will try this experiment also. He gives\nhimself to study and consider it. But at the very outset he discovers\nthat he is in the iron grip of immutable Divine ordinances, by which\n\"seasons\" are appointed for every undertaking under heaven (ver. 1),\nordinances which derange man's best-laid schemes, and \"shape his ends,\nrough-hew them how he will,\" that no one can do anything to purpose\n\"apart from God,\" except by conforming to the ordinances, or laws, in\nwhich He has expressed His will (comp. chap, ii., vv. 24-26).\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest obstructed by Divine Ordinances_; Ch. iii., vv.\n1-15.]\n\nThe time of birth, for instance, and the time of death, are ordained\nby a Power over which men have no control; they begin to be, and they\ncease to be, at hours whose stroke they can neither hasten nor\nretard. The season for sowing and the season for reaping are fixed\nwithout any reference to their wish; they must plant and gather in\nwhen the unchangeable laws of nature will permit (ver. 2). Even those\nviolent deaths, and those narrow escapes from death, which seem most\npurely fortuitous, are predetermined; as are also the accidents which\nbefall our abodes (ver. 3). So, again, if only because determined by\nthese accidents, are the feelings with which we regard them, our\nweeping and our laughter, our mourning and our rejoicing (ver. 4). If\nwe only clear a plot of ground from stones in order that we may\ncultivate it, or that we may fence it in with a wall; or if an enemy\ncast stones over our arable land to unfit it for uses of husbandry--a\nmalignant act frequent in the East--and we have painfully to gather\nthem out again: even this, which seems so purely within the scope of\nhuman free-will, is also within the scope of the Divine decrees--as\nare the very embraces we bestow on those dear to us, or withhold from\nthem (ver. 5). The varying and unstable desires which prompt us to\nseek this object or that as earnestly as we afterwards carelessly cast\nit away, and the passions which impel us to rend our garments over our\nlosses, and by-and-bye to sew up the rents not without some little\nwonder that we should ever have been so deeply moved by that which\nnow sits so lightly on us; these passions and desires, which at one\ntime strike us dumb with grief and so soon after make us voluble with\njoy, with all our fleeting and easily-moved hates and loves, strifes\nand reconciliations, move within the circle of law, although they wear\nso lawless a look, and are obsequious to the fixed canons of Heaven\n(vv. 6-8). They travel their cycles; they return in their appointed\norder. The uniformity of nature is reproduced in the uniform\nrecurrence of the chances and changes of human life; for in this, as\nin that, God repeats Himself, recalling the past (ver. 15). The thing\nthat is is that which hath been, and that which will be. Social laws\nare as constant and as inflexible as natural laws. The social\ngeneralisations of modern science--as given, for instance, in Buckle's\n_History_--are but a methodical elaboration of the conclusion at which\nthe Preacher here arrives.\n\nOf what use, then, was it for men to \"kick against the goads,\" to\nattempt to modify immutable ordinances? \"Whatever God hath ordained\ncontinueth for ever; nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be\ntaken from it\" (ver. 14). Nay, why should we care to alter or modify\nthe social order? Everything is beautiful and appropriate in its\nseason, from birth to death, from war to peace (ver. 11). If we cannot\nfind the satisfying Good in the events and affairs of life, that is\nnot because we could devise a happier order for them, but because \"God\nhath put _eternity_ into our hearts\" as well as time, and did not\nintend that we should be satisfied till we attain an eternal good. If\nonly we \"understood\" that, if only we recognised Gods design for us\n\"from beginning to end,\" and suffered eternity no less than time to\nhave its due of us, we should not fret ourselves in vain endeavours to\nchange the unchangeable, or to find an enduring good in that which is\nfugitive and perishable. We should rejoice and do ourselves good all\nour brief life (Ver. 12); we should eat and drink and take pleasure in\nour labours (ver. 13); we should feel that this faculty for innocently\nenjoying simple pleasures and wholesome toils is \"a gift of God:\" we\nshould conclude that God had ordained that regular cycle and order of\nevents which so often forestalls the wish and endeavour of the moment,\nin order that we should fear Him in place of relying on ourselves\n(ver. 14), and trust our future to Him who so wisely and graciously\nrecalls the past.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _And by Human Injustice and Perversity._ Ch. iii., v.\n16.-Ch. iv., v. 3.]\n\nBut not only are our endeavours to find the \"good\" of our labours\nthwarted by the gracious, inflexible laws of the just God; they are\noften baffled by the injustice of ungracious men. In the days of\nCoheleth, Iniquity sat in the seat of justice, wresting all rules of\nequity to its base private ends (ver. 16). Unjust judges and\nrapacious satraps put the fair rewards of labour and skill and\nintegrity in jeopardy, insomuch that if a man by industry and thrift,\nby a wise observance of Divine laws and by taking occasions as they\nrose, had acquired affluence, he was too often, in the expressive\nEastern phrase, but as a sponge which any petty despot might squeeze.\nThe frightful oppressions of the time were a heavy burden to the\nHebrew Preacher. He brooded over them, seeking for aids to faith and\ncomfortable words wherewith to solace the oppressed. For a moment he\nthought he had lit on the true comfort, \"Well, well,\" he said within\nhimself, \"_God_ will judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is\na time for everything and for every deed with Him\" (ver. 17). Could he\nhave rested in this thought, it would have been \"a sovereign balm\" to\nhim, or indeed to any other Hebrew; although to us, who have learned\nto desire the redemption rather than the punishment of the wicked,\ntheir redemption _through_ their inevitable punishments, the true\ncomfort would still have been wanting. But he could not rest in it,\ncould not hold it fast, and confesses that he could not. He lays his\nheart bare before us. We are permitted to trace the fluctuating\nthoughts and emotions which swept across it. No sooner has he\nwhispered to his heart that God, who is at leisure from Himself and\nhas endless time at his command, will visit the oppressors and avenge\nthe oppressed, than his thoughts take a new turn, and he adds: \"And\nyet God _may_ have sifted the children of men only to shew them that\nthey are no better than the beasts\" (ver. 18): _this_ may be his aim\nin all the wrongs by which they are tried. Repugnant as the thought\nis, it nevertheless fascinates him for the instant, and he yields to\nits wasting and degrading magic. He not only fears, suspects, thinks\nthat man is no better than a beast; he is quite sure of it, and\nproceeds to argue it out. His argument is very sweeping, very sombre.\n\"A mere chance is man, and the beast a mere chance.\" Both spring from\na mere accident, no one can tell how, and have a blind hazard for a\ncreator; and \"both are subject to the same chance,\" or mischance,\nthroughout their lives, all the decisions of their intelligence and\nwill being overruled by the decrees of an inscrutable fate. Both\nperish under the same power of death, suffer the same pangs of\ndissolution, are taken at unawares by the same invisible yet\nresistless force. The bodies of both spring from the same dust, and\nmoulder back into dust. Nay, \"both have the same spirit;\" and though\nvain man sometimes boasts that at death his spirit goeth upward, while\nthat of the beast goeth downward, yet who can prove it? For himself,\nand in his present mood, Coheleth doubts, and even denies it. He is\nabsolutely convinced that in origin and life and death, in body and\nspirit and final fate, man is as the beast is, and hath no advantage\nover the beast (vv. 19-21). And therefore he falls back on his old\nconclusion, though now with a sadder heart than ever, that man will do\nwisely, that, being so blind and having so dark a prospect, he cannot\ndo more wisely than to take what pleasure and enjoy what good he can\namid his labours. _If_ he is a beast, _as_ he is a beast, let him at\nleast learn of the beasts that simple, tranquil enjoyment of the good\nof the passing moment, untroubled by any vexing presage of what is to\ncome, in which it must be allowed that they are greater proficients\nthan he (ver. 22).\n\nThus, after rising in the first fifteen verses of this Third Chapter,\nto an almost Christian height of patience, and resignation, and holy\ntrust in the providence of God, Coheleth is smitten by the injustice\nand oppressions of man into the depths of a pessimistic materialism.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut now a new question arises. The Preacher's survey of human life has\nshaken his faith even in the conclusion which he has announced from\nthe first, viz., that there is nothing better for a man than a quiet\ncontent, a busy cheerfulness, a tranquil enjoyment of the fruit of his\ntoils. _This_ at least he has supposed to be possible: but is it? All\nthe activities, industries, tranquillities of life are jeopardised,\nnow by the inflexible ordinances of Heaven, and again by the\ncapricious tyranny of man. To this tyranny his fellow-countrymen are\nnow exposed. They groan under its heaviest oppressions. As he turns\nand once more reflects (chap. iv., ver. 1) on their unalleviated and\nunfriended misery, he doubts whether content, or even resignation, can\nbe expected of them. With a tender sympathy that lingers on the\ndetails of their unhappy lot, and deepens into a passionate and\ndespairing melancholy, he witnesses their sufferings and \"counts the\ntears\" of the oppressed. With the emphasis of a Hebrew and an\nOriental, he marks and emphasises the fact that \"they had no\ncomforter,\" that though \"their oppressors were violent, yet they had\nno comforter.\" For throughout the East, and among the Jews to this\nday, the manifestation of sympathy with those who suffer is far more\ncommon and ceremonious than it is with us. Neighbours and\nacquaintances are expected to pay long visits of condolence; friends\nand kinsfolk will travel long distances to pay them. Their respective\nplaces and duties in the house of mourning, their dress, words,\nbearing, precedence, are regulated by an ancient and elaborate\netiquette. And, strange as it may seem to us, these visits are\nregarded not only as gratifying tokens of respect to the dead, but as\na singular relief and comfort to the living. To the Preacher and his\nfellow-captives, therefore, it would be a bitter aggravation of their\ngrief that, while suffering under the most cruel oppressions of\nmisfortune, they were compelled to forego the solace of these\ncustomary tokens of respect and sympathy. As he pondered their sad and\nunfriended condition, Coheleth--like Job, when his comforters failed\nhim--is moved to curse his day. The dead, he affirms, are happier than\nthe living,[33]--even the dead who died so long ago that the fate most\ndreaded in the East had befallen them, and the very memory of them\nhad perished from the earth: while happier than either the dead, who\nhave had to suffer in their time, or than the living, whose doom had\nstill to be borne, were those who had never seen the light, never been\nborn into a world all disordered and out of course (vv. 2, 3).[34]\n\n  [33] Xerxes, in his invasion of Greece, conceived the wish \"to look\n  upon all his host.\" A throne was erected for him on a hill near\n  Abydos, sitting on which he looked down and saw the Hellespont covered\n  with his ships, and the vast plain swarming with his troops. As he\n  looked, he wept; and when his uncle Artabanus asked him the cause of\n  his tears, he replied: \"There came upon me a sudden pity when I\n  thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all\n  this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred\n  years are gone by.\" This is one of the most striking and best known\n  incidents in the life of the Persian despot; but the rejoinder of\n  Artabanus, though in a far higher strain, is less generally known. I\n  quote it here as an illustration of the Preacher's mood. Said\n  Artabanus: \"And yet there are sadder things in life than that. Short\n  as our time is, there is no man, whether it be here among this\n  multitude or elsewhere, who is so happy as not to have felt the\n  wish--I will not say once, but full many a time--that he were dead\n  rather than alive. Calamities fall on us, sicknesses vex and harass\n  us, and make life, short though it be, to appear long. _So death,\n  through the wretchedness of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our\n  race._\"--_Herodotus_, Book VII., c. 46.\n\n  [34] So in Sophocles (_Oed. Col._, 1225) we read--I quote from Dean\n  Plumptre's translation:\n\n    \"Never to be at all\n    Excels all fame;\n    Quickly, next best, to pass\n    From whence we came.\"\n\n[Sidenote: _It is rendered hopeless by the base origin of Human\nIndustries._ Ch. iv., vv. 4-8.]\n\nThis stinging sense of the miserable estate of his race has, however,\ndiverted the Preacher from the conduct of the main argument he had in\nhand: to that he now returns (ver. 4). And now he argues: You cannot\nhope get good fruit from a bad root. But the several industries in\nwhich you are tempted to seek \"the chief good and market of your time\"\nhave a most base and evil origin; they \"spring from man's jealous\nrivalry with his neighbour.\" Every man tries to outdo and to outsell\nhis neighbours; to secure a larger business, to surround himself with\na more profuse luxury, or to amass an ampler hoard of gold. This\nbusiness life of yours is utterly selfish, and therefore utterly base.\nYou are not content with a sufficient provision for simple wants. You\ndo not seek your neighbour's good. You have no noble or patriotic aim.\nYour ruling intention is to enrich yourselves at the expense of\nneighbours who, in their turn, are _your_ rivals rather than your\nneighbours, and who try to get the better of you just as you try to\nget the better of them. Can you hope to find the true Good in a life\nwhose aims are so sordid, whose motives so selfish? The very sluggard\nwho folds his hands in indolence so long as he has bread to eat is a\nwiser man than you; for he has at least his \"handful of quiet,\" and\nknows some little enjoyment of life; while you, driven on by jealous\ncompetition and the eager cravings of insatiable desire, have neither\nleisure nor appetite for enjoyment: both your hands are full, indeed,\nbut there is no quiet in them, only labour, labour, labour, with\nvexation of spirit (vv. 5, 6).\n\nSo intense and selfish was this rivalry, increase of appetite growing\nby what it fed upon, so keen grew the desire to amass, that the\nPreacher paints a portrait, for which no doubt many _a Hebrew_ might\nhave sat, of a man--nay, rather, of a miser--who, though solitary and\nkinless, with not even a son or a brother to inherit his wealth,\nnevertheless hoards up riches to the close of his life; there is no\nend to his labours; he never can be rich enough to allow himself any\nenjoyment of his gains (vv. 7, 8).\n\n[Sidenote: _Yet these are capable of a nobler Motive and Mode._ Ch.\niv., vv. 9-16.]\n\nNow a jealous rivalry culminating in mere avarice,--that surely is not\nthe wisest or noblest spirit of which those are capable who devote\nthemselves to affairs. Even \"the idols of the market\" may have a purer\ncult. Business, like Wisdom or Mirth, may neither be, nor contain, the\nsupreme Good: still, like them, it is not in itself and of necessity\nan evil. There must be a better mode of devotion to it than this\nselfish and greedy one; and such a mode Coheleth, before he pursues\nhis argument to a close, pauses to point out. As if anticipating a\nmodern theory which grows in favour with the wiser sort of mercantile\nmen, he suggests that co-operation--of course I use the word in its\netymological rather than in its technical sense--should be substituted\nfor competition. \"Two are better than one,\" he argues; \"union is\nbetter than isolation; conjoint labour brings the larger reward\" (ver.\n9). To bring his suggestion home to the business bosom of men, he uses\nfive illustrations, four of which have a strong Oriental colouring.\n\nThe first is that of two pedestrians (ver. 10); if one should\nfall--and such an accident, owing to the bad roads and long cumbrous\nrobes common in the East, was by no means infrequent--the other is\nready to set him on his feet; while, if he is alone, the least that\ncan befall him is that his robe will be trampled and bemired before\nhe can gather himself up again. In the second illustration (ver. 11),\nour two travellers, wearied by their journey, sleep together at\nits close. Now in Syria the nights are often keen and frosty, and\nthe heat of the day makes men more susceptible to the cold. The\nsleeping-chambers, moreover, have only unglazed lattices which let in\nthe frosty air as well as the welcome light; the bed is commonly a\nsimple mat, the bedclothes only the garments worn through the day. And\ntherefore the natives huddle together for the sake of warmth. To lie\nalone was to lie shivering in the chill night air. The third\nillustration (ver. 12) is also taken from the East. Our two\ntravellers, lying snug and warm on their common mat, buried in\nslumber, that \"dear repose for limbs with travel tired,\" were very\nlikely to be disturbed by thieves who had dug a hole through the clay\nwalls of the house, or crept under the tent, to carry off what they\ncould. These thieves, always on the alert for travellers, are\nmarvellously supple, rapid, and silent in their movements; but as the\ntraveller, aware of his danger, commonly puts his \"bag of needments\"\nor valuables under his head, it does sometimes happen that the deftest\nthief will rouse him by withdrawing it. If one of our two wayfarers\nwas thus aroused, he would call on his comrade for help, and between\nthem the thief would stand a poor chance; but the solitary traveller,\nsuddenly roused from sleep, with no helper at hand, might very easily\nstand a worse chance than the thief. The fourth illustration (ver. 12)\nis that of the threefold cord--three strands twisted into one, which,\nas we all know, English no less than Hebrew, is much more than three\ntimes as strong as any one of the separate strands.\n\nBut in the fifth and most elaborate illustration (vv. 13, 14), we are\nonce more carried back to the East. The slightest acquaintance with\nOriental history will teach us how uncertain is the tenure of royal\npower; how often it has happened that a prisoner has been led from a\ndungeon to a throne, and a prince suddenly deposed and reduced to\nimpotence and penury. Coheleth supposes such a case. On the one hand,\nwe have a king old, but not venerable, since, long as he has lived, he\nhas not \"even yet learned to accept admonition;\" he has led a\nsolitary, selfish, suspicious life, secluded himself in his harem,\nsurrounded himself with a troop of flattering courtiers and slaves. On\nthe other hand, we have the poor but wise young man, \"the affable\nyouth,\" who has lived with all sorts and conditions of men, acquainted\nhimself with their habits and wants and desires, and conciliated their\nregard. His growing popularity alarms the old despot and his minions.\nHe is cast into prison. His wrongs and sufferings endear him to the\nwronged and suffering people. By a sudden outbreak of popular wrath,\nby a revolution such as often sweeps through Eastern states, he is set\nfree, and led from the prison to the throne, although he was once so\npoor that none would do him reverence. This is the picture in the\nmind's eye of the Preacher; and, as he contemplates it, he rises into\na kind of prophetic rapture, and cries, \"I see--I see all the living\nwho walk under the sun flocking to the youth who stands up in the old\nking's stead; there is no end to the multitude of the people over whom\nhe ruleth!\" (ver. 15).\n\nBy these graphic illustrations Coheleth sets forth the superiority of\nthe sociable over the solitary and selfish temper, of union over\nisolation, of the neighbourly goodwill which leads men to combine for\ncommon ends over the jealous rivalry which prompts them to take\nadvantage of each other, and to labour each for himself alone.\n\nBut even as he urges this better, happier temper on men occupied with\nbusiness and public affairs, even as he contemplates its brightest\nillustration in the youthful prisoner whose winning and sociable\nqualities have lifted him to a throne, the old mood of melancholy\ncomes back on him; there is the familiar pathetic break in his voice\nas he concludes (ver. 16), that even this wise youth, who wins all\nhearts for a time, will soon be forgotten; that \"even this,\" for all\nso hopeful as it looks, \"is vanity and vexation of spirit.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA profound gloom rests on the second act of this Drama. It has already\ntaught us that we are helpless in the grip of laws which we had no\nvoice in making; that we often lie at the mercy of men whose mercy is\nbut a caprice; that in our origin and end, in body and spirit, in\nfaculty and prospect, in our lives and pleasures, we are no better\nthan the beasts which perish: that the avocations into which we\nplunge, and amid which we seek to forget our sad estate, spring from\nour jealousy the one of the other, and tend to a lonely miserliness\nwithout use or charm. The Preacher's familiar conclusion--\"Be\ntranquil, be content, enjoy as much as you can\"--has grown doubtful to\nhim. He has seen the brightest promise come to nought. In a new and\nprofounder sense, \"all is vanity and vexation of spirit.\"\n\nBut, though passing through a great darkness, he sees, and reflects,\nsome little light. Even when facts seem to contradict it, he holds\nfast to the conclusion that wisdom is better than folly, and kindness\nbetter than selfishness, and to do good even though you lose by it\nbetter than to do evil and gain by it. His faith wavers only for a\nmoment; it never wholly loosens its hold. And, in the fifth chapter,\nthe light grows, though even here the darkness does not altogether\ndisappear. We are sensible that the twilight in which we stand is not\nthat of evening, which will deepen into night, but that of morning,\nwhich will shine more and more until the day dawn, and the daystar\narise in the calm heaven of patient tranquil hearts.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _So also a happier and more effective Method of Worship is\nopen to Men_; Ch. v., vv. 1-7.]\n\nThe men of affairs are led from the vocations of the Market and the\nintrigues of the Divan into the House of God. Our first glance at the\nworshippers is not hopeful or inspiriting. For here are men who offer\nsacrifices in lieu of obedience; and here are men whose prayers are a\nvoluble repetition of phrases which run far in advance of their\nlimping thoughts and desires: and there are men quick to make vows in\nmoments of peril, but slow to redeem them when the peril is past. At\nfirst the House of God looks very like a House of Merchandise, in\nwhich brokers and traders drive a traffic as dishonest as any that\ndisgraces the Exchange. But while the merchants and politicians stand\ncriticising the conduct of the worshippers, the Preacher turns upon\nthem and shows them that _they_ are the worshippers whom they\ncriticise; that he has held up a glass in which they see themselves as\nothers see them; that it is _they_ who vow and do not pay, _they_ who\nhurry on their mouths to utter words which their hearts do not prompt,\n_they_ who take the roundabout course of sinning and sacrificing for\nsin instead of that plain road of obedience which leads straight to\nGod.\n\nBut what comfort for them is there in that? How should it help them,\nto be beguiled into condemning themselves? Truly there would not be\nmuch comfort in it did not the compassionate Preacher forthwith\ndisclose the secret of this dishonest worship, and give them counsels\nof amendment. He discloses the secret in two verses (vv. 3 and 7),\nwhich have much perplexed the readers of this Book. He there explains\nthat just as a mind harassed by much occupation and the many cares it\nbreeds cannot rest even at nights, but busies itself in framing wild\ndisturbing dreams, so also is it with the foolish worshipper who, for\nwant of thought and reverence, pours out before God a multitude of\nunsifted and unconsidered wishes in a multitude of words. In effect he\nsays to them: \"You men of affairs often get little help or comfort\nfrom the worship of God because you come to it with preoccupied\nhearts, just as a man gets little comfort from his bed because his\nbrain, jaded and yet excited by many cares, will not suffer him to\nrest. Hence it is that you promise more than you perform, and utter\nprayers more devout than any honest expression of your desires would\nwarrant, and offer sacrifices to avoid the charge and trouble of\nobedience to the Divine laws. And as I have shown you a more excellent\nway of transacting business than the selfish grasping mode to which\nyou are addicted, so also I will show you a more excellent style of\nworship. Go to the House of God 'with a straight foot,' a foot trained\nto walk in the path of obedience. Keep your heart, set a watch over\nit, lest it should be diverted from the simple and devout homage it\nshould pay. Do not urge and press it to a false emotion, to a strained\nand insincere mood. Let your words be few and reverent when you speak\nto the Great King. Do not vow except under the compulsion of stedfast\nresolves, and pay your vows even to your own hurt when once they are\nmade. Do not anger God, or the angel of God who, as you believe,\npresides over the altar, with idle unreal talk and idle half-meant\nresolves, making vows of which you afterwards repent and do not keep,\npleading that you made them in error or infirmity. But in all the\nexercises of your worship show a holy fear of the Almighty; and then,\nunder the worst oppressions of fortune and the heaviest calamities of\ntime, you shall find the House of God _a Sanctuary_, and his worship a\nstrength, a consolation, and a delight.\" This, surely, was very\nwholesome counsel for men of business in hard times.\n\n[Sidenote: _And a more helpful and consolatory Trust in the Divine\nProvidence._ Ch. v., vv. 8-17.]\n\nNot content with this, however, the Preacher goes on to show how, when\nthey returned from the House of God to the common round of life, and\nwere once more exposed to its miseries and distractions, there were\ncertain comfortable and sustaining thoughts on which they might stay\ntheir spirits. To the worship of the Sanctuary he would have them add\na strengthening trust in the Providence of God. That Providence was\nexpressed, as in other ordinances, so also in these two:--\n\nFirst; whatever oppressions and perversions of justice and equity\nthere were in the land (ver. 8), still the judges and satraps who\noppressed them were not supreme; there was an official hierarchy in\nwhich superior watched over superior, and if justice were not to be\nhad of the one, it might be had of another who was above him; if it\nwere not to be had of any, no, not even of the king himself, there was\nthis reassuring conviction that, in the last resort, even the king was\n\"the servant of the field\" (ver. 9), _i.e._, was dependent on the\nwealth and produce of the land, and could not, therefore, be unjust\nwith impunity, or push his oppressions too far lest he should decrease\nhis revenue or depopulate his realm. This was \"the advantage\" the\npeople had; and if it were in itself but a slight advantage to this\nman or that, clearly it was a great advantage to the body politic;\nwhile as an indication of the Providence of God, of the care with\nwhich He had arranged for the general well-being, it was full of\nconsolation.\n\nThe second fact, or class of facts, in which they might recognise the\ngracious care of God was this,--That the unjust judges and wealthy\nrapacious \"lords\" who oppressed them had very much less satisfaction\nin their fraudulent gains than they might suppose. God had so made men\nthat injustice and selfishness defeated their own ends, and those who\nlived for wealth, and would do evil to acquire it, made but a poor\nbargain after all. \"He that _loveth_ silver is never satisfied with\nsilver, nor he that _clings_ to wealth with what it yields\" (ver. 10).\n\"When riches increase, they increase that consume them\"--dependents,\nparasites, slaves, flock around the man who rises to wealth and place.\nHe cannot eat and drink more, or enjoy more, than when he was a man\nsimply well-to-do in the world; the only advantage he has is that he\nsees others consume what he has acquired at so great a cost (ver.\n11).[35] He cannot know the sweet refreshing sleep of husbandmen\nweary with toil (ver. 12), for his heart is full of care and\napprehension. Robbers may drive off his flocks, or \"lift\" his cattle;\nhis investments may fail, or his secret hoard be plundered; he must\ntrust much to servants, and they may be unfaithful to their trust; his\nofficial superiors may ruin him with the bribes they extort, or the\nprince himself may want a sponge to squeeze. If none of these evils\nbefall him, he may apprehend, and have cause to apprehend, that his\nheir longs for his death, and will prove little better than a fool,\nwasting in wanton riot what _he_ has amassed with much painful toil\n(vv. 13, 14). And, in any event, he cannot take his wealth with him on\nhis last journey (vv. 15, 16). So that, naturally enough, he is much\nperturbed, and \"hath great vexation and grief\" (ver. 17), cannot sleep\nfor his apprehensive care for his \"abundance;\" and at last must go out\nof the world as bare and unprovided as he came into it.[36] He\n\"labours for the wind,\" and reaps what he has sown. Was such a life,\nmounting to such a close, a thing to long for and toil for? Was it\nworth while to hurl oneself against the adamantine laws of Heaven and\nrisk the oppressions of earth, to injure one's neighbours, to sink\ninto an insincere and distracted worship and a weakening distrust of\nthe providence of God, in order to spend anxious toilsome days and\nsleepless nights, and at last to go out of the world naked of all but\nguilt, and rich in nothing but the memory of frauds and wrongs? Might\nnot even a captive or a slave, whose sleep was sweetened by toil, and\nwho, from his trust in God and the sacred delights of honest worship,\ngathered strength to endure all the oppressions of the time, and to\nenjoy whatever alleviations and innocent pleasures were vouchsafed\nhim--might not even he be a wiser, happier man than the despot at\nwhose caprice he stood?\n\n  [35] Ginsburg quotes a capital illustration of this verse from the\n  dialogue of Pheraulas and Sacian (Xenophon, _Cyrop._, viii. 3); \"Do\n  you think, Sacian, that I live with more pleasure the more I\n  possess?... By having this abundance I gain merely this, that I have\n  to guard more, to distribute to others, and have the trouble of taking\n  care of more; for a great many attendants now demand of me their food,\n  their drink, and their clothes. Whosoever, therefore, is greatly\n  pleased with the possession of riches will, be assured, feel much\n  annoyed at the expenditure of them.\"\n\n  [36] Compare Psalm xlix., vv. 16, 17:\n\n          Be not afraid though one be made rich,\n          Or if the glory of his house be increased;\n    _For he shall carry away nothing with him when he dieth\n          Neither shall his pomp follow him_.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _The Conclusion._ Ch. v., vv. 18-20.]\n\nFor himself Coheleth has a very decided opinion on this point. He is\nquite sure that his first conclusion is sound, though for a moment he\nhad questioned its soundness, and that a quiet, cheerful, and obedient\nheart is greater riches than the wealthiest estate. With all the\nemphasis of renewed and now immovable conviction he declares,\n\nBehold, that which I have said holds good; it is well for a man to\neat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labours through the\nbrief day of his life. And I have also said--and this too is\ntrue--that a man to whom God hath given riches and wealth--for even a\nrich man may be a good man and use his wealth wisely--if He hath also\nenabled him to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in\nhis labour--this too is a most Divine gift. He does not fret over the\nbrevity of his life; it is not much, or often, or sadly in his\nthoughts: for he knows that the joy his heart takes in the toils and\npleasures of life is approved by God, or even, as the phrase seems to\nmean, corresponds in some measure with the joy of God Himself; that\nhis tranquil enjoyment is a reflection of the Divine peace.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nII.[37] There are not many Englishmen who devote themselves solely or\nmainly to the acquisition of Wisdom, and who, that they may teach the\nchildren of men that which is good, live laborious days, withdrawing\nfrom the general pursuit of wealth and scorning the lures of ease and\nself-indulgence; such men, indeed, are but a small minority in any age\nor land. Nor do those who give themselves exclusively to the pursuit\nof Pleasure constitute more than a small and miserable class, though\nmost of us have wasted on it days that we could ill spare. But when\nthe Hebrew Preacher, having followed his quest of the supreme Good in\nPleasure and Wisdom, turns to the affairs of Business--and I use that\nterm as including both commerce and politics--he enters a field of\naction and inquiry with which we are nearly all familiar, and can\nhardly fail to speak words which will touch us close home. For,\nwhatever else we may or may not be, we are most of us among the\nworshippers of the great god Traffic--a god whose wholesome, benignant\nface too often lowers and darkens, or ever we are aware, into the\nsordid and malignant features of Mammon.\n\n  [37] In commenting on Sections II. and III. of this Book I found that\n  both the exposition of the sacred text and the application of its\n  lessons to the details of modern life would gain in force by being\n  handled separately. The second part of each of these chapters consists\n  mainly, therefore, of an exhortation based on the previous exposition,\n  the marginal notes indicating the passages of Holy Writ on which these\n  exhortations are based.\n\nNow in dealing with this broad and momentous province of human life\nthe Preacher exhibits the candour and the temperance which marked his\ntreatment of Wisdom and Mirth. Just as he would not suffer us to think\nof Wisdom as in itself an evil, nor of Pleasure as an evil, so neither\nwill he allow us to think of Business as essentially and of necessity\nan evil. This, like those, may be abused to our hurt; but none the\nless they may all be used, and were meant to be used, for our own and\nour neighbours' good. Pursued in the right method, from the right\nmotive, with the due moderation and reserve, Business, as he is\ncareful to point out, besides bringing other great advantages, may be\na new bond of union and brotherhood: it develops intercourse among men\nand races of men, and should develop sympathy, goodwill, and a mutual\nhelpfulness. Nevertheless, thrift may degenerate into miserliness, and\nthe honest industry of content into a dishonest eagerness for undue\ngains, and a wise attention to business into an excessive devotion to\nit. These degenerate tendencies had struck their roots deep into the\nHebrew mind of his day, and brought forth many bitter fruits. The\nPreacher describes and denounces them; he lays an axe to the very\nroots of these evil growths: but it is only that he may clear a space\nfor the fairer and more wholesome growths which sprang beside them,\nand of which they were the wild bastard offshoots.\n\nThroughout this second section of the Book, his subject is excessive\ndevotion to Business, and the correctives to it which his experience\nenables him to suggest.\n\n1. His handling of the subject is very thorough and complete. Men of\nbusiness might do worse than get the lessons he here teaches by heart.\nAccording to him, their excessive devotion to affairs springs from a\n\"jealous rivalry\"; it tends to form in them a grasping covetous\ntemper which can never be satisfied, to produce a materialistic\nscepticism of all that is noble, spiritual, aspiring in thought and\naction, to render their worship formal and insincere, and, in general,\nto incapacitate them for any quiet happy enjoyment of their life. This\nis his diagnosis of their disease, or of that diseased tendency which,\nif it be for the most part latent in them, always threatens to become\npronounced and to infect all healthy conditions of the soul.\n\n[Sidenote: _Devotion to Business springs from Jealous Competition_:\nCh. iv., v. 4.[38]]\n\n  [38] Coheleth's description is so true and pertinent, it hits so many\n  of our modern faults and sins, that I am obliged to cite my authority\n  for every paragraph lest I should be suspected of putting a private\n  and personal interpretation on these ancient words.\n\n(_a_) Let us glance once more at the several symptoms we have already\nheard him discuss, and consider whether or not they accord with the\nresults of our own observation and experience. Is it true, then--or,\nrather, is it not true--that our devotion to business is becoming\nexcessive and exhausting, and that this devotion springs mainly from\nour jealous rivalry and competition with each other? If, some two or\nthree and twenty centuries ago, the Jews were bent every man on\noutdoing and outselling his neighbour; if his main ambition was to\namass greater wealth or to secure a larger business than his\ncompetitors, or to make a handsomer show before the world; if in the\nurgent pursuit of this ambition he held his neighbours not as\nneighbours, but as unscrupulous rivals, keen for gain at his expense\nand to rise by his fall; if, to reach his end, he was willing to get\nup early and go late to rest, to force all his energies into an\ninjurious activity and strain them close to the snapping-point: if\nthis were what a Jew of that time was like, might you not easily take\nit for a portrait of many an English merchant, manufacturer, lawyer,\nor politician? Is it not as accurate a delineation of our life as it\ncould be of any ancient form of life? If it be, as I think it is, we\nhave grave need to take the Preacher's warning. We gravely need to\nremember that the stream cannot rise above its source, nor the fruit\nbe better than the root from which it grows; that the business ardour\nwhich has its origin in a base and selfish motive can only be a base\nand selfish ardour. When men gather grapes from thorns and figs from\nthistles, then, but not before, we may look to find a satisfying good\nin \"all the toil and all the dexterity in toil\" which spring from this\n\"jealous rivalry of the one with the other.\"\n\n[Sidenote: _It tends to form a Covetous Temper_: Ch. iv., v. 8.]\n\n(_b_) Nor, in the face of facts patent to the most cursory observer,\ncan we deny that this eager and excessive devotion to the successful\nconduct of business tends to produce a grasping, covetous temper\nwhich, however much it has gained, is for ever seeking more. It is not\nonly true that the stream cannot rise above its source; it is also\ntrue that the stream _will_ run downward, and must inevitably contract\nmany pollutions from the lower levels on which it declines. The ardour\nwhich impels men to devote themselves with eager intensity to the\nlabours of the Market may often have an origin as pure as that of the\nstream which bubbles up on the hills, amid grass and ferns, and runs\ntinkling along its clear rocky channels, setting its labour to a happy\nmusic, singing its low sweet song to the sweet listening air. But as\nit runs on, if it swell in volume and power, it also _sinks_ and grows\nfoul. Bent at first on acquiring the means to support a widowed\nmother, or to justify him in taking a wife, or to provide for his\nchildren, or to win an honourable place in his neighbours' eyes, or to\nachieve the chance of self-culture and self-development, or to serve\nsome public and worthy end, the man of business and affairs too often\nsuffers himself to become more and more absorbed in his pursuits. He\nconceives larger schemes, is drawn into more perilous enterprises, and\nadvances through these to fresh openings and opportunities, until at\nlast, long after his original ends are compassed and forgotten, he\nfinds himself possessed by the mere craving to extend his labours,\nresources, influence, if not by the mere craving to amass--a craving\nwhich often \"teareth\" and \"tormenteth\" him, but which can only be\nexorcised by an exertion of spiritual force which would leave him\nhalf dead. \"He has no one with him, not even a son or a brother;\" the\ndear mother or wife is long since dead; his children, to use his own\ndetestable phrase, are \"off his hands\"; the public good has slipped\nfrom his memory and aims: but still \"there is no end to all his\nlabours, neither are his eyes satisfied with riches.\" Coheleth speaks\nof one such man: alas, of how many such might we speak!\n\n[Sidenote: _To produce a Materialistic Scepticism_; Ch. iii., vv.\n18-21.]\n\n(_c_) The \"speculation\" in the eye of business men is not commonly of\na philosophic cast, and therefore we do not look to find them\n_arguing_ themselves into the materialism which infected the Hebrew\nPreacher as he contemplated them and their blind devotion to their\nidol. They are far, perhaps very far, from thinking that in body and\nspirit, in origin and end, man is no better than the beast, a creature\nof the same accident and subject to \"the same chance.\" But though they\ndo not reason out a conclusion so sombre and depressing, do they not\npractically acquiesce in it? If it is far from their thoughts, do they\nnot _live_ in its close neighbourhood? Their mind, like the dyer's\nhand, is subdued to that it works in. Accustomed to think mainly of\nmaterial interests, their character is materialised. They are disposed\nto weigh all things--truth, righteousness, the motives and aims of\nnobler men--in the scales of the market, and can very hardly believe\nthat they should attach any grave value to ought which will not lend\nitself to their coarse handling. In their judgment, mental culture, or\nthe graces of moral character, or single-hearted devotion to lofty\nends, are not worthy to be compared with a full purse or large\npossessions. They regard as little better than a fool, of whom it is\nvery kind of them to take a little care, the man who has thrown away\nwhat they call \"his chances,\" in order that he may learn wisdom or do\ngood. Giving, perhaps, a cheerful and unforced accord to the current\nmoral maxims and popular creed, they permit neither to rule their\nconduct. If they do not say, \"Man is no better than a beast,\" they\ncarry themselves as if he were no better, as though he had no\ninstincts or interests above those of the thrifty ant, or the cunning\nbeaver, or the military locust, or insatiable leech--although they are\nboth surprised and affronted when one is at the pains to translate\ntheir deeds into words. Judged by their deeds, they _are_ sceptics and\nmaterialists, since they have no vital faith in that which is\nspiritual and unseen. They have found \"the life of their hands,\" and\nthey are content with it. Give them whatever furnishes the senses,\nwhatever in them holds by sense, and they will cheerfully let all else\ngo. But such a materialism as this is far more injurious, far more\nlikely to be fatal, than that which reflects, and argues, and utters\nitself in words, and refutes itself by the very powers which it\nemploys. With them the malady has struck inward, and is beyond the\nreach of cure save by the most searching and drastic remedies.\n\n[Sidenote: _To make Worship Formal and Insincere_; Ch. v., vv. 1-7.]\n\n(_d_) But now if, like Coheleth, we follow these men to the Temple,\nwhat is the scene that meets our eye? In the English Temple, I fear,\nthat which would first strike an unaccustomed observer would be the\nfact that very few men of business are there. They are \"conspicuous by\ntheir absence,\" or, at best, noted for an only occasional attendance.\nThe Hebrew Temple was crowded with men; in the English Temple it is\nthe other sex which predominates. But glance at the men who are there?\nDo you detect no signs of weariness and perfunctoriness? Do you hear\nno vows which will never be paid, and which they do not intend to pay\neven when they make them? no prayers which go beyond any honest and\ncandid expression of their desires? Do you not feel and know that many\nof them are making an unwilling sacrifice to the decencies and the\nproprieties, instead of worshipping God the Spirit in spirit and\nnerving themselves for the difficulties of obedience to the Divine\nlaw? Listen: they are saying, \"Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we\nbless Thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of\nthis life; but _above all_ for Thine inestimable love in the\nredemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of\ngrace, and for the hope of glory.\" But _are_ these ineffable spiritual\nbenefits \"above all\" else to them? Do they care for \"the means of\ngrace\" as much even as for the state of the market, or for \"the hope\nof glory\" as much as for success or promotion? Which is most in their\nthoughts, their lives, their aspirations, for which will they take\nmost pains and make most sacrifices--for what _they_ mean by the\nbeautiful phrase \"all the blessings of this life,\" or for that sacred\nand crowning act of the Divine Mercy, \"the redemption,\" in which God\nhas once for all revealed his fatherly forgiving love?\n\nWhat is it that makes their worship formal and insincere? It is the\nvery cause which, as the Preacher tells us, produced the like evil\neffect upon the Jews. They come into the Temple with pre-occupied\nhearts. Their thoughts are distracted by the cares of life even as\nthey bend in worship. And hence even the most sacred words turn to\n\"idle talk\" on their lips, as remote from the true feeling of the\nmoment as \"the multitude of dreams\" which haunt the night; they utter\nfervent prayers without any due sense of their meaning, or any hearty\nwish to have them granted.\n\n[Sidenote: _And to take from Life its Quiet and Innocent Enjoyments._\nCh. v., vv. 10-17.]\n\n(_e_) Now surely a life so thick with perils, so beset with\ntemptations, should have a very large and certain reward to offer. But\nhas it? For one, Coheleth thinks it has not. In his judgment,\naccording to his experience, instead of making a man happier even in\nthis present time, to which it limits his thoughts and aims, it robs\nhim of all quiet and happy enjoyment of his life. And, mark, it is not\nthe unsuccessful man of business, who might naturally feel sore and\naggrieved, but the successful man, the man who has made a fortune and\nprospered in his schemes, whom the Preacher describes as having lost\nall faculty of enjoying his gains. Even the man who has wealth and\nabundance, so that his soul lacketh nothing of all that he desireth,\nis placed before us as the slave of unsatisfied desire and constant\napprehension. Both his hands are so full of labour that he cannot lay\nhold on quiet. Though he loves silver so well, and has so much of it,\nhe is not satisfied therewith; his riches yield him no certain and\nabiding delight. And how can he be in \"happy plight\" who is\n\n                \"debarred the benefit of rest?\n  When day's oppression is not eased by night,\n  But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd?\n  And each, though enemies to either's reign,\n  Do in consent shake hands to torture him.\"\n\nThe sound sleep of humble contented labour is denied him. He is\nhaunted by perpetual apprehensions that \"there is some ill a-brewing\nto his rest,\" that evil in some dreaded shape will befall him. He\ndoubts \"the filching age will steal his treasure.\" He knows that when\nhe is called hence he can carry away nothing in his hand; all his\ngains must be left to his heir, who may either turn out a wanton fool\nor be crushed and degraded by the burden and temptations of a wealth\nfor which he has not laboured. And hence, amid all his toils and\ngains, even the most prosperous and successful man suspects that he\nhas been \"labouring for the wind\" and may reap the whirlwind: \"he is\nmuch perturbed, and hath vexation and grief.\"\n\n_Is_ the picture overdrawn? Is not the description as true to modern\nexperience as to that of \"the antique world\"? Shakespeare, who is our\ngreat English authority on the facts of human experience, thought it\nquite as true. His Merchant of Venice has argosies on every sea; and\ntwo of his friends, hearing him confess that sadness makes such a\nwant-wit of him that he has much ado to know himself, tell him that\nhis \"mind is tossing on the ocean\" with his ships. They proceed to\ndiscuss the natural effects of having so many enterprises on hand. One\nsays--\n\n    \"Believe me, Sir, had I such venture forth,\n  The better part of my affections would\n  Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still\n  Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind;\n  Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;\n  And every object that might make me fear\n  Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt\n  Would make me sad.\"\n\nAnd the other adds--\n\n              \"My wind, cooling my broth,\n  Would blow me to an ague, when I thought\n  What harm a wind too great at sea might do.\n  I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,\n  But I should think of shallows and of flats,\n  And see my wealthy Andrew, dock'd in sand,\n  Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs\n  To kiss her burial. Should I go to church\n  And see the holy edifice of stone,\n  And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,\n  Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side,\n  Would scatter all her spices in the stream;\n  Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks:\n  And, in a word, but even now worth this,\n  And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought\n  To think on this; and shall I lack the thought\n  That such a thing bechanced would make me sad?\"\n\n\"Abundance suffereth not the rich to sleep;\" the thought that his\n\"riches may perish in some unlucky adventure\" rings a perpetual alarum\nin his ears: \"all his days he eateth in darkness, and is much\nperturbed, and hath vexation and grief.\" These are the words of the\nHebrew Preacher: are not our own great poet's words an expressive\ncommentary on them, an absolute confirmation of them, covering them\npoint by point? And shall we envy the wealthy merchant whose two hands\nare thus \"full of labour and vexation of spirit\"? Is not \"the\nhusbandman whose sleep is sweet, whether he eat little or much,\"\nbetter off than he? Nay, has not even the sluggard who, so long as he\nhath meat, foldeth his hands in quiet, a truer enjoyment of his life?\n\nOf course Coheleth does not mean to imply that every man of business\ndegenerates into a miserly sceptic, whose worship is a formulated\nhypocrisy and whose life is haunted with saddening apprehensions of\nmisfortune. No doubt there were then, as there are now, many men of\nbusiness who were wise enough to \"take pleasure in all their labours,\"\nto cast their burden of care on Him in whose care stand both to-morrow\nand to-day; men to whom worship was a calming and strengthening\ncommunion with the Father of their spirits, and who advanced, through\ntoil, to worthy or even noble ends. He means simply that these are the\nperils to which all men of business are exposed, and into which they\nfall so soon as their devotion to its affairs grows excessive. \"Make\nbusiness, and success in business, your chief good, your ruling aim,\nand you will come to think of your neighbours as selfish rivals; you\nwill begin to look askance on the lofty spiritual qualities which\nrefuse to bow to the yoke of Mammon; your worship will sink into an\ninsincere formalism; your life will be vexed and saddened with fears\nwhich will strangle the very faculty of tranquil enjoyment:\" this is\nthe warning of the Preacher; a warning of which our generation, in\nsuch urgent sinful haste to be rich, stands in very special need.\n\n2. But what checks, what correctives, what remedies, would the\nPreacher have us apply to the diseased tendencies of the time? How\nshall men of business save themselves from being absorbed in its\ninterests and affairs?\n\n[Sidenote: _The Correctives of this Devotion are a Sense of its\nPerils_; Ch. v., vv. 10-17.]\n\n(_a_) Well, the very sense of the danger to which they are exposed--a\ndanger so insidious, so profound, so fatal--should surely induce\ncaution and a wary self-control. The symptoms of the disease are\ndescribed that we may judge whether or not we are infected by it; its\ndreadful issues that, if infected, we may study a cure. The man who\nloves riches is placed before us that we may learn what he is really\nlike--that he is not the careless happy being we often assume him to\nbe. We see him decline on the low bare levels of covetousness and\nmaterialism, hypocrisy and fear; and, as we look, the Preacher turns\nupon us with, \"There, _that_ is the slave of Mammon in his habit as he\nlives. Do you care to be like that? Will you break your heart unless\nyou are allowed to assume his heavy and degrading burden?\"\n\n[Sidenote: _And the Conviction that it is opposed to the Will of God\nas expressed in the Ordinances of his Providence_, Ch. iii., vv. 1-8.]\n\nThis is one help to a wise content with our lot; but he has many more\nat our service, and notably this,--that an undue devotion to the toils\nof business is contrary to the will, the design, the providence of\nGod. God, he argues, has fixed a time for every undertaking under\nheaven, and has made each of them beautiful in its season, but only\nthen. By his wise kindly ordinances He has sought to divert us from an\ninjurious excess in toil. Our sowing and our reaping, our time of rest\nand our time for work, the time to save and the time to spend, the\ntime to gain and the time to lose,--all these, with all the\nfluctuating feelings they excite in us: in short, our whole life, from\nthe cradle to the grave, is under, or should be under, law to Him. It\nis only when we violate his gracious ordinances,--working when we\nshould be at rest, waking when we should sleep, saving when we should\nspend, weeping over losses which are real gains, or laughing over\ngains which will prove to be losses--that we run into excess, and\nbreak up the peaceful order and tranquil flow of the life which He\ndesigned for us.\n\n[Sidenote: _In the Wrongs which He permits Men to inflict upon us_;\nCh. iii., v. 16-Ch. iv., v. 3.]\n\nBecause we will not be obsequious to the ordinances of his wisdom, He\npermits us to meet a new check in the caprice and injustice of\nman--making even these to praise Him by subserving our good. If we do\nnot suffer the violent oppressions which drew tears from the\nPreacher's fellow-captives, we nevertheless stand very much at the\nmercy of our neighbours in so far as our outward haps are concerned.\nUnwise human laws or an unjust administration of them, or the selfish\nrapacity of individual men--brokers who rig the market; bankers whose\nlong prayers are a pretence under cloak of which they rob widows and\norphans, and sometimes _make_ them; bankrupts for whose wounds the\nGazette has a singular power of healing, since they come out of it\n\"sounder\" men than they went in: these are only some of the\ninstruments by which the labours of the diligent are shorn of their\ndue reward. And we are to take these checks as correctives, to find in\nthe losses which men inflict the gifts of a gracious God. He permits\nus to suffer these and the like disasters lest our hearts should be\novermuch set on getting gain. He graciously permits us to suffer them\nthat, seeing how often the wicked thrive (in a way and for a time) on\nthe decay of the upright, we may learn that there is something better\nthan wealth, more enduring, more satisfying, and may seek that higher\ngood.\n\n[Sidenote: _But above all, in the immortal Cravings which He has\nquickened in the Soul._ Ch. iii., v. 11.]\n\nNay, going to the very root of the matter and expounding its whole\nphilosophy, the Preacher teaches us that wealth, however great and\ngreatly used, _cannot_ satisfy men, since God has \"_put eternity into\ntheir hearts_\" as well as time: and how should all the kingdoms of a\nworld that must soon pass content those who are to live for ever?[39]\nThis saying, \"God has put _eternity_ into their hearts,\" is one of the\nmost profound in the whole Book, and one of the most beautiful and\nsuggestive. What it means is that, even if a man would confine his\naims and desires within \"the bounds and coasts of Time,\" he cannot do\nit. The very structure of his nature forbids it. For time, with all\nthat it inherits, sweeps by him like a torrent, so that, if he would\nsecure any lasting good, he _must_ lay hold of that which is eternal.\nWe may well call this world, for all so solid as it looks, \"a\nperishing world;\" for, like our own bodies, it is in a perpetual flux,\nperishing every moment that it may live a little longer, and must\nsoon come to an end. But we, in our true selves, we who dwell inside\nthe body and use its members as the workman uses his tools, how can we\nfind a satisfying good whether in the body or in the world which is\nakin to it? _We_ want a good as lasting as ourselves. Nothing short of\nthat can be our chief good, or inspire us with a true content.\n\n  [39] M. de Lamennais--the founder of the most religious school of\n  thinkers in modern France, from whom such men as Count Montalembert,\n  P\u00e8re Lacordaire, and Maurice Gu\u00e9rin, drew their earliest\n  inspiration--asks, \"Do you know what it is that makes man the most\n  suffering of all creatures?\" and replies, \"It is that _he has one foot\n  in the finite and the other in the infinite, and that he is torn\n  asunder_, not by four horses, as in the horrible old times, but\n  _between two worlds_.\"\n\n  \"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,\n    So do our minutes hasten to their end;\n  Each changing place with that which goes before,\n    In sequent toil all forwards do contend:\"\n\nand we might as well think to build a stable habitation on the waves\nwhich break upon the pebbled shore as to find an enduring good in the\nsequent minutes which carry us down the stream of time. It is only\nbecause we do not understand this \"work of God\" in putting eternity\ninto our hearts and therefore making it impossible for us to be\ncontent with anything less than an eternal good; it is because,\nplunged in the flesh and its cares and delights, we forget the\ngrandeur of our nature, and are tempted to sell our immortal\nbirthright for a mess of pottage which, however much we enjoy it\nto-day, will leave us hungry to-morrow: it is only, I say, because we\nfail to understand this work of God \"from beginning to end,\" that we\never delude ourselves with the hope of finding in ought the earth\nyields a good in which we can rest.\n\n[Sidenote: _Practical Maxims deduced from this View of the\nBusiness-life._]\n\n(_b_) A noble philosophy this, and pregnant with practical counsels of\ngreat value. For if, as we close our study of this Section of the\nBook, we ask, \"What good advice does the Preacher offer that we can\ntake and act upon?\" we shall find that he gives us at least three\nserviceable maxims.\n\n[Sidenote: _A Maxim on Co-operation._ Ch. iv., vv. 9-16.]\n\nTo all men of business conscious of their special dangers and anxious\nto avoid them, he says, first: Replace the competition which springs\nfrom your jealous and selfish rivalry, with the co-operation which is\nborn of sympathy and breeds goodwill. \"Two are better than one. Union\nis better than isolation. Conjoint labour has the greater reward.\"\nInstead of seeking to take advantage of your neighbours, try to help\nthem. Instead of standing alone, associate with your fellows. Instead\nof aiming at purely selfish ends, pursue your ends in common. Indeed\nthe wise Hebrew Preacher anticipates the golden rule to a remarkable\nextent, and, in effect, bids us love our neighbour as ourself, look on\nhis things as well as our own, and do to all men as we would that they\nshould do to us.\n\n[Sidenote: _A Maxim on Worship._ Ch. v., vv. 1-7.]\n\nHis second maxim is: Replace the formality of your worship with a\nreverent and steadfast sincerity. Keep your foot when you go to the\nHouse of God. Put obedience before sacrifice. Do not hurry on your\nmouth to the utterance of words which transcend the desires of your\nheart. Be not of those who\n\n                \"words for virtue take,\n  As though mere wood a shrine would make.\"[40]\n\n  [40] Horace, _Ep._ 6, Lib. I:\n\n            \"Virtutem verba putant, ut\n    Lucum ligna.\"\n\nDo not come into the Temple with a pre-occupied spirit, a spirit\ndistracted with thoughts that travel different ways. Realise the\npresence of the Great King, and speak to Him with the reverence due to\na King. Keep the vows you have made in his House after you have left\nit. Seek and serve Him with all your hearts, and ye shall find rest to\nyour souls.\n\n[Sidenote: _A Maxim on Trust in God._ Ch. v., vv. 8-17.]\n\nAnd his last maxim is: Replace your grasping self-sufficiency with a\nconstant trust in the fatherly providence of God. If you see\noppression or suffer wrong, if your schemes are thwarted and your\nenterprises fail, you need not therefore lose the quiet repose and\nsettled peace which spring from a sense of duty discharged and the\nundisturbed possession of the main good of life. God is over all, and\nrules all the undertakings of man, giving each its season and place,\nand causing all to work together for the good of the loving and\ntrustful heart. Trust in Him, and you shall feel, even though you\ncannot prove,\n\n  \"That every cloud that spreads above,\n  And veileth love, itself is love.\"\n\nTrust in Him, and you shall find that\n\n  \"The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good,\n  The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill\n  And all good things from evil,\"\n\nas they strike on the great horologe of Time, are set to a growing\nmusic by the hand of God; a music which rises and falls as we listen,\nbut which nevertheless swells through all its saddest cadences and\ndying falls toward that harmonious close, that \"undisturbed concent,\"\nin which all discords will be drowned.\n\n\n\n\nTHIRD SECTION.\n\n_THE QUEST OF THE CHIEF GOOD IN WEALTH, AND IN THE GOLDEN MEAN._\n\nCHAPS. VI., VII., AND VIII., VV. 1-15.\n\n\nIn the foregoing Section Coheleth has shown that the Chief Good is not\nto be found in that Devotion to the affairs of Business which was, and\nstill is, characteristic of the Hebrew race. This devotion is commonly\ninspired either by the desire to amass great wealth, for the sake of\nthe status, influence, and means of lavish enjoyment it is assumed to\nconfer; or by the more modest desire to secure a competence, to stand\nin that golden mean of comfort which is darkened by no harassing fears\nof future penury or need. By a logical sequence of thought, therefore,\nhe advances from his discussion on Devotion to Business, to consider\nthe leading motives by which it is inspired. The questions he now asks\nand answers are, in effect, (1) Will Wealth confer the good, the\ntranquil and enduring satisfaction which men seek? And if not, (2)\nWill that moderate provision for the present and for the future to\nwhich the more prudent restrict their aim?\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest in Wealth._ Ch. vi.]\n\nHis discussion of the first of these questions, although very\nmatterful, is comparatively brief; in part, perhaps, because in the\nprevious Section he has already dwelt on many of the drawbacks which\naccompany wealth; and still more, probably, because, while there are\nbut few men in any age to whom great wealth is possible, there would\nbe unusually few in the company of poor men for whose instruction he\nwrote. Brief and simple as the discussion is, however, we shall\nmisapprehend it unless we bear in mind that Coheleth is arguing, not\nagainst wealth, but against mistaking wealth for the Chief Good.\n\n[Sidenote: _The Man who makes Riches his Chief Good is haunted by\nFears and Perplexities_: Ch. vi., vv. 1-6.]\n\nLet us observe, then, that throughout this sixth Chapter the Preacher\nis dealing with the _lover_ of riches, not with the rich man; that he\nis speaking, not against wealth, but against mistaking wealth for the\nChief Good. The man who _trusts_ in riches is placed before us; and,\nthat we may see him at his best, he has the riches in which he trusts.\nGod has given him \"his good things,\" given him them to the full. He\nlacks nothing that he desireth--nothing at least that wealth can\ncommand. Yet, because he does not accept his abundance as the gift of\nGod, and hold the Giver better than the gift, he cannot enjoy it. But\nhow do we know that he has suffered his riches to take an undue place\nin his regard? We know it by this sure token--that he cannot leave God\nto take care of them, and of him. He frets about them, and about what\nwill become of them when he is gone. He has no son, perchance, to\ninherit them, no child, only some \"stranger\" whom he has adopted (ver.\n2)--and almost all childless Orientals adopt strangers to this day, as\nwe have found, to our cost, in India. A profound horror at the thought\nof being dead to name and fame and use through lack of heirs was, and\nis, very prevalent in the East. Even faithful Abraham, when God had\npromised him the supreme good, broke out with the remonstrance, \"What\ncanst Thou give me when I am going off childless, and have no heir but\nmy body-servant, Eliezer of Damascus?\" Because this feeling lay close\nto the Oriental heart, the Preacher is at some pains to show what a\n\"vanity\" it is. He argues: \"Even if you should beget a hundred\nchildren, instead of being childless; even though you should live a\nthousand years, and the grave did not wait for you instead of lying\nclose before you: yet, so long as you were not content to leave your\nriches in the hands of God, you would fret and perplex yourself with\nfears. An abortion would be better off than you, although it cometh in\nnothingness and goeth in darkness; for it would know a rest denied to\nyou, and sink without apprehension into the 'place' from which all\nyour apprehensions cannot save you (vv. 3-6). Foolish man! it is not\nbecause you lack an heir that you are perturbed in spirit. If you had\none, you would find some other cause for care; you would be none the\nless fretted and perturbed; for you would still be thinking of your\nriches rather than of the God who gave them, and still dread the\nmoment in which you must part with them, in order to return to Him.\"\n\n[Sidenote: _For God has put Eternity into his Heart_; Ch. vi., vv.\n7-10.]\n\nFrom this plain practical argument Coheleth passes to an argument of\nmore philosophic reach. \"All the labour of this man is _for his\nmouth_:\" that is to say, his wealth, with all that it commands,\nappeals only to sense and appetite; it feeds \"the lust of the eye, or\nthe lust of the flesh, or the pride of life,\" and therefore \"his\n_soul_ cannot be satisfied therewith\" (ver. 7). _That_ craves a higher\nnutriment, a more enduring good. God has put eternity into it: and how\ncan that which is immortal be contented with the lucky haps and\ncomfortable conditions of time? Unless some immortal provision be made\nfor the immortal spirit, it will pine, and protest, and crave, till\nall power of happily enjoying outward good be lost. Nay, if the spirit\nin man be craving and unfed, whatever his outward conditions, or his\nfaculty for enjoying them, he cannot be at rest. The wise man may be\nable to extract from the gains of time a pleasure denied to the fool;\nand the poor man, his penury preventing him from indulging passion\nand appetite to satiety, may have a keener enjoyment of them than the\nmagnate who has tried them to the full and has grown weary of them. In\na certain sense, as compared the one with the other, the poor man may\nhave an \"advantage\" over the rich, and the wise man over the fool; for\n\"it is better to enjoy the good we have than to crave a good beyond\nour reach;\" and this much the wise man, or even the poor man, may\nachieve. Yet, after all, what advantage have they? The thirst of the\nsoul is still unslaked; no sensual or sensuous enjoyment can satisfy\nthat. All human action and enjoyment is under law to God. No one is so\nwise, or so strong, as to contend successfully against Him or his\nordinances. And it is He who has given men an immortal nature, with\ncravings that wander through eternity; it is He who has ordained that\nthey shall know no rest until they rest in Him (vv. 8-10).\n\n[Sidenote: _And much that he gains only feeds Vanity_; Ch. vi., v.\n11.]\n\nLook once more at your means and possessions. Multiply them as you\nwill. Still there are many reasons why if you seek your chief good in\nthem, they should prove vanity and breed vexation of spirit. One is,\nthat beyond a certain point you can neither use nor enjoy them. They\nadd to your pomp. They enable you to fill a larger place in the\nworld's eye. They swell and magnify the vain show in which you walk.\nBut, after all, they add to your discomfort rather than your comfort.\nYou have so much the more to manage, and look after, and take care of:\nbut you yourself, instead of being better off than you were, have only\ntaken a heavier task on your hands. And what advantage is there in\nthat?\n\n[Sidenote: _Neither can he tell what it will be good for him to have_,\nCh. vi., v. 12.]\n\nAnother reason is, that it is hard, so hard as to be impossible, for\nyou to know \"what it is good\" for you to have. That on which you have\nset your heart may prove to be an evil rather than a good when at last\nyou get it. The fair fruit, so pleasant and desirable to the eye that,\nto posses it, you were content to labour and deny yourself for years,\nmay turn to an apple of Sodom in your mouth, and yield you, in place\nof sweet pulp and juice, only the bitter ashes of disappointment.\n\n[Sidenote: _Nor foresee what will become of his Gains._ Ch. vi., v.\n12.]\n\nAnd a third reason is, that the more you acquire the more you must\ndispose of when you are called away from this life: and who can tell\nwhat shall be after him? How are you so to dispose of your gains as to\nbe sure that they will do good and not harm, and carry comfort to the\nhearts of those whom you love, and not breed envy, alienation, and\nstrife?\n\nThese are the Preacher's arguments against an undue love of riches,\nagainst making them so dear a good that we can neither enjoy them\nwhile we have them, nor trust them to the disposal of God when we must\nleave them behind us. Are they not sound arguments? Should we be\nsaddened by them, or comforted? We can only be saddened by them if we\nlove wealth, or long for it, with an inordinate desire. If we can\ntrust in God to give us all that it will be really good for us to have\nin return for our honest toil, the arguments of the Preacher are full\nof comfort and hope for us, whether we be rich or whether we be poor.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest in the Golden Mean._ Ch. vii., viii., vv. 1-15.]\n\nThere be many that say, \"Who will show us any gold?\" mistaking gold\nfor their god or good. For though there can be few in any age to whom\ngreat wealth is possible, there are many who crave it and believe that\nto have it is to possess the supreme felicity. It is not only the rich\nwho \"_trust_ in riches.\" As a rule, perhaps, they trust in them less\nthan the poor, since they have tried them, and know pretty exactly\nboth how much, and how little, they can do. It is those who have not\ntried them, and to whom poverty brings many undeniable hardships, who\nare most sorely tempted to trust in them as the sovereign remedy for\nthe ills of life. So that the counsels of the sixth chapter may have a\nwider scope than we sometimes think they have. But, whether they\napply to many or to few, there can be no doubt that the counsels of\nthe seventh and eighth chapters are applicable to the vast majority of\nmen. For here the Preacher discusses the Golden Mean in which most of\nus would like to stand. Many of us dare not ask for great wealth lest\nit should prove a burden we could very hardly bear; but we have no\nscruple in adopting Agur's prayer, \"Give me neither poverty nor\nriches; Feed me with food proportioned to my need: Let me have a\ncomfortable competence in which I shall be at an equal remove from the\ntemptations whether of extreme wealth or of extreme penury.\"\n\nNow the endeavour to secure a competence may be, not lawful only, but\nmost laudable; since God means us to make the best of the capacities\nHe has given us and the opportunities He sends us. Nevertheless, we\nmay pursue this right end from a wrong motive, in a wrong spirit. Both\nspirit and motive are wrong if we pursue our competence as if it were\na good so great that we can know no content unless we attain it. For\nwhat is it that animates such a pursuit save distrust in the\nprovidence of God? Left in his hands, we do not feel that we should be\nsafe; whereas if we had our fortune in our own hands, and were secured\nagainst chances and changes by a few comfortable securities, we should\nfeel safe enough. This feeling is, surely, very general: we are all\nof us in danger of slipping into this form of unquiet distrust in the\nfatherly providence of God.\n\n[Sidenote: _The Method of the Man who seeks a Competence._ Ch. vii.,\nvv. 1-14.]\n\nBecause the feeling is both general and strong, the Hebrew Preacher\naddresses himself to it at some length. His object now is to place\nbefore us a man who does not aim at great affluence, but, guided by\nprudence and common sense, makes it his ruling aim to stand well with\nhis neighbours and to lay by a moderate provision for future wants.\nThe Preacher opens the discussion by stating the maxims or rules of\nconduct by which such an one would be apt to guide himself. One of his\nfirst aims would be to secure \"a good name,\" since that would\nprepossess men in his favour, and open before him many avenues which\nwould otherwise be closed.[41] Just as one entering a crowded Oriental\nroom with some choice fragrance exhaling from person and apparel would\nfind bright faces turned toward him, and a ready way opened for his\napproach, so the bearer of a good name would find many willing to meet\nhim, and traffic with him, and heed him. As the years passed, his good\nname, if he kept it, would diffuse itself over a wider area with a\nmore pungent effect, so that the day of his death would be better than\nthe his birth--to leave a good name being so much more honourable than\nto inherit one (chap. vii., ver. 1).\n\n  [41] \"There are three crowns; of the law, the priesthood, and the\n  kingship: but the crown of a good name is greater than them\n  all.\"--TALMUD.\n\nBut how would he go about to acquire his good name? Again the answer\ncarries us back to the East. Nothing is more striking to a Western\ntraveller than the dignified gravity of the superior Oriental races.\nIn public they rarely smile, almost never laugh, and hardly ever\nexpress surprise. Cool, courteous, self-possessed, they bear good news\nor bad, prosperous or adverse fortune, with a proud equanimity. This\nequal mind, expressing itself in a grave dignified bearing, is, with\nthem, well-nigh indispensable to success in public life. And,\ntherefore, our friend in quest of a good name betakes himself to the\nhouse of mourning rather than to the house of feasting; he holds that\nserious thought on the end of all men is better than the wanton\nfoolish mirth which crackles like thorns under a kettle, making a\ngreat sputter, but soon going out; and would rather have his heart\nbettered by the reproof of the wise than listen to the song of fools\nover the wine-cup (vv. 2-6). Knowing that he cannot be much with fools\nwithout sharing their folly, fearing that they may lead him into those\nexcesses in which the wisest mind is infatuated and the kindest heart\nhardened and corrupted (ver. 7), he elects rather to walk with a sad\ncountenance, among the wise, to the house of mourning and meditation,\nthan to hurry with fools to the banquet in which wine and song and\nlaughter drown serious reflection, and leave the heart worse than they\nfound it. What though the wise reprove him when he errs? What though,\nas he listens to their reproof, his heart at times grows hot within\nhim? The end of their reproof is better than the beginning (ver. 8);\nas he reflects upon it, he learns from it, profits by it, and by\npatient endurance of it wins a good from it which haughty resentment\nwould have cast away. Unlike the fools, therefore, whose wanton mirth\nturns into bitter anger at the mere sound of reproof, he will not\nsuffer his spirit to be hurried into a hot resentment, but will compel\nthat which injures them to do him good (ver. 9). Nor will he rail even\nat the fools who fleet the passing hour, or account that, because they\nare so many and so bold, \"the time is out of joint.\" He will show\nhimself not only wiser than the foolish, but wiser than many of the\nwise; for while they--and here surely the Preacher hits a very common\nhabit of the studious life--are disposed to look fondly back on some\npast age as greater or happier than that in which they live, and ask,\n\"How is it that former days were better than these?\" he will conclude\nthat the question springs rather from their querulousness than from\ntheir wisdom, and make the best of the time, and of the conditions of\nthe time, in which it has pleased God to place him (ver. 10).\n\nBut if any ask, \"Why has he renounced the pursuit of that wealth on\nwhich many are bent who are less capable of using it than he?\" the\nanswer comes that he has discovered Wisdom to be as good as Wealth,\nand even better. Not only is Wisdom as secure a defence against the\nills of life as Wealth, but it has this great advantage--that \"it\nfortifies or vivifies the heart,\" while wealth often burdens and\nenfeebles it. Wisdom quickens and braces the spirit for any fortune,\ngives it new life or new strength, inspires an inward serenity which\ndoes not lie at the mercy of outward accidents (vv. 11, 12). It\nteaches a man to regard all the conditions of life as ordained and\nshaped by God, and weans him from the vain endeavour, on which many\nexhaust their strength, to straighten that which God has made crooked,\nthat which crosses and thwarts his inclinations (ver. 13); once let\nhim see that the thing is crooked, and was meant to be crooked, and he\nwill accept and adapt himself to it, instead of wearying himself in\nfutile attempts to make, or to think, it straight.\n\nAnd there is one very good reason why God should permit many crooks in\nour lot, very good reason therefore why a wise man should look on them\nwith an equal mind. For God sends the crooked as well as the\nstraight, adversity as well as prosperity, in order that we should\nknow that He has \"made _this_ as well as _that_,\" and accept both from\nhis benign hand. He interlaces his providences, and veils his\nprovidences, in order that, unable to foresee the future, we may learn\nto put our trust in Him rather than in any earthly good (ver. 14). It\ntherefore behoves a man whose heart has been bettered by much\nmeditation, and by the reproofs of the wise, to take both crooked and\nstraight, both evil and good, from the hand of God, and to trust in\nHim whatever may befall.[42]\n\n  [42] So in the hymn of Cleanthes to Zeus, as rendered by the Dean of\n  Wells:\n\n    \"Thou alone knowest how to change the odd\n    To even, and to make the crooked straight;\n    And things discordant find accord in Thee.\n    Thus in one whole Thou blendest ill with good,\n    So that one law works on for evermore.\"\n\n[Sidenote: _The Perils to which it exposes him._ Ch. vii., v. 15-Ch.\nviii., v. 13.]\n\nSo far, I think, we shall follow and assent to this theory of human\nlife; our sympathies will go with the man who seeks to acquire a good\nname, to grow wise, to stand in the Golden Mean. But when he proceeds\nto apply his theory, to deduce practical rules from it, we can only\ngive him a qualified assent, nay, must often altogether withhold our\nassent. The main conclusion he draws is, indeed, quite unobjectionable:\nit is, that in action, as well as in opinion, we should avoid excess,\nthat we should keep the happy mean between intemperance and indifference.\n\n[Sidenote: _He is likely to compromise Conscience_: Ch. vii., vv.\n15-20.]\n\nBut the very first moral he infers from this conclusion is open to the\nmost serious objection. He has seen both the righteous die in his\nrighteousness without receiving any reward from it, and the wicked\nlive long in his wickedness to enjoy his ill-gotten gains. And from\nthese two mysterious facts, which much exercised many of the Prophets\nand Psalmists of Israel, he infers that a prudent man will neither be\nvery righteous, since he will gain nothing by it, and may lose the\nfriendship of those who are content with the current morality; nor\nvery wicked, since, though he may lose little by this so long as he\nlives, he will very surely hasten his death (vv. 16, 17). It is the\npart of prudence to lay hold on both; to permit a temperate indulgence\nboth in virtue and in vice, carrying neither to excess (ver. 18)--a\ndoctrine still very dear to the mere man of the world. In this\ntemperance there lies a strength greater than that of an army in a\nbeleaguered city; for no righteous man is wholly righteous (vv. 19,\n20): to aim at so lofty and ideal will be to attempt \"to wind\nourselves too high for mortal man below the sky;\" we shall only fail\nif we make the attempt; we shall be grievously disappointed if we\nexpect other men to succeed where we have failed; we shall lose faith\nin them, and in ourselves; we shall suffer many pangs of shame,\nremorse, and defeated hope: and, therefore, it is well at once to make\nup our minds that we are, and need be, no better than our neighbours,\nthat we are not to blame ourselves for customary and occasional slips;\nthat, if we are but moderate, we may lay one hand on righteousness and\nanother on wickedness without taking much harm. A most immoral moral,\nthough it is as popular to-day as it ever was.\n\n[Sidenote: _To be indifferent to Censure_: Ch. vii., vv. 21, 22.]\n\nThe second rule which this temperate Monitor infers from his general\ntheory is, That we are not to be overmuch troubled by what people say\nabout us. Servants are adduced as an illustration, partly, no doubt,\nbecause they are commonly acquainted with their masters' faults, and\npartly because they do sometimes speak about them, and even exaggerate\nthem. \"Let them speak,\" is his counsel, \"and don't be too curious to\nknow what they say; you may be sure that they will say pretty much\nwhat you often say of your neighbours or superiors; if they depreciate\nyou, you depreciate others, and you can hardly expect a more generous\ntreatment than you accord.\" Now if this moral stood alone, it would be\nboth shrewd and wholesome. But it does not stand alone; and in its\nconnection it means, I fear, that if we take the moderate course\nprescribed by worldly prudence; if we are righteous without being too\nrighteous, and wicked without being too wicked, and our neighbours\nshould begin to say, \"He is hardly so good as he seems,\" or \"I could\ntell a tale of him an if I would,\" we are not to be greatly moved by\n\"any such ambiguous givings out;\" we are not to be overmuch concerned\nthat our neighbours have discovered our secret slips, since we have\noften discovered the like slips in them, and know very well that\n\"there is not on earth a righteous man who doeth good and sinneth\nnot.\" In short, as we are not to be too hard on ourselves for an\noccasional and decorous indulgence in vice, so neither are we to be\nvery much vexed by the censures which neighbours as guilty as\nourselves pass on our conduct. Taken in this its connected sense, the\nmoral is as immoral as that which preceded it.\n\nHere, indeed, our prudent Monitor drops a hint that he himself is not\ncontent with a theory which leads to such results. He has tried this\n\"wisdom,\" but he is not satisfied with it. He desired a higher wisdom,\nsuspecting that there must be a nobler theory of life than this; but\nit was too far away for him to reach, too deep for him to fathom.\nAfter all his researches that which was far off remained far off, deep\nremained deep: he could not attain the higher wisdom he sought (vv.\n23, 24). And so he falls back on the wisdom he had tried, and draws a\nthird moral from it which is somewhat difficult to handle.\n\n[Sidenote: _To despise Women_: Ch. vii., vv. 25-29.]\n\nIt is said of an English satirist that when any friend confessed\nhimself in trouble and asked his advice, his first question was, \"Who\nis she?\"--taking it for granted that a woman must be at the bottom of\nthe mischief. And the Hebrew cynic appears to have been of his mind.\nHe cannot but see that the best of men sin sometimes, that even the\nmost temperate are hurried into excesses which their prudence\ncondemns. And when he turns to discover what it is that bewitches\nthem, he finds no other solution of the mystery than--Woman. Sweet and\npleasant as she seems, she is \"more bitter than death,\" her heart is a\nsnare, her hands are chains. He whom God loves will escape from her\nnet after brief captivity; only the fool and the sinner are held fast\nin it (vv. 25, 26). Nor is this a hasty conclusion. Our Hebrew cynic\nhas deliberately gone out, with the lantern of his wisdom in his hand,\nto search for an honest man and an honest woman. He has been\nscrupulously careful in his search, \"taking things,\" i.e. indications\nof character, \"one by one;\" but though he has found one honest man in\na thousand, he has never lit on an honest and good woman (vv. 27, 28).\nWas not the fault in the eyes of the seeker rather than in the faces\ninto which he peered? Perhaps it was. It would be to-day and here; but\nwas it there and on that far-distant yesterday? The Orientals would\nstill say \"No.\" All through the East, from the hour in which Adam cast\nthe blame of his disobedience on Eve to the present hour, men have\nfollowed the example of their first father. Even St. Chrysostom, who\nshould have known better, affirms that when the devil took from Job\nall he had, he did not take his wife, \"because he thought she would\ngreatly help him to conquer that saint of God.\" Mohammed sings in the\nsame key with the Christian Father: he affirms that since the creation\nof the world there have been only four perfect women, though it a\nlittle redeems the cynicism of his speech to learn that, of these four\nperfect women, one was his wife and another his daughter; for the good\nman may have meant a compliment to them rather than an insult to the\nsex. But if there be any truth in this estimate, if in the East the\nwomen were, and are, worse than the men, it is the men who have made\nthem what they are.[43] Robbed of their natural dignity and use as\nhelpmeets, condemned to be mere toys, trained only to minister to\nsense, what wonder if they have fallen below their due place and\nhonour? Of all cowardly cynicisms that surely is the meanest which,\ndenying women any chance of being good, condemns them for being bad.\nOur Hebrew cynic seems to have had some faint sense of his unfairness;\nfor he concludes his tirade against the sex with the admission that\n\"God made man upright\"--the word \"man\" here, as in Genesis, standing\nfor the whole race, male and female--and that if all women, and nine\nhundred and ninety-nine men out of every thousand, have become bad, it\nis because they have degraded themselves and one another by the evil\n\"devices\" they have sought out (ver. 29).\n\n  [43] Not, however, that the sentiment was confined to the East. The\n  Greek poets have many such sayings as, \"A woman is a burden full of\n  ills;\" and, \"Where women are, all evils there are found.\"\n\n[Sidenote: _And to be indifferent to Public Wrongs._ Ch. viii., vv.\n1-13.]\n\nThe fourth and last rule inferred from this prudent moderate view of\nlife is, That we are to submit with hopeful resignation to the wrongs\nwhich spring from human tyranny and injustice. Unclouded by gusts of\npassion, the wise temperate Oriental carries a \"bright countenance\" to\nthe king's divan. Though the king should rate him with \"evil words,\"\nhe will remember his \"oath of fealty,\" and not rise up in resentment,\nstill less rush out in open revolt. He knows that the word of a king\nis potent; that it will be of no use to show a hot mutinous temper;\nthat by a meek endurance of wrath he may allay or avert it. He knows,\ntoo, that obedience and submission are not likely to provoke insult\nand contumely; and that if now and then he is exposed to an\nundeserved insult, any defence, and especially an angry defence, will\nbut damage his cause (chap. viii., vv. 1-5). Moreover, a man who keeps\nhimself cool and will not permit anger to blind him may, in the worst\nevent, foresee that a time of retribution will surely come on the\nking, or the satrap, who is habitually unjust; that the people will\nrevolt from him and exact heavy penalties for the wrongs they have\nendured; that death, \"that fell arrest without all bail,\" will carry\nhim away. _He_ can see that time of retribution drawing nigh, although\nthe tyrant, fooled by impunity, is not aware of its approach; he can\nalso see that when it comes it will be as a war in which no furlough\nis granted, and whose disastrous close no craft can evade. All this\nexecution of long-delayed justice he has seen again and again; and\ntherefore he will not suffer his resentment to hurry him into\ndangerous courses, but will calmly await the action of those social\nlaws which compel every man to reap the due reward of his deeds (vv.\n5-9).\n\nNevertheless he has also seen times in which retribution did not\novertake oppressors; times even when, in the person of children as\nwicked and tyrannical as themselves, they \"came again\" to renew their\ninjustice, and to blot out the memory of the righteous from the earth\n(ver. 10). And such times have no more disastrous result than this,\nthat they undermine faith and subvert morality. Men see that no\nimmediate sentence is pronounced against the wicked, that they live\nlong in their wickedness and beget children to perpetuate it; and the\nfaith of the good in the overruling providence of God is shaken and\nstrained, while the vast majority of men set themselves to do the evil\nwhich flaunts its triumphs before their eyes (ver. 11). None the less\nthe Preacher is quite sure that it is the part of wisdom to trust in\nthe laws and look for the judgments of God: he is quite sure that the\ntriumph of the wicked will soon pass, while that of the good will\nendure (vv. 12, 13); and therefore, as a man of prudent and\nforecasting spirit, he will submit to injustice, but not inflict it,\nor at least not carry it to any dangerous excess.\n\n[Sidenote: _The Preacher condemns this Theory of Human Life, and\ndeclares the Quest to be still unattained._ Ch. viii., vv. 14, 15.]\n\nThis is by no means a noble or lofty view of human life; the line of\nconduct it prescribes is often as immoral as it is ignoble; and we may\nfeel some natural surprise at hearing counsels so base from the lips\nof the inspired Hebrew Preacher. But we ought to know him, and his\nmethod of instruction, well enough by this time to be sure that he is\nat least as sensible of their baseness as we can be; that he is here\nspeaking to us, not in his own person, but dramatically, and from the\nlips of the man who, that he may secure a good name and an easy\nposition in the world, is disposed to accommodate himself to the\ncurrent maxims of his time and company. If we ever had any doubt on\nthis point, it is set at rest by the closing verses of the Section\nbefore us. For in these verses the Preacher lowers his mask, and tells\nus plainly that we cannot and must not attempt to rest in the theory\nhe has just put before us, that to follow out its practical\ncorollaries will lead us away from the Chief Good, not toward it. More\nthan once he has already hinted to us that this \"wisdom\" is not the\nhighest wisdom; and now he frankly avows that he is as unsatisfied as\never, as far as ever from ending his Quest; that his last key will not\nunlock those mysteries of life which have baffled him from the first.\nHe still holds, indeed, that it is better to be righteous than to be\nwicked, though he now sees that even the prudently righteous often\nhave a wage like that of the wicked, and that the prudently wicked\noften have a wage like that of the righteous (ver. 14). This new\ntheory of life, therefore, he confesses to be \"a vanity\" as great and\ndeceptive as any of those he has hitherto tried. And as even yet it\ndoes not suit him to give us his true theory and announce his final\nconclusion, he falls back on the conclusion we have so often heard,\nthat the best thing a man can do is to eat and to drink, and to carry\na clear enjoying temper through all the days, and all the tasks, which\nGod giveth him under the sun (ver. 15). How this familiar conclusion\nfits into his final conclusion, and is part of it, though not the\nwhole, we shall see in our study of the next and last section of the\nBook.\n\n\nII.--If, as Milton sings,\n\n                    \"To know\n  That which before us lies in daily life\n  Is the prime wisdom,\"\n\nwe are surely much indebted to the Hebrew Preacher. _He_ does not \"sit\non a hill apart\" discussing fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute, or\nany lofty abstruse theme. He walks with us, in the common round, to\nthe daily task, and talks to us of that which lies before and around\nus in our daily life. Nor does he speak as one raised high above the\nfolly and weakness by which we are constantly betrayed. He has trodden\nthe very paths we tread. He shares our craving and has pursued our\nquest after \"that which is good.\" He has been misled by the illusions\nby which we are beguiled. And his aim is to save us from fruitless\nresearches and defeated hopes by placing his experience at our\ncommand. He speaks, therefore, to our real need, and speaks with a\ncordial sympathy which renders his counsel very welcome.\n\nWe are so made that we can find no rest until we find a supreme Good,\na Good which will satisfy all our faculties, passions, aspirations.\nFor _this_ we search with ardour; but our ardour is not always under\nlaw to wisdom. We often assume that we have reached our chief Good\nwhile it is still far off, or that we are at least looking for it in\nthe right direction when in truth we have turned our back upon it.\nSometimes we seek for it in the pursuit of knowledge, sometimes in\npleasure and self-indulgence, sometimes in fervent devotion to secular\naffairs; sometimes in love, sometimes in wealth, and sometimes in a\nmodest yet competent provision for our future wants. And if, when we\nhave acquired the special good we seek, we find that our hearts are\nstill craving and restless, still hungering for a larger good, we are\napt to think that if we had a little more of that which so far has\ndisappointed us; if we were somewhat wiser, or if our pleasures were\nmore varied; if we had a little more love or a larger estate, all\nwould be well with us, and we should be at peace. Perhaps in time we\nget our \"little more,\" but still our hearts do not cry, \"Hold,\nenough!\"--enough being always a little more than we have; till at\nlast, weary and disappointed in our quest, we begin to despair of\nourselves and to distrust the goodness of God. \"If God be good,\" we\nask, \"why has He made us thus--always seeking yet never finding, urged\non by imperious appetites which are never satisfied, impelled by\nhopes which for ever elude our grasp?\" And because we cannot answer\nthe question, we cry out, \"Vanity of vanities! all is vanity and\nvexation of spirit!\"\n\n\"Ah, no,\" replies the kindly Preacher who has himself known this\ndespairing mood and surmounted it; \"no, _all_ is not vanity. There is\na chief Good, a satisfying Good, although you have not found it yet;\nand you have not found it because you have not looked for it where\nalone it can be found. Once take the right path, follow the right\nclue, and you will find a Good which will make all else good to you, a\nGood which will lend a new sweetness to your wisdom and your mirth,\nyour labour and your gain.\" But men are very slow to believe that they\nhave wasted their time and strength, that they have wholly mistaken\ntheir path; they are reluctant to believe that a little more of that\nof which they have already acquired so much, and which they have\nalways held to be best, will not yield them the satisfaction they\nseek. And therefore the wise Preacher, instead of telling us at once\nwhere the true Good is to be found, takes much pains to convince us\nthat it is not to be found where we have been wont to seek it. He\nplaces before us a man of the largest wisdom, whose pleasures were\nexquisitely varied and combined, a man whose devotion to affairs was\nthe most perfect and successful, a man of imperial nature and wealth,\nand whose heart had glowed with all the fervours of love: and this\nman--_himself_ under a thin disguise--so rarely gifted and of such\nample conditions, confesses that he could not find the Chief Good in\nany one of the directions in which we commonly seek it, although he\nhad travelled farther in every direction than we can hope to go. If we\nare of a rational temper, if we are open to argument and persuasion,\nif we are not resolved to buy our own experience at a heavy, perhaps a\nruinous, cost, how can we but accept the wise Hebrew's counsel, and\ncease to look for the satisfying Good in quarters in which he assures\nus it is not to be found?\n\nWe have already considered his argument as it bore on the men of his\nown time; we have now to make its application to our own age. As his\ncustom is, the Preacher does not develop his argument in open logical\nsequence; he does not write a moral essay, but paints us a dramatic\npicture.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest in Wealth._ Ch. vi.]\n\nHe depicts a man who trusts in riches, who honestly believes that\nwealth is the chief Good, or, at lowest, the way to it. This man has\nlaboured diligently and dexterously to acquire affluence, and he _has_\nacquired it. Like the rich man of the Parable, he has much goods, and\nbarns that grow fuller as they grow bigger. \"God has given him riches\nand wealth and abundance, so that his soul\"--not having learned how to\nlook for anything higher--\"lacks nothing of all that it desireth.\"\n\n[Sidenote: _The Man who makes Riches his Chief Good is haunted by\nFears and Perplexities._ Ch. vi., vv. 1-6.]\n\nHe has reached his aim, then, acquired what he holds to be good. Can\nhe not be content with it? No; for though he bids his soul make merry\nand be glad, it obstinately refuses to obey. It is darkened with\nperplexities, haunted by vague longings, fretted and stung with\nperpetual care. Now that he has his riches, he goes in dread lest he\nshould lose them; he is unable to decide how he may best employ them,\nor how to dispose of them when he must leave them behind him. God has\ngiven them to him; but he is not at all sure that God will show an\nequal wisdom in giving them to some one else when he is gone. And so\nthe poor rich man sits steeped in wealth up to his chin--up to his\nchin, but not up to his lips, for he has no \"power to enjoy\" it.\nBurdened with jealous care, he grudges that others should share what\nhe cannot enjoy, grudges above all that, when he is dead, another\nshould possess what has been of so little comfort to him. \"If thou art\nrich,\" says Shakespeare,\n\n                      \"thou art poor;\n  For like an ass whose back with ingots bows,\n  Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey,\n  And Death unloads thee.\"\n\nBut our rich man is not only like an ass; he is even more stupid: for\nthe ass would not have his back bent even with golden ingots if he\ncould help it, and is only too thankful when the burden is lifted from\nhis back; while the rich man not only _will_ plod on beneath his heavy\nload, but, in his dread of being unladen at his journey's end, imposes\non himself a burden heavier than all his ingots, _and will bear that_\nas well as his gold. He creeps along beneath his double load, and\nbrays quite pitifully if you so much as put out a hand to ease him.\n\n[Sidenote: _Much that he gains only feeds Vanity._ Chap. vi., v. 11.]\n\n[Sidenote: _He cannot tell what it will be good for him to have_;\nChap. vi., v. 12.]\n\n[Sidenote: _Nor foresee what will become of his Gains_: Chap. vi., v.\n12.]\n\nIt is not of much use, perhaps, to argue with one so besotted; but\nlest we should slip into his degraded estate, the Preacher points out\nfor our instruction the source of his disquiet, and shows why it is\nimpossible in the very nature of things that he should know content.\nAmong other sources of disquiet he notes these three. (1) That \"there\nare many things which increase vanity:\" that is to say, many of the\nacquisitions of the rich man only augment his outward pomp and state.\nBeyond a certain point he cannot possibly enjoy the good things he\npossesses; he cannot, for instance, live in all his costly mansions at\nonce, nor eat and drink all the sumptuous fare set on his table, nor\ncarry his whole wardrobe on his back. He is hampered with\nsuperfluities which breed care, but yield him no comfort. And, as he\ngrudges that others should enjoy them, all this abundance, all that\ngoes beyond his personal gratification, so far from being an\n\"advantage\" to him, is only a burden and a torment. (2) Another source\nof disquiet is, that no man, not even he, \"can tell what is good for\nman in life,\" what will be really helpful and pleasant to him. Many\nthings which attract desire pall upon the taste. And as \"the day of\nour vain life is brief,\" gone \"like a shadow,\" he may flit away before\nhe has had a chance of using much that he has laboriously acquired.\n(3) And a third source of disquiet is, that the more a man has the\nmore he must leave: and this is a fact which cuts him two ways, with a\nkeen double edge. For the more he has the less he likes leaving it;\nand the more he has the more is he puzzled how to leave it. He cannot\ntell \"what shall be after him,\" and so he makes one will to-day and\nanother to-morrow, and very likely dies intestate after all.\n\nIs not that a true picture, a picture true to life? Bulwer Lytton\ntells us how one of our wealthiest peers once complained to him that\nhe was never so happy and well-served as when he was a bachelor in\nchambers; that his splendid mansion was a dreary solitude to him, and\nthe long train of domestics his masters rather than his servants. And\nmore than once he depicts, as in _The Caxtons_, a man of immense\nfortune and estate as so occupied in learning and discharging the\nheavy duties of property, so tied and hampered by the thought of what\nwas expected of him, as to fret under a constant weight of care and to\nlose all the sweet uses of life. And have not we ourselves known men\nwho have grown more penurious as they have grown richer, men unable to\ndecide what it would be really good or even pleasant for them to do,\nmore and more anxious as to how they should devise their abundance? \"I\nam a poor rich man, burdened with money; but I have nothing else,\" was\nthe saying of a notorious millionaire, who died while he was signing a\ncheque for \u00a310,000, some twenty years ago.\n\n[Sidenote: _And because God has put Eternity into his Heart, He cannot\nbe content with Temporal Good._ Ch. vi., vv. 7-10.]\n\nBut the Hebrew Preacher is not content to paint a picture of the Rich\nMan and his perplexities--a picture as true to the life now as it was\nthen. He also points out _how_ it is that the lover of riches came to\nbe the man he is, and why he can never lay hold on the supreme Good.\n\"All the labour of this man is for his mouth,\" for the senses and\nwhatever gratifies sense; and therefore, however prosperous he may be,\n\"yet his soul cannot be satisfied.\" For the soul is not fed by that\nwhich feeds the senses. God has \"put eternity\" into it. It craves an\neternal sustenance. It cannot rest till it gains access to \"the\nliving water,\" and \"the meat which endureth,\" and the good \"wine of\nthe kingdom.\" A beast--if indeed beasts have no souls, which I neither\ndeny nor admit--may be content if only he be placed in comfortable\noutward conditions; but a man, simply because he is a man, must have a\nwholesome and happy inward life before he can be content. His hunger\nand thirst after righteousness must be satisfied. He must know that,\nwhen flesh and heart fail him, he will be received into an eternal\nhabitation. He must have a treasure which the moth cannot corrupt, nor\nthe thief filch from him. We cannot escape our nature any more than we\ncan jump off our shadow; and our very nature cries out for an immortal\ngood. Hence it is that the rich man who trusts in his riches, and not\nin the God who gave them to him, carries within him a hungry craving\nsoul. Hence it is that _all_ who trust in riches, and hold them to be\nthe Chief Good, are restless and unsatisfied. For, as the Preacher\nreminds us, it is very true both that the rich man may not be a fool,\nand that the poor man may trust in the riches he has not won. By\nvirtue of his wisdom, the wise rich man may so vary and combine the\ngood things of this life as to win from them a gratification denied to\nthe sot whose sordid heart is set on gold; and the poor man, because\nhe has so few of the enjoyments which wealth can buy, may snatch at\nthe few that come his way with the violent delight which has violent\nends. Both may \"enjoy the good they have\" rather than \"crave a good\nbeyond their (present) reach:\" but if they mistake that good for the\nSupreme Good, neither their poverty nor their wisdom will save them\nfrom the misery of a fatal mistake. For they too have souls, _are_\nsouls; and the soul is not to be satisfied with that which goes in at\nthe mouth. Wise or foolish, rich or poor, whosoever _trusts_ in riches\nis either like the ass whose back is bent with a weight of gold, or he\nis worse than the ass, and _longs_ to take a burden on his back of\nwhich only Death can unlade him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _The Quest in the Golden Mean._ Ch. vii., v. 1-Ch. viii.,\nv. 15.]\n\n2. But now, to come closer home, to draw nearer to that prime wisdom\nwhich consists in knowing that which lies before us in our daily life,\nlet us glance at the Man who aims to stand in the Golden Mean; the man\nwho does not aspire to heap up a great fortune, but is anxious to\nsecure a modest competence. He is more on our own level; for _our_\ntrust in riches is, for the most part, qualified by other trusts. If\nwe believe in Gold, we also believe in Wisdom and in Mirth; if we\nlabour to provide for the future, we also wish to use and enjoy the\npresent. We think it well that we should know something of the world\nabout us, and take some pleasure in our life. We think that to put\nmoney in our purse should not be our only aim, though it should be a\nleading aim. We admit that \"the love of money is a root of all\nevil\"--one of the roots from which all forms and kinds of evil may\nspring; and, to save ourselves from falling into that base lust, we\nlimit our desires. We shall be content if we can put by a moderate\nsum, and we flatter ourselves that we desire even so much as that, not\nfor its own sake, but for the means of knowledge, or of usefulness, or\nof innocent enjoyment with which it will furnish us. \"Nothing I should\nlike better,\" says many a man, \"than to retire from business as soon\nas I have enough to live upon, and to devote myself to this branch of\nstudy or that province of art, or to take my share of public duties,\nor to give myself to a cheerful domestic life.\" It speaks well for our\ntime, I think, that while in a few large cities there are still many\nin haste to be rich and very rich, in the country and in hundreds of\nprovincial towns there are thousands of men who know that wealth is\nnot the Chief Good, and who do not care to don the livery of Mammon.\nNevertheless, though their aim be \"most sweet and commendable,\" it has\nperils of its own, imminent and deadly perils, which few of us\naltogether escape. And these perils are clearly set before us in the\nsketch of the Hebrew Preacher. As I reproduce that sketch, suffer me,\nfor the sake of brevity, while carefully retaining the antique\noutlines, to fill in with modern details.\n\n[Sidenote: _The Method of the Man who seeks a Competence._ Ch. viii.,\nvv. 1-14.]\n\nSuppose a young man to start in life with this theory, this plan, this\naim, distinctly before him:--he is to be ruled by prudence and plain\ncommon sense: he will try to stand well with the world, and to make a\nmoderate provision for future wants. This aim will beget a certain\ntemperance of thought and action. He will permit himself no\nextravagances--no wandering out of bounds, and perhaps no enthusiasms,\nfor he wants to establish \"a good name,\" a good reputation, which\nshall go before him like \"a sweet perfume\" and dispose men's hearts\ntoward him. And, therefore, he carries a sober face, frequents the\ncompany of older, wiser men, is grateful for any hints their\nexperience may furnish, and takes even their \"reproof\" with a good\ngrace. He walks in the beaten paths, knowing the world to be impatient\nof novelties. The wanton mirth and crackling laughter of fools in the\nhouse of feasting are not for him. He is not to be seduced from the\nplain prudent course which he has marked out for himself whether by\ninward provocation or outward allurements. If he is a young lawyer, he\nwill write no poetry, attorneys holding literary men in suspicion. If\nhe is a young doctor, homoeopathy, hydropathy, and all new-fangled\nschemes of medicine will disclose their charms to him in vain. If he\nis a young clergyman, he will be conspicuous for his orthodoxy, and\nfor his emphatic assent to all that the leaders of opinion in the\nChurch think or may think. If he is a young manufacturer or merchant,\nhe will be no breeder of costly patents and inventions, but will be\namong the first to profit by them whenever they are found to pay.\nWhatever he may be, he will not be of those who try to make crooked\nthings straight and rough places plain. He wants to get on; and the\nbest way to get on is to keep the beaten path and push forward in\nthat. And he will be patient--not throwing up the game because for a\ntime the chances go against him, but waiting till the times mend and\nhis chances improve, so far as he can, he will keep the middle of the\nstream that, when the tide which leads on to fortune sets in, he may\nbe of the best to take it at the flood and sail easily on to his\ndesired haven.\n\nIn all this there may be no conscious insincerity, and not much\nperhaps that calls for censure. For all young men are not wise with\nthe highest wisdom, nor original, nor brave with the courage which\nfollows Truth in scorn of consequence. And our young man may not be\ndowered with the love of loves, the hate of hates, the scorn of\nscorns. He may be of a nature essentially prudent and commonplace, or\ntraining and habit may have superinduced a second nature. To him a\nprimrose may be a primrose and nothing more; his instinctive thought,\nas he looks at it, may be how he can reproduce its colour in some of\nhis textures or extract a saleable perfume from its nectared cup. He\nmay even think that primroses are a mistake, and that 'tis pity they\nwere not pot-herbs; or he may assume that he shall have plenty of time\nto gather primroses by-and-bye, but that for the present he must be\ncontent to pick pot-herbs for the market. In his way, he may even be a\nreligious man; he may admit that both prosperity and adversity are of\nGod, that we must take patiently whatever He may send; and he may\nheartily desire to be on good terms with Him who alone \"can order all\nthings as He please.\"\n\n[Sidenote: _The Perils to which it exposes him._ Ch. vii., v. 15-Ch.\nviii., v. 13.]\n\n[Sidenote: _He is likely to compromise Conscience_; Ch. vii., vv.\n15-20.]\n\nBut here we light on his first grave peril; for he will carry his\ntemperance into his religion, and he may subordinate even that to his\ndesire to get on. Looking on men in their religious aspect, he sees\nthat they are divided into two classes, the righteous and the wicked.\nAs he considers them, he concludes that on the whole the righteous\nhave the best of it, that godliness is real gain. But he soon\ndiscovers that this first rough conclusion needs to be carefully\nqualified. For, as he studies men more closely, he perceives that at\ntimes the righteous die in their righteousness without being the\nbetter for it, and the wicked live on in their wickedness without\nbeing the worse for it. He perceives that while the very wicked die\nbefore their time, the very righteous, those who are always reaching\nforth to that which is before them and rising to new heights of\ninsight and obedience, are \"forsaken,\" that they are left alone in the\nthinly-peopled solitude to which they have climbed, losing the\nsympathy even of those who once walked with them. Now, these are\nfacts; and a prudent sensible man tries to accept facts, and to adjust\nhimself to them, even when they are adverse to his wishes and\nconclusions. _He_ does not want to be left alone, nor to die before\nhis time. And therefore, taking these new facts into account, he\ninfers that it will be best to be good without being too good, and to\nindulge himself with an occasional lapse into some general and\ncustomary wickedness without being too wicked. Nay, he is disposed to\nbelieve that \"whoso feareth God,\" studying the facts of his providence\nand drawing logical inferences from them, \"will lay hold of both\"\nwickedness and righteousness, and will blend them in that proportion\nwhich the facts seem to favour. But here Conscience protests, urging\nthat to do evil can never be good. To pacify it, he adduces the\nnotorious fact that \"there is not a righteous man on earth who doeth\ngood, and sinneth not.\" \"Conscience,\" he says, \"you are really too\nstrict and straitlaced, too hard on one who wants to do as well as he\ncan. You go quite too far. How can you expect me to be better than\ngreat saints and men after God's own heart?\" And so, with a wronged\nand pious air, he turns to lay one hand on wickedness and another on\nrighteousness, quite content to be no better than his neighbours and\nto let Conscience sulk herself into a sweeter mood.\n\n[Sidenote: _To be indifferent to Censure_; Ch. vii., vv. 21, 22.]\n\nConscience being silenced, Prudence steps in. And Prudence says,\n\"People will talk. They will take note of your slips, and tattle about\nthem. Unless you are very very careful, you will damage your\nreputation; and if you do that, how can you hope to get on?\" Now as\nthe man is specially devoted to Prudence, and has found her kind\nmistress and useful monitress in one, he is at first a little\nstaggered to find her taking part against him. But he soon recovers\nhimself, and replies: \"Dear Prudence, you know as well as I do that\npeople don't like a man to be better than themselves. Of course they\nwill talk if they catch me tripping; but I don't mean to do more than\ntrip, and a man who trips gains ground in recovering himself, and goes\nall the faster for a while. Besides we all trip; some fall even. And I\ntalk of my neighbours just as they talk of me; and we all like each\nother the better for being birds of one feather.\"\n\n[Sidenote: _To despise Women_; Ch. vii., vv. 25-29.]\n\nAt this Prudence smiles and stops her mouth. But being very willing to\nassist so quick-witted a disciple, she presently returns and says:\n\"Are you not rather a long while in securing your little Competence?\nIs there no short cut to it? Why not take a wife with a small fortune\nof her own, or with connexions who could help you on?\" Now the man,\nnot being a bad man, but one who would fain be good so far as he knows\ngoodness, is somewhat taken aback by such a suggestion as this. He\nthinks Prudence must be growing very worldly and mercenary. He says\nwithin himself, \"Surely _love_ should be sacred! A man should not\nprostitute _that_ in order to get on! If I marry a woman simply or\nmainly for her money, what worse degradation can I inflict on her or\non myself? how shall I be better than those old Hebrews and Orientals\nwho held women to be only a toy or a convenience? To do that, would be\nto make a snare and a net of her indeed, to degrade her from her true\nplace and function, and possibly would lead me to think of her as even\nworse than I had made her.\" Nevertheless, his heart being very much\nset on securing a Competence, and an accident of the sort which he\ncalls \"providences\" putting a foolish woman with a pocketful of money\nin his way, he takes both the counsel of Prudence and a wife to\nmatch.\n\n[Sidenote: _And to be indifferent to Public Wrongs._ Ch. viii., vv.\n1-13.]\n\nThe world, we may be sure, thinks none the worse of him for that. Once\nmore he has proved himself a man whose eye is stedfastly bent on \"the\nmain chance,\" and who knows how to seize occasions as they rise. But\nhe, who has thus profaned the inner sanctuary of his own soul, is not\nlikely to be sensitive to the large claims of public duty. If he sees\noppression, if the tyranny of a man or a class mounts to a height\nwhich calls for rebuke and opposition, _he_ is not likely to sacrifice\ncomfort and risk either property or popularity that he may assail\niniquity in her strong places. It is not such men as he who, when the\ntimes are out of joint, feel that they are born to set them right.\nPrudence is still his guide, and Prudence says, \"Let things alone;\nthey will right themselves in time. The social laws will avenge\nthemselves on the head of the oppressor, and deliver the oppressed.\nYou can do little to hasten their action. Why, to gain so little,\nshould you risk so much?\" And the man is content to sit still with\nfolded hands when every hand that can strike a blow for right is\nwanted in the strife, and can even quote texts of Scripture to prove\nthat in \"quietness, and confidence\" in the action of Divine Laws, is\nthe true strength.\n\n[Sidenote: _The Preacher condemns this Theory, and declares the Quest\nto be still unattained._ Ch. vii., vv. 14, 15.]\n\nNow I make my appeal to those who daily enter the world of\nbusiness--is not this the tone of that world? are not these the very\nperils to which you lie open? How often have you heard men recount the\nslips of the righteous in order to justify themselves for not assuming\nto be righteous overmuch! How often have you heard them vindicate\ntheir own occasional errors by citing the errors of those who give\ngreater heed to religion than they do, or make a louder profession of\nit! How often have you heard them congratulate a neighbour on his good\nluck in carrying off an heiress, or speak of wedded love itself as a\nmere help to worldly advancement! How often have you heard them sneer\nat the nonsensical enthusiasm which has led certain men to \"throw away\ntheir chances in life\" in order to devote themselves to the service of\ntruth, or to forfeit popularity that they might lead a forlorn hope\nagainst customary wrongs, and thank God that no such maggot ever bit\ntheir brains! If during the years which have lapsed since I too \"went\non 'Change,\" the general tone has not risen a whole heaven--and I have\nheard of no such miracle--I know that you must daily hear such things\nas these, and worse than these; and that not only from irreligious men\nof bad character, but from men who take a fair place in our Christian\ncongregations. From the time of the wise Preacher to the present hour,\nthis sort of talk has been going on, and the scheme of life from\nwhich it springs has been stoutly held. There is the more need,\ntherefore, for you to listen to and weigh the Preacher's conclusion.\nFor his conclusion is, that this scheme of life is wholly and\nirredeemably wrong, that it tends to make a man a coward and a slave,\nthat it cannot satisfy the large desires of the soul, and that it\ncheats him of the Chief Good. His conclusion is, that the man who so\nsets his heart on acquiring even a Competence that he cannot be\ncontent without it, has no genuine trust in God, since he is willing\nto give in to immoral maxims and customs in order to secure that\nwhich, as he thinks, will make him largely independent of the Divine\nProvidence.\n\nThe Preacher speaks as to wise men, to men of some experience of the\nworld. Judge you what he says.\n\n\n\n\nFOURTH SECTION.\n\n_THE QUEST ACHIEVED. THE CHIEF GOOD IS TO BE FOUND, NOT IN WISDOM, NOR\nIN PLEASURE, NOR IN DEVOTION TO AFFAIRS AND ITS REWARDS; BUT IN A WISE\nUSE AND A WISE ENJOYMENT OF THE PRESENT LIFE, COMBINED WITH A STEDFAST\nFAITH IN THE LIFE TO COME._\n\nCHAP. VIII., VER. 16, TO CHAP. XII., VER. 7.\n\n\nAt last we approach the end of our Quest. The Preacher has found the\nChief Good, and will show us where to find it. But are we even yet\nprepared to welcome it and to lay hold of it? Apparently he thinks we\nare not. For, though he has already warned us that it is not to be\nfound in Wealth or Industry, in Pleasure or Wisdom, he repeats his\nwarning in this last Section of his Book, as if he still suspected us\nof hankering after our old errors. Not till he has again assured us\nthat we shall miss our mark if we seek the supreme Good in any of the\ndirections in which it is commonly sought, does he direct us to the\nsole path in which we shall not seek in vain. Once more, therefore, we\nmust gird up the loins of our mind to follow him along his several\nlines of thought, encouraged by the assurance that the end of our\njourney is not now far off.\n\n[Sidenote: _The Chief Good not to be found in Wisdom_: Ch. viii., v.\n16-Ch. ix., v. 6.]\n\n1. The Preacher commences this Section by carefully defining his\nposition and equipment as he starts on his final course. As yet he\ncarries no lamp of Revelation in his hand, although he will not\nventure beyond a certain point without it. For the present he will\ntrust to Reason and Experience, and mark the conclusions to which\nthese conduct when unaided by any direct light from Heaven. His first\nconclusion is that Wisdom, which of all temporal goods still stands\nforemost with him, is incapable of yielding a true content. Much as it\ncan do for man, it cannot solve the moral problems which task and\nafflict his heart, the problems which he _must_ solve before he can be\nat peace. He may be so bent on solving these by Wisdom as to see \"no\nsleep with his eyes by day or night;\" he may rely on Wisdom with a\nconfidence so genuine as to suppose at times that by its help he has\n\"found out all the work of God\"--really solved all the mysteries of\nthe Divine Providence; but nevertheless \"he has not found it out;\" the\nillusion will soon pass, and the unsolved mysteries reappear dark and\nsombre as of old (chap. viii., vv. 16, 17). And the proof that he has\nfailed is, first, that he is as incompetent to foresee the future as\nthose who are not so wise as he. With all his sagacity, he cannot tell\nwhether he shall meet \"the love or the hatred\" of his fellows. His lot\nis as closely hidden in \"the hand of God\" as theirs, although he may\nbe as much better as he is wiser than they (chap. ix., ver. 1). A\nsecond proof is that \"the same fate\" overtakes both the wise and the\nfoolish, the righteous and the wicked, and he is as unable to escape\nit as any of his neighbours. All die; and to men ignorant of the\nheavenly hope of the Gospel the indiscrimination of Death seems the\nmost cruel and hopeless of wrongs. The Preacher, indeed, is not\nignorant of that bright hope; but as yet he has not taken the lamp of\nRevelation into his hand: he is simply speaking the thought of those\nwho have no higher guide than Reason, no brighter light than\nReflection. And to these, their wisdom having taught them that to do\nright is infinitely better than to do wrong, no fact was so monstrous\nand inscrutable as that their lives should run to the same disastrous\nclose with the lives of evil and violent men, that all alike should\nfall into the hands of \"that churl, Death.\" As they revolved this\nfact, their hearts grew hot with a fierce resentment as natural as it\nwas impotent, a resentment all the hotter because they knew how\nimpotent it was. Therefore the Preacher dwells on this fact, lingers\nover his description of it, adding touch to touch. \"One fate comes to\nall,\" he says, \"to the righteous and to the wicked, to the pure and to\nthe impure, to the religious and to the irreligious, to the profane\nand to the reverent.\" If death be a good, the maddest fool and the\nvilest reprobate share it with the sage and the saint. If death be an\nevil, it is inflicted on the good as well as on the bad. None is\nexempt. Of all wrongs this is the greatest; of all problems this is\nthe most insoluble. Nor is there any doubt as to the nature of death.\nTo him for whom there shines no light of hope behind the darkness of\nthe grave, death is the supreme evil. For to the living, however\ndeject and wretched, there is still some hope that times may mend:\neven though in outward condition despicable as that unclean outcast, a\ndog--the homeless and masterless scavenger of Eastern cities--he has\nsome advantage over the royal lion who, once couched on a throne, now\nlies in the dust rotting to dust. The living know at least that they\nmust die; but the dead know not anything. The living can recall the\npast, and their memory harps fondly on notes which were once most\nsweet; but the very memory of the dead has perished, no music of the\nhappy past can revive on their dulled sense, nor will any recall their\nnames. The heavens are fair; the earth is beautiful and generous; the\nworks of men are many and diverse and great; but they have \"no more\nany portion for ever in ought that is done under the sun\" (vv. 2-6).\n\nThis is the Preacher's description of the hapless estate of the dead.\nHis words would go straight home to the hearts of the men for whom he\nwrote, with a force even beyond that which they would have for heathen\nraces. In their Captivity, they had renounced the worship of idols.\nThey had renewed their covenant with Jehovah. Many of them were\ndevoutly attached to the ordinances and commandments which they and\ntheir fathers had neglected in happier and more prosperous years. Yet\ntheir lives were made bitter to them with cruel bondage, and they had\nas little hope in their death as the Persians who embittered their\nlives, and probably even less. It was in this sore strait, and under\nthe strong compulsions of this dreadful extremity, that the more\nstudious and pious of their rabbis, like the Preacher himself, drew\ninto an expressive context the passages scattered through their Sacred\nBooks which hinted at a retributive life beyond the tomb, and settled\ninto that firm persuasion of the immortality of the soul which, as a\nrule, they never henceforth altogether let go. But when the Preacher\nwrote, this settled and general conviction had not been reached. There\nwere many among them who, as their thoughts circled round the mystery\nof death, could only cry, \"Is this _the end_? is _this_ the end?\" To\nthe great majority of them it seemed the end. And even the few, who\nsought an answer to the question by blending the Greek and Oriental\nwith the Hebrew Wisdom, attained no clear answer to it. To mere human\nwisdom, Life remained a mystery, and Death a mystery still more cruel\nand impenetrable. Only those who listened to the Preachers and\nProphets taught of God beheld the dawn which already began to glimmer\non the darkness in which men sat.\n\n[Sidenote: _Nor in Pleasure_: Ch. ix., vv. 7-12.]\n\nImagine, then, a Jew brought to the bitter pass which Coheleth has\ndescribed. He has acquainted himself with Wisdom, native and foreign;\nand wisdom has led him to conclusions of virtue. Nor is he of those\nwho love virtue as they love music--without practising it. Believing\nthat a righteous and religious carriage of himself will ensure\nhappiness and equip him to encounter the problems of life, he has\nstriven to be good and pure, to offer his sacrifices and pay his vows.\nBut he has found that, despite his best endeavours, his life is not\ntranquil, that the very calamities which overtake the wicked overtake\nhim, that that wise carriage of himself by which he thought to win\nlove has provoked hatred, that death remains a frowning and\ninhospitable mystery. He hates death, and has no great love for the\nlife which has brought him only labour and disappointment. Where is he\nlikely to turn next? Wisdom having failed him, to what will he apply?\nAt what conclusion will he arrive? Will not his conclusion be that\nstanding conclusion of the baffled and the hapless, \"Let us eat and\ndrink for to-morrow we die\"? Will he not say, \"Why should I weary\nmyself any more with studies which yield no certain science, and\nself-denials which meet with no reward? If a wise and pure conduct\ncannot secure me from the evils I dread, let me at least try to forget\nthem and to grasp such poor delights as are still within my reach?\"\nThis, at all events, _is_ the conclusion in which the Preacher lands\nhim; and hence he takes occasion to review the pretensions of Pleasure\nor Mirth. To the baffled and hopeless devotee of Wisdom he says, \"Go,\nthen, eat thy bread with gladness, and drink thy wine with a merry\nheart. Cease to trouble yourself about God and His judgments. He, as\nyou have seen, does not mete out rewards and punishments according to\nour merit or demerit; and as He does not punish the wicked after their\ndeserts, you may be sure that He has long since accepted your wise\nvirtuous endeavours, and will keep no score against you. Deck yourself\nin white festive garments; let no perfume be lacking to your head; add\nto your harem any woman who charms your eye: and, as the day of your\nlife is brief at the best, let no hour of it slip by unenjoyed. As you\nhave chosen Mirth for your portion, be as merry as you may. Whatever\nyou can get, get; whatever you can do, do. You are on the road to the\ndark dismal grave where there is no work nor device; there is,\ntherefore, the more reason why your journey should be a merry one\"\n(vv. 7-10).\n\nThus the Preacher describes the Man of Pleasure, and the maxims by\nwhich he rules his life. How true the description is I need not tarry\nto prove; 'tis a point every man can judge for himself. Judge also\nwhether the warning which the Preacher subjoins be not equally true to\nexperience (vv. 11, 12). For, after having depicted, or personated,\nthe Man who trusts in Wisdom, and the Man who devotes himself to\nPleasure, he proceeds to show that even the Man who blends mirth with\nstudy, whose wisdom preserves him from the disgusts of satiety and\nvulgar lust, is nevertheless--to say nothing of the Chief Good--very\nfar from having reached a certain good. _Then_, at least, \"the race\nwas not (always) to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; neither\nwas bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to\nthe learned.\" Those who had the fairest chances had not always the\nhappiest success; nor did those who bent themselves most strongly to\ntheir ends always reach their ends. Those who were wanton as birds, or\nheedless as fish, were often taken in the snare of calamity or swept\nup by the net of misfortune. At any moment a killing frost might\nblight all the growths of Wisdom and destroy all the sweet fruits of\nPleasure: and if they had only these, what could they do but starve\nwhen they were gone? The good which was at the mercy of accident,\nwhich might vanish before the instant touch of disease or loss or\npain, was not worthy to be, or to be compared with, the Chief Good,\nwhich is a good for all times, in all accidents and conditions, and\nrenders him who has it equal to all events.\n\n[Sidenote: _Nor in Devotion to Affairs and its Rewards._ Ch. ix., v.\n13-Ch. x., v. 20.]\n\nSo far, then, Coheleth has been occupied in retracing the argument of\nthe first Section of the Book. Now he returns upon the second and\nthird Sections: he deals with the man who plunges into public affairs,\nwho turns his wisdom to practical account, and seeks to attain a\ncompetence, if not a fortune. He lingers over this stage of his\nargument, probably because the Jews, then as always, even in exile and\nunder the most cruel oppression, were a remarkably energetic,\npractical, money-getting race, with a singular faculty of dealing with\npolitical issues or handling the market; and, as he slowly pursues it,\nhe drops many hints of the social and political conditions of the\ntime. Two features of it he takes much to heart: first, that wisdom,\neven of the most practical and sagacious sort, did not win its fair\nrecognition and reward--a very natural complaint in so wise a man;\nand, secondly, that his people were under tyrants so gross,\nself-indulgent, indolent, and unstatesman-like as the Persians of his\nday--also a natural complaint in a man of so wise and patriotic a\nspirit.\n\nHe opens with an anecdote in proof of the slight regard in which the\nmost valuable and remunerative sagacity was held. He tells us of a\npoor man--and I have sometimes thought that this poor man may have\nbeen the Author himself; for the military leaders of the Jews, though\namong the most expert strategists of that era, were often very learned\nand studious men--who lived in a little city, with only a few\ninhabitants. A great king came up against the city, besieged it, threw\nup the lofty military causeway, as high as the walls, from which it\nwas the fashion of the time to deliver the assault. By his Archimedian\nwit the poor man hit on a stratagem which saved the city; but though\nhis service was so signal, and the city so little that the \"few men in\nit\" must have seen him every day, \"yet no one remembered that same\npoor man,\" or lent a hand to lift him from his poverty. Wise as he\nwas, his wisdom did not bring him bread, nor riches, nor favour (vv.\n13-15). Therefore, concludes the Preacher, wisdom, great gift though\nit is, and better, as in this instance, than \"an army to a beleaguered\ncity\" (chap, vii., ver. 19), is not of itself sufficient to secure\nsuccess. A poor man's wisdom--as many an inventor has found--is\ndespised even by those who profit by it. Although his counsel, in the\nday of extremity, is infinitely more valuable than the loud bluster\nof fools, or of a ruler among fools, nevertheless the ruler, because\nhe is foolish, may be affronted to find one of the poorest men in the\nplace wiser than himself; he may easily cast his \"merit in the eye of\nscorn,\" and so rob him both of the honour and the reward of his\nachievement (vv. 16, 17)--an ancient saw not without modern instances.\nFor the fool is a greater power in the world, especially the fool who\nis wise in his own conceit. Insignificant in himself, he may\nnevertheless do great harm and \"destroy much good.\" Just as a tiny\nfly, when it is dead, may make the sweetest ointment offensive by\ninfusing its own evil savour, so a man, when his wit is gone, may with\nhis little folly cause many sensible men to distrust the wisdom they\nshould honour (chap. x., ver. 1):--who has not met such a hot-headed\nwant-wit in, for example, the lobbies of the House of Commons? To a\nwise man, such as Coheleth, the fool, the presumptuous conceited fool,\nis \"rank and smells to heaven,\" infesting sweeter natures than his own\nwith a most pestilent corruption. He paints us a picture of\nhim--paints it with a keen graphic scorn which, if the eyes of the\nfool were in his head (chap. ii., ver. 14), and \"what he is pleased to\ncall his mind\" could for a moment shift from his left hand to his\nright (ver. 2), might make him nearly as contemptible to himself as he\nis to others. As we read ver. 3 the unhappy wretch stands before us.\nWe see him coming out of his house; he goes dawdling down the street,\nfor ever wandering from the path, attracted by the merest trifle,\nstaring at familiar objects with eyes that have no recognition in\nthem, knowing neither himself nor others; and, with pointed finger,\nchuckles after every sober citizen he meets, \"There goes a fool!\"\n\nYet a fool quite as foolish and malignant as this, quite as indecent\neven in outward behaviour, may be lifted to high place, and has ere\nnow sat on an imperial throne.[44] The Preacher had seen many of them\nsuddenly raised to power, while nobles were depraved, and high\nfunctionaries of State reduced to an abject servitude. Now if the poor\nwise man have to attend the durbar, or sit in the divan, of a foolish\ncapricious despot, how should he bear himself? The Preacher counsels\nmeekness and submission. He is to sit unruffled even though the ruler\nshould rate him, lest by resentment he should provoke some graver\noutrage (vv. 4-7: comp. chap. viii., ver. 3). To strengthen him in\nhis submission, the Preacher hints at cautions and consolations which,\nbecause free and open speech was very dangerous under the Persian\ndespotism, he wraps up in obscure maxims capable of a double\nsense--nay, as the commentators have shown, capable of a good many\nmore senses than two--to the true sense of which \"a foolish ruler\" was\nby no means likely to penetrate, even if they fell into his hands.\n\n  [44] To cite only one instance out of many--other instances may be\n  found in the Introduction--let the reader recall the Emperor Caligula,\n  and refer, for example, to his reception of the Alexandrian Jews, as\n  recorded by Philo, _Legat ad Caium_, cc. 44, 45; or by Merivale, in\n  his _History of the Romans_, chap. xlvii., pp. 47-50; or by Milman, in\n  his _History of the Jews_, Book xii., pp. 141-45. He will then know,\n  to quote the phrase of Apollonius of Tyana, what \"the kind of beast\n  called a tyrant\" is or may be.\n\nThe first of these maxims is, \"He who diggeth a pit shall fall into\nit\" (ver. 8). And the allusion is, of course, to an Eastern mode of\ntrapping wild beasts and game. The huntsman dug a pit, covered it with\ntwigs and sods, and strewed the surface with bait; but as he dug many\nsuch pits, and some of them were long without a tenant, he might at\nany inadvertent moment fall into one of them himself. The proverb is\ncapable of at least two interpretations. It may mean that the foolish\ndespot, plotting the ruin of his wise servant, might in his anger go\ntoo far; and, betraying his intention, provoke a retaliative anger\nbefore which he himself would fall. Or it may mean that, should the\nwise servant seek to undermine the throne of the despot, he might be\ntaken in his treachery and bring on himself the whole weight of the\ntyrant's wrath.\n\nThe second maxim is, \"Whoso breaketh down a wall, a serpent shall bite\nhim\" (ver. 8); and here, of course, the allusion is to the fact that\nsnakes infect the crannies of old walls (comp. Amos v. 19). To set\nabout dethroning a tyrant was like pulling down such a wall; you would\nbreak up the nest of many a reptile, many a venomous hanger-on, and\nmight only get bit or stung for your pains. Or, again, in pulling out\nthe stones of an old wall, you might let one of them fall on your\nfoot; and in hacking out its timbers, you might cut yourself: that is\nto say, even if your conspiracy did not involve you in absolute ruin,\nit would be only too likely to do you serious and lasting injury (ver.\n9).\n\nThe next adage runs (ver. 10), \"If the axe be blunt, and he do not\nwhet the edge, he must put on more strength, but wisdom should teach\nhim to sharpen it,\" and is, perhaps, the most difficult passage in the\nBook. The Hebrew is read in a different way by almost every\ntranslator. As I read it, it means, in general, that it is not well to\nwork with blunt tools when by a little labour and delay you may whet\nthem to a keener edge. Read thus, the political rule implied in it is,\n\"Do not attempt any great enterprise, any revolution or reform, till\nyou have a well-considered scheme to go upon, and suitable instruments\nto carry it out with.\" But the special political import of it may be,\n\"Your strength is nothing to that of the tyrant; do not therefore lift\na blunt axe against the trunk of despotism: wait till you have put a\nsharp edge upon it.\" Or, the tyrant himself may be the blunt axe, and\nthen the warning is, \"Sharpen _him_ up, repair him, use him and his\ncaprices to serve your end; get your way by giving way to him, and by\nskilfully availing yourself of his varying moods.\" Which of these may\nbe the true meaning of this obscure disputed passage, I do not\nundertake to say; but the latter of the two seems to be sustained by\nthe adage which follows: \"If the serpent bite because it is not\ncharmed, there is no advantage to the charmer.\" For here, I think,\nthere can be little doubt that the foolish angry ruler is the serpent,\nand the wise functionary the charmer who is to extract the venom of\nhis anger. Let the foolish ruler be never so furious, the poor wise\nman, who is able \"to cull the plots of best advantages,\" and to save a\ncity, can surely devise a charm of soft submissive words which will\nturn away his wrath; just as the serpent-charmer of the East, by song\nand incantation, is at least reputed to draw serpents from their lurk,\nthat he may pluck the venom from their teeth (ver. 11). For, as we are\ntold in the very next verse, \"the words of the wise man's mouth win\nhim grace, while the lips of the fool destroy him.\"\n\nAnd on this hint, on this casual mention of his name, the\nPreacher--who all this while, remember, is personating the sagacious\nman of the world, bent on rising to wealth, power, distinction--once\nmore \"comes down\" on the fool. He speaks of him with a burning heat\nand contempt, as men versed in public affairs are wont to do, since\nthey best know how much harm a voluble, impudent, self-conceited fool\nmay do, how much good he may prevent. Here, then, is the fool of\npublic life. He is a man always prating and predicting, although his\nwords, only foolish at the first, swell and fret into a malignant\nmadness before he has done, and although he of all men is least able\nto give good counsel, to seize occasions as they rise, or to foresee\nwhat is about to come to pass. Puffed up by the conceit of wisdom or\nof his own importance, he is for ever intermeddling with great\naffairs, though he has no notion how to handle them, and is incapable\nof even finding his way along the beaten road which leads to the\ncapital city, of taking and keeping the plain and obvious path which\nthe exigencies of the time require; while (ver. 3) he is forward to\ncry, \"There goes a fool,\" of every man who is wiser than himself (vv.\n12-15). If he would only hold his tongue, he might pass muster;\nbeguiled by his gravity and silence, men might give him credit for\nsagacity, and fit his foolish deeds with profound motives; but he\n_will_ speak, and his words betray and \"swallow him up.\" Of course\n_we_ have no such fools, \"full of words,\" to rise in their high place\nand wag their tongues to their own hurt; they are peculiar to\nAntiquity or to the East.\n\nBut _then_ there were so many of them, and their influence in the\nState was so disastrous that, as the Preacher thinks of them, he\nbreaks into an almost dithyrambic fervour, and cries, \"Woe to thee, O\nland, when thy king is a child,[45] and thy princes feast in the\nmorning! Happy art thou, O land, when thy king is noble, and thy\nprinces eat at due hours, for strength and not for revelry!\" Through\nthe sloth and riot of these foolish rulers, the whole fabric of the\nState was fast fading into decay--the roof rotting and the rain\nleaking in. To support their inopportune and profligate revelry, they\nimposed crushing taxes on the people, which inspired in some a\nrevolutionary discontent, and in some the apathy of despair. The Wise\nExile foresaw that the end of a despotism so unjust and luxurious\ncould not be far off; that when the storm rose and the wind blew, the\nancient House, unrepaired in its decay, would topple on the heads of\nthose who sat in its halls, revelling in a wicked mirth (vv. 16-19).\nMeantime, the sagacious servant of the State, perchance too of foreign\nextraction, unable to arrest the progress of decay, or not caring how\nsoon it was consummated, would make his \"market of the time;\" he would\ncarry himself warily: and, because the whole land was infested with\nthe spies bred by despotism, he would give them no hold on him, nor so\nmuch as speak the simple truth of his foolish debauched rulers in the\nprivacy of his own bed-chamber, or mutter his thoughts on the roof,\nlest some \"bird of the air should carry the report\" (ver. 20).\n\n  [45] What Coheleth means by the king being \"a child\" is best explained\n  by Isa. iii. 12: \"As for my people, their ruler is a wilful child, and\n  women rule over him.\"\n\nBut if this were the condition of the time, if to rise in public life\ninvolved so many mean crafts and submissions, so many deadly imminent\nrisks from spies and from fools clad in a little brief authority, how\ncould any man hope to find the Chief Good in it? Wisdom did not always\nwin promotion; virtue was inimical to success. The anger of an\nincapable idiot, or the whisper of an envious rival, or the caprice of\na merciless despot, might at any moment undo the work of years, and\nexpose the most upright and sagacious of men to the worst extremities\nof misfortune. There was no tranquillity, no freedom, no security, no\ndignity in such a life as this. Till this were resigned and some\nnobler, loftier aim found, there was no chance of reaching that great\nsatisfying Good which lifts man above all accidents, and fixes him in\na happy security from which no blow of Circumstance can dislodge him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: _But in a wise Use and a wise Enjoyment of the Present\nLife_, Ch. xi., vv. 1-8.]\n\nWhat that Good is, and where it may be found, the Preacher now\nproceeds to show. But, as his manner is, he does not say in so many\nwords, \"This is the Chief Good of man,\" or \"You will find it yonder;\"\nbut he places before us the man who is walking in the right path and\ndrawing closer and closer to it. Even of him the preacher does not\ngive us any formal description; but, following what we have seen to be\nhis favourite method, he gives us a string of maxims and counsels from\nwhich we are to infer what manner of man he is who happily achieves\nthis great Quest.\n\nAnd, at the very outset, we learn that this happy person is of a\nnoble, unselfish, generous temper. Unlike the man who simply wants to\nget on and make a fortune, he grudges no man his gains; he looks on\nhis neighbours' interests as well as his own, and does good even to\nthe evil and the unthankful.[46] He is one who \"casts his bread upon\nthe waters\" (ch. xi., ver. 1), and who \"gives a portion thereof to\nseven, and even to eight\" (ver. 2). The familiar proverb of the first\nverse has long been read as an allusion to the sowing of rice and\nother grain from a boat, during the periodical inundation of certain\nEastern rivers, especially the Nile. We have been taught to regard the\nhusbandman pushing from the embanked village in his frail bark, to\ncast the grain he would gladly eat on the surface of the flood, as a\ntype of Christian labour and charity. He denies himself; so also must\nwe if we would do good. He has faith in the Divine laws, and trusts to\nreceive his own again with usury, to reap a larger crop the longer he\nwaits for it; and, in like manner, we are to trust in the Divine laws\nwhich bring us a hundredfold for every act of self-denying service,\nand bless our \"long patience\" with the ampler harvest. But it is\ndoubtful whether the Hebrew _usus loquendi_ admits of this\ninterpretation. It probably suggests another which, if unfamiliar to\nus, has a beauty of its own. In the East bread is commonly made in\nthin flat cakes, something like Passover cakes; and one of these\ncakes flung on the stream, though it would float with the current for\na time, would soon sink; and once sunk would, unlike the grain cast\nfrom the boat, yield no return. And our charity should be like that.\nWe should do good, \"hoping for nothing again.\" We should show\nkindnesses which will soon be forgotten, never be returned, and be\nundismayed by the thanklessness of the task. It is not so thankless as\nit seems. For, first, we shall \"find the good of it\" in the loftier,\nmore generous temper which the habit of doing good breeds and\nconfirms. If no one else be the better for our kindness, we shall be\nthe better, because the more kindly, for it. The quality of charity,\nlike that of mercy, is twice blessed;\n\n  \"It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.\"\n\n  [46] One of the most elaborate proverbs in the Talmud is on\n  Charity:--\"Iron breaks the stone, fire melts iron, water extinguishes\n  fire, the clouds drink up the water, a storm drives away the clouds,\n  man withstands the storm, fear unmans man, wine dispels fear, sleep\n  drives away wine, and death sweeps all away--even sleep. But Solomon\n  the Wise says, Charity saves from death.\" And there is hardly a finer\n  passage in Shakespeare's Sonnets than that (CXVI.) in which he sings\n  the disinterestedness of Love, and its superiority to all change:\n\n                        \"Love is not love\n    Which alters when it alteration finds,\n    Or bends with the remover to remove.\n\n      *    *    *    *    *    *\n\n    Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks\n    Within his bending sickle's compass come;\n    Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,\n    But bears it out even to the edge of doom.\"\n\nAnd, again, the task is not so thankless as it sometimes seems; for\nthough many of our kind deeds may quicken no kindness in \"him that\ntakes,\" yet some of them will; and the more we help and succour the\nmore likely are we to light upon at least a few who, when our need\ncomes, will succour and console us. Even the most hardened have a\ncertain tenderness for those who help them, if only the help meet a\nreal need, and be given with grace. And, therefore, we may be very\nsure that if we give a portion of our bread to seven and even to\neight, especially if they know that we ourselves have stomach for it\nall, at least one or two of them will share with us when we need\nbread.\n\nBut is not this, after all, only a refined selfishness? If we give\nbecause we do not know how soon we may need a gift, and in order that\nwe may by-and-bye \"find the good of it,\" do not even the heathen and\nthe publicans the same? Well, not many of them, I think. I have not\nobserved that it is their habit to cast their bread on thankless\nwaters. If they forbode calamity and loss, they provide against them,\nnot by giving, but by hoarding; and even they themselves would hardly\naccept as a model of charity a man who buttoned up his pocket against\nevery appeal, lest he should be yielding to a selfish motive, or be\nsuspected of it. The refined selfishness of showing kindness and doing\ngood even to the evil and the unthankful because we hope to find the\ngood of it is by no means too common yet; we need not go in dread of\nit. Nor is it an altogether unworthy motive. St. Paul urges us to help\na fallen brother on the express ground that we may need similar help\nsome day (Gal. vi. 1); and _he_ was not in the habit of appealing to\nbase motives. Nay, the very Golden Rule itself, which all men admire\neven if they do not walk by it, touches this spring of action; for\namong other meanings it surely has this, that we are to do to others\nas we would that they should do to us, in the hope that they will do\nto us as we have done to them. There are other higher meanings in the\nRule of course, as there are other and purer motives for Charity; but\nI do not know that we are any of us of so lofty a virtue that we need\nfear to show kindness in order to win kindness, or to give help that\nwe may get help when we need it. Possibly, to act on this motive may\nbe the best and nearest way of rising to such higher motives as we can\nreach.\n\nThe first characteristic, then, of the man who is likely to achieve\nthe Quest of the Chief Good is the Charity which prompts him to be\ngracious, and to show kindness, and to do good, even to the thankless\nand ungracious. And his second characteristic is the stedfast Industry\nwhich turns all seasons to account. The man of affairs, who wants to\nrise, waits on occasion; he is on the watch to avail himself of the\nmoods and caprices of men and bend them to his interest. But he who\nhas learned to value things at their true worth, and whose heart is\nfixed on the acquisition of the highest good, does not want to get on\nso much as to do his duty under all the variable conditions of life.\nJust as he will not withhold his hand from giving, lest some of the\nrecipients of his charity should prove unworthy, so also he will not\nwithdraw his hand from the labour appointed him, because this or that\nendeavour may be unproductive, or lest it should be thwarted by the\nordinances of Heaven. He knows that the laws of Nature will hold on\ntheir way, often causing individual loss to promote the general good.\nHe knows, for instance, that when the clouds are full of rain they\n_will_ empty themselves upon the earth, even though they put his\nharvest in peril; and that when the wind is fierce it will blow down\ntrees, even though it should also scatter the seed which he is sowing.\nBut he does not therefore wait upon the wind till it is too late to\nsow, nor upon the clouds till his ungathered crops rot in the fields.\nHe is conscious that, though he knows much, he knows little of these\nas of other works of God: he cannot tell whether this or that tree\nwill be blown down; almost all he can be certain of is that, when the\ntree is down, it will lie where it has fallen, lifting its bleeding\nroots in dumb protest against the wind which has brought it low. But\n_this_ too he knows, that it is \"God who worketh all;\" that _he_ is\nnot responsible for events beyond his control: that what he is\nresponsible for is that he do the duty of the moment whatever wind may\nblow, and calmly leave the issue in the hand of God. And so he is not\n\"over exquisite to cast the fashion of uncertain evils;\" diligent and\nundismayed, he goes on his way, giving himself heartily to the present\nduty, \"sowing his seed morning and evening, although he cannot tell\nwhich shall prosper, this or that, or whether both shall prove good\"\n(vv. 3-6). Windy March cannot blow him from his constant purpose,\nthough it may blow the seed out of his hand; nor a rainy August melt\nhim to despairing tears, though it may damage his harvest. He has done\nhis duty, discharged his responsibility: let God see to the rest;\nwhatever pleases God will content him.\n\nThis man, then, has learned one or two of the profoundest secrets of\nWisdom, plain as they look. He has learned that, giving, we gain; and,\nspending, thrive. He has also learned that a man's true care is\nhimself; that all that pertains to the body, to the issues of labour,\nto the chances of fortune, is external to himself; that whatever form\nthese may take, he may learn from them, and profit by them, and be\ncontent in them: that his true business in the world is to cultivate a\nstrong and dutiful character which shall prepare him for any world or\nany fate; and that so long as he can do this, his main duty will be\ndone, his ruling object attained. _Totum in co est, ut tibi\nimperes._[47]\n\n  [47] Cicero, _Tusc._, lib. II., cap. 22.\n\nIs not this true wisdom? is it not an abiding good? Pleasures may\nbloom and fade. Speculations may shift and change. Riches may come and\ngo--what else have they wings for? The body may sicken or strengthen.\nThe favour of men may be conferred and withdrawn. There is no\nstability in these; and if we are dependent on them, we shall be\nvariable and inconstant as they are. But if we make it our chief aim\nto do our duty whatever it may be, and to love and serve our neighbour\nwhatever the attitude he may assume to us, we have an aim always\nwithin our reach, a duty we may always be doing, a good as enduring as\nourselves, and therefore a good we may enjoy for ever. Standing on\nthis rock, from which no wave of change can sweep us, \"the light will\nbe sweet to us, and it shall be pleasant to our eyes to behold the\nsun,\" whatever the day, or the world, on which he may rise (ver. 7).\n\nBut is all our life to be taken up in meeting the claims of Duty and\nof Charity? Are we never to relax into mirth, never to look forward to\na time in which reward will be more exactly adjusted to service? Yes,\nwe are to do both this and that. It is very true that he who makes it\nhis ruling aim to do the present duty, and to leave the future with\nGod, will have a happy because a useful life. He that walks this path\nof duty\n\n                      \"only thirsting\n  For the right, and learns to deaden\n  Love of self, before his journey closes,\n  He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting\n  Into glossy purples, which outredden\n  All voluptuous garden roses.\"\n\nThe path may often be steep and difficult; it may be overhung with\nthreatening rocks and strewn with \"stones of offence;\" but he who\npursues it, still pressing on \"through the long gorge\" and winning\nhis way upward,\n\n  \"Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled,\n  Are close upon the shining table-lands\n  To which our God Himself is sun and moon.\"\n\nNevertheless, if his life is to be full and complete, he must be able\nto pluck whatever bright flowers of joy spring beside his path, to\nfind \"laughing waters\" in the crags he climbs, and to rejoice not only\nin \"the glossy purples\" of the armed and stubborn thistle, but in the\ndelicate beauty of the ferns, the pure grace of the cyclamens, and the\nsweet breath of the fragrant grasses and flowers which haunt those\nsevere heights. If he is to be a Man, rather than a Stoic or an\nAnchorite, he must add to his sense of duty a keen delight in all\nbeauty, all grace, all innocent and noble pleasure. For the sake of\nothers, too, as well as for his own sake, he must carry with him \"the\nmerry heart which doeth good like a medicine,\" since, lacking that, he\nwill neither do all the good he might, nor himself become perfect and\ncomplete. And it is proof, I think, of the good divinity, no less than\nof the broad humanity, of the Preacher that he lays much stress on\nthis point. He not only bids us enjoy life, but gives us cogent\nreasons for enjoying it. \"Even,\" he says, \"if a man should live many\nyears, he ought to enjoy them all.\" But why? \"Because there will be\nmany dark days,\" days of old age and growing infirmity in which\npleasures will lose their charm; days of death through which he will\nsleep quietly in the dark stillness of the grave, beyond the touch of\nany happy excitement (ver. 8). Therefore the man who attains the Chief\nGood will not only do the duty of the moment; he will also enjoy the\npleasure of the moment. _He_ will not toil through the long day of\nlife till, spent and weary, he has no power to enjoy his \"much goods,\"\nor no time for his soul to \"make merry the glad.\" While he is \"a young\nman,\" he will \"rejoice in his youth, and let his heart cheer him,\" and\ngo after the pleasures which attract youth (ver. 9). While his heart\nis still fresh, when pleasures are most innocent and healthful,\neasiest of attainment and unalloyed by anxiety and care, he will\ncultivate that cheerful temper which is a prime safeguard against\nvice, discontent, and the morose fretfulness of a selfish old age.\n\n[Sidenote: _Combined with a stedfast Faith in the Life to come._ Ch.\nx., v. 9-Ch. xii, v. 7.]\n\nBut, soft; is not our man of men becoming a mere man of pleasure? No;\nfor he recognises the claims of Duty and of Charity. These keep his\npleasures sweet and wholesome, prevent them from usurping the whole\nman, and landing him in the satiety and weariness of dissipation. But\nlest even these safeguards should prove insufficient, he has also\nthis: he knows that \"God will bring him into judgment;\" that all his\nworks, whether of charity or duty or recreation, will be weighed in\nthe pure and even balance of Divine Justice (ver. 9). _This_ is the\nsecret of the pure heart--the heart that is kept pure amid all labours\nand cares and joys. But the intention of the Preacher in thus\nadverting to the Divine Judgment has been gravely misconstrued,\nwrested even to its very opposite. We too much forget what that\nJudgment must have seemed to the enslaved Jews;--how weighty a\nconsolation, how bright a hope! They were captive exiles, oppressed by\nprofligate despotic lords. Cleaving to the Divine Law with a\npassionate loyalty such as they had never felt in happier days, they\nwere nevertheless exposed to the most dire and constant misfortunes.\nAll the blessings which the Law pronounced on the obedient seemed\nwithheld from them, all its promises of good and peace to be\nfalsified; the wicked triumphed over them, and prospered in their\nwickedness. Now to a people whose convictions and hopes had suffered\nthis miserable defeat, what truth would be more welcome than that of a\nlife to come, in which all wrongs should be both righted and avenged,\nand all the promises in which they had hoped should receive a large\nfulfilment that would beggar hope? what prospect could be more\ncheerful and consolatory than that of a day of retribution on which\ntheir oppressors would be put to shame, and _they_ would be\nrecompensed for their fidelity to the law of God? This hope would be\nsweeter to them than any pleasure; it would lend a new zest to every\npleasure, and make them more zealous in good works.\n\nNay, we know, from the Psalms composed during the Captivity, that the\njudgment of God _was_ an incentive to hope and joy; that, instead of\nfearing it, the pious Jews looked forward to it with rapture and\nexultation. What, for example, can be more riant and joyful than the\nconcluding strophe of Psalm xcvi.?\n\n  Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;\n  Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof;\n  Let the field exult and all that therein is;\n  And let all the trees of the wood sing for joy\n  Before Jehovah: for He cometh,\n  For He cometh _to judge the earth,\n  To judge the world with righteousness,\n  And the peoples with his truth_;\n\nor than the third strophe of Psalm xcviii.?\n\n  Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof;\n  The world, and they that dwell therein;\n  Let the floods clap their hands,\n  And let the hills sing for joy together\n  Before Jehovah: _for He cometh to judge the earth;\n  With righteousness shall He judge the world,\n  And the peoples with equity_.\n\nIt is impossible to read these verses, and such verses as these,\nwithout feeling that the Jews of the Captivity anticipated the Divine\nJudgment, not with fear and dread, but with a hope and joy so deep\nand keen as that they summoned the whole round of Nature to share in\nit and reflect it.\n\nIf we remembered this, we should not so readily agree with the\nPreachers and Commentators who assume Coheleth to be speaking\nironically in this verse, and as though he would defy his readers to\nenjoy their pleasures with the thought of God and his judgment of them\nin their minds. We should rather understand that he was making life\nmore cheerful to them; that he was removing the blight of despair\nwhich had fallen on it; that he was kindling in their dreary prospect\na light which would shine even into their darkened present with\ngracious and healing rays. All wrongs would be easier to bear, all\nduties would be faced with better heart, all alleviating pleasures\nwould grow more welcome, if once they were fully persuaded that there\nwas a life beyond death, a life in which the good would be \"comforted\"\nand the evil \"tormented.\" It is on the express ground that there is a\nJudgment that the Preacher, in the last verse of this chapter, bids\nthem banish \"care\" and \"sadness,\" or, as the words perhaps mean,\n\"moroseness\" and \"trouble;\" though he also adds another reason which\nno longer afflicts him much, viz., that \"youth and manhood are\nvanity,\" soon gone, never to be recalled, and never enjoyed if the\nbrief occasion is suffered to pass.\n\nMark how quickly the force of this great hope has reversed his\nposition. Only in ver. 8, the very instant before he discloses his\nhope, he urges men to enjoy the present \"because all that is coming is\nvanity,\" because there were so many dark days, days of infirm\nquerulous age and silent dreary death before them. But here, in ver.\n10, the very moment he has disclosed his hope, he urges them to enjoy\nthe present, not because _the future_ is vanity, but because _the\npresent_ is vanity, because youth and manhood soon pass and the\npleasures proper to them will be out of reach. Why should they any\nlonger be fretted with care and anxiety when the lamp of Revelation\nshone so brightly on the future? Why should they not be cheerful when\nso happy a prospect lay before them? Why should they sit brooding over\ntheir wrongs when their wrongs were so soon to be righted, and they\nwere to enter on so ample a recompense of reward? Why should they not\ntravel toward a future so welcome and inviting with hearts attuned to\nmirth and responsive to every touch of pleasure?\n\nBut is the thought of Judgment to be no check on our pleasures? Well,\nit is certainly used here as an incentive to pleasure, to\ncheerfulness. We are to be happy _because_ we are to stand at the bar\nof God, because in the Judgment He will adjust and compensate all the\nwrongs and afflictions of time. But it is not every one who can take\nto himself the full comfort of this argument. Only he can do that who\nmakes it his ruling aim to do his duty and help his neighbour. And no\ndoubt even he will find the hope of judgment--for with him it is a\nhope rather than a fear--a valuable check, not on his pleasures, but\non those base counterfeits which often pass for pleasures, and which\nbetray men, through voluptuousness, into satiety, disgust, remorse.\nBecause he hopes to meet God, and has to give account of himself to\nGod, he will resist the evil lusts which pollute and degrade the soul:\nand thus the prospect of Judgment will become a safeguard and a\ndefence.\n\nBut he has a safeguard of even a more sovereign potency than this. For\nhe not only looks forward to a future judgment, he is conscious of a\npresent and constant judgment. God is with him wherever he goes. From\n\"the days of his youth\" he has \"remembered his Creator\" (chap. xii.,\nver. 1). He has remembered _Him_, and given to the poor and needy. He\nhas remembered Him and, doing all things as to Him, duty has grown\nlight. He has remembered Him, and his pleasures have grown the sweeter\nbecause they were gifts from Heaven, and because he has taken them, in\na thankful spirit, for a temperate enjoyment. Of all safeguards to a\nlife of virtue, this is the noblest and the best. We can afford,\nindeed, to part with none of them, for we are strangely weak, often\nwhere we least suspect it, and need all the helps we can get: but\nleast of all can we afford to part with this. We need to remember that\nevery sin is punished here and now, inwardly if not outwardly, and\nthat these inward punishments are the most severe. We need to remember\nthat we must all appear before the judgment-seat of God, to render an\naccount of the deeds done in the body. But above all--if love, and not\nfear, is to be the animating motive of our life--we need to remember\nthat God is always with us, observing what we do; and that, not that\nHe may spy upon us and accumulate heavy charges against us, but that\nHe may help us to do well; not to frown upon our pleasures, but to\nhallow, deepen, and prolong them, and to be Himself our Chief Good and\nour Supreme Delight.\n\n  \"'Live while you live,' the Epicure would say,\n  'And seize the pleasure of the present day.'\n  'Live while you live,' the Sacred Preacher cries,\n  'And give to God each moment as it flies.'\n  Lord, in my view let both united be:\n  I live in pleasure while I live in Thee.\"[48]\n\n  [48] _Dum vivimus vivamus._--Doddridge.\n\nFinally, the Preacher enforces this early and habitual reference of\nthe soul to the Divine Presence and Will by a brief allusion to the\nimpotence and weariness of a godless old age, and by a very striking\ndescription of the terrors of the death in which it culminates.\n\nWhile \"the dew of youth\" is still fresh upon us we are to \"remember\nour Creator\" and his constant judgment of us lest, forgetting Him, we\nshould waste our powers in sensual excess; lest temperate mirth should\ndegenerate into an extravagant and wanton devotion to pleasure; lest\nthe lust of mere physical enjoyment should outlive the power to enjoy,\nand, groaning under the penalties our unbridled indulgence has\nprovoked, we should find \"days of evil\" rise on us in long succession,\nand draw out into \"years\" of fruitless desire, self-disgust, and\ndespair (ver. 1). \"Before the evil days come,\" and that they may not\ncome; before \"the years arrive of which we shall say, I have no\npleasure in them,\" and that they may not arrive, we are to bethink us\nof the Pure and Awful Presence in which we daily stand. God is with us\nthat we may not sin; with us in youth, that \"the angel of his\nPresence\" may save us from the sins to which youth is prone; with us,\nto save us from \"the noted slips of youth and liberty,\" that our\nclosing years may have the cheerful serenity of a happy old age.\n\nTo this admonition drawn from the miseries of godless age, the\nPreacher appends a description of the terrors of approaching death\n(vv. 2-5),--a description which has suffered many strange torments at\nthe hands of critics and commentators. It has commonly been read as an\nallegorical, but singularly accurate, diagnosis of \"the disease men\ncall death,\" as setting forth in graphic figures the gradual decay of\nsense after sense, faculty after faculty.[49] Learned physicians have\nwritten treatises upon it, and have been lost in admiration of the\nforce and beauty of the metaphors in which it conveys the results of\ntheir special science, although they differ in their interpretation of\nalmost every sentence, and are driven at times to the most gross and\nabsurd conjectures in order to sustain their several theories. I need\nnot give any detailed account of these speculations, for the simple\nreason that they are based, as I believe, on an entire misconception\nof the Sacred Text. Instead of being, as has been assumed, a\nfigurative description of the dissolution of the body, it sets forth\nthe threatening approach of death under the image of a tempest which,\ngathering over an Eastern city during the day, breaks upon it toward\nevening: so, at least, I, with many more, take it. And I do not know\nhow we can better arrive at it than by considering what would be the\nincidents which would strike us if we were to stroll through the\nnarrow tortuous streets of such a city as the day was closing in.\n\n  [49] It may be worth while to specify some of the gross and absurd\n  conjectures, some also of the strange differences, into which what may\n  be called the _medical_ reading of this passage has betrayed its\n  advocates. Ginsburg has a marvellous collection of them in his \"notes\"\n  to these verses. I select and combine only a few of them. The\n  darkening of the light, the sun, the moon, and the stars (ver. 2) is\n  taken by one great authority (the Talmud) to mean the darkening _of\n  the forehead_, _the nose_, _the soul_, _and the teeth_; by another\n  (the Chaldee Paraphrast), the obscuring of _the face_, _the eyes_,\n  _the cheeks_, _and the apples of the eyes_; by a third (Dr. Smith, in\n  his \"Portraiture of Old Age\"), _for the decay of all the mental\n  faculties_. That \"the clouds return after the rain\" signifies,\n  according to Ibn Ezra, _the constant dimness of the eyes_; according\n  to Le Clerc, _a bad influenza, accompanied with unceasing snuffling_.\n  \"The keepers of the house\" (ver. 3) are _the ribs and the loins_\n  (Talmud), _the knees_ (Chaldee), and _the hands and arms_ (Ibn Ezra).\n  \"The men of power\" are _the thighs_ (Talmud) and _the arms_ (Chaldee).\n  \"The grinding maids\" are _the teeth_, and \"the ladies who look out of\n  the lattices\" are _the eyes_, by general consent. \"The door closed on\n  the street\" is _the pores of the skin_ (Dr. Smith), _the lips_ (Ibn\n  Ezra), and _the eyes_ (Henstenberg). That \"the noise of the mills\n  ceases\" or \"grows faint\" (ver. 4) means that _the mastication of food_\n  becomes imperfect (Dr. Smith), that _the appetite_ fails (Chaldee),\n  that _the voice_ grows feeble (Grotius). That \"the songbirds descend\n  to their nests\" signifies that _music and songs are a bore_ to the\n  aged man (Talmud), that he is _no longer able to sing_ (Chaldee), that\n  _his ears are heavy_ (Grotius). The allusion to \"the almond\" (ver. 5)\n  denotes that _the haunch-bone shall come out from leanness_ (Talmud),\n  or (Reynolds) it denotes _the hoary hair which comes quickly on a man_\n  just as the almond-tree thrusts out her blossoms before any other\n  tree; while at least half-a-dozen scholars and physicians take it as\n  pointing to _membrum genitale_ or _glans virilis_. That \"the locust\n  becomes a burden\" means that _the ankles swell_ (Chaldee), _gout in\n  the feet_ (Jerome), _a projecting stomach_ (Le Clerc), _the dry\n  shrivelled frame of an old man_ (Dr. Smith). Almost all modern\n  commentators take the reference to \"the caper-berry\" as marking the\n  fact that condiments lose their power to provoke appetite with the\n  aged, while many of the ancients took it as marking the failure of\n  sexual desire. The \"silver cord\" and \"golden bowl\" of ver. 6 are _the\n  tongue and the skull_ (Chaldee), _backbone and brain_ (Dr. Smith),\n  _urine and bladder_ (Gasper Sanctius); while the \"bucket\" is either\n  _the gall_ or _the right ventricle of the heart_, and \"the wheel\" that\n  draws the water stands for _the air-inspiring lungs_.\n\n  Now of course it would not be just to condemn any interpretation\n  simply because it is weighted with absurdities and contradictions such\n  as these, though it surely requires a very strong reading to carry\n  them. But when an interpretation is so obviously forced and fanciful,\n  when it is so remarkably ingenious and leaves to ingenuity so wide and\n  lawless a scope, we shall do well to hesitate before accepting it. And\n  if another interpretation be offered us, as in the text, which gives a\n  literal rendering to every phrase instead of a figurative one, which\n  bases itself on the common household facts of Eastern experience\n  instead of on the technicalities of Western science, which instead of\n  being so indeterminate and fanciful as at times to be\n  self-contradictory and grotesque, is coherent and impressive, we\n  really have no alternative before us. We cannot but choose the one and\n  reject the other.\n\nAs we passed along we should find small rows of houses and shops,\nbroken here and there by a wide stretch of blank wall, behind which\nwere the mansions, harems, courtyards of its wealthier inhabitants.\nRound and within the low narrow gates which gave access to these\nmansions, we should see armed men lounging whose duty it is to guard\nthe premises against robbers and intruders; these are \"the keepers of\nthe house,\" over whom, as over the whole household, are placed\nsuperior officials--members of the family often--or \"men of power.\"\nGoing through the gates and glancing up at the latticed windows, we\nmight catch glimpses of the veiled faces of the ladies of the house\nwho, not being permitted to stir abroad except on rare occasions and\nunder jealous guardianship, are accustomed to amuse their dreary\nleisure, and to learn a little of what is going on around them, by\n\"looking out of the windows.\" Within the house, the gentlemen of the\nfamily would be enjoying the chief meal of the day, provoking appetite\nwith delicacies such as \"the locust,\"[50] or condiments such as \"the\ncaper-berry,\"[51] or with choice fruit such as \"the almond.\"[52]\nAbove all the shrill cries and noises of the city you would hear a\nloud humming sound rising on every side, for which you would be sorely\npuzzled to account if you were a stranger to Eastern habits. It is the\nsound of the cornmills which, towards evening, are at work in every\nhouse. A cornmill was indispensable to every Eastern family, since\nthere were no public mills or bakers except the King's. The heat of\nthe climate makes it necessary that corn should be ground and bread\nbaked every day. And as the task of grinding at the mill was very\nirksome, only the most menial class of women, often slaves or\ncaptives, were employed upon it. Of course the noise caused by the\nrevolution of the upper upon the nether millstone was very great when\nthe mills were simultaneously at work in every house in the city. No\nsound is more familiar in the East; and, if it were suddenly stopped,\nthe effect would be as striking as the sudden stoppage of all the\nwheels of traffic in an English town. So familiar was the sound,\nindeed, and of such good omen, that in Holy Writ it is used as a\nsymbol of a happy, active, well-provided people; while the cessation\nof it is employed to denote want, and desolation, and despair. To an\nOriental ear no threat would be more doleful and pathetic than that in\nJeremiah (xxv. 10), \"I will take from them the voice of mirth and the\nvoice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the\nbride, _the sound of the millstones_, and the light of the candle.\"\n\n  [50] This locust (_ch\u00e2g\u00e2b_) is one of the four kinds which the Law of\n  Moses marked out as fit for human food. To this day several kinds of\n  locust are held to be an agreeable and nutritious diet. There are many\n  ways of preparing them for the table. They may be pounded with flour\n  and water, and made into cakes. They may be smoked, boiled, roasted,\n  stewed, and fried in butter. They may be salted with salt; and thus\n  treated are eaten by the Arabs as a great delicacy. Or they may be\n  dried in the sun, and then steeped in wine: baskets of them, prepared\n  in this way, are to be commonly seen in Eastern markets. Dr. Kitto,\n  who often ate them, says that they taste like shrimps; Dr. Shaw says\n  that they are quite as good as our freshwater crayfish.\n\n  [51] The caper-plant grows abundantly in Asia, as it does also in\n  Africa and Southern Europe. It commonly springs in the crevices of\n  walls, on heaps of ruins, or on barren wastes, and forms a diffuse\n  many-branched shrub. Its flowers are large and showy: the four petals\n  are white, but the long numerous stamens have their filaments tinged\n  with purple, and terminate in yellow anthers. As the ovary ripens it\n  droops and forms a pear-shaped berry, which holds in its pulp many\n  small seeds. Almost every part of the shrub has been used as a\n  condiment by the ancients. The stalk and seed were salted, or\n  preserved in vinegar or wine. Its buds are still held to be an\n  agreeable sauce--we eat them with boiled mutton. And the berries\n  possess irritant properties which win them high esteem among the\n  Orientals as a provocative to appetite.\n\n  [52] The fruit of the almond-tree is still reckoned one of the most\n  delicate and delicious fruits in the East. We may fancy that we are\n  acquainted with it, that we know \"almonds\" at least as well as we know\n  \"raisins.\" But, I believe, that the almond we eat is only the kernel\n  of the stone in the true almond; the fruit itself is of the same order\n  with apricots, peaches, plums.\n\nNow suppose the day on which we rambled through the city had been\nboisterous and lowering; that heavy rain had fallen, obscuring all the\nlights of heaven; and as the evening drew on, the thick clouds,\ninstead of dispersing, had \"returned after the rain,\" so that setting\nsun and rising moon, and the growing light of stars, were all blotted\nfrom view (ver. 2). The tempest, long in gathering, breaks on the\ncity; the lightnings flash through the darkness, making it more\nhideous; the thunder crashes and rolls above the roofs; the tearing\nrain beats at all lattices and floods all roads. If we cared to abide\nthe pelting of the storm, we should have before us the very scene\nwhich the Preacher depicts. \"The keepers of the house,\" the guards and\nporters, would quake. \"The men of power,\" the lords or owners of the\nhouse, or the officials who most closely attended on them, would\ncrouch and tremble with apprehension. The maids at the mill would\n\"stop\" because one or other of the two women--two at least--whom it\ntook to work the heavy millstone had been frightened from her task by\nthe gleaming lightning and the pealing thunder. The ladies, looking\nout of their lattices, would be driven back into the darkest corners\nof the inner rooms of the harem. Every door would be closed and barred\nlest robbers, availing themselves of the darkness and its terrors,\nshould creep in (ver. 3). \"The noise of the mills\" would grow faint or\nutterly cease, because the threatening tumult had terrified many, if\nnot all, the grinding-maids from their work. The strong-winged\n\"swallow,\" lover of wind and tempest, would flit to and fro with\nshrieks of joy; while the delicate \"song-birds\" would drop, silent and\nalarmed, into their nests. The gentlemen of the house would soon lose\nall gust for their delicate cates[53] and fruits; \"the almond\" would\nbe pushed aside, \"the locust loathed,\" and even the stimulating\n\"caper-berry provoke no appetite,\" fear being a singularly unwelcome\nand disappetising guest at a feast. In short, the whole people,\nstunned and confused by the awful and stupendous majesty of a tropical\nstorm, would be affrighted at the terrors which come flaming from \"the\nheight\" of heaven, to confront them on every highway (vv. 4, 5).\n\n  [53] Sir Henry Rawlinson says: \"At the present day, among the _bons\n  vivants_ of Persia, it is usual to sit down for hours before dinner,\n  drinking wine, and eating dried fruits, such as filberts, almonds,\n  pistachio-nuts, melon-seeds, etc. A party, indeed, often sits down at\n  seven o'clock, and the dinner is not brought in till eleven. The\n  dessert dishes, intermingled as they are with highly seasoned\n  delicacies, are supposed to have the effect of stimulating the\n  appetite.\"--Notes to Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, vol. i., p. 274.\n\n  Such and so terrible is the tempest that at times sweeps over an\n  Eastern city.[54] Such and so terrible, adds the Preacher, is death to\n  the godless and sensual. They are carried away as by a storm; the wind\n  riseth and snatcheth them out of their place. For if we ask, \"Why, O\n  Preacher, has your pencil laboured to depict the terrors of a\n  tempest?\" he replies, \"Because man goeth to his long home, and the\n  mourners pace up and down the street\" (ver. 5). He leaves us in no\n  doubt as to the moral of the fable, the theme and motive of his\n  picture. While painting it, while adding touch to touch, he has been\n  thinking of \"the long home\"--or, as the Hebrew has it, \"the house of\n  eternity;\" a phrase still used by the Jews as a synonym for \"the\n  grave\"--which is appointed for all living, and of the mercenary\n  professional mourners who loiter under the windows of the dying man in\n  the hope that they may be hired to lament him. To the expiring sinner\n  death is simply dreadful. It puts an end to all his activities and\n  enjoyments, just as the tempest brings all the labours and recreations\n  of the city to a pause. He has nothing before him but the grave, and\n  none to mourn him but the harpies who already pace the street, longing\n  for the moment when he will be gone, and who value their fee far above\n  his life. If we would have death shorn of its terrors for us, we must\n  \"remember our Creator\" before death comes; we must seek by charity, by\n  a faithful discharge of duty, by a wise use and a wise enjoyment of\n  the life that now is, to prepare ourselves for the life which is to\n  come.\n\n  [54] It should be borne in mind that the comparative rarity of\n  thunderstorms in Syria and the adjacent lands makes them much more\n  dreadful to the inhabitants of those countries. Throughout the Old\n  Testament, and especially in the Psalms, we find many traces of the\n  dread which such storms inspired--a dread almost unaccountable to our\n  accustomed nerves.\n\nDeath itself, as Coheleth proceeds to remind us (ver. 6), cannot be\nescaped. Some day the cord _will_ break and the lamp fall; some day\nthe jar or pitcher must be broken, and the wheel, shattered, fall into\nthe well. Death is the common event. It befalls not only the sinful\nand injurious, but also the useful and the good. Our life may have\nbeen like a \"golden\" lamp suspended by a silver chain, fit for the\npalace of a king, and may have shed a welcome and cheerful light on\nevery side and held out every promise of endurance but, none the less,\nthe costly durable chain will be snapped at last, and the fair costly\nbowl be broken. Or our life may have been like the \"pitcher\" dipped,\nby village maidens, into the village fountain; or, again, like \"the\nwheel\" by which water is drawn, by a thousand hands, from the city\nwell; it may have conveyed a vital refreshment to the few or to the\nmany around us: but, none the less, the day must come when the pitcher\nwill be shattered on the edge of the fountain, and the time-worn wheel\nfall from its rotten supports. There is no escape from death. And,\ntherefore, as we must all die, let us all live as cheerfully and\nhelpfully as we can; let us all prepare for the better life beyond the\ngrave, by serving our Creator before \"the body is cast into the earth\nfrom which it came, and the spirit returns to God who gave it\" (ver.\n7).\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis, then, according to the Hebrew Preacher, is the ideal man, the\nman who achieves the Quest of the Chief Good:--Charitable, dutiful,\ncheerful, he prepares for death by a useful and happy life, for future\njudgment by a constant reference to the present judgment, for meeting\nGod hereafter by walking with Him here.\n\nHas he not achieved the Quest? Can we hope to find a more solid and\nenduring Good? What to him are the shocks of Change, the blows of\nCircumstance, the mutations of Time, the fluctuations of Fortune?\nThese cannot touch the Good which he holds to be Chief. If they bring\ntrouble, he can bear trouble and profit by it: if they bring\nprosperity, success, mirth, he can bear even these, and neither value\nthem beyond their worth nor abuse them to his hurt; for his Good, and\ntherefore his peace and blessedness, are founded on a Rock over which\nthe changeful waves may wash, but against which they cannot prevail.\nLet the sun shine never so hotly, let the storm beat never so\nfuriously, the Rock stands firm, and the house which he has built for\nhimself upon the Rock. Whatever may befall, he can be doing his main\nwork, enjoying his supreme satisfaction, since he can meet all changes\nwith a dutiful and loving heart; since, through all, he may be forming\na noble character and helping his neighbours to form a character as\nnoble as his own. Because he has a gracious God always with him, and\nbecause a bright future stretches before him in endless and widening\nvistas of hope, he can carry to all the wrongs and afflictions of time\na cheerful spirit which shines through them with transfiguring\nrays,--a spirit before which even the thick darkness of death will\ngrow light, and the solemnities of the Judgment be turned into\nholiday festivity and a triumph. Ah, foolish and miserable that we are\nwho, with so noble a life, and so bright a prospect, and a Good so\nenduring open to us--and with such helps to them in the Gospel of\nChrist as Coheleth could not know--nevertheless creep about the earth\nthe slaves of every accident, the very fools of Time!\n\n\n\n\nTHE EPILOGUE.\n\n_IN WHICH THE PROBLEM OF THE BOOK IS CONCLUSIVELY SOLVED._\n\nCHAP. XII., VERS. 8-14.\n\n\n\"Students,\" says the Talmud, \"are of four kinds; they are like a\nsponge, a funnel, a strainer, and a sieve: like a sponge that sucketh\nall up; like a funnel which receiveth at one end and dischargeth at\nthe other; like a strainer which letteth the wine pass but retaineth\nthe lees; and like a sieve which dischargeth the bran but retaineth\nthe corn.\" Coheleth is like the sieve. He is the good student who has\nsifted all the schemes and ways and aims of men, separating the wheat\nfrom the bran, teaching us to know the bran as bran, the wheat as\nwheat. It is a true \"corn of heaven\" which he offers us, and not any\nof the husks to obtain which reckless and prodigal man has often\nwasted his whole living--husks which, though they have the form and\nhue of wheat, have not its nutriment, and cannot therefore satisfy the\nkeen hunger of the soul.\n\nWe have now followed the sifting process to its close; much bran lies\nabout our feet, but a little corn is in our hands, and from this\nlittle there may grow \"a harvest unto life.\" Starting in quest of that\nChief Good in which, when once it is attained, we can rest with an\nunbroken and measureless content, we have learned that it is not to be\nfound in Wisdom, in Pleasure, in Devotion to Business or Public\nAffairs, in a modest Competence or in boundless Wealth. We have\nlearned that only he achieves this supreme Quest who is \"charitable,\ndutiful, cheerful;\" only he who \"by a wise use and a wise enjoyment of\nthe present life prepares himself for the life which is to come.\" We\nhave learned that the best incentive to this life of virtue, and its\nbest safeguards, are a constant remembrance of our Creator and of his\nperpetual presence with us, and a constant hope of that future\njudgment in which all the wrongs of time are to be redressed. And here\nwe might think our task was ended. We might suppose that the Preacher\nwould dismiss us from the School in which he has so long held us by\nhis sage maxims, his vivid illustrations, his gracious warnings and\nencouragements. But even yet he will not suffer us to depart. He has\nstill \"words to utter for God,\" words which it will be well for us to\nponder. As in the Prologue he had stated the problem he was about to\ntake in hand, so now he subjoins an Epilogue in which he re-states\nthe solution of it at which he has arrived. His last words are, as we\nshould expect them to be, heavily weighted with thought. So closely\npacked are his thoughts and allusions, indeed, as to give a\ndisconnected and illogical tone to his words. Every saying seems to\nstand alone, complete in itself; and hence our main difficulty in\ndealing with this Epilogue is to trace the links of sequence which\nbind saying to saying and thought to thought, and so to get \"the best\npart\" of his work. Every verse supplies a text for patient meditation,\nor a theme which needs to be illustrated by historic facts that lie\nbeyond the general reach; and the danger is lest, while dwelling on\nthese separate themes and texts, we should fail to collect their\nconnected meaning, and to grasp the large conclusion to which they all\nconduct.[55]\n\n  [55] As the main ethical, literary, and historical interest of the\n  whole Book is gathered up into this brief Epilogue, I offer no apology\n  for the comparative length of my treatment of it.\n\nCoheleth commences (ver. 8) by once more striking the keynote to which\nall his work is set: \"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is\nvanity!\" We are not, however, to take these words as announcing his\ndeliberate verdict on the sum of human endeavours and affairs; for he\nhas now discovered the true abiding Good which underlies all the\nvanities of earth and time. His repetition of this familiar phrase is\nsimply a touch of art by which the Poet reminds us of what the main\ntheme of his Poem has been, of the pain and weariness and\ndisappointment which have attended his long Quest. As it falls once\nmore, and for the last time, on our ear, we cannot but remember how\noften, and in what connections, we have heard it before. Memory and\nimagination are set to work. The whole course of the sacred drama\npasses swiftly before us, with its mournful pauses of defeated hope,\nas we listen to this echo of the despair with which the baffled\nPreacher has so often returned from seeking the true Good in this or\nthat province of human life in which it was not to be found.\n\nHaving thus reminded us of the several stages of his Quest, and of the\nverdict which he had been compelled to pronounce at the close of each\nbut the last, Coheleth proceeds (ver. 9) to set forth his\nqualifications for undertaking this sore task: \"Not only was the\nPreacher a wise man, he also taught the people wisdom, and composed,\ncollected, and arranged many proverbs\" or parables, the proverb being\na condensed parable and the parable an expanded proverb. His claims\nare that he is a sage, and a public teacher, who has both made many\nproverbs of his own, collected the wise sayings of other sages, and\nhas so arranged them as to convey a connected and definite teaching to\nhis disciples; and his motive in setting forth these claims is, no\ndoubt, that he may the more deeply impress upon us the conclusion to\nwhich he has come, and which it has cost him so much to reach.\n\nNow during the Captivity there was a singular outbreak of literary\nactivity in the Hebrew race. Even yet this crisis in their history is\nlittle studied and understood; but we shall only follow the Preacher's\nmeaning through vv. 9-12 as we read them in the light of this striking\nevent. That a change of the most radical and extraordinary kind passed\nupon the Hebrews of this period, that they were by some means drawn to\na study of their Sacred Writings much more thorough and intense than\nany which went before it, we know; but of the causes of this change we\nare not so well informed.[56] A great, and perhaps the greatest,\nauthority[57] on this subject writes: \"One of the most mysterious and\nmomentous periods in the history of humanity is that brief space of\nthe Exile. What were the influences brought to bear on the captives\nduring that time, we know not. But this we know, that from a reckless,\nlawless, godless populace, they returned transformed into a band of\nPuritans. The religion of Zerdusht (Zoroaster), though it has left its\ntraces in Judaism, fails to account for that change.... Yet the change\nis there, palpable, unmistakable--a change which we may regard as\nalmost miraculous. Scarcely aware before of their glorious national\nliterature, the people now began to press round these brands plucked\nfrom the fire--the scanty records of their faith and history--with a\nfierce and passionate love, a love stronger even than that of wife and\nchild. These same documents, as they were gradually formed into a\ncanon, became the immediate centre of their lives, their actions,\ntheir thoughts, their very dreams. From that time forth, with scarcely\nany intermission, the keenest as well as the most poetical minds of\nthe nation remained fixed upon them.\"\n\n  [56] In the Introduction, however, I have tried to give what _is_\n  known of the history of this period. Roughly speaking, I believe the\n  Jews owed their literary advance mainly to contact with the\n  inquisitive and learned Babylonians, and their religious advance\n  mainly to the sorrows of the Captivity and their contact with the pure\n  faith of the primitive Persians.\n\n  [57] Emmanuel Deutsch, whose premature death is still lamented by many\n  as an irreparable loss. The passage will be found in his celebrated\n  article on _The Talmud_ in _The Quarterly_ of October 1867. \"The Quest\n  of the Chief Good\" was published at the close of that year. And at\n  this point in it, while Deutsch was still alive, but before I knew him\n  personally, I gently complained of the loss he had unwittingly\n  inflicted on me. I had for ten years been collecting the gnomic\n  sayings of the Talmud from any quarter open to one to whom the Talmud\n  itself was a sealed book, and had indeed printed some two score of\n  them in the _Christian Spectator_ for 1866. And here came one who \"out\n  of his profuse wealth carelessly flung down most of _my_ special\n  treasures.\" Only half-a-dozen of the sayings I had collected now had\n  any stamp of novelty on them to the thousands who had revelled in the\n  wit and learning of that famous article in _The Quarterly_. And of\n  these I ventured to call special attention to four which seemed to me\n  of special value and beauty; viz., those on the four kinds of\n  students, on new and old flasks, on not serving God for the sake of\n  reward, and on doing God's will as if it were our will: they will all\n  be found in this Section. But if I lost something, I also gained much\n  by the appearance of that article, as those who read what follows will\n  discover, although it only came into my hands as I was correcting the\n  proofs of the final pages in my Book.\n\nThe more we think of this change, the more the wonder grows. Good\nkings and inspired prophets had desired to see the nation devoted to\nthe Word of the Lord, had spent their lives in vain endeavours to\nrecall the thought and affection of their race to the Sacred Records\nin which the will of God was revealed. But what they failed to do was\ndone when the inspiration of the Almighty was withdrawn and the voice\nof Prophecy had grown mute. In their Captivity, under the strange\nwrongs and miseries of their exile, the Jews remembered God their\nMaker, Giver of songs in the night. They betook themselves to the\nstudy of the Sacred Oracles. They began to acquaint themselves with\nall wisdom that they might define and illustrate whatever was obscure\nin the Scriptures of their fathers. They commenced that elaborate\nsystematic commentary of which many noble fragments are still extant.\nThey drew new truths from the old letter, or from the collocation of\nscattered passages,--as, for instance, the truths of the immortality\nof the soul and of the resurrection of the body. They laid the hidden\nfoundations of the Synagogues and Schools which afterwards covered the\nland. Ezra and Nehemiah, who, by grace of the Persian conquerors, led\nthem back from Babylonia to Jerusalem, are still claimed as the\nfounders of the Great Synagogue, _i.e._ as the leaders of that great\nrace of jurists, sages, authors, whose utterances are still a law in\nIsrael, and of whom the lawyers and the scribes of the New Testament\nwere the modern successors. Before the Captivity there was not a term\nfor \"school\" in their language; there were at least a dozen in common\nuse within two or three centuries after the accession of Cyrus.\nEducation had become compulsory. Its immense value in the popular\nestimation is marked in innumerable sayings such as these: \"Jerusalem\nwas destroyed because the education of the young was neglected;\" \"Even\nfor the rebuilding of the Temple the schools must not be interrupted;\"\n\"Study is more meritorious than sacrifice;\" \"A scholar is greater than\na prophet;\" \"You should revere the teacher even more than your father;\nthe latter only brought you into this world, the former shews you the\nway into the next.\" To meet the national craving indicated in these\nand similar proverbs, innumerable copies of the Sacred Books, of\ncommentaries, traditions, and the gnomic utterances of the Wise, were\nwritten and circulated, of which, in the Canon, in some of the\nApocryphal Scriptures, in the works of Philo, and in the legal and\nlegendary sections of the Talmud, many specimens have come down to us.\nIn fine, whatever was the cause of this marvellous outburst, there can\nbe no doubt that the whole Rabbinical period was characterised by\ndevotion to learning, a mental and literary activity, much more\ngeneral and vital than it is easy for us to conceive.\n\nIn such an age the words of a professed and acknowledged Sage would\ncarry great weight. If, besides being \"a wise man,\" he was a\nrecognised \"teacher,\" a man whose wisdom was stamped by public and\nofficial approval, whatever fell from his lips would command public\nattention: for these teachers, or rabbis, were the real rulers of the\ntime, and not the pharisees or the priests, or even the politicians.\nThey might be, they often were, \"tent-makers, sandal-makers, weavers,\ncarpenters, tanners, bakers, cooks\"; for it is among their highest\nclaims to our respect that these learned rabbis reverenced labour,\nhowever menial or toilsome, that they held mere scholarship and piety\nof little worth unless conjoined with regular and healthy physical\nexertion. But, however toilsome their lives or humble their\ncircumstances, these wise men were \"masters of the law.\" It was their\nspecial function to interpret the Law of Moses--which, remember, was\nthe law of the land--to explain its bearing on this case or that, if\nnot, as many modern critics maintain, to add to its precepts and\ncodes; and, as members of the local courts or the metropolitan\nSanhedrin, to administer the law they expounded. An immense power,\ntherefore, was in their hands. To obey the Law was to be at once loyal\nand religious, happy here and hereafter. Hence the rabbis, whose\nbusiness it was to apply the law to all the details of life, and whose\ndecisions were authoritative and final, could not fail to command\nuniversal deference and respect. They were lawyers, judges,\nschoolmasters, heads of colleges, public orators and lecturers,\nstatesmen and preachers, all in one or all in turn, and therefore\nconcentrated in themselves the esteem which we distribute on many\noffices and many men.\n\nSuch a rabbi was Coheleth. He was of \"the Wise\"; he was a \"master of\nthe law.\" And, in addition to these claims, he was also a teacher and\nan author who, besides \"composing,\" had \"collected and arranged many\nproverbs.\" Than this latter he could hardly have any higher claim to\nthe regard, and even to the affection, of the Hebrew public. The\npassionate fondness of Oriental races for proverbs, fables, stories of\nany kind, is well known. And the Jews for whom Coheleth wrote took, as\nwas natural at such a time, an extraordinary delight, extraordinary\neven for the East, in listening to and repeating the wise or witty\nsayings, the parables and poems, of their national authors. Some of\nthese are still in our hands: as we read them, we cease to wonder at\nthe intense enjoyment with which they were welcomed by a generation\nnot cloyed, as we are, with books. They are not only charming as works\nof art: they have also this charm, that they convey lofty ethical\ninstruction. Take a few of these pictorial proverbs, not included in\nthe Canonical Scriptures. \"The house that does not open to the poor\nwill open to the physician.\" \"Commit a sin twice, and you will begin\nto think it quite allowable.\" \"The reward of good works is like\ndates--sweet, but ripening late.\" \"Even when the gates of prayer are\nshut in heaven, the gate of tears is open.\" \"When the righteous dies,\nit is the earth that loses; the lost jewel is still a jewel, but he\nwho has lost it--well may he weep.\" \"Who is wise? He who is willing to\nlearn from all men. Who is strong? He who subdues his passions. Who is\nrich? He that is satisfied with his lot.\" These are surely happy\nexpressions of profound moral truths. But the rabbis are capable of\nputting a keener edge on their words; they can utter witty epigrams as\nincisive as those of any of our modern satirists, and yet use their\nwit in the service of good sense and morality. It would not be easy to\nmatch, it would be very hard to beat, such sayings as these:--\"The sun\nwill go down without _your_ help.\" \"When the ox is _down_, many are\nthe butchers.\" \"The soldiers fight, and kings are the heroes.\" \"The\ncamel wanted horns, and they took away his ears.\" \"The cock and the\nowl both wait for morning: the light brings joy to me, says the cock,\nbut what are _you_ waiting for?\" \"When the pitcher falls on the stone,\nwoe to the pitcher; when the stone falls on the pitcher, woe to the\npitcher: whatever happens, woe to the pitcher.\" \"Look not at the\nflask, but at that which is in it: for there are new flasks full of\nold wine, and old flasks which have not even new wine in them:\" ah, of\nhow many of those \"old flasks\" have some of us had to drink, or seem\nto drink! When the rabbis draw out their moral at greater length, when\nthey tell a story, their skill does not desert them. Here is one of\nthe briefest, which can hardly fail to remind us of more than one of\nthe parables uttered by the Great Teacher Himself. \"There was once a\nking who bade all his servants to a great repast, but did not name the\nhour. Some went home, and put on their best garments, and came and\nstood at the door of the palace. Others said, 'There is time enough,\nthe king will let us know beforehand.' But the king summoned them of a\nsudden; and those that came in their best garments were well received,\nbut the foolish ones, who came in their slovenliness, were turned away\nin disgrace. _Repent ye to-day, lest ye be summoned to-morrow._\"\n\nIs it any wonder that the Jews, even in the sorrows of their\nCaptivity, liked to hear such proverbs and parables as these? that\nthey had an immense and grateful admiration for the men who spent much\nthought and care on the composition and arrangement of these wise,\nbeautiful sayings? Should not we ourselves be thankful to hear them\nwhen the day's work was done, or even while it was doing? If, then,\nsuch an one as Coheleth--a sage, a rabbi, a composer and collector of\nproverbs and parables--came to them and said, \"My children, I have\nsought what you are all seeking; I have been in quest of that Chief\nGood which you still pursue; and I will tell you the story of the\nQuest in the parables and proverbs which you are so fond of\nhearing:\"--we can surely understand that they would be charmed to\nlisten, that they would hang upon his words, that they would be\npredisposed to accept his conclusions. As they listened, and found\nthat he was telling them their own story no less than his, that he was\ntrying to lead them away from the vanities which they themselves felt\nto be vanities, toward an abiding Good in which he had found rest; as\nthey heard him enforce the duties of charity, industry,\nhilarity--duties which all their rabbis urged upon them, and invite\nthem to that wise use and wise enjoyment of the present life which\ntheir own consciences approved: above all, as he unfolded before them\nthe bright hope of a future judgment in which all wrongs would be\nredressed and all acts of duty receive a great recompense of\nreward,--would they not hail him as the wisest of their teachers, as\nthe great rabbi who had achieved the supreme Quest? Assuredly few\nbooks were, or are, more popular than the book Ecclesiastes. Its\npresence and influence may be traced on every subsequent age and\ndepartment of Hebrew literature; it has entered into our English\nliterature hardly less deeply. Many of its verses are familiar to us\nas household words, _are_ household words. Brief as the Book is, I am\ndisposed to think it is better known among us than any other of the\nOld Testament Books except Genesis, the Psalter, and the prophecies of\nIsaiah. Job is an incomparably finer, as it is a much longer poem; but\nI doubt whether most of us could not quote at least two verses from\nthe shorter for every one that we could repeat from the longer\nScripture. We can very easily understand, therefore, that the Wise\nPreacher, as he himself assures us (ver. 10), bestowed on this work\nmuch care and thought; that he had made diligent search for \"words of\ncomfort\" by which he might solace and strengthen the hearts of his\noppressed brethren; and that, having found words of comfort and of\ntruth, he wrote them down with a frank sincerity and uprightness.\n\nFrom this description of the motives which had impelled him to\npublish the results of his thought and experience, and of the spirit\nin which he had composed his work, Coheleth passes, in ver. 11, to a\ndescription of the twofold function of the Teacher which is really a\nmarvellous little poem in itself, a pastoral cut on a gem. That\nfunction is, on the one hand, _progressive_, and, on the other hand,\n_conservative_. At times the Teacher's words are like \"goads\" with\nwhich the herdsmen prick on their cattle to new pastures, correcting\nthem when they loiter or stray; at other times they are like the\n\"spikes\" which the shepherds drive into the ground when they pitch\ntheir tents on pastures where they intend to linger: \"The words of\n_the Wise_ are like goads,\" he says; and \"the Wise\" was a technical\nterm for the sages who interpreted and administered the law; while\n\"those of _the Masters of the Assemblies_ are like spikes driven\nhome,\" \"Masters of Assemblies\" being a technical name for the heads of\nthe colleges and schools which, during the Rabbinical period, were to\nbe found in every town, and almost in every hamlet, of Judea. The same\nman might, and commonly did, wear both titles; and, probably, Coheleth\nwas himself both a Wise Man and a Master. So much as this, indeed,\nseems implied in the very name by which he introduces himself in the\nPrologue. For Coheleth means, as we have seen, \"one who calls an\nassembly together and addresses them,\" _i.e._ precisely such a wise\nman as was reckoned the \"master of an assembly\" among the Jews.\n\nWhat did these Masters teach? Everything almost--at least everything\nthen known. It is true that their main function was to interpret and\nenforce the law of Moses; but this function demanded all science for\nits adequate fulfilment. Take a simple illustration. The Law said,\n\"Thou shalt not kill.\" Here, if ever, is a plain and simple statute,\nwith no ambiguities, no qualifications, capable neither of\nmisconstruction nor evasion. Anybody may remember it, and know what it\nmeans. _May_ they? I am not so sure of that. The Law says I am not to\nkill. What, not in self-defence! not to save honour from outrage! not\nin a patriotic war! not to save my homestead from the freebooter or my\nhouse from the midnight thief! not when my kinsman is slain before my\neyes and in my defence! Many similar cases might be mooted, and were\nmooted, by the Jews. The Master had to consider such cases as these,\nto study the recorded and traditional verdicts of previous judges, the\nglosses and comments of other Masters; he had to lay down rules and to\napply rules to particular and exceptional cases, just as our English\nJudges have to define the Common Law or to interpret a Parliamentary\nStatute. The growing wants of the Commonwealth, the increasing\ncomplexity of the relations of life as the people of Israel came into\ncontact with foreign races, or were carried into captivity in strange\nlands, necessitated new laws, new rules of conduct. And as there was\nno recognised authority to issue a decree, no Parliament to pass an\nAct, the wise Masters, learned in the law of God, were compelled to\nlay down these rules, to extend and qualify the ancient statutes till\nthey covered modern cases and wants. Thus in this very Book, Coheleth\ngives the rules which should govern a wise and pious Jew in the new\nrelations of Traffic (ch. iv., vv. 4-16), and in the service of\nforeign despots (ch. x., vv. 1-20). For such contingencies as these\nthe Law made no provision; and hence the rabbis, who sat in Moses'\nchair, made provision for them by legislating in the spirit of the\nLaw.\n\nEven in the application of known and definite laws there was need for\ncare, and science, and thought. \"The Mosaic code,\" says Deutsch, \"has\ninjunctions about the Sabbatical journey; the distance had to be\nmeasured and calculated, and mathematics were called into play. Seeds,\nplants, and animals had to be studied in connection with many precepts\nregarding them, and natural history had to be appealed to. Then there\nwere the purely hygienic paragraphs, which necessitated for their\nprecision a knowledge of all the medical science of the time. The\nseasons and the feast-days were regulated by the phases of the moon;\nand astronomy, if only in its elements, had to be studied.\" As the\nHebrews came successively into contact with Babylonians, Persians,\nGreeks, Romans, the political and religious systems of these foreign\nraces could not fail to leave some impressions on their minds, and\nthat these impressions might not be erroneous and misleading, it\nbecame the Master to acquaint himself with the results of foreign\nthought. Nay, \"not only was science, in its widest sense, required of\nhim, but even an acquaintance with its fantastic shadows, such as\nastrology, magic, and the rest, in order that, both as lawgiver and\njudge, he might be able to enter into the popular feeling about these\n'arts,'\" and wisely control it.\n\nThe proofs that this varied knowledge was acquired and patiently\napplied to the study of the Law by these \"masters in Israel\" are still\nwith us in many learned sayings and essays of that period; and in all\nthese the _conservative_ element or temper is sufficiently prominent.\nTheir leading aim was, obviously, to honour the law of Moses; to\npreserve its spirit even in the new rules or codes which the changed\ncircumstances of the time imperatively required; to fix their stakes\nand pitch their tents in the old fields of thought. So obvious is this\naim, even in the familiar pages of the New Testament, that I need not\nillustrate it.\n\nBut, on the other hand, the signs of _progress_ are no less decisive,\nthough we may be less familiar with them. Through all this mass of\nlearned and deferential comment on the Mosaic Code, there perpetually\ncrop up sayings which savour of the Gospel rather than of the\nLaw--sayings that denote a great advance in thought. \"_Study is better\nthan sacrifice_,\" for example, must have been a very surprising\nproverb to the backward-looking Jew. It is only one of many Rabbinical\nsayings conceived in the same spirit: but would not the whole\nLevitical family listen to it with the wry, clouded face of grave\nsuspicion? So, when Rabbi Hillel, anticipating the golden rule, said,\n\"_Do not unto another what thou wouldest not have another do unto\nthee; this is the whole law, the rest is mere commentary_,\" the\nlawyers, with all who had trusted in ordinances and observances, could\nhardly fail to be shocked and alarmed. So, too, when Rabbi Antigonous\nsaid, \"_Be not as men who serve their master for the sake of reward,\nbut be like men who serve not looking for reward_;\" or when Rabbi\nGamaliel said, \"_Do God's will as if it were thy will, that He may\naccomplish thy will as if it were his_,\" there would be many, no\ndoubt, who would feel that these venerable rabbis were bringing in\nvery novel, and possibly very dangerous, doctrine. Nor could they fail\nto see what new fields of thought were being thrown open to them when\nCoheleth affirmed the future judgment and the future life of men. Such\n\"words\" as these were in very deed \"goads,\" correcting the errors of\nprevious thought, and urging men on to new pastures of truth and\ngodliness.\n\nSometimes, as I have said, the progressive Sage and the conservative\nMaster would be united in the same person; for there are those, though\nthere are not too many of them, who can \"stand on the old ways\" and\nyet \"look for the new.\" But, often, no doubt, the two would be divided\nand opposed, then as now. For in thought, as in politics, there are\nalways two great parties; the one, looking back with affectionate\nreverence and regret on the past, and set to \"keep invention in a\n_noted_ weed;\" the other, looking forward with eager hope and desire\nto the future, and attached to \"new-found methods and to compounds\nstrange;\" the one, bent on conserving as much as possible of the large\nheritage which our fathers have bequeathed us; the other, bent on\nleaving a larger and less encumbered inheritance to those that shall\nbe after them. The danger of the conservative thinker is that he may\nhold _the debts_ on the estate as part of the estate, that he may set\nhimself against all liquidations, all better methods of management,\nagainst improvement in every form. The danger of the progressive\nthinker is that, in his generous ambition to improve and enlarge the\nestate, he may break violently from the past, and cast away many\nheirlooms and hoarded treasures that would add largely to our wealth.\nThe one is too apt to pitch his tents in familiar fields long after\nthey are barren; the other is too apt to drive men on from old\npastures to new before the old are exhausted or the new ripe. And,\nsurely, there never was a larger or a more tolerant heart than that of\nthe Preacher who has taught us that both these classes of men and\nteachers, both the conservative thinker and the progressive thinker,\nare of God and have each a useful function to discharge; that both the\nshepherd who loves his tent and the herdsman who wields the goad, both\nthe sage who urges us forward and the sage who holds us back, are\nservants of the one Great Pastor, and owe whether goad or tent-spike\nto Him. Simply to entertain the conception widens and raises our\nminds; to have conceived it and thrown it into this perfect form\nproves the Sacred Preacher to have been all he claims and more--not\nonly Sage, Teacher, Master, Author, but also a true Poet and a true\nman of God.\n\nIt is to be observed, however, that our accomplished Sage limits the\nfield of mental activity on either hand (ver. 12). His children, his\ndisciples--\"my son\" was the rabbi's customary term for his pupils, as\n\"rabbi,\" _i.e._ \"my father,\" was the title by which the pupil\naddressed his master--are to beware both of the \"many books\" of the\nmaking of which there was even then \"no end,\" and of that\nover-addiction to study which was a \"weariness to the flesh.\" The\nlatter caution, the warning against \"_much_ study,\" was a logical\nresult of that sense of the sanitary value of physical labour by\nwhich, as we have seen, the masters in Israel were profoundly\nimpressed. They held bodily exercise to be good for the soul as well\nas for the body, a safeguard against the dreamy abstract moods and the\nvague fruitless reveries which relax rather than brace the\nintellectual fibre, and which tend to a moral languor all the more\nperilous because its approaches are masked under the semblance of\nmental occupation. They knew that those who attempt or affect to be\n\"creatures too bright and good for human nature's daily food\" are apt\nto sink below the common level rather than to rise above it. They did\nnot want their disciples to resemble many of the young men who lounged\nthrough the philosophical schools of Greece and Rome, and who, though\nalways ready to discuss the \"first true, first perfect, first fair,\"\ndid nothing to raise the tone of common life whether by their example\nor their words; young men, as Epictetus bitterly remarked of some of\nhis disciples, whose philosophy lay in their cloaks and their beards\nrather than in any wise conduct of their daily lives or any endeavour\nto better the world. It was their aim to develop the whole man--body,\nsoul, and spirit; to train up useful citizens as well as accomplished\nscholars, to spread the love and pursuit of wisdom through the whole\nnation rather than to produce a separate and learned class. And, in\nthe prosecution of this aim, they enjoined neither the exercises of\nthe ancient pal\u00e6stra, nor athletic sports like those in vogue at our\nEnglish seats of learning, which are often a mere waste of good\nmuscle, but useful and productive toils. With Ruskin, they believed,\nnot in \"the gospel of the cricket-bat\" or of the gymnasium, but in the\ngospel of the plough and the spade, the saw and the axe, the hammer\nand the trowel; and saved their disciples from the weariness of\novertaxed brains by requiring them to become skilled artisans, and to\nlabour heartily in their vocations.\n\nNor is the caution against \"many books,\" at which some critics have\ntaken grave offence, the illiberal sentiment it has often been\npronounced. For, no doubt, Coheleth, like other wise Hebrews, was\nfully prepared to study whatever science would throw light on the\nDivine Law, or teach men how to live. Mathematics, astronomy, natural\nhistory, medicine, casuistry, the ethical and religious systems of the\nEast and the West,--some knowledge of all these various branches of\nlearning was necessary, as has been shown, to those who had to\ninterpret and administer the statutes of the Mosaic code, and to\nsupplement them with rules appropriate to the new conditions of the\ntime. In these and kindred studies the rabbis were \"masters\"; and\nwhat they knew they taught. That which distinguished them from other\nmen of equal learning was that they did not \"love knowledge for its\nown sake\" merely, but for its bearing on practice, on conduct. Like\nSocrates, they were not content with a purely intellectual culture,\nbut sought a wisdom that would mingle with the blood of men and mend\ntheir ways, a wisdom that would hold their baser passions in check,\ninfuse new energy into the higher moods and aptitudes of the soul, and\nmake duty their supreme aim and delight. To secure this great end,\nthey knew no method so likely to prove effectual as an earnest, or\neven an exclusive, study of the Sacred Scriptures in which they\nthought they had \"eternal life,\" _i.e._ the true life of man, the life\nwhich is independent of the chances and changes of time. Whatever\nstudies would illuminate and illustrate these Scriptures they pursued\nand encouraged; whatever might divert attention from them, they\ndiscouraged and condemned. Many of them, as we learn from the Talmud,\nrefused to write down the discourses they delivered in School or\nSynagogue lest, by making books of their own, they should withdraw\nattention from the Inspired Writings. It was better they thought to\nread the Scriptures than any commentary on the Scriptures, and hence\nthey confined themselves to oral instruction: even their profoundest\nand most characteristic sayings would have perished if \"fond\ntradition\" had not \"babbled\" of them for many an age to come.\n\nIf the sentiment which dictated this course was in part a mistaken\nsentiment, it sprang from a noble motive. For no ordinance could be\nmore self-denying to a learned and literary class than one which\nforbade them to put on record the results of their researches, the\nconclusions of their wisdom, and thus to win name and fame and use in\nafter generations. But was their course, after all, one which calls\nfor censure? Has the world ever produced a literature so noble, so\npure, so lofty and heroic in its animating spirit, as that of the\nHebrew historians and poets? \"The world is forwarded by having its\nattention fixed on the best things,\" says Matthew Arnold in his\nPreface to his selection of Wordsworth's poems, and proceeds to define\nthe best things as those works of the great masters of song which have\nwon the approval \"of the whole group of civilised nations.\" But even\nthose whom the civilised world has acclaimed as its highest and best\nhave confessed that in the Bible, viewed simply as literature, their\nnoblest work is far excelled: and what sane man will deny that\n\"Faust,\" for example, would cut a sorry figure if compared with \"Job,\"\nwhich our own greatest living poet has pronounced \"the finest poem\nwhether of ancient or of modern times,\" or Wordsworth himself if\nplaced side by side with Isaiah? Who can doubt, then, that the world\nwould have been \"forwarded\" if its attention had been fixed on this\n\"best\"? Who can doubt that it would be infinitely sweeter and better\nthan it is if these ancient Scriptures had been studied before and\nabove all other writings, if they had been brooded over and wrought\ninto the minds of men till \"the life\" in them had been assimilated and\nreproduced? The man who has had a classical or scientific education,\nand profited by it, must be an ingrate indeed, unless he be the slave\nof some dominant crotchet, if he do not hold in grateful reverence the\ngreat masters at whose feet he has sat; but the man who has really\nfound \"life\" in the Scriptures must be worse than an ingrate if he\ndoes not feel that a merely mental culture is a small good when\ncompared with the treasures of an eternal life, if he does not admit\nthat the main object of all education should be to conduct men through\na course of intellectual training which shall culminate in a moral and\nspiritual discipline. To be wise is much; but how much more is it to\nbe good! Better be a child _in_ the kingdom of heaven than a\nphilosopher or a poet hanging vaguely about its outskirts.\n\nIf any of us still suspect the Preacher's words of illiberality, and\nsay, \"There was no need to oppose the one Book to the many, and to\ndepreciate these in order to magnify that,\" we have only to consider\nthe historical circumstances in which he wrote in order to acquit him\nof the charge. For generations the Holy Scriptures had been neglected\nby the Jews; copies had grown scarce, and were hidden away in obscure\nnooks in which they were hard to find; some of the inspired writings\nhad been lost, and have not been recovered to this day. The people\nwere ignorant of their own history, and law, and hope. Suddenly they\nwere awaked from the slumber of indifference, to find themselves in a\nnight of ignorance. During the miseries of the Captivity a longing for\nthe Divine Word was quickened within them. They were eager to acquaint\nthemselves with the Revelation which they had neglected and forgotten.\nAnd their teachers, the few men who knew and loved the Word, set\nthemselves to deepen and to satisfy the craving. They multiplied\ncopies of the Scriptures, circulated them, explained them in the\nSchools, exhorted from them in the Synagogues. And, till the people\nwere familiar with the Scriptures, the wiser rabbis would not write\nbooks of their own, and looked with a jealous eye on the \"many books\"\nbred by the literary activity of the time. It was the very feeling\nwhich preceded and accompanied the English Reformation. _Then_ the\nnewly-discovered Bible threw all other books into the shade. The\npeople thirsted for the pure Word of God; and the leaders of the\nReformation were very well content that they should read nothing else\ntill they had read _that_; that they should leave all other fountains\nto drink of \"the river of life.\" The translation and circulation of\nthe Scriptures was the one work, almost the exclusive work, to which\nthey bent their energies. Like the Jewish rabbis, Tyndale and his\nfellow-labourers did not care to write books themselves, nor wish the\npeople to read the books they were compelled to write in self-defence.\nThere is a remarkable passage in Fryth's _Scripture Doctrine of the\nSacrament_, in which, replying to Sir Thomas More, the Reformer says:\n\"This hath been offered you, is offered, and shall be offered. Grant\nthat the Word of God, I mean the text of Scripture, may go abroad in\nour English tongue ... and my brother Tyndale and I have done, and\nwill promise you to write no more. If you will not grant this\ncondition, then will we be doing while we have breath, and show in few\nwords that the Scripture doth in many, and so at the least save some.\"\nThe Hebrew Reformers of the school of Coheleth were animated by\nprecisely the same lofty and generous spirit. They were content to be\nnothing, that the Word of God might be all in all. \"The Bible, and the\nBible only,\" they conceived to be the want of their age and race; and\nhence they were content to forego the honours of authorship, and the\nstudy of many branches of learning which under other conditions they\nwould have been glad to pursue, and besought their disciples to\nconcentrate all their thoughts on the one Book which was able to make\nthem wise unto salvation. Learned themselves, and often profoundly\nlearned, it was no contempt for learning which actuated them, but a\ndevout godliness and the fervours of a most self-denying piety.\n\nSo far the Epilogue may seem a mere digression, not without interest\nand value indeed, but having no vital connection with the main theme\nof the Poem. It tells us that the Preacher was a sage, a recognised\nofficial teacher, the master of an assembly, a doctor of laws, an\nauthor who had expended much labour on many proverbs, a conservative\nshepherd pitching his tent on familiar fields of thought, a\nprogressive herdsman goading men on to new pastures--_not_ Solomon\ntherefore, by the way, for who would have described _him_ in such\nterms as these? If we are glad to know so much of him, we cannot but\nask, What has all this to do with the quest of the Chief Good? It has\nthis to do with it. Coheleth has achieved the quest; he has solved his\nproblem, and has given us his solution of it. He is about to repeat\nthat solution. To give emphasis and force to the repetition, that he\nmay carry his readers more fully with him, he dwells on his claims to\ntheir respect, their confidence, their affection. He is all that they\nmost admire; he carries the very authority to which they most\nwillingly defer. If they know this--and, scattered as they were\nthrough many cities and provinces, how should they know it unless he\ntold them?--they cannot refuse him a hearing; they will be predisposed\nto accept his conclusion; they will be sure not to reject it without\nconsideration. It is out of any personal conceit, therefore, nor any\npride of learning, nor even that he may grant himself the relief of\nlifting his mask from his face for a moment, that he recounts his\ntitles to their regard. He is simply gathering force from the willing\nrespect and deference of his readers in order that he may plant his\nfinal conclusion more strongly and more deeply in their hearts.\n\nAnd what is the conclusion which he is at such pains to enforce? \"_The\nconclusion of the matter is this; that God taketh cognizance of all\nthings: fear Him, therefore, and keep his commandments, for this it\nbehoveth every man to do; since God will bring every deed to the\njudgment appointed for every secret thing, whether it be good or\nwhether it be bad_\" (vv. 13, 14).\n\nNow that this \"conclusion\" is simply a repetition, in part expanded\nand in part condensed, of that with which the Preacher closes the\nprevious Section, is obvious. _There_ he incites men to a life of\nvirtue with two leading motives: first, by the fact of the present\nconstant judgment of God; and, secondly, by the prospect of a future,\na more searching and decisive, judgment. _Here_ he appeals to\nprecisely the same motives, though now, instead of implying a present\njudgment under the injunction \"Remember thy Creator,\" he broadly\naffirms that \"God takes note of all things;\" and, instead of simply\nreminding the young that God will bring \"the ways of their heart\" into\njudgment, he defines that future judgment at once more largely and\nmore exactly as \"appointed for every secret thing\" and extending to\n\"every deed,\" both good and bad. In dealing with the motives of a\nvirtuous life, therefore, he goes a little beyond his former lines of\nthought, gives them a wider scope, makes them more sharp and definite.\nOn the other hand, in speaking of the forms which the virtuous or\nideal life assumes, he is very curt and brief. All he has to say on\nthat point now is, \"Fear God and keep his commandments;\" whereas, in\nhis previous treatment of it, he had much to say, bidding us for\ninstance, \"cast our bread upon the waters,\" and \"give a portion to\nseven, and even to eight;\" bidding us \"sow our seed morning and\nevening,\" though \"the clouds\" should be \"full of rain,\" and whatever\n\"the course of the wind;\" bidding us \"rejoice\" in all our labours, and\ncarry to all our self-denials the merry heart that physics pain. As we\nstudied the meaning of the beautiful metaphors of chapter xi., sought\nto gather up their several meanings into an orderly connection, and to\nexpress them in a more literal logical form--to translate them, in\nshort, from the Eastern to the Western mode--we found that the main\nvirtues enjoined by the Preacher were charity, industry, cheerfulness;\nthe charity which does good hoping for nothing again, the industry\nwhich bends itself to the present duty in scorn of omen or\nconsequence; and the cheerfulness which springs from a consciousness\nof the Divine presence, from the conviction that, however men may\nmisjudge us, God knows us altogether and will do us justice. This was\nour summary of the Preacher's argument, of his solution of the supreme\nmoral problem of human life. Here, in the Epilogue, he gives us his\nown summary in the words, \"Fear God, and keep his commandments.\"\n\nIf we compare these two summaries, there seems at first rather\ndifference than resemblance between them: the one appears, if more\nindefinite, much more comprehensive, than the other. Yet there is one\npoint of resemblance which soon strikes us. For we know by this time\nthat on the Preacher's lips \"Fear God\" does not mean \"Be afraid of\nGod;\" that it indicates and demands just that reverent sense of the\nDivine Presence, that strong inward conviction of the constant\njudgment He passes on all our ways and motives and thoughts, which\nCoheleth has already affirmed to be a prime safeguard of virtue. It is\nthe phrase \"and keep his commandments\" that sounds so much larger\nthan anything we have heard from him before, so much more\ncomprehensive. For the commandments of God are many and very broad. He\nreveals his will in the natural universe and the laws which govern it;\nlaws which, as we are part of the universe, we need to know and to\nobey. He reveals his will in the social and political forces which\ngovern the history and development of the various races of mankind,\nwhich therefore meet and affect us at every turn. He reveals his will\nin the ethical intuitions and codes which govern the formation of\ncharacter, which enter into and give shape to all in us that is most\nspiritual, profound, and enduring. To keep all the commandments\nrevealed in these immense fields of Divine activity with an\nintelligent and invariable obedience is simply impossible to us; it is\nthe perfection which flows round our imperfection, and towards which\nit is our one great task to be ever reaching forth. Is it as inciting\nus to this impossible perfection that the Preacher bids us \"fear God\nand keep his commandments\"?\n\nYes and No. It is not as having this large perfect ideal distinctly\nbefore his mind that he utters the injunction, although in the course\nof this Book he has glanced at every element of it; nor even as having\nso much of it in his mind as is expressed in the law that came by\nMoses, although that too includes precepts for the physical and the\npolitical as well as for the moral and religious provinces of human\nlife. What he meant by bidding us \"keep the commandments\" was, I\napprehend, that we should take the counsels he has already given us,\nand follow after charity, industry, cheerfulness. Every other phrase\nin this final \"conclusion\" is, as we have seen, a repetition of the\ntruths announced at the close of the previous Section, and therefore\nwe may fairly assume this phrase to contain a truth--the truth of\nDuty--which he there illustrates. Throughout the whole Book there is\nnot a single technical allusion, no allusion to the Temple, to the\nfeasts, to the sacrifices, rites, ceremonies of the Law; and therefore\nwe can hardly take this reference to the \"commandments\" as an allusion\nto the Mosaic table. By the rules of fair interpretation we are bound\nto take these commandments as previously defined by the Preacher\nhimself, to understand him as once more enforcing the virtues which,\nfor him, comprised the whole duty of man.\n\nDo we thus limit and degrade the moral ideal, or represent him as\ndegrading and limiting it? By no means: for to love our neighbour, to\ndischarge the present duty whatever rain may fall and whatever storm\nmay blow, to carry a bright hopeful spirit through all our toils and\ncharities; to do this in the fear of God, as in his Presence, because\nHe is judging and will judge us--this, surely, includes all that is\nessential even in the loftiest ideal of moral duty and perfection. For\nhow are we to be cheerful and dutiful and kind except as we obey the\ncommandments of God in whatever form they may have been revealed? The\ndiseases which result from a violation of sanitary laws, as also the\nignorance or the wilfulness or the impotence which lead us to violate\nsocial or ethical laws, of necessity and by natural consequence impair\nour cheerfulness, our strength for laborious duties, our neighbourly\nserviceableness and good-will. To live the life which the Preacher\nenjoins, on the inspiration of the motives which he supplies, is\ntherefore, in the largest and broadest sense, to keep the commandments\nof God.\n\nWhat advantage, then, is there in saying, \"Be kind, be dutiful, be\ncheerful,\" over saying, \"Obey the laws of God\"? There is this great\npractical advantage that, while in the last resort the one rule of\nlife is as comprehensive as the other, and just as difficult, it is\nmore definite, more portable, and does not sound so difficult. It is\nthe very advantage which our Lord's memorable summary, \"Thou shalt\nlove the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as\nthyself,\" has over the Law and the Prophets. Bid a man keep the whole\nMosaic code as interpreted by the prophets of a thousand years, and\nyou set him a task so heavy, so hopeless, that he may well decline it;\nonly to understand the bearing and harmony of the Mosaic statutes,\nand to gather the sense in which the prophets--to say nothing of the\nrabbis--interpreted them, is the labour of a lifetime, a labour for\nwhich even the whole life of a trained scholar is insufficient. But\nbid him \"love God and man,\" and you give him a principle which his own\nconscience at once accepts and confirms, a golden rule or principle\nwhich if he be of a good heart and a willing mind, he will be able to\napply to the details and problems of life as they arise. In like\nmanner if you say: \"The true ideal of life is to be reached only by\nthe man who comprehends and obeys all the laws of God revealed in the\nphysical universe, in the history of humanity, in the moral intuitions\nand discoveries of the race,\" you set men a task so stupendous as that\nno man ever has or will be able to accomplish it. Say, on the other\nhand, \"Do the duty of every hour as it passes, without fretting about\nfuture issues; help your neighbour to do his duty or to bear his\nburden, even though he may never have helped you; be blithe and\ncheerful even when your work is hard and your neighbour is ungrateful\nor unkind,\" and you speak straight to a man's heart, to his sense of\nwhat is right and good; you summon every noble and generous instinct\nof his nature to his aid. He can begin to practise this rule of life\nwithout preliminary and exhausting study of its meaning; and if he\nfinds it _work_, as assuredly he will, he will be encouraged to make\nit _his_ rule. He will soon discover, indeed, that it means more than\nhe thought, that it is not so easy to apply to the complexities of\nhuman affairs, that it is very much harder to keep than he supposed:\nbut its depth and difficulty will open on him gradually, as he is able\nto bear them. If his heart now and then faint, if hand and foot\nfalter, still God is with him, with him to help and reward as well as\nto judge; and _that_ conviction once in his mind is there for ever, a\nconstant spur to thought, to obedience, to patience.\n\nIn nothing, indeed, does the wisdom of the Hebrew sages show its\nsuperiority over that of the other sages of antiquity more decisively\nthan in its adaptation to the practical needs of men busied in the\ncommon affairs of life, and with no learning and no leisure for the\nstudy of large intricate problems. It comes straight down into the\nbeaten ways of men. If you read Confucius, for example, and still more\nif you read Plato, you cannot fail to be struck with their immense\ngrasp of thought, or their profound learning, or even their moral\nenthusiasm; as you read, you will often meet with wise rules of life\nexpressed in beautiful forms. And yet your main feeling will be that\nthey give you, and men like you, if at least you be of the common\nbuild, as most of us are, little help; that unless you had their rare\nendowments, or could give yourself largely and long to the study of\ntheir works, you could hardly hope to learn what they have to teach,\nor order your life by their plan. And that this feeling is just is\nproved by the histories of China and Greece, different as they are. In\nChina only students, only literati, are so much as supposed to\nunderstand the Confucian system of thought and ethics; the great bulk\nof the people have to be content with a few rules and forms and rites\nwhich are imposed on them by authority. In ancient Greece, the wisdom\nto which her great masters attained was only taught in the Schools to\nmen addicted to philosophical studies; even the natural and moral\ntruths on which the popular mythology was based were hidden in\n\"mysteries\" open only to the initiated few; while the great mass of\nthe people were amused with fables which they misapprehended, and with\nrites which they soon degraded into licentious orgies. No man cared\nfor _their_ souls; their errors were not corrected, their license was\nnot rebuked. Their wise men made no effort to lift them to a height\nfrom which they might see that the whole of morality lay in the love\nof God and man, in charity, diligent devotion to duty, cheerfulness.\nBut it was far otherwise with the Hebrews and their sages. Men such as\nthe Preacher confined themselves to no school or class, but carried\ntheir wisdom to the synagogue, to the market-place, to the popular\nassemblies. They invented no \"mysteries,\" but brought down the\nmysteries of Heaven to the understanding of the simple. Instead of\nengaging in lofty abstract speculations in which only the learned\ncould follow them, they compressed the loftiest wisdom into plain\nmoral rules which the unlettered could apprehend, and urged them to\nobedience by motives and promises which went home to the popular\nheart. And they had their reward. The truths they taught became\nfamiliar to all sorts and conditions of Hebrew men; they became a\nfactor, and the most influential factor, in the national life.\nFishermen, carpenters, tent-makers, sandal-makers, shepherds,\nhusbandmen, grew studious of the Divine Will and learned the secrets\nof righteousness and peace. During the wonderful revival of literary\nand religious activity which followed the exile in Babylon--a revival\nmainly owing to these Sages--every child was compelled to attend a\ncommon school in which the sacred Scriptures were taught by the ablest\nand most learned rabbis; in which, as we learn from the Talmud, the\nduty of leading a religious life in all outward conditions, even to\nthe poorest, was impressed upon them, and the virtues of charity,\nindustry, and cheerfulness were enforced as the very soul of religion.\nHere, for example, is a legend from the Talmud, and it is only one of\nmany, which illustrates and confirms all that has just been said.--\"A\nsage, while walking in a crowded market-place suddenly encountered\nthe prophet Elijah, and asked him who, out of that vast multitude,\nwould be saved. Whereupon the Prophet first pointed out a\nweird-looking creature, a turnkey, 'because he was merciful to his\nprisoners,' and next two common-looking tradesmen who were walking\nthrough the crowd, pleasantly chatting together. The sage instantly\nrushed after them, and asked them what were their saving works. But\nthey, much puzzled, replied: 'We are but poor working-men who live by\nour trade. All that can be said for us is that we are always cheerful\nand good-natured. When we meet anybody who seems sad, we join him, and\nwe talk to him and cheer him up, that he may forget his grief. And if\nwe know of two people who have quarrelled, we talk to them, and\npersuade them till we have made them friends again. This is our whole\nlife.'\" It is impossible that such a legend should have sprung up on\nany but Hebrew soil. Had Confucius been asked to point out the man\nwhom Heaven most approved, he would probably have replied, \"The\nsuperior man is catholic, not sectarian; he is observant of the rules\nof propriety and decorum; and he does not do to others what he would\nnot have done to himself:\"[58] and he would certainly have looked for\nhim in some state official distinguished by his wise administration.\nHad any of the Greek sages been asked the same question, they would\nhave found their perfect man in the philosopher who, raised above the\ncommon passions and aims of men, gave himself to the pursuit of an\nabstract and speculative wisdom. Only a Hebrew would have looked for\nhim in that low estate in which the one truly Perfect Man dwelt among\nus. And yet how that Hebrew legend charms and touches and satisfies\nus! What a hope for humanity there is in the thought that the poor\nweird-looking jailer who was merciful to his prisoners, and the\nkindly, industrious, cheerful working-men, living by their craft, and\nincapable of regarding their diligence and good-nature as \"saving\nworks,\" stood higher than priest or rabbi, ruler or philosopher! How\nwelcome and ennobling is the conviction that there are last who yet\nare first--last with men, first with God; that turnkeys and artisans,\npublicans and sinners even, may draw nearer to Heaven than sophist or\nflamen, sage or prince! Who so poor but that he has a little \"bread\"\nto cast on the thankless unreturning waters? who so faint of heart\nbut that he may sow a little \"seed\" even when the winds rave and the\nsky is full of clouds? who so solitary and forlorn but that he may say\na word of comfort to a weeping neighbour, or seek to make \"two people\nwho have quarrelled friends again\"? And this is all that the Preacher,\nall that God through the Preacher, asks of us.\n\n  [58] This partial anticipation of the Golden Rule will be found in the\n  Confucian _Analects_, book xv., chap. xxiii. \"Tsze-kung asked, saying,\n  'Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's\n  life?' The Master said, 'Is not _reciprocity_ such a word? What you do\n  not want done to yourself, do not do to others.'\" The same rule is\n  given in another form in book v., chap. i of the _Analects_. The other\n  phrases put into the sage's mouth are quoted from Dr. Legge's\n  translation of this work.\n\n_All_--yet even this is much; even for this we shall need the pressure\nof constant and weighty motives: for it is not only occasional acts\nwhich are required of us, but settled tempers and habits of goodwill,\nindustry, and cheerfulness; and to love all men, to rejoice alway, to\ndo our duty in all weathers and all moods, is very hard work to our\nfeeble, selfish, and easily-dejected natures. Does the Preacher supply\nus with such motives as we need? He offers us two motives; one in the\npresent judgment, another in the future judgment of God. \"God is with\nyou,\" he says, \"taking cognizance of all you do; and you will soon be\nwith God, to give Him an account of every secret and every deed.\" But\nthat is an appeal to fear--is it not? It is, rather, an appeal to love\nand hope. He has no thought of frightening us into obedience--for the\nobedience of fear is not worth having, is _not_ obedience in the true\nsense; but he _is_ trying to win and allure us to obedience. For\nwhatever terrors God's judgment or the future world may have for us,\nit is very certain that these terrors were in large measure unknown to\nthe Jews. The Talmud knows nothing of \"hell,\" nothing of an\neverlasting torture. Even the \"Sheol\" of the Old Testament is simply\nthe \"under-world\" in which the Jews believed the spirits of both good\nmen and bad to be gathered after death. And, to the Jews for whom\nCoheleth wrote, the judgment of God, whether here or hereafter, would\nhave singular and powerful attractions. They were in captivity to\nmerciless and capricious despots who took no pains to understand their\ncharacter or to deal with them according to their works, who had no\nsense of justice, no kindness, no ruth for slaves. For men thus\noppressed and hopeless there would be an infinite comfort in the\nthought that God, the Great Ruler and Disposer, knew them altogether,\nsaw all their struggles to maintain his worship and to acquaint\nthemselves with his will, took note of every wrong they suffered, \"was\nafflicted in all their afflictions,\" and would one day call both them\nand their oppressors to the bar at which all wrongs are at once\nrighted and avenged. Would it affright _them_ to hear that \"God taketh\ncognizance of all things,\" and has \"appointed a judgment for every\nsecret and every deed\"? Would not this be, rather, their strongest\nconsolation, their brightest hope? Would they not do their duty with\nbetter heart if they knew that God saw how hard it was to do? Would\nthey not show a more constant kindness to their neighbours, if they\nknew that God would openly reward every alms done in secret? Would\nthey not carry a blither and more patient spirit to all their labours\nand afflictions if they knew that a day of recompenses was at hand?\nThe Preacher thought they would; and hence he bids them \"rejoice,\"\nbids them \"banish care and sadness,\" _because_ God will bring them\ninto judgment, and incites them to \"keep the commandments\" _because_\nGod's eye is upon them, and because, in the judgment, He will not\nforget the work of their obedience, the labour of their love.\n\nThis, to some of us, may be a novel view whether of the present or of\nthe future judgment of God. For the most part, I fear, we speak of the\nDivine judgments as terrible and well-nigh unendurable. We would\nescape them even here, if we could; but, above all, we dread them when\nwe shall stand before the bar at which the secrets of all hearts will\nbe disclosed. Now we need not, and we must not, lose ought of the awe\nand reverence for Him who is our God and Father which, so far from\nimpairing, deepens our love. But we need to remember that fear is\nbase, that it is the enemy of love; that so long as we anticipate the\nDivine judgments only or mainly with dread, we are far from the love\nwhich gives value and charm to obedience; and that, if we are to be\ngood and at peace, we must \"shut out fear with all the strength of\nhope.\" What is it that we fear? Suffering! But why should we fear\nthat, if it will make us perfect? Death! But why should we fear that,\nif it will take us home to our Father? God's anger! But God is not\nangry with us if we love Him and try to do his will; He loves us even\nwhen we sin against Him, and shows his love in making the way of sin\nso hard to us that we are constrained to leave it. Ought we, then, to\ndread, ought we not rather to desire, the judgments by which we are\ncorrected, purified, saved?\n\n\"But the future judgment--that is so dreadful!\" _Is_ it? God knows us\nas we are already: is it so very much worse that we should know\nourselves, and that our neighbours should know us? If among our\n\"secrets\" there be many things evil, are there not at least some that\nare good? Do we not find ourselves perpetually thwarted or hindered in\nour endeavours to give form and scope to our purest emotions, our\ntenderest sympathies, our loftiest resolves? Do we not perpetually\ncomplain that, when we would do good, even if evil is not present to\novercome the good, it is present to mar it, to make our goodness poor,\nscanty, ungraceful? Well, these obstructed purposes and intentions and\nresolves, all the good in us that has been frustrated or deformed, or\nlimited, by our social conditions, by our lack of power, culture,\nexpression, by the clogging flesh or the flagging brain,--all these\nare among \"the secret things\" which God will bring to light; and we\nmay be sure that He will not think less of these, his own work in us,\nthan of the manifold sins by which we have marred his work. We are in\nsome danger of regarding \"the judgment\" as a revelation of our\ntrespasses only, instead of every deed, and every secret, whether good\nor bad. Once conceive of it aright, as the revelation of the whole\nman, as the unveiling of _all_ that is in us, and mere honesty might\nlead us to desire rather than to dread it. One of the finest and most\ndevout spirits of modern France[59] has said: \"It seems to me\nintolerable to appear to men other than we appear to God. My worst\ntorture at this moment is the over-estimate which generous friends\nform of me. We are told that at the last judgment the secret of all\nconsciences will be laid bare to the universe: _would that mine were\nso this day, and that every passer-by could read me as I am!_\" To seem\nwhat we are, to be known for what we are, to be treated as we are,\nthis is the judgment of God. And, though this judgment must bring even\nthe best of us much shame and much sorrow, who that sincerely loves\nGod and truth will not rejoice to have done at last with all masks and\nveils, to wear his natural colours, and to take his true place, even\nthough it be the lowest?\n\n  [59] Maurice de Gu\u00e9rin in his _Journal_.\n\n  \"In the corrupted currents of this world\n  Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,\n  And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself\n  Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;\n  _There_ is no shuffling, there the action lies\n  In its true nature, and we ourselves compell'd\n  Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults\n  To give in evidence.\"\n\nTo have got out of \"the corrupted currents\" of which audacious and\nstrong injustice so often avails itself to our hurt; to be quit of all\nthe shuffling equivocations by which we often pervert the true\ncharacter of our actions, and persuade ourselves that we are other and\nbetter than we are; to be compelled to look our faults straight and\nfairly in the face; to have all the latent goodness of our natures\ndeveloped, and their fettered and obstructed virtue liberated from\nevery bond; to see our every \"secret\" good as well as bad, and our\nevery \"deed\" good as well as bad, exposed in their true colours: is\nthere no hope, no comfort for us, in such a prospect as this? It is a\nprospect full of comfort, full of hope, if at least we have any real\ntrust in the grace and goodness of God; and if, through his grace, we\nhave set ourselves to do our duty, to love our neighbour, and to bear\nthe changes and burdens of life with a patient cheerful heart.\n\nNow that we have once more heard the Preacher's final conclusion, we\nshall have no difficulty in fitting into its place, or valuing at its\nworth, the partial and provisional conclusion to which he rises at the\nclose of the previous Sections of the Book. In the First Section he\ndescribes his quest of the Chief Good in Wisdom and in Mirth; he\ndeclares that, though both wisdom and mirth are good, neither of them\nis the supreme good of life, nor both combined; and, in despair of\nreaching any higher mark, he closes with the admission (ch. ii., vv.\n24-26) that even for the man who is both wise and good \"there is\nnothing better than to eat and to drink, and to let his soul take\npleasure in all his labour.\" In the Second Section he pursues his\nquest in Devotion to Business and to Public Affairs, only to find his\nformer conclusion confirmed (ch. v., vv. 18-20): \"Behold, that which I\nhave said holds good; it _is_ well for a man to eat and to drink, and\nto enjoy all the good of his labour through the brief day of his life;\nthis is his portion; and he should take his portion and rejoice in his\nlabour, remembering that the days of his life are not many, and that\nGod meant him to work for the enjoyment of his heart.\" In the Third\nSection, his quest in Wealth and in the Golden Mean conducts him by\nanother road to the same bright resting-place which, however, for all\nso bright as it looks, he seems to enter every time with a more rueful\nand dejected gait (ch. viii., ver. 15): more and more sadly he\n\"commends mirth, because there is nothing better for man than to eat\nand to drink and to rejoice, and because _this_ will go with him to\nhis work through the days of his life which God giveth him under the\nsun.\" To my mind there is a strange pathos in the mournful tones in\nwhich the Preacher commends mirth, in the plaintive minors of a voice\nfrom which we should naturally expect the clear ringing majors of joy.\nAs we listen to these recurring notes, we feel that he has been\nbaffled in his Quest; that, starting every day in a fresh direction\nand travelling till he is weary and spent, he finds himself night\nafter night at the very spot he had left in the morning, and can only\nalleviate the unwelcome surprise of finding himself no farther and no\nhigher by muttering, \"As well here perhaps as elsewhere!\" No votary of\nmirth and jollity surely ever wore so woebegone a countenance, or sang\ntheir praises with more trembling and uncertain lips. What can be more\nhopeless than his \"_there is nothing better_, so you must even be\ncontent with this,\" or than the way in which he harps on the brevity\nof life! You feel that the man has been passionately seeking for\nsomething better, for a good which would be a good not only through\nthe brief hours of time but for ever; that it is with a heart saddened\nby the sense of wasted endeavour and cravings unsatisfied that he\nfalls back on pleasures as brief as his day, as wearisome as his\ntoils. Yet all the while he feels, and makes you feel, that there is a\ncertain measure of truth in his conclusion; that mirth is a great\ngood, though not the greatest; that if he could but find that\n\"something better\" of which he is in quest, he would learn the secret\nof a deeper mirth than that which springs from eating and drinking and\nsensuous delights, a mirth which would not set with the setting sun of\nhis brief day.\n\nThis feeling is justified by the issue. Now that the Preacher has\ncompleted his circle of thought, we can see that it _is_ well for a\nman to rejoice and take pleasure in his labours, that God did mean him\nto work for the enjoyment of his heart, that there is a mirth purer\nand more enduring than that which springs from knowledge, or from the\ngratification of the senses, or from success in affairs, or from the\npossession of much goods,--a mirth for this life which expands and\ndeepens into an everlasting joy. Throughout his Quest he has held fast\nto the conviction that \"it is a comely fashion to be glad,\" though he\ncould allege no better reason for his conviction than the\ntransitoriness of life and the impossibility of reaching any higher\ngood. Before he could justify this conviction, he must achieve his\nQuest. It is only when he has learned to regard our life--\n\n                            \"as a harp,\n  A gracious instrument on whose fair strings\n  We learn those airs we shall be set to play\n  When mortal hours are ended,\"\n\nthat his plaintive minors pass into the frank, jocund tones\nappropriate to a sincere and well-grounded mirth. _Now_ he can cease\nto \"trouble heaven with his bootless cries\" on the indiscrimination of\ndeath and the vanity of life. He can now say to his soul,\n\n  \"What hast thou to do with sorrow\n  Or the injuries of to-morrow?\"\n\nfor he has discovered that no morrow can any more injure him, no\nsorrow rob him of his true joy. God is with him, observing all the\npostures and moods of his soul, and adapting all his circumstances to\nthe correction of what is evil in him or the cultivation of what is\ngood. There is no dark impassable gulf between this world and the\nnext; life does not cease at death, but grows more intense and full;\ndeath is but a second birth into a second and better life, a life of\nampler and happier conditions, and yet a life which is the\ncontinuation and consummation of that we now live in the flesh. All\nthat he has to do, therefore, is to \"fear God and keep his\ncommandments,\" leaving the issues of his labour in the Hands which\nbend all things to a final goal of good. What though the clouds drop\nrain or the winds blew bitterly, what though his diligence a charity\nmeet no present recognition or reward? All that is no business of his.\nHe has only to do the duty of the passing hour, and to help his\nneighbours do their duty. So long as he can do this, why should he not\nbe bright and gay? In this lies his Chief Good: why should he not\nenjoy _that_, even though other and lesser goods be taken from him for\na time--be lent to the Lord that they may hereafter be repaid with\nusury? He is no longer \"a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stop\nshe please:\" he has a tune of his own, \"a cheerful tune,\" to play, and\n_will_ play it, let fortune be in what mood she please. He is not\n\"passion's slave,\" but the servant and friend of God; and because God\nis with him and for him, and because he will soon be with God, he is\n\n  \"As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,\"\n\nand can take \"fortune's buffets and rewards with equal thanks.\" His\ncheerful content does not lie at the mercy of accident; the winds and\nwaves of vicissitude cannot prevail against it: for it has two broad\nand solid foundations; one on earth, and the other in heaven. On the\none hand, it springs from a faithful discharge of personal duty and\nthe neighbourly charity which hopeth all things and endureth all\nthings; on the other hand, it springs from the conviction that God\ntakes note of all things, and will bring every secret and every deed\ninto a judgment perfectly just and perfectly kind. The fair structure\nwhich rises on these sure foundations is not to be shaken by ought\nthat does not sap the foundations on which it rests. Convince him that\nGod is not with him, or that God does not so care for him as to judge\nand correct him; or convict him of gross and constant failures in duty\nand in charity; and then, indeed, you touch, you endanger, his peace.\nBut no external loss, no breath of change, no cloud in the sky of his\nfortunes, no loss, no infirmity that does not impede him in the\ndischarge of duty, can do more than cast a passing shadow on his\nheart. Whatever happens, into whatever new conditions or new worlds he\nmay pass, his chief good and therefore his supreme joy is with him.\n\n  \"This man is freed from servile bands\n    Of hope to rise or fear to fall:\n  Lord of himself, though not of lands,\n    And, having nothing, yet hath all.\"\n\nNow, too, without fear or favour, without any prejudice for or against\nhis conclusion because we find it in Holy Writ, we may ask ourselves,\nHas the Preacher satisfactorily solved the problem which he took in\nhand? has he really achieved his Quest and attained the Chief Good?\nOne thing is quite clear; he has not lost himself in speculations\nforeign to our experience and remote from it; he has dealt with the\ncommon facts of life such as they were in his time, such as they\nremain in ours: for now, as then, men are restless and craving, and\nseek the satisfactions of rest in science or in pleasure, in\nsuccessful public careers or in the fortunate conduct of affairs, by\nsecuring wealth or by laying up a modest provision for present and\nfuture wants. Now, as then,\n\n  \"The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's,\n  Is not to fancy what were fair in life\n  Providing it could be,--but, finding first\n  What may be, then find how to make it fair\n  Up to our means--a very different thing.\"\n\nThat the Preacher should have attacked this common problem, and should\nhave handled it with the practical good sense which characterises his\nPoem, is a point, and a large point, in his favour.\n\nNor is the conclusion at which he arrives, in its substance, peculiar\nto him, or even to the Scriptures. He says: The perfect man, the ideal\nman, is he who addresses himself to the present duty untroubled by\nadverse clouds and currents, who so loves his neighbour that he can do\ngood even to the evil and the unthankful, and who carries a brave\ncheerful temper to the unrewarded toils and sacrifices of his life,\nbecause God is with him, taking note of all he does, and because there\nis a future life for which this course of duty, charity, and\nmagnanimity, is the best preparative. He affirms that the man who has\nrisen to the discovery and practice of this ideal has attained the\nChief Good, that he has found a duty from which no accident can divert\nhim, a pure and tranquil joy which will sustain him under all change\nand loss. And, on his behalf, I am bold to assert that, allowing for\ninevitable differences of conception and utterance, his conclusion is\nthe conclusion of all the great teachers of morality. Take any of the\nancient systems of morality and religion--Hindu, Egyptian, Persian,\nChinese, Greek, or Latin; select those elements of it in virtue of\nwhich it has lived and ruled over myriads of men; reduce those\nelements to their simplest forms, express them in the plainest words;\nand, as I believe, you will find that in every case they are only\ndifferent and modified versions of the final conclusion of the\nPreacher. \"Do your duty patiently; Be kind and helpful one to another;\nShew a cheerful content with your lot; Heaven is with you and will\njudge you:\"--these brief maxims seem to be the ethical epitome of all\nthe creeds and systems that have had their day, as also of those which\nhave not ceased to be. It is very true that the motive to obedience\nwhich Coheleth draws from the future life of man has been of a varying\nforce and influence, rising perhaps to its greatest clearness among\nthe Egyptians and the Persians, sinking to its dimmest among the\nGreeks and the Romans, although we cannot say it did not shine even\nupon these; for, though the secret of their \"mysteries\" has been kept\nwith a rare fidelity, yet the general impression of Antiquity\nconcerning them was that, besides disclosing to the initiated the\nnatural and moral truths on which the popular mythology was based,\nthey \"opened to man a comforting prospect of a future state.\" I am not\ncareful to show how the Word of Inspiration surpasses all other\n\"scriptures\" in the precision with which it enunciates the elementary\ntruths of all morality, in its freedom from admixture with baser\nmatter, in its application of those truths to all sorts and conditions\nof men, and the power of the motives by which it enforces them. That\nis no part of my present duty. The one point to which I ask attention\nis this: With what an enormous weight of authority, drawn from all\ncreeds and systems, from the whole ethical experience of humanity, the\nconclusion of the Preacher is clothed; how we stand rebuked by the\nwisdom of all past ages if, after duly testing it, we have not adopted\nhis solution of the master-problem of life, and are not working it\nout. Out of every land, in all the different languages of the divided\nearth, from the lips of all the ancient sages whom we reverence for\ntheir excellence or for their wisdom, no less than from the mouths of\nprophet and psalmist, preacher and apostle, there come to us voices\nwhich with one consent bid us \"fear God and keep his commandments;\"--a\nsacred chorus which paces down the long-drawn aisles of Time, chanting\nthe praise of the man who does his duty even though he lose by it, who\nloves his neighbour even though he win no love in return, who breasts\nthe blows of circumstance with a tranquil heart, who by a wise use and\na wise enjoyment of the life that now is qualifies himself for the\nbetter life to be.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis, then, is the Hebrew solution of \"the common problem.\" It is also\nthe Christian solution. For when \"the Fellow of the Lord of hosts,\"\ninstead of \"clutching at his equality with God,\" humbled Himself and\ntook on Him the form of a servant, the very ideal of perfect manhood\nbecame incarnate in this \"man from heaven.\" Does the Hebrew Preacher,\nbacked by the consentient voices of the great sages of Antiquity,\ndemand that the ideal man, moved thereto by his sense of a constant\nDivine Presence and the hope of God's future judgment, should cast the\nbread of his charity on the thankless waters of neighbourly\ningratitude, give himself with all diligence to the discharge of duty\nwhatever clouds may darken his sky, whatever unkindly wind may nip his\nharvest, and maintain a calm and cheerful temper in all weathers, and\nthrough all the changing scenes and seasons of life? His demand is\nmet, and surpassed, by the Man Christ Jesus. _He_ loved all men with a\nlove which the many waters of their hostility and unthankfulness could\nnot quench. Always about his Father's business, when He laid aside the\nglory He had with the Father before the world was, He put off the\nrobes of a king to don the weeds of the husbandman, and went forth to\nsow in all weathers, beside all waters, undaunted by any wind of\nopposition or any threatening cloud. In all the shock of hostile\ncircumstance, in the abiding agony and passion of a life \"short in\nyears indeed, but in sorrows above all measure long,\" He carried\nHimself with a cheerful patience and serenity which never wavered, for\nthe joy set before Him enduring, and even despising, the bitter cross.\nIn fine, the very virtues inculcated by the Preacher were the very\nsubstance of \"the highest, holiest manhood.\" And if we ask, What were\nthe motives which inspired this life of consummate and unparalleled\nexcellence? we find among them the very motives suggested by Coheleth.\nThe strong Son of Man and of God was never alone, because the Father\nwas with Him, as truly with Him while He was on earth as when He was\nin the heaven from which He \"came down.\" He never bated heart nor hope\nbecause He knew that He would soon be with God once more, to be judged\nof Him and recompensed according to the deeds done in the body of his\nhumiliation. Men might misjudge Him, but the Judge of all the earth\nwould do Him right. Men might award Him only a crown of thorns; but\nGod would touch the thorns and, at his quickening touch, they would\nflower into a garland of immortal beauty and honour.\n\nNor did the Lord Jesus help us in our quest of the Chief Good only by\nbecoming a Pattern of all virtue and excellence. The work of his\nRedemption is a still more sovereign help. By the sacrifice of the\nCross He took away the sins which had rendered the pursuit of\nexcellence a wellnigh hopeless task. By the impartation of his Spirit,\nno less than by the inspiration of his Example, He seeks to win us to\nthe love of our neighbour, to fidelity in the discharge of our daily\nduty, and to that cheerful and constant trust in the providence of God\nby which we are redeemed from the bondage of care and fear. He, the\nImmanuel, by taking our flesh and dwelling among us, has _proved_ that\n\"God is with us,\" that He will in very deed dwell with men upon the\nearth. He, the Victor over death, by his resurrection from the grave,\nhas _proved_ the truth of a future life and a future judgment with\narguments of a force and quality unknown to our Hebrew fathers.\n\nSo that now as of old, now even more demonstrably than of old, the\nconclusion of the whole matter is that we \"fear God and keep his\ncommandments.\" This is still the one solution of \"the common problem\"\nand \"the whole duty of man.\" He who accepts this solution and\ndischarges this duty has achieved the Supreme Quest; to him it has\nbeen given to find the Chief Good.\n\n_Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's Note:\n\nMinor typographical errors and inconsistencies have been silently\nnormalized. Archaic and variable spellings and hyphenation have been\nretained","title":"Expositor's Bible: The Book of Ecclesiastes","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":82017}