FOURTH SECTION.

(4)And to be indifferent to Public Wrongs.Ch. viii., vv. 1-13.

1 Who is like the wise man?And who like him that understandeth the interpretation of this saying?The wisdom of this man maketh his face bright,And his rude features are refined.

Ver. 1.This saying:i.e.that which follows.And his rude features, etc. Culture lends an air of refinement to the face, carriage, manners.

2 I say then, Obey the king's commandment,And the rather because of the oath of fealty:8?

Ver. 2.The oath of fealty.Literally, "the oath by God." The Babylonian and Persian despots exacted an oath of loyalty from conquered races. Each had to swear by the god he worshipped.

3 Do not throw off thine allegiance,Nor resent an evil word,For he can do whatsoever he please;

Ver. 3.Do not throw off, etc. Literally, "Do not hurry from his presence, or even stand up because of an evil word." To stand up in the divan of an Eastern despot is a sign of resentment; to rush from it a sign of disloyalty and rebellion.

4 For the word of a king is mighty;And who shall say to him, "What doest thou?"5 Whoso keepeth his commandment will know no evil.Moreover the heart of the wise man foreseeth a time of retribution—6 For there is a time of retribution for all things—When the tyranny of man is heavy upon him:7 Because he knoweth not what will be,And because no one can tell him when it will be.

Ver. 7.Because he knoweth not;i.e.the tyrant does not know. The sense seems to be: Retribution is all the more certain because, in his infatuation, the despot does not foresee the disastrous results of his tyranny, and because no one can tell him when or how they will disclose themselves.

8 No man is ruler over his own spirit,To retain the spirit,Nor has he any power over the day of his death;And there is no furlough in this war,And no craft will save the wicked.9 All this have I seen,Having applied my heart to all that is done under the sun.

Ver. 9.:All this have I seen; i.e.all this retribution on tyrants and the consequent deliverance of the oppressed.

10 But there is a time when a man ruleth over men to their hurt.Thus I have seen wicked men buried,And come again;And those who did right depart from the place of the holy,And be forgotten in the city:This also is vanity.

Ver. 10.: But the Preacher has also seen times when retributive justice didnotovertake the oppressors, when theycame againin the persons of children as wicked and tyrannical as themselves.

11 Because sentence against an evil deed is not executed forthwith,The heart of the sons of men is set in them to do evil.

Ver. 11.:Because sentence, etc. "God does not always pay on Saturdays," says an old Italian proverb.

12 Though a sinner do evil a hundred years,And groweth old therein,Yet I know that it shall be well with those who fear God,Who truly fear before Him;13 And it shall not be well with the wicked,But, like a shadow, he shall not prolong his days,Because he doth not fear before God.

Therefore the Preacher condemns this View of Human Life.

14 Nevertheless, this vanity doth happen on the earth,That there are righteous men who have a wage like that of the wicked,And there are wicked men who have a wage like that of the righteous:This too, I said, is vanity.15 And I commended mirth,Because there is nothing better for man under the sunThan to eat, and to drink, and to be merry;For this will go with him to his workThrough the days of his life,Which God giveth him under the sun.

Ver. 15.: "Andthiswill go with him:" viz. this clear enjoying temper, than which, as yet, the Preacher has found "nothing better."

Chap. VIII., ver. 16, to Chap. XII., ver. 7.

The Chief Good not to be found in Wisdom:Ch. viii., v. 16.-Ch. ix., v. 6.

16 As then I applied my heart to acquire wisdom,And to see the work which is done under the sun—And such a one seeth no sleep with his eyes by day or by night:17 I saw that man cannot find out all the work of GodWhich is done under the sun;Though man labour to discover it,He cannot find it out;And though the wise may say he understandeth itNevertheless he hath not found it out.

Ver. 17.: To illustrate this verse Dean Plumptre happily quotes Hooker's noble and familiar words: "Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of His name, yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He is, neither can know Him, and our safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence, when we confess without confession that His glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach."

ix.

1 For all this have I taken to heart and explored,That the righteous, and the wise, and their labours are in the hand of God:They know not whether they shall meet love or hatred;All lies before them.All are treated alike;

Ver. 1.:They know not whether they shall meet love or hatredmay mean that even the wisest cannot tell whether they shall meet (1) the love or the enmity of God, as shown in adverse or favourable providences; or (2) the things which they love or hate; or (3) the love or the hatred of their fellows. The last of the three seems the most likely.All lies before them; i.e.all possible chances, changes, events. Only God can determine or foresee what is coming to meet them.

All lies before them; i.e.all possible chances, changes, events. Only God can determine or foresee what is coming to meet them.

2 The same fate befalleth to the righteous and to the wicked,To the good and pure and to the impure,To him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not;As with the good so is it with the sinner,With him that sweareth as with him who feareth an oath.3 This is the greatest evil of all that is done under the sun,That there is one fate for all:And that, although the heart of the sons of men is full of evil,And madness is in their hearts through life,Yet, after it, they go to the dead;

Ver. 3.: The words of this verse do not, as they stand, seem to carry on the logical sequence of thought. The Preacher's complaint is that even the wise and the good are not exempted from the common fate, not that the foolish and reckless are exposed to it. The text may be corrupt; but Ginsburg is content with it. A good reading of it, however, is still wanting.

4 For who is exempted?To all the living there is hope,For a living dog is better than a dead lion;5 For the living know that they shall die,But the dead know not anything;And there is no more any compensation to them,For the very memory of them is gone:6 Their love, too, no less than their hatred and rivalry, hath perished;And there is no part for them in ought that is done under the sun.

Nor in Pleasure:Ch. ix., vv. 7-12.

7 Go, then, eat thy bread with gladness,And drink thy wine with a merry heart,Since God hath accepted thy works:8 Let thy garments be always white;Let no perfume be lacking to thy head:9 And enjoy thyself with any woman whom thou lovestAll the days of thy lifeWhich He giveth thee under the sun,All thy fleeting days:For this is thy portion in life,And in the labour which thou labourest under the sun.

Ver. 9.: "Enjoy thyself withanywoman." The word here rendered "woman" does not mean "wife." And as the Hebrew Preacher is here speaking under the mask of the lover of pleasure, this immoral maxim is at least consistent with the part he plays. More than one good critic, however, read "a wife" for "any woman."

10 Whatsoever thine hand findeth to do,Do it whilst thou art able;For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Hades,Whither thou goest.11 Then I turned and saw under the sun,That the race is not to the swift,Nor the battle to the strong;Nor yet bread to the wise,Nor riches to the intelligent,Nor favour to the learned;12 But time and chance happen to all,And that man doth not even know his time:Like fish taken in a fatal net,And like birds caught in a snare,So are the sons of men entrapped in the time of their calamity,When it falleth suddenly upon them.

Nor in Devotion to Public Affairs and its Rewards: Ch. ix., v. 13-Ch. x. v. 20.

13 This wisdom also have I seen under the sun,And it seemed great to me—14 There was a little city,And few men in it,And a great king came against it and besieged it,And threw up a military causeway against it:15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man,And he saved that city by his wisdom;Yet no one remembered this same poor man.16 Therefore say I,Though wisdom is better than strength,Yet the wisdom of the poor is despised,And his words are not listened to:17 Though the quiet words of the wise have much advantageOver the vociferations of a fool of fools,And wisdom is better than weapons of war,Yet one fool destroyeth much good:

1 As a dead fly maketh sweet ointment to stink,So a little folly overpowereth (much) wisdom and honour.2 Nevertheless the mind of the wise man turns toward his right hand,But the mind of the fool to his left;3 For so soon as the fool setteth his foot in the streetHe betrayeth his lack of understanding;Yet he saith of every one (he meeteth), "He is a fool!"

Ver. 3.:Setteth his foot in the street.Literally, "walketh in the road." The sentence seems to be a proverb used to denote the extreme stupidity of the fool who, the very moment he leaves his house, is bewildered, cannot even find his way from one familiar spot to another, and sees his own folly in every face he meets.

4 If the anger of thy ruler be kindled against thee,Resent it not:Patience will avert a graver wrong.

Ver. 4.:Resent it not.Literally, "Quit not thy place."—See note on chapter viii., ver. 3.

5 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun,An outrage which only a ruler can commit:6 A great fool is lifted to high place,While the noble sit degraded:7 I have seen servants upon horses,And masters walking like servants on the ground.

Ver. 7.: To ride upon a horse is still a mark of distinction in many Eastern States. In Turkish cities, till of late, no Christian was permitted to ride any nobler beast than an ass or a mule: so neither were the Jews, in the Middle Ages, in any Christian city.

8 Yet he that diggeth a pit shall fall into it;And whoso breaketh down a wall a serpent shall bite him;9 He who pulleth down stones shall be hurt therewith;And whoso cleaveth logs shall be cut.10 If the axe be blunt, and he do not whet the edge,He must put on more strength;But wisdom should teach him to sharpen it.

Ver. 10.: Ginsburg renders this difficult and much-disputed passage thus: "If the axe be blunt, and he do not sharpen it beforehand, he shall only increase the army; the advantage of repairing hath wisdom," and explains it as meaning: "If any insulted subject lift a blunt axe against the trunk of despotism, he will only make the tyrant increase his army, and thereby augment his own sufferings; but it is the prerogative of wisdom to repair the mischief which such precipitate folly occasions." I have offered what seems a simpler explanation in the comment on this passage, and have tried to give a simpler, yet not less accurate, rendering in the text. But there are almost as many readings of this difficult verse as there are critics; and it is impossible to do more than make a hesitating choice among them.

11 If the serpent bite because it is not charmed,There is no advantage to the charmer.

Ver. 11.:The charmer.Literally, "the master of the tongue." The allusion of the phrase is of course to the subtle cantillations by which the charmer drew, or was thought to draw, serpents from their "lurk," and to render them harmless.

12 The words of the wise man's mouth win him grace;But the lips of a fool swallow him up,13 For the words of his mouth are folly at the beginning,And end in malignant madness.14 The fool is full of words,Though no man knoweth what shall be,Either here or hereafter:And who can tell him?15 The work of a fool wearieth him,For he cannot even find his way to the city.

Ver. 15.:He cannot even find his way to the city; a proverbial saying. It denotes the fool who has not wit enough even to keep a high road, to walk in the beaten path which leads to a capital city. The thought was evidently familiar to Jewish literature; for Isaiah (xxxv. 8) speaks of the way of holiness as a highway in which "wayfaring men,though fools, shall not err."

16 Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child,And thy princes feast in the morning!17 Happy art thou, O land, when thy king is noble,And thy princes eat at due hours,For strength and not for revelry!18 Through slothful hands the roof falleth in,And through lazy hands the house lets in the rain.

Vers. 18, 19.:And money pays for all; i.e.the money of the people. The slothful prodigal rulers, under whose mal-administration the whole fabric of the State was fast falling into decay, extorted the means for their profligate revelry from their toil-worn and oppressed subjects. It is significant of the caution induced by the extreme tyranny of the time, that the whole description of its political condition is conveyed in proverbs more enigmatical than usual, and capable of being interpreted in more senses than one.

19 They turn bread, and wine, which cheereth life, into revelry;And money has to pay for all.20 Nevertheless revile not the king even in thy thoughts,Nor a prince even in thy bed-chamber,Lest the bird of the air carry the report,And the winged tribes tell the story.

But in a wise Use and a wise Enjoyment of the Present Life; Ch. xi., vv. 1-8.

1 Cast thy bread upon the waters,For in time thou mayest find the good of it;2 Give a portion to seven, and even to eight,For thou knowest not what calamity may come upon the earth.3 When the clouds are full of rain,They empty it upon the earth;And when the tree falleth, toward south or north,In the place where the tree falleth there will it lie.4 Whoso watcheth the wind shall not sow,And he who observeth the clouds shall not reap;5 As thou knowest the course of the windAs little as that of the embryo in the womb of the pregnant,So thou knowest not the work of God,Who worketh all things.6 Sow, then, thy seed in the morning,And slack not thy hand in the evening,Since thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that,Or whether both shall prove good:7 And the light shall be sweet to thee,And it shall be pleasant to thine eyes to behold the sun:8 For even if a man should live many years,He ought to rejoice in them all,And to remember that there will be many dark days;Yea, that all that cometh is vanity.

Combined with a stedfast Faith in the Life to come.Ch. xi., v. 9-Ch. xii., v. 7.

9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth,And let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth;And pursue the ways of thine heart,And that which thine eyes desire;And know that for all theseGod will bring thee into judgment:10 Banish, therefore, care from thy mind,And put away sadness from thy flesh,For youth and manhood are vanity.

xii.

And remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth,Before the evil days come,And the years approach of which thou shalt say,"I have no pleasure in them;"2 Before the sun groweth dark,And the light, and the moon, and the stars;And the clouds return after the rain:3 When the keepers of the house shall quake,And the men of power crouch down;When the grinding-maids shall stop because so few are left,And the women who look out of the lattices shall be shrouded in darkness,And the door shall be closed on the street:

Ver. 3.:The women who look out of the lattices; i.e.the luxurious ladies of the harem looking through their windows to see what is going on outside. Compare Judges v. 28; 2 Samuel vi. 16; and 2 Kings ix. 30.

4 When the sound of the mills shall cease,And the swallow fly shrieking to and fro,And all the song-birds drop silently into their nests.

Ver. 4.:The swallow, etc. Literally, "thebird shall arise for a noise,"i.e.the bird which flies abroad and makes a noise at the approach of a tempest: viz. the swallow.All the songbirds.Literally, "all the daughters of song," a Hebraism for birds.

5 There shall be terror at that which cometh from the height,And fear shall beset the highway:The almond also shall be rejected,And the locust be loathed,And the caper-berry provoke no appetite;Because man goeth to his long home,And the mourners pace up and down the street;—

Ver. 5.:From the height, i.e.from heaven.The locust be loathed.It is commonly assumed that the locust was only eaten by the poor; but Aristotle (Hist. Anim., v. 30) names them as a delicacy, and Ginsburg affirms that they are still considered so by the cultivated and well-to-do Arabs.His long home.Literally, "hiseternalhome," the domus æterna of the early Christian tombs.

6 Before the silver cord snappeth asunder,And the golden bowl escapeth;Before the pitcher be shattered at the fountain,And the wheel is broken at the well;7 And the body is cast into the earth from which it came,And the spirit returneth to God who gave it.

Chap. XII., vv. 8-14.

8 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher,All is vanity!9 And not only was the Preacher a wise man;He also taught the people wisdom,And compared, collected, and arranged many proverbs.10 The Preacher sought out words of comfort,And wrote down in uprightness words of truth.11 The words of the Wise are like goads,And those of the Masters of the Assemblies like spikes driven home,Given out by the same Shepherd.12 And of what is more than these, my son, beware;For of making of many books there is no end,And much study is a weariness to the flesh.13 The conclusion of the matter is this;—That God taketh cognisance of all things:Fear Him, therefore, and keep his commandments,For this it behoveth every man to do,

Ver. 13.:God taketh cognisance of all things.Literally, "Everything is noted" or "heard,"i.e.by God the Judge. Ginsburg conjectures, not without reason, as I think, that the Sacred Name was omitted from this clause of the verse simply because the Author wished to reserve it for the more emphatic clause which follows it. Many good scholars, however, read the clause as meaning simply, "The conclusion of the matter,when all has been heard," i.e.which even the Sages can adduce.

14 Since God will bring every deed to the judgmentAppointed for every secret thing,Whether it be good or whether it be bad.

Chap. I., vv. 1-11.

The search for thesummum bonum, the quest of the Chief Good, is the theme of the Book Ecclesiastes. Naturally we look to find this theme, problem, this "riddle of the painful earth," distinctly stated in the opening verses of the Book. It is stated, but not distinctly. For the Book is an autobiographical poem, the journal of the Preacher's inward life set forth in a dramatic form. "A man of ripe wisdom and mature experience, he takes us into his confidence. He unclasps the secret volume, and invites us to read it with him. He lays before us what he has been, what he has thought and done, what he has seen and felt and suffered; and then he asks us to listen to the judgment which he has deliberately formed on a review of the whole."[24]But that he may the more reservedly lay bare his heart to us, he uses thePoet's privilege, and presents himself to us under a mask and wrapped in Solomon's ample mantle. And a dramatic poet conveys his conceptions of human character and circumstance and action, not by direct picturesque descriptions, but, placing men before us "in their habit as they lived," he makes them speak to us, and leaves us to infer their character and condition from their words.

In accordance with the rules of his art, the dramatic Preacher brings himself on the stage of his poem, permits us to hear his most penetrating and characteristic utterances, confesses his own most secret and inward experiences, and thus enables us to conceive and to judge him. He is true to his artistic canons from the outset. His prologue, unlike that of the Book of Job, is cast in the dramatic form. Instead of giving us a clear statement of the moral problem he is about to discuss, he opens with the characteristic utterances of the man who, wearied with many futile endeavours, gathers up his remaining strength to recount the experiments he has tried and the conclusion he has reached. Like Browning, one of the most dramatic of modern poets, he plunges abruptly into his theme, and speaks to us from the first through "feigned lips." Just as in reading theSoliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, or theEpistle of Karshish, the Arab Physician, or a score other of Browning's Poems, we have first toglance through it in order to collect the scattered hints which indicate the speaker and the time, and then laboriously to think ourselves back, by their help, into the time and conditions of the speaker, so also with this Hebrew poem. It opens abruptly with "words of the Preacher," who is at once the author and the hero of the drama. "Who is he," we ask, "and what?" "When did he live, and what place did he fill?" And at present we can only reply, He is the voice of one crying in the wilderness of Oriental antiquity, and saying, "Vanity of vanities!allis vanity!"[25]For what intent, then, does his voice break the long silence? Of what ethical mood is this pathetic note the expression? What prompts his despairing cry?

It is the old contrast—old as literature, old as man—between the ordered steadfastness of nature and the disorder and brevity of human life. The Preacher gazes on the universe above and around him. The ancient earth is firm and strong beneath his feet. The sun runs his race with joy, sinks exhausted into its ocean bed, but rises on the morrow, like a giant refreshed with old wine, to renew its course. The variable and inconstant wind, which bloweth where it listeth, blows from the same quarters, runs through the very circuit which was its haunt in the time of theworld's grey fathers. The streams which ebb and flow, which go and come, run along time-worn beds and are fed from their ancient source. But man, "to one point constant never," shifts from change to change. As compared with the calm uniformity of nature, his life is a mere phantasy, passing for ever through a tedious and limited range of forms, each of which is as unsubstantial as the fabric of a vision, many of which are as base and sordid as they are unreal, and all of which, for ever in a flux, elude the grasp of those who pursue them, or disappoint those who hold them in their hands. "All is vanity; for man has no profit," no adequate and enduring reward, "for all his labour;" literally, "no balance, no surplus, on the balance-sheet of life:" less happy, because less stable, than the earth on which he dwells, he comes and goes, while the earth goes on for ever (vv. 2-4).

This painful contrast between the ordered stability of nature and the changeful and profitless disorder of human life is emphasized by a detailed reference to the large natural forces which rule the world, and which abide unchanged, although to us they seem the very types of change. The figure of ver. 5 is, of course, that of the racer. The sun rises every morning to run its course, pursues it through the day, "pants," as one well-nigh breathless, toward its goal,and sinks at night into its subterraneous bed in the sea; but, though exhausted and breathless at night, it rises on the morrow refreshed, and eager, like a strong, swift man, to renew its daily race. In ver. 6 the wind is represented as having a regular law and circuit, though it now blows South, and now veers round to the North. The East and West are not mentioned, probably because they are tacitly referred to in the rising and setting sun of the previous verse: all the four quarters are included between the two. In ver. 7 the streams are described as returning on their sources; but there is no allusion here, as we might suppose, to the tides,—and indeed tidal rivers are comparatively rare,—or to the rain which brings back the water evaporated from the surface of the streams and of the sea. The reference is, rather, to an ancient conception of the physical order of nature held by the Hebrew as by other races, according to which the ocean, fed by the streams, sent back a constant supply through subterraneous passages and channels, in which the salt was filtered out of it; through these they supposed the rivers to return to the place whence they came. The ruling sentiment of these verses is that, while all the natural elements and forces, even the most variable and inconstant, renew their strength and return upon their course, for frail man there is no return; permanence anduniformity characterisethem, while transitoriness and instability markhimfor their own. They seem to vanish and disappear; the sun sinks, the winds lull, the streams run dry; but they all come back again: for him there is no coming back; once gone, he is gone for ever.

But it is vain to talk of these or other instances of the weary yet restless activity of the universe; "man cannot utter it." For, besides these elemental illustrations, the world is crowded with illustrations of incessant change, which yet move within narrow bounds and do nothing to relieve its sameliness. So numerous are they, so innumerable, that the curious eye and inquisitive ear of man would be worn out before they had completed the tale of them: and if eye and ear could never be satisfied with hearing and seeing, how much less the slower tongue with speaking (ver. 8)? All through the universe what hath been still is and will be; what was done is done still and always will be done; the sun still running the same race, the winds still blowing from the same points, the streams still flowing between the same banks and returning by the same channels. If any man suppose that he has discovered new phenomena, any natural fact which has not been repeating itself from the beginning, it is only because he is ignorant of that which has been from of old(vv. 9, 10).[26]Yet, while in nature all things return on their course and abide for ever, man's day is soon spent, his force soon exhausted.Hedoes not return; nay, he is not so much as remembered by those who come after him. Just as we have forgotten those who were before us, so those who live after us will forget us (ver. 11). The burden of all this unintelligible world lies heavily on the Preacher's soul. He is weary of the world's "everlasting sameness." The miseries and confusions of the human lot baffle and oppress his thoughts. Above all, the contrast between Nature and Man, between its massive and stately permanence and the frailty and brevity of our existence, breeds in him the despairing mood of which we have the keynote in his cry, "Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"

Yet this is not the only, not the inevitable, mood of the mind as it ponders that great contrast.Wehave learned to look upon it with other, perhaps with wider, eyes. We say, How grand, how soothing, how hopeful is the spectacle of nature's uniformity! How it lifts us above the fluctuations of inward thought, and gladdens us with a sense of stability and repose! As we see the ancient inviolable laws working out intothe same gracious and beautiful results day after day and year by year, and reflect that "what has been will be," we are redeemed from our bondage to vanity and corruption; we look up with composed and reverent trust to Him who is our God and Father, and onward to the stable and glorious immortality we are to spend with Him; we argue with Habakkuk (chap. i. ver. 12), "Art notThoufrom everlasting, O Lord our God, our Holy One?Weshall not die," but live.

But if we did not know the Ruler of the universe to be our God and Father; if our thoughts had still to "jump the life to come" or to leap at it with a mere guess; if we had to cross the gulf of death on no more solid bridge than a Peradventure; if, in short, our life were infinitely more troubled and uncertain than it is, and the true good of life and its bright sustaining hope were still to seek, how would it be with us then? Then, like the Preacher, we might feel the steadfastness and uniformity of nature as an affront to our vanity and weakness. In place of drinking in hope and composure from the fair visage and unbroken order of the universe, we might deem its face to be darkened with a frown or its eye to be glancing on us with bitter irony. Instead of finding in its inevitable order and permanence a hopeful prophecy ofourrecovery into an unbroken order and an enduring peace, we might passionately demand why, on an abiding earth and under an unchangingheaven, we should die and be forgotten; why, more inconstant than the variable wind, more evanescent than the parching stream, one generation should go never to return, and another generation come to enjoy the gains of those who were before them, and to blot their memory from the earth.

This, indeed,hasbeen the impassioned protest and outcry of every age. Literature is full of it. The contrast between the tranquil unchanging sky, with its myriads of pure lustrous stars, which are always there and always in a happy concert, and the frailty of man rushing blindly through his brief and perturbed course has lent its ground-tones to the poetry of every race. We meet it everywhere. It is the oldest of old songs. In all the many languages of the divided earth we hear how the generations of men pass swifty and stormfully across its bosom, "searching the serene heavens with the inquest of their beseeching looks," but winning no response; asking always, and always in vain, "Why are we thus? why are we thus? frail as the moth, and of few days like the flower?" It is this contrast between the serenity and the stability of nature and the frailty and turbulence of man which afflicts Coheleth and drives him to conclusions of despair. Here is man, "so noble in reason, so infinite in faculty, in apprehension so like a god," longing with an ardent intensity for the peace which results from the equipoiseand happy occupation of his various powers; and yet his whole life is wasted in labours and tumults, in perplexity and strife; he goes to his grave with his cravings unsatisfied, his powers untrained, unharmonised, knowing no rest till he lies in the narrow bed from which is no uprising! What wonder if to such an one as he "this goodly frame, the earth, seems but a sterile promontory" stretching out a little space into the dark, infinite void; "this most excellent canopy, the air ... this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire," nothing but "a foul, pestilential congregation of vapours"? What wonder if, for him, the very beauty of nature should turn into a repulsive hideousness, and its steadfast, unchanging order be held a satire on the disorder and vanity of his life?

Solomon, moreover,—and Solomon in his premature old age, sated and weary, is the mask under which the Preacher conceals his natural face,—had had a large experience of life, had tried its ambitions, its lusts, its pursuits and pleasures; he had tested every promise of good which it held forth, and found them all illusory; he had drunk of every stream, and found no pure living water with which he could slake his thirst. And men such as he, sated but not satisfied, jaded with voluptuous delights and without the peace of faith, commonly look out on the world with haggard eyes. They feed theirdespair on the natural order and purity which they feel to be a rebuke to the impurity of their own restless and perturbed hearts. Many of us have, no doubt, stood on Richmond Hill, and looked with softening eyes on the rich pastures dotted with cattle, and broken with clumps of trees through which shoot up village spires, while the full, placid Thames winds in many a curve through pasture and wood. It is not a grand or romantic scene; but on a quiet evening, in the long level rays of the setting sun, it is a scene to inspire content and thankful, peaceful thoughts. Wilberforce tells us that he once stood in the balcony of a villa looking down on this scene. Beside him stood the owner of the villa, a duke notorious for his profligacy in a profligate age; and as they looked across the stream, the duke cried out, "O that river! there it runs, on and on, and I so weary of it!" Andthereyou have the very mood of this Prologue; the mood for which the fair, smiling heavens and the gracious, bountiful earth carry no benediction of peace, because they are reflected from a heart all tossed into crossing and impure waves.

All things depend on the heart we bring to them. This very contrast between Nature and Man has no despair in it, breeds no dispeace or anger in the heart at leisure from itself and at peace with God. Tennyson, for instance, makes a merry musical brook sing to us on this very theme.

"I come from haunts of coot and hern,I make a sudden sallyAnd sparkle out among the fern,To bicker down a valley.

"I chatter over stony waysIn little sharps and trebles,I bubble into eddying bays,I babble on the pebbles.

"I chatter, chatter as I flowTo join the brimming river;For men may come and men may go,But I go on for ever.

"I steal by lawns and grassy plots,I slide by hazel covers;I move the sweet forget-me-notsThat grow for happy lovers.

"I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glanceAmong my skimming swallows;I make the netted sunbeams danceAgainst my sanded shallows.

"I murmur under moon and starsIn brambly wildernesses;I linger by my shingly bars;I loiter round my cresses.

"And out again I curve and flowTo join the brimming river;For men may come and men may goBut I go on for ever."

It is the very plaint of the Preacher set to sweet music. He murmurs, "One generation passeth, and anothergeneration cometh, but the earth abideth for ever;" while the refrain of the Brook is,—

"For men may come and men may go,But I go on for ever."

Yet we do not feel that the Song of the Brook should feed any mood of grief and despair. The tune that it sings to the sleeping woods all night is "a cheerful tune." By some subtle process we are made to share us bright, tender hilarity, though we too are of the men that come and go. Into what a fume would the Hebrew Preacher have been thrown had any little "babbling brook" dared to sing this saucy songto him. He would have felt it as an insult, and have assumed that the merry, innocent creature was "crowing" over the swiftly passing generations of men. But, for the Christian Poet, the Brook sings a song whose blithe dulcet strain attunes the heart to the quiet harmonies of peace and good-will.

Again I say all depends on the heart we turn to nature. It was because his heart was heavy with the memory of many sins and many failures, because too the lofty Christian hopes were beyond his reach, that this "son of David" grew mournful and bitter in her presence.

This, then, is the mood in which the Preacher commences his quest of the Chief Good. He is driven toit by the need of finding that in which he can rest. As a rule, it is only on the most stringent compulsions that we any of us undertake this high Quest. Of their profound need of a Chief Good most men are but seldom and faintly conscious; but to the favoured few, who are to lead and mould the public thought, it comes with a force they cannot resist. It was thus with Coheleth. He could not endure to think that those who have "all things put under their feet" should lie at the mercy of accidents from which their realm is exempt; thattheyshould be the mere fools of change, whilethatabides unchanged for ever. And, therefore, he set out to discover the conditions on which they might become partakers of the order and stability and peace of nature; the conditions on which, raised above all the tides and storms of change, they might sit calm and serene even though the heavens should be folded as a scroll and the earth be shaken from its foundations. This, and only this, will he recognise as the Chief Good, the Good appropriate to the nature of man, because capable of satisfying all his cravings and supplying all his wants.

Chap. I., Ver. 12, to Chap. II., Ver. 26.

Oppressed by his profound sense of the vanity of the life which man lives amid the play of permanent natural forces, Coheleth sets out on the search for that true and supreme Good which it will be well for the sons of men to pursue through their brief day; the good which will sustain them under all their toils, and be "a portion" so large and enduring as to satisfy even their vast desires.

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