For in much wisdom is much grief. The more one knows of men's lives, the deeper insight one obtains of their actions and circumstances, the greater is the cause of grief at the incomplete and unsatisfactory nature of all human affairs. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow; not in others, but in himself. With added experience and more minute examination, the wise man becomes more conscious of his own ignorance and impotence, of the unsympathizing and uncontrollable course of nature, of the gigantic evils which he is powerless to remedy; this causes his sorrowful confession (Ecclesiastes 1:17). St. Gregory, taking the religious view of the passage, comments, "The more a man begins to know what he has lost the more he begins to bewail the sentence of his corruption, which he has met with" ('Moral.,' 18.65); and, "He that already knows the high state which he does not as yet enjoy is the more grieved for the low condition in which he is yet held" (ibid; 1.34). The statement in our text is paralleled in Ecclesiasticus 21:12, "There is a wisdom which multiplieth bitterness," and contrasted in Wis. 8:16 with the comfort and pleasure which true wisdom brings.
HOMILETICS
Koheleth, the Preacher.
I. THE PREACHER'S NAME. Koheleth, signifying:
1. The Assembler, or Collector (Delitzsch, Bleek, Keil), not of sentences (Grotius), but of people. Hence:
2. The Preacher (Delitzsch, Wright), since the object for which he calls or convenes the assembly is to address it with words of wisdom (Ecclesiastes 12:9).
3. The Debater (Plumptre), since "the Ecclesiastes was not one who called the ecclesia or assembly together, or addressed it in a tone of didactic authority; but rather an ordinary member of such assembly (the political unit of every Greek state) who took part in its discussions" (ibid.).
II. THE PREACHER'S PERSON.
1. Solomon. In support of this, the traditional view, may be urged:
2. A late writer, belonging to the Persian period (Delitzsch, Bleek, Keil, Plumptre, Hengstenberg, Wright, Cox). Arguments in support of this view are:
III. THE PREACHER'S CHARACTER.
1. Not an atheist. Since besides making frequent (thirty-seven times) mention of the name of God, he expressly recognizes God as the true God, exalted above the world (Ecclesiastes 5:8), the Object of man's fear (Ecclesiastes 5:7; Ecclesiastes 12:13) and worship (Ecclesiastes 5:1, Ecclesiastes 5:2), and the Disposer and Governor of all (Ecclesiastes 7:13); acknowledges the existence in man of a spirit (Ecclesiastes 12:7), and of such things as truth and error, right and wrong, holiness and sin (Ecclesiastes 5:4 6; Ecclesiastes 7:15, Ecclesiastes 7:16; Ecclesiastes 9:2, Ecclesiastes 9:3); places the sum of duty as well as the secret of happiness in fearing God and keeping his commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13); and hints his belief in the coming of a day when God will bring the secrets of all into judgment (Ecclesiastes 11:9).
2. Not a pantheist. The God he believes in is a personal Divinity, distinguished from the works he has made (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and the man he has created (Ecclesiastes 12:1); who issues commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13), and can be worshipped by prayer, sacrifice, and vows (Ecclesiastes 5:1-7); who should be feared (Ecclesiastes 5:7), and who can accept the service of his intelligent creatures (Ecclesiastes 9:7).
3. Not a pessimist. Though at times seeming to indulge in gloomy views of life, to imagine that all things on earth are going to the bad, that the sum of human happiness is more than counterbalanced by that of human misery, that life is not worth living, and that the best a wise man can do is to escape from it in the easiest and most comfortable way he can; yet that these were not his deliberate opinions may be gathered from the frequency with which he exhorts men to cultivate a cheerful mind, and to enjoy the good of all their labor which God giveth them under the sun (Ecclesiastes 2:24-26; Ecclesiastes 3:12; Ecclesiastes 9:7; Ecclesiastes 11:9), and from the emphatic manner in which he repudiates morose conclusions concerning the degeneracy of the times (Ecclesiastes 7:10).
4. Not a libertine. This notion (Plumptre) may appear to derive countenance from what the preacher says of himself (Ecclesiastes 2:1-3); but his language hardly warrants the conclusion that the author of this book had in his lifetime been a person of dissolute morals and profligate manners. If he was, before he penned this work he must have seen the error of his way.
5. But a deeply thinking and religious man. When he looked upon the mystery of life he felt perplexed. He saw that, apart from God and religion, life was an emptiness and vanity. Yet was he not thereby driven to despair, or impelled to renounce life as an unmixed evil; but rather offered it as his opinion that man's highest duty was to fear God and keep his commandments, to accept whatever good Providence might pour into his cup, bear with equanimity and submission whatever trials might be mingled in his lot, and prepare himself for the moment when he should pass into the unseen to render an account for the things done in the body (2 Corinthians 5:10).
IV. THE PREACHER'S AIM. Neither:
1. To expound the doctrines of pessimism—to show "that the past has been like the present," and "the present like that which is to come," that "the present is bad," that "the past has not been better," and "that the future will not be preferable" (Renan). Nor:
2. To furnish an autobiographical confession (ideal, but based on personal experiences) of the progress of a Jewish youth from skepticism through sensuality to faith (Plumptre). But possibly:
3. To comfort God's people, the Hebrew Church, under oppression—that of Persian rule, e.g; supposing the book to be a late composition, by showing them the vanity of earthly things, and exhorting them "to seek elsewhere their happiness; to draw it from those inexhaustible eternal fountains, which even at that time were open to all who chose to come" (Hengstenberg). And certainly:
4. To exhibit the true secret of felicity in the midst of life's vanities, which consisted, as above explained, in fearing God and keeping his commandments.
LESSONS.
1. The inspiration of a Scripture not dependent on a knowledge of its date or author.
2. The value of the Bible as a key to the problem of the universe.
3. The succession of Heaven-sent preachers that have appeared all down the centuries.
Vanity of vanities.
I. THE UNPROFITABLE CHARACTER OF ALL HUMAN LABOR. (Esther 1:3.) Passing over the pathetic picture these words instinctively call up of human life as a ceaseless round of toil—a picture which modern civilization, with all its appliances and refinements, has not obliterated, but rather, in the experience of many, painted in still more lurid colors; a picture which has always possessed for poetic minds, sacred (Job 7:1, Job 7:2) no less than profane (Thomas Hood, 'Song of the Shirt'), a peculiar fascination—readers may note the melancholy truth to which the Preacher here adverts, viz. that the solid outcome of human labor, in the shape of permanent advantage to either society at large or the individual, is comparatively small.
1. This cannot mean that labor is wholly useless (Ecclesiastes 5:19), since without labor man cannot find that bread which is needful for his bodily sustenance (Genesis 3:19). It would be misconceiving the Preacher to suppose he disapproved of all that has been effected by human industry and genius to enrich, enlighten, and civilize the race, or desired to teach that men had better times of it on earth when they lived like savages upon the spontaneous fruits of the earth.
2. Nor is it likely that he designed to glance at what has been a sore evil under the sun ever since men began to divide themselves into laborers and capitalists, viz. the small portion of labor's fruits which usually fall to the former, without whom there would be little or no fruits at all.
3. It is rather probable that the writer was thinking, not of laborers so called, to the exclusion of other workers, but of all toilers without distinction, when he said that the outcome of man's activity, so far at least as attaining to felicity was concerned, was practically nothing.
II. THE UNCEASING CHANGE TO WHICH ALL MUNDANE THINGS ARE SUBJECT. (Esther 1:4-7.)
1. Illustrated in four particulars.
2. Explained by four clauses. It is as if he said, "Look around and behold! All things of earth are perpetually on the move—the sun in the sky, the winds in the firmament, the clouds in the air, the waters in the ocean, the rivers on the meadow, man himself upon the surface of the globe. Nothing bears the stamper finality. Everything is shilling. Nothing remains long in one stay. 'All things are full of labor and weariness; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing'" (Esther 1:8)—by which he means that the changeful condition is never done; there never comes a time when the eye says, "Enough!" or the ear repeats, "Behold! I am full." This view of life had occurred to many before the Preacher's day (Genesis 47:9; 1 Chronicles 29:15; Job 4:19, Job 4:20; Job 7:6; Job 8:9), as it has occurred to some since—to the Greek philosophers who described nature as in a state of perpetual flux, to modem poets such as Shakespeare, and to sacred writers like John (1 John 2:17) and Paul (1 Corinthians 7:31.)
III. THE WEARISOME MONOTONY OF LIFE. (Verses 9, 10.)
1. What the Preacher could not have meant. That no new occurrence ever happens on the earth, that no new contrivance ever is devised, that no new experience ever emerges. Because since the Preacher's day multitudes of new discoveries and inventions have been made in all departments of science; while in the sphere of religion at least one new thing has taken place, viz. the Incarnation (Jeremiah 31:22), and another will take place (Isaiah 65:17).
2. What the Preacher did mean. That the general impression made by life upon beholders is that of sameness. Going back to the above illustrations, he would have said, "See how it is in nature. No doubt one new day succeeds another, one gale of wind follows another, and one body of waters hastens after another. But every day and always it is the same thing over again; the same old sun which reappears in the east; and the same gusts of wind to which we are accustomed that blow from the north to the south, and whirl about continually to all points of the compass; and the same stream that keeps on filling up its fountains and sending forth its waters to the sea. And if you will look at the world of humanity it is the same. A new generation appears on the globe every thirty years, and every hour of every day new individuals are being born; but they are substantially the same old men and women that were here before. 'Fed by the same food, hurt by the same weapons, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter' as those who preceded them, they go through the same experiences their fathers and mothers went through before them." This feeling of monotony is even more emphasized when attention is fixed on the individual. Try to think of how monotonous and wearisome an ordinary human life is! An attempt to realize this will awaken surprise.
IV. THE UNIVERSAL OBLIVION INTO WHICH MEN AND THINGS MUST EVENTUALLY SINK. (Verse 11.) So obvious is this that it scarcely needs illustration. Consider what a small portion of the earth's incidents during the past six thousand years have survived in history, and bow few of the world's great ones have left behind them more than their names. The memory has been preserved of a Flood, but what about the ordinary words and actions that make up everyday life during the years between the Creation and the Deluge? A few particulars have been preserved of the histories of an Abraham and a David, a Sennacherib and a Nebuchadnezzar, an Alexander and a Caesar; but what about the myriads that formed their contemporaries? How much has been transmitted to posterity of the history of these islands? How few of the events of last year have been recorded? How many of those who then died are still remembered? This is, no doubt, all as it should be; but still it is a proof of the vanity of things below, if these be regarded simply in themselves.
CONCLUSION. This view of life should not be possible to a Christian who enjoys the fuller and clearer light of the New Testament revelation, and views all things in their relations to God, duty, and immortality.
Concerning crooked things and things wanting.
I. IRREGULARITIES AND DEFECTS EXIST IN THE WORLD'S PROGRAM. This the teaching of the two proverbs, that crooked things cannot be straightened, i.e. by man, or wanting things numbered. To the seeker after wisdom, who surveys all the works that are done under the sun, and gives his heart to search into and to seek out by wisdom with regard to these what is their end and issue, there appear in the physical, mental, and moral worlds anomalies, irregularities, excrescences, deviations from the straight line of natural order, as well as defects, wants, imperfections, gaps, cleavages, interruptions, failures to reach completeness, which arrest attention and excite astonishment.
1. Of irregularities or crooked things, such phenomena as these may be cited:
2. Of things wanting or defects, may be reckoned these:
II. SUCH IRREGULARITIES AND DEFECTS ARE BEYOND THE POWER OF MAN TO REMOVE OR REMEDY. This, at least, is the doctrine of the above two proverbial sayings.
1. The doctrine, however, is not absolutely and universally true. In the physical, mental, and moral worlds, man can do something to straighten what is crooked and supply what is lacking. For instance, by skill and foresight he can guard himself to some extent against the virulence of disease, the violence of storms and tempests, the destructiveness of unexpected calamities; by education he can protect himself and others against the perils arising from defective knowledge and erroneous judgments; by personal cultivation of virtue he can at least diminish the quantity of its opposite, vice, in the world. If he cannot straighten out all the crooks, he can even some; if he cannot remedy every defect, he can remove a few.
2. Yet the doctrine is true in the sense intended by the Preacher. This is, that after man has done his utmost there will remain anomalies that baffle him to explain, a sense of incompleteness which nothing he can attempt will remove. Let him prosecute his investigations ever so widely and vigorously, there always will be "more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy"—enigmas he cannot solve, antinomies he cannot reconcile, defects he cannot fill up.
III. THE EXISTENCE OF SUCH IRREGULARITIES AND DEFECTS SUGGESTS SOME IMPORTANT LESSONS. AS:
1. That the present system of things is not final. Nothing that is imperfect can be final. The crooked things that want straightening and the lacking things that need supplying contain a dim prophecy of a future and better order, in which the crooked things will be straightened and the defective things supplied.
2. That man's power of apprehending things is incomplete. From this probably arises not a little of that sense of disorder and incompleteness in the outer world of which he complains.
3. That things impossible to man may be possible to God. Though man's faculties are limited, it does not follow that God's power is. The crooked things that man cannot straighten, God can straighten if it seem good to his wisdom.
4. That man's duty meanwhile is to submit and wait. Instead of fretting at what he cannot rectify, he should aim at extracting from it that moral discipline which, doubtless, it is intended to impart; and instead of rushing to hasty conclusions from what he only imperfectly apprehends, he ought in a spirit of hopefulness to wait for further light.
Increase of knowledge, increase of sorrow.
I. BECAUSE NOT WITHOUT LABOR AND PAIN, OFTENTIMES PROTRACTED AND ACUTE, CAN KNOWLEDGE OF ANY KIND BE INCREASED. No royal road to wisdom any more than to wealth. He who would acquire knowledge must dig for it as for hidden treasures (Proverbs 2:4). Those who have attained to greatest distinction, as philosophers, poets, astronomers, etc; have all been hard workers. The information that renders them so wise and their society so agreeable has been slowly and painfully collected by diligent and unremitting effort, sustained through years, often amid hardships, and by means of serf-denials which would have caused them to abandon their enterprises had they been common men, sometimes at the expense of restless days and sleepless nights, and in the midst of bodily infirmities not soothed but aggravated by close and severe study. No doubt, to one inspired with a love of knowledge, such labors and anxieties are more than compensated by the knowledge so acquired; but the proposition of the Preacher is that the largest amount of wisdom one may gather is an insufficient requital for all this toil and anxiety, if the knowledge be only earthly and secular—i.e. has no connection with God, duty, or immortality—and one cannot help asking if the Preacher is not right.
II. BECAUSE, AS THE CIRCLE OF KNOWLEDGE WIDENS, THE SPHERE OF IGNORANCE APPEARS TO ENLARGE. One is prone to imagine that, as the circle of information widens, that of ignorance contracts—which it does in the sense that, the more one knows, the sum of what remains to be known diminishes; but in another and important sense the amount of what remains to be known increases. As in mountain-climbing, the higher one ascends he sometimes discovers heights beyond of which previously he had no suspicion, so in footing it up the steep and difficult slopes of Parnassus, one actually comes to see that the more extensive the boundaries of this knowledge become, the vaster grow the regions beyond into which he has not yet penetrated. A child, for instance, looking up for the first time into the evening sky, imagines he has understood it all at a glance; but afterwards, when he has learnt the elementary truths of astronomy, there rushes on him the conviction that what he knows is but a small part of a very large whole; and as he prosecutes his search into the wonders of star-land, he realizes that the more he knows of it the more there remains to be known, till he feels that with respect to this, at least," he that increases knowledge increases sorrow." Nor is this experience confined to one department of knowledge, but in every department it is the same; the larger and clearer one's acquaintance becomes with it, it only seems to open up untrodden realms beyond, the bare contemplation of which exercises on the mind a strangely depressing influence.
III. BECAUSE AS ONE EXTENDS HIS KNOWLEDGE HIS DIFFICULTIES SEEM TO MULTIPLY. Especially in dealing with the problem of existence. Contrast the states of childhood and manhood, of ignorance and learning, of savage peoples and of civilized nations. The child is unconscious of anxieties that oppress the parental bosom. The peasant, innocent of geology, biology, astronomy, and history, is not troubled with mental, moral, and religious difficulties such as perplex those acquainted with these themes. The heathen, with crude and ill-defined ideas of God, duty, and immortality, are incapable of appreciating those questionings concerning the future life that proceed in Christian minds. Not that it is not better to increase in knowledge, even should such increase awaken and foster doubts; only to increase in knowledge does not necessarily bring peace to the heart or happiness to the soul. It enables one to discern dark problems where none were discerned before; it pushes one on to inquire after solutions for those problems which, nevertheless, constantly elude the grasp. In the region of morals and religion especially it burdens one with a sense of weariness and pain, because of the endless questionings it raises and cannot answer. One who has never been launched upon this sea of doubt can hardly appreciate the wretchedness of those who have been tossed by its raging billows. Those who can hold on by ideas of God, duty, and immortality for the most part escape these perplexities; the man who tries to solve the problem of the universe without these fundamental and regulative conceptions does not, but becomes entangled in a labyrinth of difficulties, and commonly ends by finding himself "in wandering mazes lost."
IV. BECAUSE AS ONE EXTENDS HIS KNOWLEDGE, HE EXTENDS AT THE SAME TIME HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE WORLD'S SORROW. Often said, "One half of the world knows not how the other half lives." How much, e.g; does the civilized Briton know of the degradation of "darkest Africa;" or the religiously educated youth or maiden of the sin that runs rampant in modern society; or the well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed citizen of the aching hearts and miserable lives of the houseless and breadless poor who herd in great cities? Because these things are not known, the Christians of Great Britain are comparatively indifferent to the sad and sorrowful condition of the poor and criminal classes at home, and of the heathen abroad. Did they properly consider these things, they would be filled with sorrow. Should this be adduced as a reason why one should not trouble himself with such disagreeable subjects, the answer is that if God, duty, and immortality are fictions, it is perhaps better to let the world stew in its own wretchedness and profligacy, and to guard one's felicity from being invaded by such disquieting influences; but if God, duty, and immortality are realities, it may be perilous to exhibit such indifference towards the world's wretchedness and sin.
V. BECAUSE INCREASE OF KNOWLEDGE AUGMENTS MAN'S POWER BOTH OF CAUSING AND OF FEELING SORROW. Knowledge is power. Insight into nature's laws enables one to apply these to mechanical uses which, in the absence of such insight, would be impossible. A person of large intelligence and mature experience can do things transcending the capacity of youth. Yet this increased efficiency, which springs from increased knowledge, does not always augment the sum of happiness. If it helps man to multiply instruments for good, it also enlarges his ability to perpetrate evil. It was once believed that crime and misery would disappear from society with the general diffusion of education. No one believes that now. Mere knowledge has no tendency to make men good. (Milton's Satan was not a fool.) It will help such as are good to means and opportunities for doing good; but just as certainly it will aid the wicked in their wickedness, and add to their power of causing misery. Then, in so far as knowledge or education has a tendency to refine the nature, intensify the feelings, quicken the susceptibilities, to that extent it augments the sum of human sorrow.
Learn:
1. Not to glorify ignorance or despise knowledge, but to seek first that wisdom which cometh from above (James 1:5; James 3:17).
2. To seek other knowledge, not so much for their own sakes, as for the purpose of using them in God's service and for his glory.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
All is vanity.
If we regard this book as Solomon's own record and statement of his remarkable experience of human life, it must be deemed by us a most valuable lesson as to the hollowness and emptiness of worldly greatness and renown. If, on the other hand, we regard the book as the production of a later writer, who lived during the troubled and depressed period of Jewish history which followed the Captivity, it must be recognized as casting light upon the providentially appointed consequences of national sin, apostasy, and rebellion. In the former case the moral and religious significance of Ecclesiastes is more personal, in the latter case more political. In either case, the treatise, as inspired by Divine wisdom, demands to be received and studied with reverential attention. Whether its lessons be congenial or unwelcome, they deserve the consideration of those of every age, and of every station in society. Some readers will resent the opening words of the treatise as gloomy and morbid; others will hail them as the expression of reason and wisdom. But the truth they contain is independent of human moods and temperaments, and is only to be fully appreciated by those whose observation is extensive and whose reflection is profound. The wise man makes a broad and unqualified statement, that all things earthly and human are but vanity.
I. THIS MAY BE A STATEMENT OF A MERE MOOD OF FEELING OWING TO INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE. There are times when every man who lives is distressed and disappointed, when his plans come to naught, when his hopes are blasted, when his friends fail him, when his prospects are clouded, when his heart sinks within him. It is the common lot, from which none can expect to be exempt. In some instances the stormy sky clears and brightens, whilst in other instances the gloom thickens and settles. But it may be confidently asserted that, at some period and in some circumstances, every human being, whose experience of life is large and varied, has felt as though he has been living in a scene of illusion, the vanity of which has been perhaps suddenly made apparent to him, and then the language of the writer of Ecclesiastes has risen to his lips, and he has exclaimed in bitterness of soul, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!"
II. THIS MAY BE A STATEMENT OF PAINFUL EXPERIENCE, DEPENDENT UPON THE SPECIAL TIMES—POLITICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL—IN WHICH THE LOT IS CAST. Such is the mutability of human affairs, that every nation, every Church, passes through epochs of prosperity, confidence, energy, and hope; and again through epochs of adversity, discouragement, depression, and paralysis. The Israelites had their times of conquest and of progress, and they had also their times of defeat, of captivity, of subjection, of humiliation. So has it been with every people, every state. Nor have the Churches into which Christian communities have been formed, escaped the operation of the same law. So far as they have been human organizations, they have been affected by the laws to which all things human are subject. In times when a nation is feeble at home and despised abroad, when faction and ambition have reduced its power and crippled its enterprise, there is proneness, on the part of the reflecting and sensitive among the citizens and subjects, to lament over the unprofitableness and vanity of civil life. Similarly, when a Church experiences declension from the Divine standard of faith, purity, and consecration, how natural is it that the enlightened and spiritual members of that Church should, in their grief over the general deadness of the religious community, give way to feelings of discouragement and foreboding, which find a fitting expression in the cry, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!"
III. THIS MAY BE A STATEMENT OF PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION UPON THE FACTS OF NATURE AND OF HUMAN LIFE. It would be a mistake to suppose that the cry of "Vanity!" is always the evidence of a merely transitory though powerful mood of morbid feeling. On the contrary, there have been nations, ages, states of society, with which it has been a settled conviction that hollowness and emptiness characterize all human and earthly affairs. Pessimism may be a philosophical creed, as with the ancient Buddhists and some of the modern Germans; it may be a conclusion reached by reflection upon the facts of life. To some minds unreason is at the heart of the universe, and in this case there is no ground for hope. To other minds, not speculative, the survey of human affairs is suggestive of aimlessness in the world, and occasions despondency in the observant and reflective mind. Thus even some who enjoy health and prosperity, and in whose constitution and circumstances there is nothing to justify discouragement and hopelessness, are nevertheless found, without any serious satisfaction in existence, ready to sum up their conclusions, derived from a perhaps prolonged and extensive survey of human life, in the words of the writer of Ecclesiastes, "All is vanity!"
IV. THIS MAY BE A STATEMENT OF RELIGIOUS CONVICTION, BOTH SPRINGING FROM AND LEADING TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ETERNAL AND GLORIOUS GOD. The student of physical science looks at facts; it is his duty to observe and to classify facts; their arrangement under certain relations, as of likeness and of sequence, is his business, in the discharge of which he renders a great service to mankind. But thought is as necessary as observation. A higher explanation than physical science can give is imperatively required by human nature. We are constrained, not only to observe that a thing is, but also to ask why it is. Here metaphysics and theology come in to complete the work which science has begun. Human life is composed not only of movements, which can be scientifically accounted for, but of actions, of which the explanation is hyperphysical, is spiritual. Similarly with the world at large, and with human life and history. The facts are open to observation; knowledge accumulates from age to age; as experience widens, grander classifications are made. Still there is a craving for explanation. Why, we ask, are things as they are? It is the answer to this question which distinguishes the Pessimist from the theist. The wise, the enlightened, the religious, seek a spiritual and moral significance in the universe—material and psychical. In their view, if things, as they are and have been, be regarded by themselves, apart from a Divine reason working in and through them, they are emptiness and vanity. On the other hand, if they be regarded in the light of that Divine reason, which is order, righteousness, and love, they are suggestive of what is very different indeed from vanity To the thoughtful and reverent mind, apart from God, all is vanity; seen in the light of God, nothing is vanity. Both these seeming contradictions are true, and they are reconciled in a higher affirmation and unity. Look at the world in the light of sentience and the logical understanding, and it is vanity. Look at it in the light of reason, and it is the expression of Divine wisdom and Divine goodness.
APPLICATION. It is well to see and feel that all is vanity, if we are thus led to turn from the phenomenal to the real, the abiding, the Divine. But it will be to our hurt if we dwell upon the vanity of all things, so that pessimism be fostered, so that we fail to recognize Infinite Reason at the heart of all things, so that we regard this as the worst of all worlds, so that for us the future has no brightness.—T.
The vanity of man's life.
At the very outset of his treatise, the wise man gives his readers to understand that the vanity which is ascribed to all things that are, is distinctive in an especial and obvious manner of human life. This is the most interesting of all things to observe and study, as it is the most precious to possess. And there is some danger lest, if the study of it lead to despondency, the possession of it should cease to be valued.
I. THE FACTS UPON WHICH THE CONVICTION OF THE VANITY OF LIFE IS FOUNDED.
1. The unsatisfying character of human toil. Labor is the destiny of man, and is in most cases the indispensable condition of not only life itself, but of those things for the sake of which many men value life—wealth, comfort, pleasure, and fame. Yet in how many cases does toil fail to secure the objects for the sake of which it is undertaken! Men labor, but reap no harvest of their painful, wearying efforts. And when the result is obtained, how commonly does it yield little or nothing of the satisfaction desired! Men toil for years, and when they attain that upon which their hearts were set, disappointment and dissatisfaction take possession of their nature.
2. The brevity of human life, and the rapid succession of the generations. The reflection of the wise man is a reflection which must have been current among men from the earliest ages No sooner has a laborious and successful man reached the summit of his ambition, grasped the object of his desire, than he is taken away from the enjoyment of that for the sake of which he was content to "scorn delights, and live laborious days." The next generation renews the quest, only to repeat the experience of disappointment. Changes and improvements take place in many details of our life; but life itself remains throughout the ages, subject to the same limitations and the same calamities, to the same uncertainties and the same close.
3. The contrast between the transitoriness of human life and the stability of the unconscious earth. It appears strange and inexplicable that man, with the great possibilities of his nature, should be so short-lived, and that the earth should outlast generation after generation of mankind. The writer of Ecclesiastes felt, as every reflecting observer must feel, the sadness of this contrast between the perpetuity of the dwelling-place and the brief sojourn of its successive inhabitants.
4. The impossibility of any generation reaping the harvest for which it has sown. The toil, the genius, the enterprise of a generation may indeed bear fruit, but it is the generation which follows that enjoys that fruit. All men labor more for posterity than for themselves. "This also is vanity."
II. THE CHARACTER OF THE INFERENCE FROM THESE FACTS, VIZ. THAT LIFE IS PROFITLESS AND VAIN.
1. It is attributable to the reflecting and aspiring nature of man. A being less endowed with susceptibilities and imagination, with moral capacities and far-reaching aims and hopes, would be incapable of such emotions and such conclusions as this book expresses. The brute is content to eat and drink, to sleep, and to follow its several instincts and impulses. But of man we may say that nothing that he can be and do can give him perfect rest and satisfaction. It is owing to an innate and noble dissatisfaction that he is ever aiming at something better and higher, and that the narrow range and brief scope of human life cannot content him, cannot furnish him with all the opportunity he desires in order to acquire and to achieve.