1 E. H. Eland. =« J. M. E. Ross.
Eternity in the Heart.
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Literature.
Allon (H.), in Harvest and Thanksgiving Services, 17. Beeching (H. C), The Grace qfj^piscopacy, 130. — ';^''
"^^5 ^^0°^^ (P-). Twenty Sermons. 2M7).'-:^ " Jj^ Calthrop (G.), in CTinst, 12. "^^
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Campbell (D.), The Roll-Call of Faith, 21. Cunningham (R. T.), Memorials, 88. Fiirst (A.), Christ the Way, 168. -^all (E. H.), Discourses, 26. Hamilton (J,), Works, iii, 100. Herford (B.), Anchors of the Soul, 245. Jenkinson (A.), A Modern Disciple, 33. Maclaren (A.), Sermons Preached in Manchester, iii. 209. Newbolt (W. C. E.), The Gospel of Experience, 1. Peabody (A. D.), King's Chapel Sermons, 179. Shore (T. T.), The Life of the World to Come, 23. Smith (D.), Man's Need of God, 3. Snell (B. J.), The Widening Vision, 49. Strong (A. H.), Miscellanies, i. 313. Swing (D.), Sermons, 166. Thomas (J.), The Mysteries of Grace, 243. Christian Commonwealth, xxxii. (1912) 405 (R. J. Campbell). Christian World Pulpit, xxviii. 259 (W. Park) ; 1. 374 (J. Stalker) ; Ixi. 181 (J. W. Walls) ; Ixxiv. 123 (G. Eayres).
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Eternity in the Heart.
He hath made everything beautiful in its time ; also he hath set the world [eternity— R.V. marg.] in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end. — Eccles. iii. ii.
1. This text, like the book of which it forms a part, has been a puzzle to interpreters. In the Authorized and Kevised Versions it is translated " He hath set the world in their heart." But the word translated " world," which suggests the boundlessness of space, is elsewhere and generally used to denote the boundless- ness of time. It is the word used in the phrase " for ever and ever." The best modern interpreters, therefore, translate it in this place by the word "eternity." So taken, the text is a nugget of pure gold, shining out from the dry sand and bare rock. The book which mourns over the vanity of earthly things, and sees so clearly the limitations of human knowledge, recognizes, notwithstanding, a Divine element in man. In spite of man's ignorance and weakness, God has put eternity in his heart.
2. By the word "heart" here, as elsewhere, we are to understand not man's affections alone, but his whole mental and moral being. The assertion is that all man's powers and pro- cesses, whether of reason or of will, involve and imply an eternal constituent, whether man is aware of it or not. And by " eternity " we are to understand not the endless prolongation of time, the everlasting continuance of successions, but rather superiority to time, elevation above successions. God Himself is not under the law of time — he is " King of the ages." And we are made in His image. Though we have a finite and temporal existence, we are not wholly creatures of time. To some extent we are above its laws. We have " thoughts that wander through
eternity," a consciousness that we are too large for our dwelling-
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362 ETERNITY IN THE HEART
place, a conviction that the past and the future are ours as well as the present.
3. The drift of the passage, then, appears to be something like this : God has made everything beautiful in accordance with its function and the relation in which it stands to other created things ; it is beautiful as He sees it, whether it seems so to mortal eyes or not, for its beauty consists in the truth it expresses and the spiritual work it does; and, when the time comes for it to pass away, the effects of its work will still remain, for whatever God does is done for eternity. " Whatsoever God doeth it shall be for ever." Also God hath set the feeling of the eternal in the human heart ; all men have it in some degree, even though they do not know why they should have it, cannot justify it to their reason, and cannot find out what God is doing by means of the things of time from beginning to end. Interpreted in this way, this great saying at once becomes luminous as" well as pro- found, and the sage who originally uttered it might have been speaking for our day as well as his own in thus giving expression to his thought about the mystery of life. For three distinct things are emphasized here as present to human experience every- where. The first is the sense of beauty ; the second, mysteriously allied to the first, is the feeling of the eternal ; and the third is our confession of perplexity and helplessness in the endeavour to find out what the purpose is, if any, which is being effected by means of the flux and travail of our earthly existence.
^ Commenting on this passage Bacon says : " Solomon declares, not obscurely, that God hath framed the mind of man as a mirror or glass, capable of the image of the universal world, joyful to receive the impression thereof, as the eye joyeth to receive light." In his funeral sermon on Dr. Livingstone, Dean Stanley worked out a thought of a kindred kind. The earth, he said, is broken up by seas and mountains, so that the nations seem destined to live apart ; but in man's breast there is a thirst for exploration and discovery, an unquenchable longing to know all that can be known of the world in which he lives ; and as this desire takes shape in action, obstacles vanish, and all ends of the world are brought close together. The fact that the world is thus set in man's heart, so that he is prepared to explore it, to understand it, to use and to enjoy it, is surely a proof of design in Nature and of the wisdom and goodness of the great Creator.