This is the marvellous thing, that there is something in the heart of man constantly and successfully contradicting the sight of the eyes. For the eyes of man — and no one realized this more intensely than the Preacher — are weary with the sight of the things that fade and die. From the first time they look out upon the world, they behold the sad and continuous process of decay. All things are in flux, all things decay, nothing continues. Every voice speaks of mortality. Not only do leaves and flowers wither and fade, but a more educated eye beholds the stars fade in their orbits. The man that the eye beholds is a mortal creature passing swiftly from the cradle to the grave. For the eye of man mortality is signed and sealed in the dust of the tomb. " The grass withereth, the flower fadeth : surely the people is grass." What a tremendous witness to immortality must exist in the heart of man, to scorn the partial vision of the eye, and to transfigure its scenes of mortality into the light of immortal hope !
^ " The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord," said the author of the Book of Proverbs. Yes, a candle, but not necessarily one lighted ; a candle, but one that can be kindled only by the touch of the Divine flame. To the natural man immortality is only a future of possibilities. To make it a future of realities we need to join ourselves to Jesus Christ. Take Christ, and eternity in the heart will not be an aching void, an unsatisfied longing, a con- suming thirst. There is satisfaction here and now. He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life. Immortality is a present possession. The present is potentially the future. As Newman Smyth has said : " Just as the consciousness of the child contains in it the germ of his manhood, and just as gravi- tation on earth tells us what gravitation is among the con- stellations, so eternity in the heart here shows us what eternity will be hereafter." ^
^ In that delightful book The Hoitse of Quiet there is a striking passage where The Lift of Charles Darwin is thus characterized : " What a wonderful book this is — it is from end to end nothing but a cry for the Nicene Creed. The man walks along, doing his duty so splendidly and nobly, with such single-heartedness and
- * A. H. Strong, Miscellanies, i. 331.
ECCLESIASTES iii. ii 375
simplicity, and just misses the way all the time ; the gospel he wanted is just the other side of the wall." ^
Two worlds are ours; 'tis only sin
Forbids us to descry The mystic heaven and earth within,
Plain as the sea and sky.^
» David Siuith, Man's Need of God, 9. * Keble.
Do IT Well and Do it Now.
vn
Literature.
Barry (A.), Sermons Preached at Westminster Abbey, 35.
Bellew (J. C, M.), Sermons, iii. 34.
Clayton (C), Sermons Preached in the Parish Church of Stanhope, 36.
Eames (J.), The Shattered Temple, 108.
Finlayson (T, C), The Meditations and Maxims of Koheleth, 208.
Kempthorne (J.), Brief Words on School Life, 84.
Leader (G. C), Wanted— a Boy, 88.
Learmount (J.), Fifty-two Sundays with the Children, 127.
Little (W. J. K.), The Outlook of the Soul, 37.
Macpherson (D.), Last Words, 18.
Montefiore (C. G.), Truth in Religion, 133.
Moor (C), The Plain Man's Life, 16.
Morgan (Q. H.), Modern Knights-Errant, 179.
Morrison (Q. H.), Sun-rise, 230.
Snell (H. H.), Through Study Windows, 17.
Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, v. (1859), No. 259.
„ „ Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xix. (1873), No. 1119.
Talmage (T. de W.), Fifty Sermons, ii. 322. Troup (G. E.), Words to Young Christians, 165. Voysey (C), Sermons, ii. (1879), No. 6 ; xii. (1889), No. 18 ; xvii. (1894),
No. 7 ; xxix. (1906), No. 1. Wilmot-Buxton (H. J.), Day by Day Duty, 207. Christian World Pulpit, xi. 5 (H. W. Beecher) ; xxxvi. 67 (J. Le Huray) ;
Ixxx. 357 (J. S. Maver). Church of England Pulpit, Ixi. 388 (E. Warre). Churchman's Pulpit : The Old and New Year, ii. 443 (J. H. Newman).
378
Do IT Well and Do it Now.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might ; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.— Ecdes. ix. lo.
Do IT.
" Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it."
Action is the end of existence. We are living only whilst we are doing. We have not strayed into a fool's paradise where we may dream out our lives in inglorious idleness; but we have been sent into a vineyard where we have to dig the soil and sow the seed from which we are to reap an eternal harvest. No one of us is exempt from this responsibility. No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is work for all, and tools to work with for those who will.
1. Work is the great condition of our physical and mental well-being. The world is accustomed to look upon it as a curse. But with Selkirk we are inclined to say —
Blest work ! if thou be curse of God, What must His blessings be ?