Chap. Viii., Ver. 16, To Chap. Xii., Ver. 7.

Has he not achieved the Quest? Can we hope to find a more solid and enduring Good? What to him are the shocks of Change, the blows of Circumstance, the mutations of Time, the fluctuations of Fortune? These cannot touch the Good which he holds to be Chief. If they bring trouble, he can bear trouble and profit by it: if they bring prosperity, success, mirth, he can bear even these, and neither value them beyond their worth nor abuse them to his hurt; for his Good, and therefore his peace and blessedness, are founded on a Rock over which the changeful waves may wash, but against which they cannot prevail. Let the sun shine never so hotly, let the storm beat never so furiously, the Rock stands firm, and the house which he has built for himself upon the Rock. Whatever may befall, he can be doing his main work, enjoying his supreme satisfaction, since he can meet all changes with a dutiful and loving heart; since, through all, he may be forming a noble character and helping his neighbours to form a character as noble as his own. Because he has a gracious God always with him, and because a bright future stretches before him in endless and widening vistas of hope, he can carry to all the wrongs and afflictions of time a cheerful spirit which shines through them with transfiguring rays,--a spirit before which even the thick darkness of death will grow light, and the solemnities of the Judgment be turned into holiday festivity and a triumph. Ah, foolish and miserable that we are who, with so noble a life, and so bright a prospect, and a Good so enduring open to us--and with such helps to them in the Gospel of Christ as Coheleth could not know--nevertheless creep about the earth the slaves of every accident, the very fools of Time!