any other human being. As a king, he had the wealth of a nation at his command. As endued with a greater measure of wisdom than all other men, he could com- bine all kinds of intellectual pleasure with that which was merely sensual. As having a peaceful reign, he was free from all the alarms and disquietudes of war, and able to prosecute pleasure as the one object of his life. Every species of gratification being thus easily within his reach, he was amply qualified to judge of what the world could give: and yet, after having made the experiment, and '* seen all the works that are done under the sun," he pronounced them all to be " vanity and vexation of spirit."
Two things in our text are to be noticed ; I. The general assertion —
Never was any truth more capable of demonstration than this, that the world, and every thing in it, is,
1. Vanity — [If we view the creature in itself, what a poor worthless thing is it ! Take gold, for instance : much as it is in request, it lias in itself no value : the value put on it is merely arbitrary, arisinof not so much from its usefulness to us, as from the scar- city of it. Iron is of infinitely greater service to mankind than gold : and would be more valued by us, if it did not happen that it is to be found in much larger quantities than gold. So it is with jewels: the value of them is quite ideal: in themselves they are of no more use than common pebbles ; and he who possesses them in the greatest abundance, is in reality no richer than if he possessed so much gravel out of the pit.
Nor is any thing that wealth can purchase, or any thing that is associated with it, worthy of any better name than vanity. What are high-sounding titles, but a mere sound that has its value only in the estimation of men ; and that, by a change of its acceptation (such as not uncommonly takes place in lan- guage, as, for instance, in the term Despot), may convey the most painful feelings, instead of such as are agreeable to the mind ? We may ask the same in reference to pleasure : What is it ? Let but a very small change take place in the circum- stances of the person, and the pleasure shall become a pain. Or let it be enjoyed in all its fulness ; whom did it ever satisfy? To whom did it ever impart any permanent delight? The more exquisite it is, the sooner does it cloy ; insomuch that we are soon forced to flee from it through very lassitude and disgust. And a recurrence to tlie same sources of gi-alification is far