mental world, perverted judgments, erroneous beliefs, false conclusions. (3) In the moral world, wicked principles and depraved actions, sins of every ltiud, transgressions of human and Divine law, 2. Of things wanting or defects, may be reckoned these: (l) In the material realm, scenes where some element is wanting to complete their beauty or utility, as e.g. a Sahara without a green leaf to refresh the eye, or a well at which to quench the thirst; or forms of life that never attain to maturity, as e.g. buds that drop before ripening into flowers or fruit. (2) In the intellectul\l sphere, ignor- ance, limited knowledge, defective education, one-sided apprehension of truth, narrow and imperfect views. (3) In the moral domain, actions that, without being wholly wrong, yet fall short of being fully right, as e.g. where one tells a half-truth, or does Jess in particular circumstances than duty demands of him. II. SUCH IRREGULARITIES AND DEFECTS ARE BEYOND THE POWER OF IIIAN TO REMOVE OR REMEDY. 'l'his, 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 straiubten 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 judgruents; 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. ill. 'l'Hl!: EXISTENCE OF SUOH IRREGULARITIES AND DEFEOTS SUGGESTS 8O111B DIPORTAKT 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, douhtleEB, 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. Ver. 18.-Inci·ease of knowledge, increase of sorrow. I. BECAUSE NOT WITHOUT LABOUR AND PAIN, OFTENTIIIIES PROTRACTIJ:D AND AOUTE, OAN KNOWLEDGE OF ANY x.nm IJE INCREASED. No royal road to wisdom any more than to wealth. He who would acquire knowledge must dig for it as for hidden treasures (Prov. ii. 4). Those who have attained to greatest distinction, as philosophers, poets, astronomers, etc., have all been bard 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, aud by means of self-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 labours 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 nll this toil and anxiety, if the knowledge be only earthly and eecular-i.e. has no conncc- on. 1, 1-18.] ECOLESIAS'fES; OR, THE PREACHER. 13
tion with God, duty, or immortality-and one cannot help askin" if the Preacher is not ri~ 0