The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 34

citizens and subjects, to lament over the unprofitableness and vanity of civil lire. Similarly, whoI). a Church experiences declension from the Divine standard of faith, purity, and consecration, how natural is it that the enlightened and spiritual membern o,f th~t Ch6rch should, in their grief over the general deadness of the religious com• munity, give way to feelings of discouragement and foreboding, which find a fitting expression in the cry, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity I" flt THIS MAY BE A STATEMENT' OF PHILOSOPHIOAL REFLECTION UPON THE FACTS OF NATURE_· AND OF HUMAN LIFE. It would be a mistake to suppose that the cry of "Vanity I" is always the evidence of a merely transitory though powerful mood of morbid feeling.' On the contrary, there have been nations, ages, states of society, with ~h,ich' it has been a 'settled conviction that- hollowness and emptiness characterize all hitriian and ~arthly a:ffait•s. ' Pessimism may be a philosophical creed, as with the a1ncie'nt Buddhists aiid)ome of the modem Germans; it may be a conclusion reached by·iefl:ection upon· the facts of life. To scmie minds tinreason is at the heart of the universe, and in this case there is no ground for hope. To other minds, not speculative, the survey bf human affairs is suggestive of aimlessness in the world, and occasions despondency in the observant-and reflective m_ind._ Thus even some who enjoy health and prosperity, and in whose constitution and circumstances there is nothing to justii"y discouragement and hopelessness, are nevertheless found, without any serious satisfac- tion iii existence, ready to sum up their conclusions, derived from a perhaps prolonged and· extensive survey of human life, in the words of the writer of Ecclesiastes, "All is 1anity' ! " • !V'. 'l'HIS MAY BE A STATEMENT OF RELIGIOUS CO~VICTION, BOTH SPRINGING FR◊ll AND LEADING TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ETERNAL AND GLORIOUS Goo. The student of physical science looks at facts; it is his duty to observe and to classify facts; their arrangement under certain relations, as of likeness and of sequence, is his business, in tho. discharge of which he renders -a· great service to mankind. But thought is as necessary a9 .observation. A. higher explanation than physical science can give is imperatively required by human nature. We are constrained., not only to observe that a thing is, but also to ask why it is. Here metaphysics and theology come in to complete the work which science has begun. Human life is composed not only of movements, which can be scientifically accounted for, but of actions, of which the explanation is hyperphysical, is spiritual. Similarly with the world at large, and with human life and history. The facts are open: to observation; knowledge accumulates from age to age; as ex;Pilrience widens, grander classifications are made. Still there is a craving for explanation. Why, we ask, arc things as they are? It is the answer to this question which distingdishes the pessimist from the theist. The wise, the enlightened, tho religious, seek a 'spiritual and· moral significance in the universe-material and psychical. In their view, 'if thin•gs, as 'they are and have been, be regarded by themselves, apart trom a Divin_e' reason workihg in arid through them, they are emptiness and vanity. On the other hand;· if they be regarded in the light of that Divine reason, which is order, righteousness, and love; they are suggestive of what is very different indeed from vanity. 'fo the thoughtful and- reverent mind, apart from God, all is vanity; seen in the light of God, nothing is vanity. Both these· seeming contradictions are true, and they are reconciled in a higher affirmation and unity. Look at the world in the light of sentience and the logical understanding, and it is vanity. Look at it in the light of reason, and it is tbe expression of Div_ine wisdom and Divine goodness. • ArPLI0ATioN: lt'is well to see and feel that all is vanity, if we are thus led to tum frotn 'the phei\i;\menal to .the real, the abiding, the Divine. But it will be to our hurt if ,ve dwell upon the vanity of all things, so that pessimism be fostered, so that we fail to recogni,1e Infinite Itel)-son, at: the heart of all things, so that we regard this as the worstr of al~ worl~s,, ~b •• , • • • t)i~t . for us the futur~ . ' ~as no brightness.-T. Vere. 3, 4.-·The vanity of man's life. ' At the very outset' of his treatise, the wise man gives his-readers· to understand that the vanity which' is ascribed to all things that aro, is distinctive in an especial and obvioi.i.S' manner of human life. This is tho most interesting of all things to observe and .'ltudy, as it is the most precious to posses$. And there is some danger lest, if the study of it le:i.d to despondency, the· possession of it s~ould cease to be valued, lG ECCLESIASTES; OR, 'l'HE l'HEACHEH. [en. r. 1-18.