for the highest good. He had failed to find that satisfaction, but it was not because he had been ill equipped for carrying on the search. No one that came after him (ver. 12) could surpass him by a. more complete and thorough investicration. God had given him "a wise and understanding heart," and had endowed him ;ith wealth and power; anJ. in both particulars he excelled ~11 his fellows. Accordingly, he has no hesitation in laying down great general principles drawn from careful observation of the phenomena of human life. I. THE GREAT ADVANTAGE WHICH WISDOM HAS OVER FOLLY. The wise man walks in light, and hlls the Ulle of his eyes; the fool is blind, and walks in darkness. The wisdom here praised is not that holy, spiritual faculty which springs from the fear of God and obedience to his will (Job xxviii. 28; Deut iv. 6; Ps. cxi. 10), and which is so strikingly personified, almost deified, in the Book of Proverbs and in that of Job (Prov. viii., ix.; Job xx:viii. 12-28); but is ordinary science, knowledge of the laws of nature, and of the p(\wers and limitations of human life. This wisdom can only be acquired by long and painful labour, and though by it we cannot discover God or find out the way of winning and retaining his favour, or provide for the wants of the soul, it has, in its sphere, high value. It gives some pleasure ; it affords some gui,hnce and direction to its possessor. It enables him to acquire some good; it teaches him to avoid some evils. Progress in civilization is only possible by the cultivation of thid wisdom. Wider acquaintance with the laws of health, for example, has enabled men to stamp out ce1tain forms of disease, or, at any rate, to pre.vent their frequent recurrence, and to alleviate the sufferings caused by others. Consider the immense benefit to the race the progress of medical science has secured. The inventions that we owe to the cultivation of natural knowledge are beyond number, and by them incalculable benefits have been brought within our reach-better cultivation of the soil, less exhausting labour, discovery of the uses of the metals stored up in the bowels of the earth, more rapid distribution of the productions of nature and of human industry, swifter means of communication between on·e part of the world and another. "The improvement of natural knowledge," says a great authority," whatever direction it has taken, and however fow the aims of those who may have commenced it, has not only conferred practical benefits on men, but in so doing has effected a revolution in their conceptions of the universe and of themselves, and has profoundly altered their modes of thinking and their views of right and wrong'' (Huxley, 'Lay Sermons'). Does not this amply justify Solomon's assertion that "wisdom excels folly, as light darkness; that the wise man bath the use of his eyes, the fool is blind "? II. THE FUTILITY OF WISDOM. All the delight in the charms of wisdom is quenched by the thought of the levelling power of death, which overwhelms both the wise and the foolish indiscriminately (vers, 14b-17). For a brief space there is n distinction between them-the one endowed with priceless gifts, the other ignorant and poor. But what, after all, was the use of the short-lived superiority? Like an extinguished torch, the wisdom of the sage is blown out by death, and the very memory of his attainments and triumphs is buried in oblivion. For a time, perhaps, he is missed, but the gap is soon :filled up, the busy world goes on its way, and in a very short time it forgets nil about him. Thus eve11 the posthumous fame, after which the purest and noblest minds have longed, to secure which they have been content to endure poverty, hardship, and neglect i11 their lHetime, is denied to the vast majority, even of those who have richly deserved it. There were wise men before Solomon (1 Kings iv. 31), but no memorial survives of them but their names; no illustrations of their wisdom are given to explain their reputation. And how faiut is the impression which the wisdom of Solomon himself makes upon the actual life of the present world I Enshrined though it is in the sacred volume, it seems foreign to our modes of thought; its voice is not heard in our schools of philosophy. The fact of death is a certainty both to the wise and to the fool; the manner of it may be similar; the doubts and fears and a11xieties concerning the life to come may perplex both. What can we suggest to relieve the sad picture, or to cou~teract the paralyzing effect whic~ t~e spectac!e ?f !he futility of wisdom and effort 1s calculated to produce? The conviction that this life 1s not all, that there is n. life beyond the grave, is the great corrective to the gloom in which other- wise every thinking mind would be en wrapped. This present life is a state of infancy, of probation, in which we receive education for eternity. Aud to ask in melancholy ECCLESIA.STES; bR, THE PREACHER.
tones what is the use of acquiring wisdom if death is so soon to cut short our career here, is as foolish as to ask what is the use of a sapling growing vigorously in a nursery garden if it is to be afterwards transplanted. The place from which it was taken may soon know it no more. But the loss is slight; the tree itself lives and flourishes still under the eye and care of the almighty Husbandrnan. No fruitless regrets over the brevity and uncertainty of human fame need interfere with present effort. We may soon be forgotten on earth, but no attainments in wisdom or holiness we have made wi~l have been in vain; they will have qualified us for a higher service and a truer enJoyment of God than we could otherwise have known.-J. W.