The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 95

organized matter, as a base sensationalism and empiricism is wont to affirm, the truth is that it is only as an expression and vehicle of thought, of reason, that matter has a dependent existence. 2. In his consequent immortality man is distinguished from the inferior animals. The life possessed by these latter is a life of sensation and of movement; the organism is resolved into its constituents, and there is no reason to believe that the sensation and movement are perpetuated. But " the spirit of man goeth upward;" it ha.s used its instrument, the body, and the time comes-appointed by God's inscrutable providence-when the connection, local and temporary, which the spirit has maintained with earth, is sundered. In what other scenes and pursuits the conscious being is continued, we cannot tell. But there is not the slightest reason for conceiving the spiritual life to be dependent upon the organism which it uses as its instrument. The spiritual life is the life of God; and the life of God is perishable. "The sun is but a spark of fire, A transient meteor in the sky: The soul, huruortal as its Sire, Can never die." T. Ver. 22.-The earthly portion. When a man is, perhaps suddenly, awakened to a sense of the transitoriness of life and the vanity of human pursuits, what more natural than that, under the influence of novel conceptions and convictions, he should rush from a career of self-indulgence into the opposite extreme? Life is brief: why concern one's self with its affairs? Sense-experiences are changeable and perishable: why not neglect and despise them? Earth will soon vanish : why endeavour to accommodate ourselves to its conditions? But subsequent reflection convinces us that such practical inferences are unjust. Because this earth and this life are not everything, it does not follow that they are nothing. Because they cannot satisfy us, it does not follow that we should not use them. l, IT IB POSSIBLE TO LIMIT OUR VIEW OF THIS EAR'l'HLY LIFE UNTIL IT LOBES ITS INTEREST FOB us. 1. Man's works, to the observant and reflecting mind, are perishable and poor. 2. Man's joys are often both superfioial and transitory. 3. 'rhe futur-e of hum.an existence and progress upon earth is utterly uncertain, and, if it could be foreseen, would probably occasion bitter disappointment. II. IT IS UNWISE .AND UNSATISFACTORY so TO LIMIT OUR VIEW OF LIFE. There is true wisdom in the wise man's declaration, "'!'here is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion." The epicurean is wrong who makes pleasure his one aim. The cynic is wrong who despises pleasure as something beneath the dignity of his nature. Neither work nor enjoyment is the whole of life; for life is not to be understood save in relation to spiritual and disciplinary purposes. Man has for a season a bodily nature; let him use that nature with discretion, and it may prove organic to his moral welfare. Man is for a season stationed upon earth; let him fulfil earth's duties, and taste earth's delights. Earthly experience may be a ste.ge towards heavenly service and bliss.-T. Vers. 1-10. - Opportunity; opportuneness; ordination. This view of life embraces- L O1'POBTUNITY, OB THE WISDOM OF WAITING. Everything comes in its turn; if we weep to-day, we shall laugh to.morrow; if we have to be silent for the present, we shall have the opportunity of speech further on; if we must strive now, the time of peace will return. Human life Li neither unshadowcd brightness nor unbroken gloom. " Shadow and shine is life . . . :flower and thorn." Let no man be seriously dis- couraged, much less hopelessly dish~artened: what he is _now_ suffering from will not always remain; it. will pass and give. place to ~~at w~1eh 1s better. Let us _only patiently wait our time, and_our turn will come. Weeprng may e1;1dure for a 1;11gbt, but joy cometh in the momrng "-at any rate, and at the furthest, in the mornmg of eternity. Only let us wait in patience and in prayerful hope, doing all that we can dQ in the paths of duty and of service, and the hour of opportunity will arrive. •. . . with eucceediug turns God tempers all, That man may hope to ri.ee, yet fear to fall.'' Ofl. lll, 1-22.] ECCLESIASTES ; OR, THE PRE.A.CHER. 70