the distinction between the two is sufficiently the originally good man became thus marked, as we find in Herodotus, vii. 210, wicked, tbe writer does not tell. He •o.-, ,ro,\,\ol µh, liv6pc.,,ro1 •1•v, l,,\{-yo, B~ knows from revelation that God made him liv~pH. But a woman o.mong all those have upright; he knows from experience thBt he I not found; i.e. not one woman in a thousand is now evil; and he leaves the matter there. who was what a woman ought to be. Says Plumptre qnotes, a.s illustrating our text, the Son of Sirach, "All wickedness is but a passage from the' Antigone' of Sophocles, little to the wickedness of a woman : let the vers. 332, 365, 366, which he renders- portion of a sinner fall upon her" (Ecclus. xxv. 19). So the Greek gnome- " Many the things that strange and wondrous are, @&Aao-ua_, ,ciil ,riip, ,cal -yuv~. /Ct11Cit. Tplt1.. None stranger and more wonderful than man . . . . " Three evils a.re there--seo, fire, and And lo, with all this skill, woman." Wise and inventive still, Solomon had a thousand wives and concu- Beyond hope's dream, bines, and his experience might well have He now to good inclines, been that mentioned in this passage. And now to ill." Ver. 29.-Lo, this only (or, only see I this) We may ndd ..IEschylns, 'Choeph.,' vel'B.. have I folllld, Universal corruption was that 585, etc.- which met his wide investigations, but of one thing he was sure, which he proceeds to IToM.4 µEv -yii .-pE</><• specify--he has learued to trace the degrada- ~Ew~ ~eaf-d7'c,w r1x'? . , • tion to its source, not in God's agency, but ciAA vtrEpTo,\µov ""- in man's perverse will. That God hath made op~s q,pov71µ" .-ls ,\e-yo,; man upright. Koheleth believes that man's original constitution we.a yashar, "straight," "Many fearful plagues "right," "morally good," and possessed of Earth nourishes . . . ability to choose o.nd follow what WllS just But man's audacious spirit and l'ight (Gen. i. 26, etc.). Thus in the Book Who can tell? " of Wisdom (ii. 23) we read, " God created Horace, • Carm.,' i. 3. 25- man to be immortal, and made him an image of his own nature (la,0.-71.-os). Nevert.heless, " Audo.x omnia perpeti through envy of the devil, came death into Gens humaua ruit per vetitum nefllS." the world, and they that are his portion "The race of mo.n, bolJ all things to endure, tempt it," But they (men) have sought out Hurries undaunted to forbidden crime." many inventions (cliiahshebonoth); 2 Chron. x.xvi. 15, where the term implies works of Vulgate, Et ipse se infinitis miscuerit qu,m- invention, o.nd is translated "engines," i.e. tionibus, "And he entangled himself in devices, wo.ys of going astray and deviating multitudinous que,tions." This refers to from original righteousness. Man has thus unhallowed curiosity and speculittion; but, abased his free-will, o.nd employed the as we have seen, the passage is concerned inventive faculty with which he was en- with man's moral declension, declaring dowed in excogituting evil (Gen. vi. 5). how his "devices" lead him away from How this state of things came about, how "uprightness."
HOMILETICS. Ver. 1.-A good name better than precious ointment. I. MonE DIFFICULT OF ACQUISITION. Money will buy the " good nard," but the cost of a "good name" ii beyond rubies. This which cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof, can be secured only by laborious personal exercise in goodness, always smiled on by Heaven's favour and assisted by Heaven's grace. It is the flower, fruit, and fragrance of a soul long practised in well-living and good-doiag. If, there- fore, things are valuable in proportion to the cost of obtaining them, the above proverbial utterance bears the stamp of truth. ll. MORE HONOURABLE IN POSSESSION. It is : 1. An article of greater value in itself, Precious ointment is, after all, only a production of the earth; whereas a good name is a spiritual aroma proceeding from the soul. 2. An index of truer wealth. Precious ointment at the best is material riches; a good name proclaims one possessed of riches which are spiritual. 3 . .A mark of higher dignity. Costly unguent a sign of social 168 ECCLESIASTES; OR, THE PREACHER. [err. VII, 1-20,