Ver. 10.-" The _qood old times"-a popular delusion. I. THE DELUSION STATED, "That the former days were better than these." The proposition may be understood as applying: 1. To individual experience, in which case it will signify that the former days of the speaker's life were better than those in which he then was. Or: 2. To mundane history, in which case the sense will be that the earlier periods of the world's history were better than the later, or that the times which preceded the speaker's day were better than those in which be was living. II. _THE DELUSION E~EMPLIFIED. 1. From sacred history. (1) As to individual experience. Job was neither the first nor the last who cried, "Oh that I were as in months past!" (Job xxix. 2). Probably Jacob was in a similar mood of mind when he heard of Simeon's detention in Egypt, and of Judah's proposal to take Benjamin (Gen. xlii. ?6; xlii_i. 14). The old men who wept at the foundation of tbe second temple certainly believed that the days when as yet the first temple stood were incomparably more resplendent than those in which they then lived (Ezra iii. 12). (2) As to world- epochs. To many of the Sethites, no doubt, in the antediluvian era," the days of old," when man lived in innocence in Eden, were regarded as better than those in which their lot had fallen when all flesh had corrupted its way (Gen. vi. 12). To not a few in the days of the judges and of the kings it seemed as if" the years of ancient times," and "of the right hand of the Most High," when he brought forth the bondmen of Pharaoh from Egypt, were the glorious days of Israel as a nation (Ps. lxxvii. 5, 10). To the exiles who had returned from Babylon, the golden age of their country was behind them in the days of David aud Solomon, not before them in the era of Persian domination. 2. From profane history. "illustrations crowd upon one's memory. Greeks looking back to the age of those who fought at Marathon; Romans under the empire recalling the vanished greatness of the republic; Frenchmen mourning over the amcien regime; or Englishmen over the good old days of the Tudors, are all examples of this unwisdom" (Plumptre). Old men regretting the vanished days of their boyhood, or once rich but now poor men lamenting the disappearance of wealth which was theirs, or fallen great men sighing for the times when they were called" My lord I" are individual instances of this same delusion. ill. TnE DELUSION EXPLAINED. Two things account for this widespread delusion as to the relative values pf the past and present. 1. .An instinctive idealization of the past. (1) The good things of the past, which one has either never known at all or counted only moderately good when he did know them, he now esteems as supremely excellent, on the principle that "distance lends enchantment to the view." (2) The bad things of the past, which he complained of when he endured them, he has now through lapse of time largely forgotten; while if the bad things of the past were such as he never himself experienced but has only heard or read of, these are not likely to press him down so heavily as the lesser present evils under which he groans. 2. .An equally instinctive depreciation of the present. (1) Its good things are never so sweet as some other good things which we have not, or which other people had. As the possession of pleasure is seldom so intoxicating as its pursuit, so is that which one has never so valuable as that which one once had or may yet have. (2) Its evil things being present always appear worse, i.e. heavier, than they really are. They are felt more acutely and oppress more severely than either the ills of other people one has never felt or one's own ills in the past which have been forgotten. IV. T~E DELUSION DISPROVED. The false judgment rests upon two foundations. 1. .A mistaken standard. If "better" only means in the case of the individual "more free from anxiety, pain, or difficulty," or in the case of communities or nations "more free from wars, troubles, revolutions, or social disturbances, the proposition complained of may be easily established; but if " better" signify more advantageous rn the highest sense, i.e. more helpful to and beneficial for moral and spiritual good it will frequeutly be found that the proposition is false, and that for individuals, for instance, times of present trouble and seasons of present affliction may be better than past times of quiet and seasons of prosperity, and for communities and nations periods of social upheaval and foreign war better than antecedent days of stagnation OR. VII, 1-29.] ECULESIASTES; OR, THE PREACHER. 173
e.nd civil dee.th. 2. An incomplete comparison. It is commonly forgotten that each nge has a dark as well as bright side, and that in estimating the worth of two different periods in the experience of an individual or the history of a nation, it will not do to contrast the dark side of the present with the bright side of the past, but the dark and bright sides of both must be brought into view. LESSONS, 1. The duty of man in evil times, submission rather than complaining. 2. The wisdom of trying to make the best of the present instead of dreaming about the past. 3. The certainty that the most careful calculations concerning the relative values of past and present are tainted with error.