The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 296

when we shall.need the help of others, and the harvest may far exceed all our expectations. Dut from. th,e Vf#ry nature of the case such murm.urings are unreasonable. No new thing can. be brqught to light in the m~al world. Conscience proclaims the same duties age after age; and all that is left to him who would advance the cause of righteousness is to giv11 clearer utterance to the voice of God in tho heart, to show the imperative claims of duty, and in eomo instances to suggest new and weighty motives for obedience to them. None need, thereforn, scorn the simple terms in which the Preacher sums up the practical lessons he would have us lay to heart. There is nothing novel or wonderfol in what he says, but probably those evithets would be fairly applicable to the chaogt that would be produced in our lives if we obeyed his counsels. There is a close con- nection between verse and verse in this section (vers. 1-6), but a formal division of it into logical parts is impracticable. The Hebrew or Oriental mind had a different mode of ratiocination from ours. We may, however, note the stages in the current of thought. I. In vers. 1, 2a THE PRACTICE OF BENEVOLENCE TOWARD OTHERS is co=ended to us-a benevolence that is generous and profuse. "Cast thy bread," he says, "upon the waters." "Do not be afraid of showing kindness, even where thou seest no prospect of result or return; let the flat cake of bread, the type of food to the hungry, aid to the needy, float down the stream of life. Thon wilt find one day that thou hast bit the mark, won some grateful heart" (Bradley). His words remind us of the counsel in the Gospels "to do good, hoping for nothing again, even to the unthankful and the evil" (Matt. v. 44-46.; Luke vi. 32-35), •• Repandez vos bienfaits avec mtignificcnce, Meme a.ux woins vcrtueux ue lcs refusez pas." (Voltaire, 'Precis de l'Ecclesiaste.') Let many experience your beneficence, says the Preacher; confine it not within narrow limits. He ,speaks of seven or eight, according to the Hebrew manner of indicating an indefinite but large number (Micah v. 5). His specification is not to be taken literally, any more than our Lord's "seventy times seven" as indicating the literal number of times we are to forgive (Matt. xviii. 22). II. A MOTIVE TO BENEFICENCE is laid down in ver. 2b. "For thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth." In the time of prosperity remember that a. day of calamity and suffering may come, when the succour of the friends you have ma.do may be of great service. Bad as men are, there a.re numerous instances of a. grateful love r~compensing benefits received lung ago, which perhaps even the benefactor has long forgotten. "Peradventure for the good man some wonlJ even dare to die." No one can tell what vicissitudes of fortune are in store for him; and therefore it is prudent to make some provision in the present against a day of adversity. The same teaching is found in the parable of the unjust steward (Luke xvi. 1-9). Those who spend some of their wealth in doing deeds of kindoess and mercy (Luke xiv. 12-14) are described as laying up treasure in bags that wax: not ol,1, as providing for themselves friends who will, when this life is over, welcome them into everlasting habitations. •ro some this may seem but a sordid motive to benevolence; it may seem to tw-n that virtue into a kind of refined selfishness. But, after all, there is nothing unworthy in the motive. "Self-love is iinplanted in man's nature, and men who themselves affect to despise such a motive are often themselves, with all their professed loftiness of aim, actuated by no higher objects than those of pleasure, fame, or advancement" (Wright). Ill OUR IGtiORANCE OF THE FUTURE FORDIDS OUR KNOWING WHAT EVIL WILL COME UPON THE EARTH. (Ver. 2b.) The world is governed by uniform laws; both good and evil nre subject to Lhem. As it is an invariable law of nature that at a. certain point the clouds that are filled with rain begin to discharge their load upon the earth, a □ d no human power can seal them up, and as it is an invincible law that the forest tree m'.lst fall before the blast, when the forco with which it resists the fury of the wind is insufficient to se.ve it from overthrow, so the future is shaped by laws which man cannot control, and it is a mark of prudence to be prepared for any contingencies. The tempest which deluges the earth with rain, and levels the monarchs of the forest with the grouncl, can 11eithcr be foreseen nor nvcrted by man; neither can the future, whether it be charged  292 ECCLESIASTES; OR, THE PREAOHER. [ou. x1. 1-10.