Read Ebook: The One Dog and The Others: A Study of Canine Character by Slaughter Frances E Frances Elizabeth Guest Augusta Illustrator Stokes G V Illustrator

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"Not all things else are half so dear As is His blissful presence here"

Now let us, by the grace and loving kindness of our God, consider this a little closer, my readers. We have concluded that we find this book included in the inspired volume for this very purpose, to exalt all "the new" by its blessed contrast with "the old." We may too, if we will, look around on all the sorrows and tears of this sad earth, and groan "better would it be to be dead and out of it; yea, better never to have been born at all." And a wise groan, according to human wisdom, this would be.

But the Preacher still continues his search "under the sun," and turns from oppression and tears to regard what is, on the surface at least, a comparatively happy lot--"right work," by which a man has attained to prosperity and pre-eminence. But as he looks closer at a case which, at first sight, seems to promise real satisfaction, he sees that there is a bitter sting connected with it,--a sting that at once robs it of all its attraction, and makes void all its promise of true rest,--for "for this a man is envied of his neighbor." His success is only cause of bitter jealousy, and makes him the object not of love, but of envy, to all about him. Success, then, and a position of pre-eminence above one's competitors, gained by skillful toil, is rather to be avoided as vanity and pursuit of the wind,--a grasping at an empty nothingness.

Is the opposite extreme of perfect idleness any better? No; for plainly the idler is a fool who "eateth his own flesh"; that is, necessarily brings ruin upon himself. So human wisdom here closes the meditation with--what human wisdom always does take refuge in--the "golden mean," as it is called, "better a single handful with quiet rest, than both hands filled only by wearying toil and vexation of spirit." And true enough this is, as every man who has tested things at all in this world will confirm. Accumulation brings with it only disappointment and added care,--everything is permeated with a common poison; and here the wisdom of the old is, in one sense, in full harmony with the higher wisdom of the new, which says "godliness, with contentment, is great gain," and "having food and raiment, let us be therewith content."

But let us not leave this theme till we have sought to set our hearts a-singing by a sight of Him who is, and ever shall be, the source as well as the theme of all our songs. We but recently traced Him in His glorious upward path till we found Him resting on the throne of the Majesty on high. But "he that ascended, what is it but that he also descended?" So, beloved readers, though it may be a happily familiar theme to many, it will be none the less refreshing to look at that "right work" of our blessed Lord Jesus, "who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." That is the glorious platform--as we might, in our human way of speaking, say--upon which He had abode all through the ages of the past. He looks above--there is none, there is nothing higher. He looks on the same plane as Himself--He is equal with God. There is His blessed, glorious place, at the highest pinnacle of infinite glory, nothing to be desired, nothing to be grasped at.

But time and space would fail us to take up in detail all these precious contrasts. All Solomon's searches "under the sun" tell but one story: There is nought in all the world that can satisfy the heart of man. The next verse furnishes another striking illustration of this. He sees a solitary one, absolutely alone, without kith or kin dependent on him, and yet he toils on, "bereaving his soul of good" as unceasingly as when he first started in life. Every energy is still strained in the race for those riches that satisfy not at all. "Vanity" is the Preacher's commentary on the scene. This naturally leads to the conclusion that solitude, at least, is no blessing; for man was made for companionship and mutual dependence, and in this is safety.

Verses 13 to the end are difficult, as they stand in our authorized version; but they speak, I think, of the striking and extraordinary vicissitudes that are so constant "under the sun." There is no lot abiding. The king on his throne, "old and foolish," changes places with the youth who may even step from the humiliation of prison and chains to the highest dignity: then "better is the poor and wise youth than the old and foolish king." But wider still the Preacher looks, and marks the stately march of the present generation with the next that shall follow it; yea, there is no end of the succession of surging generations, each boastful of itself, and taking no joy in--that is, making little account of--that which has gone before. Each, in its turn, like a broken wave, making way for its successor. Boastful pride, broken in death, but still followed by another equally boastful, or more so, which, in its turn, is humbled also in the silence of the grave. It is the same story of human changes as "the youth" and "the king," only a wider range is taken; but "vanity" is the appropriate groan that accompanies the whole meditation. In this I follow Dr. Lewis's version:--

Better the child, though he be poor, if wise, Than an old and foolish king, who heeds no longer warning; For out of bondage came the one to reign-- The other, in a kingdom born, yet suffers poverty. I saw the living all, that walked in pride beneath the sun, I saw the second birth that in their place shall stand. No end to all the people that have gone before; And they who still succeed, in them shall find no joy. This, too, is vanity,--a chasing of the wind.

After weighing the many conflicting views as to verses 6 and 7, the context has led me to the above as the sense of the words. Nor can there be the slightest question as to the general bearing of the speaker's argument. Its central thought, both in position and importance, is found in "God is in heaven and thou upon earth, therefore let thy words be few,"--its weighty conclusion, "Fear thou God."

True, indeed, all this; but cold is the comfort, small cause for singing it gives. Our own dear apostle seems to have dropped for a moment from his higher vantage-ground to the level of Solomon's wisdom when smarting under "oppression and the violent perverting of judgment," he cried to the high priest, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall." But we hear no joyful singing from him in connection with that indignant protest. On the contrary, the beloved and faithful servant regrets it the next moment, with "I wist not, brethren." Not so in the silent suffering of "violent oppression" at Philippi. There he and his companion have surely comfort beyond any that Solomon can offer, and the overflowing joy of their hearts comes from no spring that rises in this sad desert scene. Never before had prisoners in that dismal jail heard aught but groans of suffering coming from that inner prison, from the bruised and wounded prisoners whose feet were made fast in the stocks; but the Spirit of God notes, with sweet and simple pathos, "the prisoners heard them"; and oh, how mighty the testimony to that which is "above the sun" was that singing! It came from the Christian's proper portion,--your portion and mine, dear fellow-redeemed one,--for Jesus, our Lord Jesus, our Saviour Jesus, is the alone fountain of a joy that can fill a human heart until it gives forth "songs in the night," even in one of earth's foul abodes of suffering and oppression. He is the portion of the youngest, feeblest believer. Rich treasure! Let us beware lest any spoil us of that treasure, for we can only "sing" as we enjoy it.

This is in perfect conformity with the whole scope of our book: and it is surely a mistake that the evangelical doctors and commentators make when they seek to extract truth from Solomon's writings that is never to be attained apart from God's revelation. On the other hand, a large school of German rationalists see here nothing beyond the teaching of the Epicure: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Rather does it show the high-water mark of human reason, wisdom, and experience,--having much in common with the philosophy of the world, but going far beyond it; and then, at its highest, uttering some wail of dissatisfaction and disappointment, whilst the majestic height of divine revelation towers above it into the very heavens, taking him who receives it far above the clouds and mists of earth's speculations and questionings into the clear sunlight of eternal divine truth.

And there is silence alone for a reply.

For we, too, my dear readers, have our "good that is fair." Nor need we fear comparison with that of this wisest of men.

Survey with me a fairer scene than any lighted by this old creation sun can show, and harken to God's own voice, in striking contrast to poor Solomon's portraying its lovely and entrancing beauties for our enjoyment.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved: in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace."

Dwell a little on this our own fair good; mark its sevenfold perfection; go up and down the land with me. Let us press these grapes of Eshcol, and taste their excellence together.

Sin, looked at in infinite holy Light,--thoroughly looked at,--and Blood, precious Blood, poured out in atonement for it, and thus put away forever in perfect righteousness.

Now may the Lord grant us to realize more fully, as we progress in our book, the awful hopelessness that weighs on man's sad being, apart from the blessed and infinitely gracious revelation of God.

Remembering how far the writer of our book excels all who have ever come after him, in ability, wisdom, or riches, his groans of disappointment shall have their true weight with us, and act as lighthouse beacons, warning us from danger, or from spending the one short fleeting life we have in treading the same profitless pathway of groaning.

So chapter six opens, still on the same subject of wealth and its power to bless. A sore evil, and one that weighs heavily on man, has Solomon seen: riches, wealth, and honor, clustering thick on the head of one person, and yet God has withheld from him the power of enjoying it all. As our own poet, Browning, writes that apt illustration of King Saul:

"A people is thine, And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head combine! High ambition, and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them all, Brought to blaze on the head of one creature--King Saul."

So sorrowful is this in our preacher's eyes, and so thoroughly does it bespeak a state of affairs under the sun in confusion, that Solomon ventures the strongest possible assertion. Better, he says, an untimely birth, that never saw light, than a thousand years twice told, thus spent in vanity, without real good having been found. How bitter life must show itself to lead to such an estimate! Better never to have been born than pass through life without finding something that can satisfy. But this is not looking at life simply in itself, for life in itself is good, as the same poet sings:

"Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste, Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock Of the plunge in a pool's living water! How good is man's life--the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!"

But whilst the King has not that most blessed light, yet there are some things in which he can discriminate; and here are seven comparisons in which his unaided wisdom can discern which is the better:--

Lofty, indeed, is the level to which Solomon has attained by such unpopular conclusions, and it proves fully that we are listening in this book to man at his highest, best. Not a bitter, morbid, diseased mind, simply wailing over a lost life, and taking, therefore, highly colored and incorrect views of that life, as so many pious commentators say; but the calm, quiet result of the use of the highest powers of reasoning man, as man, possesses; and we have but to turn for a moment, and listen to Him who is greater than Solomon, to find His holy and infallible seal set upon the above conclusions. "Blessed are the pure in heart,--they that mourn,--and the meek," is surely in the same strain exactly; although reasons are there given for this blessedness of which Solomon, with all his wisdom, had never a glimpse.

But turn over a few pages more, and the contrast is still further heightened. The sun of divine revelation is now in mid-heaven; and not merely future, but present, comfort is revealed by its holy and blessed beam. Come, let us enter now into the "house of mourning," not merely to clasp hands with the mourners, and to sit there in the silence of Ecclesiastes' helplessness for the benefit of our own hearts, nor even to whisper the promise of a future comfort, but, full of the comfort of a present hope, to pour out words of comfort into the mourners' ears. Tears still are flowing,--nor will we rebuke them. God would never blunt those tender sensibilities of the heart that thus speaks the Hand that made it; but He would take from the tears the bitterness of hopelessness, and would throw on them His own blessed Light,--a new direct word of revelation from Himself,--Love and Light as He is,--till, like the clouds in the physical world, they shine with a glory that even the cloudless sky knows not.

Let our faith take firm hold of this blessed word, "fallen asleep through Jesus," for our comfort. So shall we be able to instil this comfort into the wounded hearts of others,--comforting them with the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. What would Solomon have given to have known this?

Oh, spring up brighter in all our hearts, thou divinely given, divinely sustained Hope!

Another sweet and holy word of comfort. We have seen Jesus putting His saints to sleep, as to their bodies; and here we see the same Lord Jesus Himself bidding them rise. No indiscriminate general resurrection this: "the dead in Christ" alone are concerned: they rise first. He who died for them knows them; and they, too, have known His voice in life: that same voice now awakens them, and bids them rise as easily as the little damsel at the "Talitha Cumi"! How precious is this glorious word of the Lord! How perfect the order! No awe-inspiring trumpet, "sounding long and waxing loud," as at Sinai of old, awakening the panic-stricken dead, and bidding them come to an awful judgment. Such the picture that man's dark unbelief and guilty conscience have drawn. Small comfort would we have for mourners were that true. God be thanked it is not. Their Saviour's well-known voice that our dead have loved shall awaken them, ringing full and true in every tone and note of it with the love He has borne them. Then the voice of the Archangel Michael, the great marshal of God's victorious hosts shall range our ranks. This accomplished, and all in the perfect divine order of victory, the trumpet shall sound and the redeemed shall begin their triumphant, blissful, upward flight.

How sweet the prospect, my sorrowing bereaved readers! We shall, as God is true, look once more into the very faces of those we have known and loved in the Lord on earth. They awake to recognition as Magdalene at the word "Mary;" not to a renewed earthly companionship, nor to a relationship as known in the flesh, as poor Mary thought, but to a sweeter, as well as higher; a warmer, as well as purer communion; for the tie that there shall bind us together is that which is stronger, sweeter than all others, even here,--Jesus Christ the Lord.

We may justly reason that if, in the resurrection, relationships were exactly as here, sorrow would necessarily outweigh joy. To find broken families there would be a perpetuation of earth's keenest distresses. To know that that break was irreparable would cause a grief unutterable and altogether inconsistent with the joy of the new creation. Marriage there is not, and hence all relationships of earth we may safely gather are not there. But the natural affections of the soul of man have they absolutely come to nothing?

The coming of that precious Saviour is close: just as close is the fulfillment of those words, "together with them." "He maketh the clouds His chariots," and in those chariots we are taken home "together."

Have you not wondered why this wondrous word of revelation occurs thus in detail once and only once? Is it not one of the weapons of those who contend against this our hope that we base too much on this isolated Scripture text? Not that that is true, for all Scripture, as we have said, is in perfect harmony and accord with it; but what a perfect, complete, thorough answer, this fact gives to the other alternative--that the writer was self-deceived. This is impossible; or, like every other self-deceived man that ever lived, he would have pressed his one theme in every letter, forced it on unwilling minds every time he opened his mouth or took up his pen.

"No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest Till half mankind were like himself possessed."

Then too, how beautifully this rapture follows the pattern of His whom the Lord's people now are following even to a dwelling that has no name nor place on earth . The clouds received Him: they, too, shall receive us. Unseen by the world He left the world, too busy with its occupations to note or care for the departure of Him who is its Light. So the poor feeble glimmer of the Lord's dear people now shall be lost, secretly, as it were, to the world in which they shine as lights, leaving it in awful gloomy darkness till the Day dawn and the Sun arise.

Nor is illustration or type lacking. In Enoch, caught up before the judgment of the flood, surely we may see a figure of the rapture of the heavenly saints before the antitype of the flood, the tribulation that is to try "the dwellers upon the earth," as in Noah brought through that judgment, a picture of the earthly ones.

In this connection, too, what could be more exquisitely harmonious than the way in which the Lord thus presents Himself to the expectant faith of His earthly and heavenly people? To the former the full plain Day is ushered in by the Sun of Righteousness arising with healing in His wings: for that Day they look. To the latter, who are watching through the long hours of the night, the Bright and Morning Star shining ere the first beams of the Sun are thrown upon the dark world is the object of faith and hope.

Is not the word that believers shall, "meet the Lord in the air" in absolute accord with these different aspects of the Lord as Star and Sun? Most certainly it is.

Again, let us ask what would Solomon have given for a song like this, instead of his mournful, groan "for death is the end of all men"! Alas, as he goes on, he finds that even this is not the case, except as regards the scene "under the sun." He finds it impossible to escape a conclusion, as startling as it is logical, that there is another scene to which death may introduce, from which there is no escape.

Our writer, ignorant as he confessedly is of this glorious light of divine revelation, still speaks in praise of the feeble glimmer that human wisdom gives. From his point of view, wealth and wisdom are both good,--are a "defense" or "shadow" to their possessors; but still that which men generally esteem the most--wealth--is given the second place; for knowledge, or wisdom, has in itself a positive virtue that money lacks. It "gives life to them that have it," animates, preserves in life, modifies, at least in measure, the evils from which it cannot altogether guard its possessor; and, by giving equanimity to a life of change and vicissitude, proves, in some sort, its own life-giving energy. How infinitely true this is with regard to Him who is absolute infinite Wisdom, and who is our Life, it is our health and joy to remember.

Now, my dear reader, let us also seek to keep our eye on that same Object, for the man at whom we have been looking is one just like ourselves, with every passion that we have, and the One who drew him can draw you and me,--Who satisfied him can satisfy us, for He who loved and died for him has loved and died for us.

And since we are not now contemplating the wondrous cross, but His glory, let us sing together:--

Oh, my Saviour glorified! Now the heavens opened wide Show to Faith's exultant eye One in beauteous majesty.

Worthy of the sweetest praise That my ransomed heart can raise, Is that Man in whom alone God Himself is fully known.

For those clust'ring glories prove That glad gospel "God is Love," Whilst those wounds, in glory bright, Voice the solemn "God is Light."

Hark, my soul! Thy Saviour sings; Catch the joy that music brings; And, with that sweet flood of song, Pour thy whisp'ring praise along.

For no film of shade above Hides me now from perfect Love. Deep assurance all is right Gives me peace in perfect Light.

Find I then on God's own breast Holy, happy, perfect rest, In the person of my Lord,-- "Ever be His name adored!"

Oh, my Saviour glorified, Turn my eye from all beside. Let me but Thy beauty see,-- Other light is dark to me.

As for the despairing, hopeless groans of "vanity," we, with our God-given grace, learn to feel pity for our Author, so for his moral elevation do we admire him, whilst for his sincerity and love of truth we learn to respect and love him. See in the next few verses that clear, cold, true, reason of his, confessing the narrow limits of its powers, and yet the whole soul longs, as if it would burst all bars to attain to that which shall solve its perplexity. "Thus far have I attained by wisdom," he says, "and yet still I cry for wisdom. I see far off the place where earth can reach and touch the heavens; but when, by weary toil and labor, I reach that spot, those heavens are as inimitably high above me as ever, and an equally long journey lies between me and the horizon where they meet. Oh, that I might be wise; but it was far from me."

Now, in our version, the next verse reads very tamely and flat, in view of the strong emotion under which it is so clear that the whole of the book was written. "That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out?" The Revised, both in text and margin, gives us a hint of another thought, "That which is, or hath been, is afar off," etc. But other scholars, in company with the Targum and many an old Jewish writer, lift the verse into harmony with the impassioned utterances of this noble man, as he expresses in broken ejaculatory phrase his longings and his powerlessness:

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