very doctrine of spiritual immortality, the consoling hope of which was rejected by Koheleth at an earlier section of the book. But it is also possible to interpret it as meaning no more than what is meant by a certain passage of a noble psalm already printed in my first volume (p. 601). In that case (i. e. if it does not imply personal immortality), it might be more confidently attributed to Koheleth.

§ 16. An epilogue of puzzles.—And moreover the Preacher was a wise man; he further taught the people knowledge; yea, he weighed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The Preacher sought to find out pleasant words: and he wrote down plainly words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and like nails well fastened in are the collectors; they are given from one shepherd. And as for all beyond them, my son, be warned: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this concerneth every man. For God shall bring every work into the judgement, upon every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

The epilogue to Ecclesiastes is no less full of puzzles than any previous section. Is it or is it not from the pen of the Preacher ? And in either case did the writer of its first paragraph also write the second? What is the true translation, and what is the true meaning, of that verse which begins, "The words of the wise are as goads' Who is the shepherd? It seems on the whole most probable that the first part of the epilogue was written not by Koheleth himself, but by an admiring disciple. Yet such a one would hardly claim for his master's sayings (any more than Koheleth would have claimed for himself) divine authority. Is the 'shepherd' then a human teacher? In that case the text is probably unsound. But the reader who desires further information or suggestions must go to Professor Cheyne's Job and Solomon, or to a commentary on Ecclesiastes.

The second paragraph was probably written by one of those pious editors whose correcting hand we have noticed already. The conclusion of all inquiry into human life and its problems is for him predetermined. That conclusion is inspiring if severe. Though it lack warmth and devotion, it is dignified and solemn. God is our Judge. Nothing we do can be concealed from his all-seeing eyes. For all our actions we must render, in the words of our

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Prayer-book, after our death on earth, 'an account before the throne of his glory.' For the 'judgement' here referred to appears to mean a judgement after death. Therefore that which concerns us all is to fear God and keep his commandments. Let none of us ask for more till we are confident that we can rightly claim more. Or rather let us say: 'Seek to fulfil this parting counsel, and more will be revealed to you.' Out of the true fear of God and out of the keeping of his commandments the love of goodness and the love of God will surely be born.

§ 17. Some reflections on Koheleth.-Is there any other 'conclusion' to be added to the solemn exhortation of our 'editor'? We have heard the Preacher's proofs and illustrations of human vanity. Life is transitory and yet monotonous. What use to labour and struggle, seeing that your memory is soon forgotten and you yourself will disappear? Moreover, what you have gathered your successor may dissipate, and chance and circumstance are stronger than wisdom and toil. And among society as it is and will be, folly often triumphs over wisdom, and vice over virtue, while at the end the same inevitable fate befalls us all.

It is well, I think, for us to read these thoughts and words, and to face them fairly and squarely, without extenuation and without fear. Let us recognize their relative truth and their relative importance, and we shall all the better be able to master and defy them. Let us briefly call to mind how many lines of reply there are to the disconsolate complaints of Koheleth.

(1) Most of the Preacher's facts may be accepted, and yet a very different moral can be drawn from them. Life is transitory; many of its shows and allurements are vain; many of the aims and objects, for which men sweat and labour, are futile and empty. Let us then direct our energy towards, and spend our toil upon, the imperishable and eternal. No one in this way turns the tables on Koheleth more completely and more severely than the great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus in those wonderful musings which a kindly fate has preserved for the admiration and the help of all succeeding ages. In that book you will find the transitoriness and monotony of life expressed almost in Koheleth's very words, but the moral is very different. Its substance is this: Man is akin to the divine. Even if we have given up this worthless thing called fame,' something worth living for remains: to act in conformity with our proper nature. 'Reverence the gods, and help men. Short is life. There is only one fruit of this earthly life a pious disposition and social acts. Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou

wilt ever dig. Love mankind. Follow God. Take pleasure in one thing only and rest in it: in passing from one social act to another social act, thinking of God.' Essentially the same advice and doctrine can be read in a thousand religious writers both Jewish and Christian, can be read also in many of the greater poets. Within be fed, without be rich no more.' This 'inward richness' may issue in creations of wisdom, beauty or goodness; it may also 'feed upon orts and die without a grave': but in either case it is not vain.'

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(2) Again there is, as Koheleth himself has at least on one occasion admitted, a pleasure in activity. The pleasure varies as the activity varies, but in every normal nature this pleasure exists. Hence the satirical remark that a man's view of life depends on his digestion. All innocent and useful activities, and even some activities which are, from the highest point of view, of very doubtful innocence' (e. g. fox-hunting), cause pleasure to a healthy mind and body. Such is the great psychological law of human nature recognized and established by Aristotle. As a rule man is little disturbed by the thought that much of his labour will fail, or will be lost or wasted or forgotten. Nor, on the other hand, is the pleasure and satisfaction of it limited to and determined by the thought that some of it may help others in his own or a future generation. The mere doing it gives him satisfaction while he does it. He seems to be most himself when he is active, and this satisfaction or self-realization constantly passes, but constantly recurs. And in the judgement of the sanest men it also is not 'vain.'

(3) Koheleth, sage though he be, speaks constantly of the futility and limited range of human wisdom. Man cannot find out the secrets of the universe. He had best bend the resources of his mind to lowly ends and temperate enjoyments. But greater and not less reverent minds than his have urged us to use the capacity of our divine prerogative of reason to the utmost. Not 'vain' are the activities of the man of science and of philosophy. Their life, says Aristotle, is lived in virtue of the divine element which is within them. And if, he adds, the reason is divine in comparison with the rest of man's nature, the life which accords with reason will be divine in comparison with human life in general. Nor is it right to follow the advice of people who say that the thoughts of men should not be too high for humanity or the thoughts of mortals too high for mortality; for a man, as far as in him lies, should seek immortality and do all that is in his power to live in accordance with the highest part of his nature . . . the true self of every one, if a man's true self is his supreme or better part.'

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Nor is this advice given only by a philosopher. Very aptly does Sir Alexander Grant illustrate Aristotle's words by the quaint lines of George Herbert:

'Pitch thy behaviour low, thy projects high:
So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be:
Sink not in spirit: who aimeth at the sky
Shoots higher much than he that means a tree.
A grain of glory mixed with humbleness
Cures both a fever and lethargicness.'

(4) The stanzas quoted on p. 205 from Browning's 'Rabbi ben Ezra' suggest another train of reasoning in reply to Koheleth. The care and the doubt which are distinctively human are worth their pain. Milton has put a fine thought in the mouth of his Satan when he makes him say:

'Who would lose,

Though full of pain, this intellectual being,

These thoughts that wander through eternity?'

They are not 'vain.'

(5) We can easily dispense with posthumous fame. We may recall the words of Jowett: 'To have been a benefactor to the world, whether in a higher or a lower sphere of life and thought, is a great thing; to have the reputation of being one, when men have passed out of the sphere of earthly praise or blame, is hardly worthy of consideration." Nevertheless a good deed is not 'vain' because its author is forgotten. How solemn and true are the concluding words of Middlemarch: The growing good of the world is partly dependent upon unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.'

(6) Koheleth had argued that 'all travail and every skilful work come of a man's rivalry with his neighbour.' Even if it were so, the deduction is not warranted that therefore all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Rivalry is not purely evil. But the assertion itself is a wild exaggeration. There is much 'travail' which has nothing to do with rivalry or competition. And this 'travail' is the salt of the earth. The caviller first ignores the best elements of life and then denies the worth of the whole. Disinterested study and research; disinterested goodness, sacrifice and love; these things exist, and they contain in themselves, and by the very fact that they can be and are, the most irrefragable refutation of the doctrine that all is vanity.

Yet it may be doubted by some whether permanent value would belong to these replies if we refuse to associate them with two other replies' of a more fundamental character and of a wider sweep: the Messianic' hope of the gradual improvement of the race, and its complementary hope of the progress towards perfection of the individual soul in another life after the life on earth. Certainly the optimistic idealism of great modern poets such as Browning and Tennyson is largely conditioned by them. The outburst in Andrea del Sarto,

'Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what's a heaven for?'

defends failure on earth through belief in a 'heaven' hereafter. And so with many other passages of noblest verse, which strengthen and cheer us as we seek to face and grapple with the pressure and travail of pain and suffering and evil. Yet is it a most noticeable fact that Marcus Aurelius, who while admitting Koheleth's premises draws such very opposite conclusions, can hardly be said to have believed in either of these two great complementary expectations for the individual and the race. They were certainly not the motives of his elevated morality. Nevertheless we have seen how widely his views differ from the 'omnia vanitas' of the Preacher. Shall we venture to say that the Roman emperor was less logical than the Jewish sage? Be this as it may, the fact remains that these two hopes' are for many of us to-day the almost indispensable support and condition of all our other 'replies.' I will bring this chapter to a close by citing two poems that deal with them. They are good poems to learn by heart. The first is the last poem written by Arthur Hugh Clough.

'Say not, the struggle nought availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain;

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

'If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.