music by the hand of God; a music which rises and falls as we listen,
but which nevertheless swells through all its saddest cadences and
dying falls toward that harmonious close, that "undisturbed concent,"
in which all discords will be drowned.
THIRD SECTION.
_THE QUEST OF THE CHIEF GOOD IN WEALTH, AND IN THE GOLDEN MEAN._
CHAPS. VI., VII., AND VIII., VV. 1-15.
In the foregoing Section Coheleth has shown that the Chief Good is not
to be found in that Devotion to the affairs of Business which was, and
still is, characteristic of the Hebrew race. This devotion is commonly
inspired either by the desire to amass great wealth, for the sake of
the status, influence, and means of lavish enjoyment it is assumed to
confer; or by the more modest desire to secure a competence, to stand
in that golden mean of comfort which is darkened by no harassing fears
of future penury or need. By a logical sequence of thought, therefore,
he advances from his discussion on Devotion to Business, to consider
the leading motives by which it is inspired. The questions he now asks
and answers are, in effect, (1) Will Wealth confer the good, the
tranquil and enduring satisfaction which men seek? And if not, (2)
Will that moderate provision for the present and for the future to
which the more prudent restrict their aim?
[Sidenote: _The Quest in Wealth._ Ch. vi.]
His discussion of the first of these questions, although very
matterful, is comparatively brief; in part, perhaps, because in the
previous Section he has already dwelt on many of the drawbacks which
accompany wealth; and still more, probably, because, while there are
but few men in any age to whom great wealth is possible, there would
be unusually few in the company of poor men for whose instruction he
wrote. Brief and simple as the discussion is, however, we shall
misapprehend it unless we bear in mind that Coheleth is arguing, not
against wealth, but against mistaking wealth for the Chief Good.
[Sidenote: _The Man who makes Riches his Chief Good is haunted by
Fears and Perplexities_: Ch. vi., vv. 1-6.]
Let us observe, then, that throughout this sixth Chapter the Preacher
is dealing with the _lover_ of riches, not with the rich man; that he
is speaking, not against wealth, but against mistaking wealth for the
Chief Good. The man who _trusts_ in riches is placed before us; and,
that we may see him at his best, he has the riches in which he trusts.
God has given him "his good things," given him them to the full. He
lacks nothing that he desireth--nothing at least that wealth can
command. Yet, because he does not accept his abundance as the gift of
God, and hold the Giver better than the gift, he cannot enjoy it. But
how do we know that he has suffered his riches to take an undue place
in his regard? We know it by this sure token--that he cannot leave God
to take care of them, and of him. He frets about them, and about what
will become of them when he is gone. He has no son, perchance, to
inherit them, no child, only some "stranger" whom he has adopted (ver.
2)--and almost all childless Orientals adopt strangers to this day, as
we have found, to our cost, in India. A profound horror at the thought
of being dead to name and fame and use through lack of heirs was, and
is, very prevalent in the East. Even faithful Abraham, when God had
promised him the supreme good, broke out with the remonstrance, "What
canst Thou give me when I am going off childless, and have no heir but
my body-servant, Eliezer of Damascus?" Because this feeling lay close
to the Oriental heart, the Preacher is at some pains to show what a
"vanity" it is. He argues: "Even if you should beget a hundred
children, instead of being childless; even though you should live a
thousand years, and the grave did not wait for you instead of lying
close before you: yet, so long as you were not content to leave your
riches in the hands of God, you would fret and perplex yourself with
fears. An abortion would be better off than you, although it cometh in
nothingness and goeth in darkness; for it would know a rest denied to
you, and sink without apprehension into the 'place' from which all
your apprehensions cannot save you (vv. 3-6). Foolish man! it is not
because you lack an heir that you are perturbed in spirit. If you had
one, you would find some other cause for care; you would be none the
less fretted and perturbed; for you would still be thinking of your
riches rather than of the God who gave them, and still dread the
moment in which you must part with them, in order to return to Him."
[Sidenote: _For God has put Eternity into his Heart_; Ch. vi., vv.
7-10.]
From this plain practical argument Coheleth passes to an argument of
more philosophic reach. "All the labour of this man is _for his
mouth_:" that is to say, his wealth, with all that it commands,
appeals only to sense and appetite; it feeds "the lust of the eye, or
the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life," and therefore "his
_soul_ cannot be satisfied therewith" (ver. 7). _That_ craves a higher
nutriment, a more enduring good. God has put eternity into it: and how
can that which is immortal be contented with the lucky haps and
comfortable conditions of time? Unless some immortal provision be made
for the immortal spirit, it will pine, and protest, and crave, till
all power of happily enjoying outward good be lost. Nay, if the spirit
in man be craving and unfed, whatever his outward conditions, or his
faculty for enjoying them, he cannot be at rest. The wise man may be
able to extract from the gains of time a pleasure denied to the fool;
and the poor man, his penury preventing him from indulging passion
and appetite to satiety, may have a keener enjoyment of them than the
magnate who has tried them to the full and has grown weary of them. In
a certain sense, as compared the one with the other, the poor man may
have an "advantage" over the rich, and the wise man over the fool; for
"it is better to enjoy the good we have than to crave a good beyond
our reach;" and this much the wise man, or even the poor man, may
achieve. Yet, after all, what advantage have they? The thirst of the
soul is still unslaked; no sensual or sensuous enjoyment can satisfy
that. All human action and enjoyment is under law to God. No one is so
wise, or so strong, as to contend successfully against Him or his
ordinances. And it is He who has given men an immortal nature, with
cravings that wander through eternity; it is He who has ordained that
they shall know no rest until they rest in Him (vv. 8-10).
[Sidenote: _And much that he gains only feeds Vanity_; Ch. vi., v.
11.]
Look once more at your means and possessions. Multiply them as you
will. Still there are many reasons why if you seek your chief good in
them, they should prove vanity and breed vexation of spirit. One is,
that beyond a certain point you can neither use nor enjoy them. They
add to your pomp. They enable you to fill a larger place in the
world's eye. They swell and magnify the vain show in which you walk.
But, after all, they add to your discomfort rather than your comfort.
You have so much the more to manage, and look after, and take care of:
but you yourself, instead of being better off than you were, have only
taken a heavier task on your hands. And what advantage is there in
that?
[Sidenote: _Neither can he tell what it will be good for him to have_,
Ch. vi., v. 12.]
Another reason is, that it is hard, so hard as to be impossible, for
you to know "what it is good" for you to have. That on which you have
set your heart may prove to be an evil rather than a good when at last
you get it. The fair fruit, so pleasant and desirable to the eye that,
to posses it, you were content to labour and deny yourself for years,
may turn to an apple of Sodom in your mouth, and yield you, in place
of sweet pulp and juice, only the bitter ashes of disappointment.
[Sidenote: _Nor foresee what will become of his Gains._ Ch. vi., v.
12.]
And a third reason is, that the more you acquire the more you must
dispose of when you are called away from this life: and who can tell
what shall be after him? How are you so to dispose of your gains as to
be sure that they will do good and not harm, and carry comfort to the
hearts of those whom you love, and not breed envy, alienation, and
strife?
These are the Preacher's arguments against an undue love of riches,
against making them so dear a good that we can neither enjoy them
while we have them, nor trust them to the disposal of God when we must
leave them behind us. Are they not sound arguments? Should we be
saddened by them, or comforted? We can only be saddened by them if we
love wealth, or long for it, with an inordinate desire. If we can
trust in God to give us all that it will be really good for us to have
in return for our honest toil, the arguments of the Preacher are full
of comfort and hope for us, whether we be rich or whether we be poor.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _The Quest in the Golden Mean._ Ch. vii., viii., vv. 1-15.]
There be many that say, "Who will show us any gold?" mistaking gold
for their god or good. For though there can be few in any age to whom
great wealth is possible, there are many who crave it and believe that
to have it is to possess the supreme felicity. It is not only the rich
who "_trust_ in riches." As a rule, perhaps, they trust in them less
than the poor, since they have tried them, and know pretty exactly
both how much, and how little, they can do. It is those who have not
tried them, and to whom poverty brings many undeniable hardships, who
are most sorely tempted to trust in them as the sovereign remedy for
the ills of life. So that the counsels of the sixth chapter may have a
wider scope than we sometimes think they have. But, whether they
apply to many or to few, there can be no doubt that the counsels of
the seventh and eighth chapters are applicable to the vast majority of
men. For here the Preacher discusses the Golden Mean in which most of
us would like to stand. Many of us dare not ask for great wealth lest
it should prove a burden we could very hardly bear; but we have no
scruple in adopting Agur's prayer, "Give me neither poverty nor
riches; Feed me with food proportioned to my need: Let me have a
comfortable competence in which I shall be at an equal remove from the
temptations whether of extreme wealth or of extreme penury."
Now the endeavour to secure a competence may be, not lawful only, but
most laudable; since God means us to make the best of the capacities
He has given us and the opportunities He sends us. Nevertheless, we
may pursue this right end from a wrong motive, in a wrong spirit. Both
spirit and motive are wrong if we pursue our competence as if it were
a good so great that we can know no content unless we attain it. For
what is it that animates such a pursuit save distrust in the
providence of God? Left in his hands, we do not feel that we should be
safe; whereas if we had our fortune in our own hands, and were secured
against chances and changes by a few comfortable securities, we should
feel safe enough. This feeling is, surely, very general: we are all
of us in danger of slipping into this form of unquiet distrust in the
fatherly providence of God.
[Sidenote: _The Method of the Man who seeks a Competence._ Ch. vii.,
vv. 1-14.]
Because the feeling is both general and strong, the Hebrew Preacher
addresses himself to it at some length. His object now is to place
before us a man who does not aim at great affluence, but, guided by
prudence and common sense, makes it his ruling aim to stand well with
his neighbours and to lay by a moderate provision for future wants.
The Preacher opens the discussion by stating the maxims or rules of
conduct by which such an one would be apt to guide himself. One of his
first aims would be to secure "a good name," since that would
prepossess men in his favour, and open before him many avenues which
would otherwise be closed.[41] Just as one entering a crowded Oriental
room with some choice fragrance exhaling from person and apparel would
find bright faces turned toward him, and a ready way opened for his
approach, so the bearer of a good name would find many willing to meet
him, and traffic with him, and heed him. As the years passed, his good
name, if he kept it, would diffuse itself over a wider area with a
more pungent effect, so that the day of his death would be better than
the his birth--to leave a good name being so much more honourable than
to inherit one (chap. vii., ver. 1).
[41] "There are three crowns; of the law, the priesthood, and the
kingship: but the crown of a good name is greater than them
all."--TALMUD.
But how would he go about to acquire his good name? Again the answer
carries us back to the East. Nothing is more striking to a Western
traveller than the dignified gravity of the superior Oriental races.
In public they rarely smile, almost never laugh, and hardly ever
express surprise. Cool, courteous, self-possessed, they bear good news
or bad, prosperous or adverse fortune, with a proud equanimity. This
equal mind, expressing itself in a grave dignified bearing, is, with
them, well-nigh indispensable to success in public life. And,
therefore, our friend in quest of a good name betakes himself to the
house of mourning rather than to the house of feasting; he holds that
serious thought on the end of all men is better than the wanton
foolish mirth which crackles like thorns under a kettle, making a
great sputter, but soon going out; and would rather have his heart
bettered by the reproof of the wise than listen to the song of fools
over the wine-cup (vv. 2-6). Knowing that he cannot be much with fools
without sharing their folly, fearing that they may lead him into those
excesses in which the wisest mind is infatuated and the kindest heart
hardened and corrupted (ver. 7), he elects rather to walk with a sad
countenance, among the wise, to the house of mourning and meditation,
than to hurry with fools to the banquet in which wine and song and
laughter drown serious reflection, and leave the heart worse than they
found it. What though the wise reprove him when he errs? What though,
as he listens to their reproof, his heart at times grows hot within
him? The end of their reproof is better than the beginning (ver. 8);
as he reflects upon it, he learns from it, profits by it, and by
patient endurance of it wins a good from it which haughty resentment
would have cast away. Unlike the fools, therefore, whose wanton mirth
turns into bitter anger at the mere sound of reproof, he will not
suffer his spirit to be hurried into a hot resentment, but will compel
that which injures them to do him good (ver. 9). Nor will he rail even
at the fools who fleet the passing hour, or account that, because they
are so many and so bold, "the time is out of joint." He will show
himself not only wiser than the foolish, but wiser than many of the
wise; for while they--and here surely the Preacher hits a very common
habit of the studious life--are disposed to look fondly back on some
past age as greater or happier than that in which they live, and ask,
"How is it that former days were better than these?" he will conclude
that the question springs rather from their querulousness than from
their wisdom, and make the best of the time, and of the conditions of
the time, in which it has pleased God to place him (ver. 10).
But if any ask, "Why has he renounced the pursuit of that wealth on
which many are bent who are less capable of using it than he?" the
answer comes that he has discovered Wisdom to be as good as Wealth,
and even better. Not only is Wisdom as secure a defence against the
ills of life as Wealth, but it has this great advantage--that "it
fortifies or vivifies the heart," while wealth often burdens and
enfeebles it. Wisdom quickens and braces the spirit for any fortune,
gives it new life or new strength, inspires an inward serenity which
does not lie at the mercy of outward accidents (vv. 11, 12). It
teaches a man to regard all the conditions of life as ordained and
shaped by God, and weans him from the vain endeavour, on which many
exhaust their strength, to straighten that which God has made crooked,
that which crosses and thwarts his inclinations (ver. 13); once let
him see that the thing is crooked, and was meant to be crooked, and he
will accept and adapt himself to it, instead of wearying himself in
futile attempts to make, or to think, it straight.
And there is one very good reason why God should permit many crooks in
our lot, very good reason therefore why a wise man should look on them
with an equal mind. For God sends the crooked as well as the
straight, adversity as well as prosperity, in order that we should
know that He has "made _this_ as well as _that_," and accept both from
his benign hand. He interlaces his providences, and veils his
providences, in order that, unable to foresee the future, we may learn
to put our trust in Him rather than in any earthly good (ver. 14). It
therefore behoves a man whose heart has been bettered by much
meditation, and by the reproofs of the wise, to take both crooked and
straight, both evil and good, from the hand of God, and to trust in
Him whatever may befall.[42]
[42] So in the hymn of Cleanthes to Zeus, as rendered by the Dean of
Wells:
"Thou alone knowest how to change the odd
To even, and to make the crooked straight;
And things discordant find accord in Thee.
Thus in one whole Thou blendest ill with good,
So that one law works on for evermore."
[Sidenote: _The Perils to which it exposes him._ Ch. vii., v. 15-Ch.
viii., v. 13.]
So far, I think, we shall follow and assent to this theory of human
life; our sympathies will go with the man who seeks to acquire a good
name, to grow wise, to stand in the Golden Mean. But when he proceeds
to apply his theory, to deduce practical rules from it, we can only
give him a qualified assent, nay, must often altogether withhold our
assent. The main conclusion he draws is, indeed, quite unobjectionable:
it is, that in action, as well as in opinion, we should avoid excess,
that we should keep the happy mean between intemperance and indifference.
[Sidenote: _He is likely to compromise Conscience_: Ch. vii., vv.
15-20.]
But the very first moral he infers from this conclusion is open to the
most serious objection. He has seen both the righteous die in his
righteousness without receiving any reward from it, and the wicked
live long in his wickedness to enjoy his ill-gotten gains. And from
these two mysterious facts, which much exercised many of the Prophets
and Psalmists of Israel, he infers that a prudent man will neither be
very righteous, since he will gain nothing by it, and may lose the
friendship of those who are content with the current morality; nor
very wicked, since, though he may lose little by this so long as he
lives, he will very surely hasten his death (vv. 16, 17). It is the
part of prudence to lay hold on both; to permit a temperate indulgence
both in virtue and in vice, carrying neither to excess (ver. 18)--a
doctrine still very dear to the mere man of the world. In this
temperance there lies a strength greater than that of an army in a
beleaguered city; for no righteous man is wholly righteous (vv. 19,
20): to aim at so lofty and ideal will be to attempt "to wind
ourselves too high for mortal man below the sky;" we shall only fail
if we make the attempt; we shall be grievously disappointed if we
expect other men to succeed where we have failed; we shall lose faith
in them, and in ourselves; we shall suffer many pangs of shame,
remorse, and defeated hope: and, therefore, it is well at once to make
up our minds that we are, and need be, no better than our neighbours,
that we are not to blame ourselves for customary and occasional slips;
that, if we are but moderate, we may lay one hand on righteousness and
another on wickedness without taking much harm. A most immoral moral,
though it is as popular to-day as it ever was.
[Sidenote: _To be indifferent to Censure_: Ch. vii., vv. 21, 22.]
The second rule which this temperate Monitor infers from his general
theory is, That we are not to be overmuch troubled by what people say
about us. Servants are adduced as an illustration, partly, no doubt,
because they are commonly acquainted with their masters' faults, and
partly because they do sometimes speak about them, and even exaggerate
them. "Let them speak," is his counsel, "and don't be too curious to
know what they say; you may be sure that they will say pretty much
what you often say of your neighbours or superiors; if they depreciate
you, you depreciate others, and you can hardly expect a more generous
treatment than you accord." Now if this moral stood alone, it would be
both shrewd and wholesome. But it does not stand alone; and in its
connection it means, I fear, that if we take the moderate course
prescribed by worldly prudence; if we are righteous without being too
righteous, and wicked without being too wicked, and our neighbours
should begin to say, "He is hardly so good as he seems," or "I could
tell a tale of him an if I would," we are not to be greatly moved by
"any such ambiguous givings out;" we are not to be overmuch concerned
that our neighbours have discovered our secret slips, since we have
often discovered the like slips in them, and know very well that
"there is not on earth a righteous man who doeth good and sinneth
not." In short, as we are not to be too hard on ourselves for an
occasional and decorous indulgence in vice, so neither are we to be
very much vexed by the censures which neighbours as guilty as
ourselves pass on our conduct. Taken in this its connected sense, the
moral is as immoral as that which preceded it.
Here, indeed, our prudent Monitor drops a hint that he himself is not
content with a theory which leads to such results. He has tried this
"wisdom," but he is not satisfied with it. He desired a higher wisdom,
suspecting that there must be a nobler theory of life than this; but
it was too far away for him to reach, too deep for him to fathom.
After all his researches that which was far off remained far off, deep
remained deep: he could not attain the higher wisdom he sought (vv.
23, 24). And so he falls back on the wisdom he had tried, and draws a
third moral from it which is somewhat difficult to handle.
[Sidenote: _To despise Women_: Ch. vii., vv. 25-29.]