himself in trouble and asked his advice, his first question was, "Who
is she?"--taking it for granted that a woman must be at the bottom of
the mischief. And the Hebrew cynic appears to have been of his mind.
He cannot but see that the best of men sin sometimes, that even the
most temperate are hurried into excesses which their prudence
condemns. And when he turns to discover what it is that bewitches
them, he finds no other solution of the mystery than--Woman. Sweet and
pleasant as she seems, she is "more bitter than death," her heart is a
snare, her hands are chains. He whom God loves will escape from her
net after brief captivity; only the fool and the sinner are held fast
in it (vv. 25, 26). Nor is this a hasty conclusion. Our Hebrew cynic
has deliberately gone out, with the lantern of his wisdom in his hand,
to search for an honest man and an honest woman. He has been
scrupulously careful in his search, "taking things," i.e. indications
of character, "one by one;" but though he has found one honest man in
a thousand, he has never lit on an honest and good woman (vv. 27, 28).
Was not the fault in the eyes of the seeker rather than in the faces
into which he peered? Perhaps it was. It would be to-day and here; but
was it there and on that far-distant yesterday? The Orientals would
still say "No." All through the East, from the hour in which Adam cast
the blame of his disobedience on Eve to the present hour, men have
followed the example of their first father. Even St. Chrysostom, who
should have known better, affirms that when the devil took from Job
all he had, he did not take his wife, "because he thought she would
greatly help him to conquer that saint of God." Mohammed sings in the
same key with the Christian Father: he affirms that since the creation
of the world there have been only four perfect women, though it a
little redeems the cynicism of his speech to learn that, of these four
perfect women, one was his wife and another his daughter; for the good
man may have meant a compliment to them rather than an insult to the
sex. But if there be any truth in this estimate, if in the East the
women were, and are, worse than the men, it is the men who have made
them what they are.[43] Robbed of their natural dignity and use as
helpmeets, condemned to be mere toys, trained only to minister to
sense, what wonder if they have fallen below their due place and
honour? Of all cowardly cynicisms that surely is the meanest which,
denying women any chance of being good, condemns them for being bad.
Our Hebrew cynic seems to have had some faint sense of his unfairness;
for he concludes his tirade against the sex with the admission that
"God made man upright"--the word "man" here, as in Genesis, standing
for the whole race, male and female--and that if all women, and nine
hundred and ninety-nine men out of every thousand, have become bad, it
is because they have degraded themselves and one another by the evil
"devices" they have sought out (ver. 29).
[43] Not, however, that the sentiment was confined to the East. The
Greek poets have many such sayings as, "A woman is a burden full of
ills;" and, "Where women are, all evils there are found."
[Sidenote: _And to be indifferent to Public Wrongs._ Ch. viii., vv.
1-13.]
The fourth and last rule inferred from this prudent moderate view of
life is, That we are to submit with hopeful resignation to the wrongs
which spring from human tyranny and injustice. Unclouded by gusts of
passion, the wise temperate Oriental carries a "bright countenance" to
the king's divan. Though the king should rate him with "evil words,"
he will remember his "oath of fealty," and not rise up in resentment,
still less rush out in open revolt. He knows that the word of a king
is potent; that it will be of no use to show a hot mutinous temper;
that by a meek endurance of wrath he may allay or avert it. He knows,
too, that obedience and submission are not likely to provoke insult
and contumely; and that if now and then he is exposed to an
undeserved insult, any defence, and especially an angry defence, will
but damage his cause (chap. viii., vv. 1-5). Moreover, a man who keeps
himself cool and will not permit anger to blind him may, in the worst
event, foresee that a time of retribution will surely come on the
king, or the satrap, who is habitually unjust; that the people will
revolt from him and exact heavy penalties for the wrongs they have
endured; that death, "that fell arrest without all bail," will carry
him away. _He_ can see that time of retribution drawing nigh, although
the tyrant, fooled by impunity, is not aware of its approach; he can
also see that when it comes it will be as a war in which no furlough
is granted, and whose disastrous close no craft can evade. All this
execution of long-delayed justice he has seen again and again; and
therefore he will not suffer his resentment to hurry him into
dangerous courses, but will calmly await the action of those social
laws which compel every man to reap the due reward of his deeds (vv.
5-9).
Nevertheless he has also seen times in which retribution did not
overtake oppressors; times even when, in the person of children as
wicked and tyrannical as themselves, they "came again" to renew their
injustice, and to blot out the memory of the righteous from the earth
(ver. 10). And such times have no more disastrous result than this,
that they undermine faith and subvert morality. Men see that no
immediate sentence is pronounced against the wicked, that they live
long in their wickedness and beget children to perpetuate it; and the
faith of the good in the overruling providence of God is shaken and
strained, while the vast majority of men set themselves to do the evil
which flaunts its triumphs before their eyes (ver. 11). None the less
the Preacher is quite sure that it is the part of wisdom to trust in
the laws and look for the judgments of God: he is quite sure that the
triumph of the wicked will soon pass, while that of the good will
endure (vv. 12, 13); and therefore, as a man of prudent and
forecasting spirit, he will submit to injustice, but not inflict it,
or at least not carry it to any dangerous excess.
[Sidenote: _The Preacher condemns this Theory of Human Life, and
declares the Quest to be still unattained._ Ch. viii., vv. 14, 15.]
This is by no means a noble or lofty view of human life; the line of
conduct it prescribes is often as immoral as it is ignoble; and we may
feel some natural surprise at hearing counsels so base from the lips
of the inspired Hebrew Preacher. But we ought to know him, and his
method of instruction, well enough by this time to be sure that he is
at least as sensible of their baseness as we can be; that he is here
speaking to us, not in his own person, but dramatically, and from the
lips of the man who, that he may secure a good name and an easy
position in the world, is disposed to accommodate himself to the
current maxims of his time and company. If we ever had any doubt on
this point, it is set at rest by the closing verses of the Section
before us. For in these verses the Preacher lowers his mask, and tells
us plainly that we cannot and must not attempt to rest in the theory
he has just put before us, that to follow out its practical
corollaries will lead us away from the Chief Good, not toward it. More
than once he has already hinted to us that this "wisdom" is not the
highest wisdom; and now he frankly avows that he is as unsatisfied as
ever, as far as ever from ending his Quest; that his last key will not
unlock those mysteries of life which have baffled him from the first.
He still holds, indeed, that it is better to be righteous than to be
wicked, though he now sees that even the prudently righteous often
have a wage like that of the wicked, and that the prudently wicked
often have a wage like that of the righteous (ver. 14). This new
theory of life, therefore, he confesses to be "a vanity" as great and
deceptive as any of those he has hitherto tried. And as even yet it
does not suit him to give us his true theory and announce his final
conclusion, he falls back on the conclusion we have so often heard,
that the best thing a man can do is to eat and to drink, and to carry
a clear enjoying temper through all the days, and all the tasks, which
God giveth him under the sun (ver. 15). How this familiar conclusion
fits into his final conclusion, and is part of it, though not the
whole, we shall see in our study of the next and last section of the
Book.
II.--If, as Milton sings,
"To know
That which before us lies in daily life
Is the prime wisdom,"
we are surely much indebted to the Hebrew Preacher. _He_ does not "sit
on a hill apart" discussing fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute, or
any lofty abstruse theme. He walks with us, in the common round, to
the daily task, and talks to us of that which lies before and around
us in our daily life. Nor does he speak as one raised high above the
folly and weakness by which we are constantly betrayed. He has trodden
the very paths we tread. He shares our craving and has pursued our
quest after "that which is good." He has been misled by the illusions
by which we are beguiled. And his aim is to save us from fruitless
researches and defeated hopes by placing his experience at our
command. He speaks, therefore, to our real need, and speaks with a
cordial sympathy which renders his counsel very welcome.
We are so made that we can find no rest until we find a supreme Good,
a Good which will satisfy all our faculties, passions, aspirations.
For _this_ we search with ardour; but our ardour is not always under
law to wisdom. We often assume that we have reached our chief Good
while it is still far off, or that we are at least looking for it in
the right direction when in truth we have turned our back upon it.
Sometimes we seek for it in the pursuit of knowledge, sometimes in
pleasure and self-indulgence, sometimes in fervent devotion to secular
affairs; sometimes in love, sometimes in wealth, and sometimes in a
modest yet competent provision for our future wants. And if, when we
have acquired the special good we seek, we find that our hearts are
still craving and restless, still hungering for a larger good, we are
apt to think that if we had a little more of that which so far has
disappointed us; if we were somewhat wiser, or if our pleasures were
more varied; if we had a little more love or a larger estate, all
would be well with us, and we should be at peace. Perhaps in time we
get our "little more," but still our hearts do not cry, "Hold,
enough!"--enough being always a little more than we have; till at
last, weary and disappointed in our quest, we begin to despair of
ourselves and to distrust the goodness of God. "If God be good," we
ask, "why has He made us thus--always seeking yet never finding, urged
on by imperious appetites which are never satisfied, impelled by
hopes which for ever elude our grasp?" And because we cannot answer
the question, we cry out, "Vanity of vanities! all is vanity and
vexation of spirit!"
"Ah, no," replies the kindly Preacher who has himself known this
despairing mood and surmounted it; "no, _all_ is not vanity. There is
a chief Good, a satisfying Good, although you have not found it yet;
and you have not found it because you have not looked for it where
alone it can be found. Once take the right path, follow the right
clue, and you will find a Good which will make all else good to you, a
Good which will lend a new sweetness to your wisdom and your mirth,
your labour and your gain." But men are very slow to believe that they
have wasted their time and strength, that they have wholly mistaken
their path; they are reluctant to believe that a little more of that
of which they have already acquired so much, and which they have
always held to be best, will not yield them the satisfaction they
seek. And therefore the wise Preacher, instead of telling us at once
where the true Good is to be found, takes much pains to convince us
that it is not to be found where we have been wont to seek it. He
places before us a man of the largest wisdom, whose pleasures were
exquisitely varied and combined, a man whose devotion to affairs was
the most perfect and successful, a man of imperial nature and wealth,
and whose heart had glowed with all the fervours of love: and this
man--_himself_ under a thin disguise--so rarely gifted and of such
ample conditions, confesses that he could not find the Chief Good in
any one of the directions in which we commonly seek it, although he
had travelled farther in every direction than we can hope to go. If we
are of a rational temper, if we are open to argument and persuasion,
if we are not resolved to buy our own experience at a heavy, perhaps a
ruinous, cost, how can we but accept the wise Hebrew's counsel, and
cease to look for the satisfying Good in quarters in which he assures
us it is not to be found?
We have already considered his argument as it bore on the men of his
own time; we have now to make its application to our own age. As his
custom is, the Preacher does not develop his argument in open logical
sequence; he does not write a moral essay, but paints us a dramatic
picture.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _The Quest in Wealth._ Ch. vi.]
He depicts a man who trusts in riches, who honestly believes that
wealth is the chief Good, or, at lowest, the way to it. This man has
laboured diligently and dexterously to acquire affluence, and he _has_
acquired it. Like the rich man of the Parable, he has much goods, and
barns that grow fuller as they grow bigger. "God has given him riches
and wealth and abundance, so that his soul"--not having learned how to
look for anything higher--"lacks nothing of all that it desireth."
[Sidenote: _The Man who makes Riches his Chief Good is haunted by
Fears and Perplexities._ Ch. vi., vv. 1-6.]
He has reached his aim, then, acquired what he holds to be good. Can
he not be content with it? No; for though he bids his soul make merry
and be glad, it obstinately refuses to obey. It is darkened with
perplexities, haunted by vague longings, fretted and stung with
perpetual care. Now that he has his riches, he goes in dread lest he
should lose them; he is unable to decide how he may best employ them,
or how to dispose of them when he must leave them behind him. God has
given them to him; but he is not at all sure that God will show an
equal wisdom in giving them to some one else when he is gone. And so
the poor rich man sits steeped in wealth up to his chin--up to his
chin, but not up to his lips, for he has no "power to enjoy" it.
Burdened with jealous care, he grudges that others should share what
he cannot enjoy, grudges above all that, when he is dead, another
should possess what has been of so little comfort to him. "If thou art
rich," says Shakespeare,
"thou art poor;
For like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey,
And Death unloads thee."
But our rich man is not only like an ass; he is even more stupid: for
the ass would not have his back bent even with golden ingots if he
could help it, and is only too thankful when the burden is lifted from
his back; while the rich man not only _will_ plod on beneath his heavy
load, but, in his dread of being unladen at his journey's end, imposes
on himself a burden heavier than all his ingots, _and will bear that_
as well as his gold. He creeps along beneath his double load, and
brays quite pitifully if you so much as put out a hand to ease him.
[Sidenote: _Much that he gains only feeds Vanity._ Chap. vi., v. 11.]
[Sidenote: _He cannot tell what it will be good for him to have_;
Chap. vi., v. 12.]
[Sidenote: _Nor foresee what will become of his Gains_: Chap. vi., v.
12.]
It is not of much use, perhaps, to argue with one so besotted; but
lest we should slip into his degraded estate, the Preacher points out
for our instruction the source of his disquiet, and shows why it is
impossible in the very nature of things that he should know content.
Among other sources of disquiet he notes these three. (1) That "there
are many things which increase vanity:" that is to say, many of the
acquisitions of the rich man only augment his outward pomp and state.
Beyond a certain point he cannot possibly enjoy the good things he
possesses; he cannot, for instance, live in all his costly mansions at
once, nor eat and drink all the sumptuous fare set on his table, nor
carry his whole wardrobe on his back. He is hampered with
superfluities which breed care, but yield him no comfort. And, as he
grudges that others should enjoy them, all this abundance, all that
goes beyond his personal gratification, so far from being an
"advantage" to him, is only a burden and a torment. (2) Another source
of disquiet is, that no man, not even he, "can tell what is good for
man in life," what will be really helpful and pleasant to him. Many
things which attract desire pall upon the taste. And as "the day of
our vain life is brief," gone "like a shadow," he may flit away before
he has had a chance of using much that he has laboriously acquired.
(3) And a third source of disquiet is, that the more a man has the
more he must leave: and this is a fact which cuts him two ways, with a
keen double edge. For the more he has the less he likes leaving it;
and the more he has the more is he puzzled how to leave it. He cannot
tell "what shall be after him," and so he makes one will to-day and
another to-morrow, and very likely dies intestate after all.
Is not that a true picture, a picture true to life? Bulwer Lytton
tells us how one of our wealthiest peers once complained to him that
he was never so happy and well-served as when he was a bachelor in
chambers; that his splendid mansion was a dreary solitude to him, and
the long train of domestics his masters rather than his servants. And
more than once he depicts, as in _The Caxtons_, a man of immense
fortune and estate as so occupied in learning and discharging the
heavy duties of property, so tied and hampered by the thought of what
was expected of him, as to fret under a constant weight of care and to
lose all the sweet uses of life. And have not we ourselves known men
who have grown more penurious as they have grown richer, men unable to
decide what it would be really good or even pleasant for them to do,
more and more anxious as to how they should devise their abundance? "I
am a poor rich man, burdened with money; but I have nothing else," was
the saying of a notorious millionaire, who died while he was signing a
cheque for L10,000, some twenty years ago.
[Sidenote: _And because God has put Eternity into his Heart, He cannot
be content with Temporal Good._ Ch. vi., vv. 7-10.]
But the Hebrew Preacher is not content to paint a picture of the Rich
Man and his perplexities--a picture as true to the life now as it was
then. He also points out _how_ it is that the lover of riches came to
be the man he is, and why he can never lay hold on the supreme Good.
"All the labour of this man is for his mouth," for the senses and
whatever gratifies sense; and therefore, however prosperous he may be,
"yet his soul cannot be satisfied." For the soul is not fed by that
which feeds the senses. God has "put eternity" into it. It craves an
eternal sustenance. It cannot rest till it gains access to "the
living water," and "the meat which endureth," and the good "wine of
the kingdom." A beast--if indeed beasts have no souls, which I neither
deny nor admit--may be content if only he be placed in comfortable
outward conditions; but a man, simply because he is a man, must have a
wholesome and happy inward life before he can be content. His hunger
and thirst after righteousness must be satisfied. He must know that,
when flesh and heart fail him, he will be received into an eternal
habitation. He must have a treasure which the moth cannot corrupt, nor
the thief filch from him. We cannot escape our nature any more than we
can jump off our shadow; and our very nature cries out for an immortal
good. Hence it is that the rich man who trusts in his riches, and not
in the God who gave them to him, carries within him a hungry craving
soul. Hence it is that _all_ who trust in riches, and hold them to be
the Chief Good, are restless and unsatisfied. For, as the Preacher
reminds us, it is very true both that the rich man may not be a fool,
and that the poor man may trust in the riches he has not won. By
virtue of his wisdom, the wise rich man may so vary and combine the
good things of this life as to win from them a gratification denied to
the sot whose sordid heart is set on gold; and the poor man, because
he has so few of the enjoyments which wealth can buy, may snatch at
the few that come his way with the violent delight which has violent
ends. Both may "enjoy the good they have" rather than "crave a good
beyond their (present) reach:" but if they mistake that good for the
Supreme Good, neither their poverty nor their wisdom will save them
from the misery of a fatal mistake. For they too have souls, _are_
souls; and the soul is not to be satisfied with that which goes in at
the mouth. Wise or foolish, rich or poor, whosoever _trusts_ in riches
is either like the ass whose back is bent with a weight of gold, or he
is worse than the ass, and _longs_ to take a burden on his back of
which only Death can unlade him.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _The Quest in the Golden Mean._ Ch. vii., v. 1-Ch. viii.,
v. 15.]
2. But now, to come closer home, to draw nearer to that prime wisdom
which consists in knowing that which lies before us in our daily life,
let us glance at the Man who aims to stand in the Golden Mean; the man
who does not aspire to heap up a great fortune, but is anxious to
secure a modest competence. He is more on our own level; for _our_
trust in riches is, for the most part, qualified by other trusts. If
we believe in Gold, we also believe in Wisdom and in Mirth; if we
labour to provide for the future, we also wish to use and enjoy the
present. We think it well that we should know something of the world
about us, and take some pleasure in our life. We think that to put
money in our purse should not be our only aim, though it should be a
leading aim. We admit that "the love of money is a root of all
evil"--one of the roots from which all forms and kinds of evil may
spring; and, to save ourselves from falling into that base lust, we
limit our desires. We shall be content if we can put by a moderate
sum, and we flatter ourselves that we desire even so much as that, not
for its own sake, but for the means of knowledge, or of usefulness, or
of innocent enjoyment with which it will furnish us. "Nothing I should
like better," says many a man, "than to retire from business as soon
as I have enough to live upon, and to devote myself to this branch of
study or that province of art, or to take my share of public duties,
or to give myself to a cheerful domestic life." It speaks well for our
time, I think, that while in a few large cities there are still many
in haste to be rich and very rich, in the country and in hundreds of
provincial towns there are thousands of men who know that wealth is
not the Chief Good, and who do not care to don the livery of Mammon.
Nevertheless, though their aim be "most sweet and commendable," it has
perils of its own, imminent and deadly perils, which few of us
altogether escape. And these perils are clearly set before us in the
sketch of the Hebrew Preacher. As I reproduce that sketch, suffer me,
for the sake of brevity, while carefully retaining the antique
outlines, to fill in with modern details.
[Sidenote: _The Method of the Man who seeks a Competence._ Ch. viii.,
vv. 1-14.]
Suppose a young man to start in life with this theory, this plan, this
aim, distinctly before him:--he is to be ruled by prudence and plain
common sense: he will try to stand well with the world, and to make a
moderate provision for future wants. This aim will beget a certain
temperance of thought and action. He will permit himself no
extravagances--no wandering out of bounds, and perhaps no enthusiasms,
for he wants to establish "a good name," a good reputation, which
shall go before him like "a sweet perfume" and dispose men's hearts
toward him. And, therefore, he carries a sober face, frequents the
company of older, wiser men, is grateful for any hints their
experience may furnish, and takes even their "reproof" with a good
grace. He walks in the beaten paths, knowing the world to be impatient
of novelties. The wanton mirth and crackling laughter of fools in the
house of feasting are not for him. He is not to be seduced from the
plain prudent course which he has marked out for himself whether by
inward provocation or outward allurements. If he is a young lawyer, he
will write no poetry, attorneys holding literary men in suspicion. If
he is a young doctor, homoeopathy, hydropathy, and all new-fangled
schemes of medicine will disclose their charms to him in vain. If he
is a young clergyman, he will be conspicuous for his orthodoxy, and
for his emphatic assent to all that the leaders of opinion in the
Church think or may think. If he is a young manufacturer or merchant,
he will be no breeder of costly patents and inventions, but will be
among the first to profit by them whenever they are found to pay.
Whatever he may be, he will not be of those who try to make crooked
things straight and rough places plain. He wants to get on; and the
best way to get on is to keep the beaten path and push forward in
that. And he will be patient--not throwing up the game because for a
time the chances go against him, but waiting till the times mend and
his chances improve, so far as he can, he will keep the middle of the
stream that, when the tide which leads on to fortune sets in, he may
be of the best to take it at the flood and sail easily on to his
desired haven.