sorrow rob him of his true joy. God is with him, observing all the
postures and moods of his soul, and adapting all his circumstances to
the correction of what is evil in him or the cultivation of what is
good. There is no dark impassable gulf between this world and the
next; life does not cease at death, but grows more intense and full;
death is but a second birth into a second and better life, a life of
ampler and happier conditions, and yet a life which is the
continuation and consummation of that we now live in the flesh. All
that he has to do, therefore, is to "fear God and keep his
commandments," leaving the issues of his labour in the Hands which
bend all things to a final goal of good. What though the clouds drop
rain or the winds blew bitterly, what though his diligence a charity
meet no present recognition or reward? All that is no business of his.
He has only to do the duty of the passing hour, and to help his
neighbours do their duty. So long as he can do this, why should he not
be bright and gay? In this lies his Chief Good: why should he not
enjoy _that_, even though other and lesser goods be taken from him for
a time--be lent to the Lord that they may hereafter be repaid with
usury? He is no longer "a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stop
she please:" he has a tune of his own, "a cheerful tune," to play, and
_will_ play it, let fortune be in what mood she please. He is not
"passion's slave," but the servant and friend of God; and because God
is with him and for him, and because he will soon be with God, he is
"As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,"
and can take "fortune's buffets and rewards with equal thanks." His
cheerful content does not lie at the mercy of accident; the winds and
waves of vicissitude cannot prevail against it: for it has two broad
and solid foundations; one on earth, and the other in heaven. On the
one hand, it springs from a faithful discharge of personal duty and
the neighbourly charity which hopeth all things and endureth all
things; on the other hand, it springs from the conviction that God
takes note of all things, and will bring every secret and every deed
into a judgment perfectly just and perfectly kind. The fair structure
which rises on these sure foundations is not to be shaken by ought
that does not sap the foundations on which it rests. Convince him that
God is not with him, or that God does not so care for him as to judge
and correct him; or convict him of gross and constant failures in duty
and in charity; and then, indeed, you touch, you endanger, his peace.
But no external loss, no breath of change, no cloud in the sky of his
fortunes, no loss, no infirmity that does not impede him in the
discharge of duty, can do more than cast a passing shadow on his
heart. Whatever happens, into whatever new conditions or new worlds he
may pass, his chief good and therefore his supreme joy is with him.
"This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And, having nothing, yet hath all."
Now, too, without fear or favour, without any prejudice for or against
his conclusion because we find it in Holy Writ, we may ask ourselves,
Has the Preacher satisfactorily solved the problem which he took in
hand? has he really achieved his Quest and attained the Chief Good?
One thing is quite clear; he has not lost himself in speculations
foreign to our experience and remote from it; he has dealt with the
common facts of life such as they were in his time, such as they
remain in ours: for now, as then, men are restless and craving, and
seek the satisfactions of rest in science or in pleasure, in
successful public careers or in the fortunate conduct of affairs, by
securing wealth or by laying up a modest provision for present and
future wants. Now, as then,
"The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's,
Is not to fancy what were fair in life
Providing it could be,--but, finding first
What may be, then find how to make it fair
Up to our means--a very different thing."
That the Preacher should have attacked this common problem, and should
have handled it with the practical good sense which characterises his
Poem, is a point, and a large point, in his favour.
Nor is the conclusion at which he arrives, in its substance, peculiar
to him, or even to the Scriptures. He says: The perfect man, the ideal
man, is he who addresses himself to the present duty untroubled by
adverse clouds and currents, who so loves his neighbour that he can do
good even to the evil and the unthankful, and who carries a brave
cheerful temper to the unrewarded toils and sacrifices of his life,
because God is with him, taking note of all he does, and because there
is a future life for which this course of duty, charity, and
magnanimity, is the best preparative. He affirms that the man who has
risen to the discovery and practice of this ideal has attained the
Chief Good, that he has found a duty from which no accident can divert
him, a pure and tranquil joy which will sustain him under all change
and loss. And, on his behalf, I am bold to assert that, allowing for
inevitable differences of conception and utterance, his conclusion is
the conclusion of all the great teachers of morality. Take any of the
ancient systems of morality and religion--Hindu, Egyptian, Persian,
Chinese, Greek, or Latin; select those elements of it in virtue of
which it has lived and ruled over myriads of men; reduce those
elements to their simplest forms, express them in the plainest words;
and, as I believe, you will find that in every case they are only
different and modified versions of the final conclusion of the
Preacher. "Do your duty patiently; Be kind and helpful one to another;
Shew a cheerful content with your lot; Heaven is with you and will
judge you:"--these brief maxims seem to be the ethical epitome of all
the creeds and systems that have had their day, as also of those which
have not ceased to be. It is very true that the motive to obedience
which Coheleth draws from the future life of man has been of a varying
force and influence, rising perhaps to its greatest clearness among
the Egyptians and the Persians, sinking to its dimmest among the
Greeks and the Romans, although we cannot say it did not shine even
upon these; for, though the secret of their "mysteries" has been kept
with a rare fidelity, yet the general impression of Antiquity
concerning them was that, besides disclosing to the initiated the
natural and moral truths on which the popular mythology was based,
they "opened to man a comforting prospect of a future state." I am not
careful to show how the Word of Inspiration surpasses all other
"scriptures" in the precision with which it enunciates the elementary
truths of all morality, in its freedom from admixture with baser
matter, in its application of those truths to all sorts and conditions
of men, and the power of the motives by which it enforces them. That
is no part of my present duty. The one point to which I ask attention
is this: With what an enormous weight of authority, drawn from all
creeds and systems, from the whole ethical experience of humanity, the
conclusion of the Preacher is clothed; how we stand rebuked by the
wisdom of all past ages if, after duly testing it, we have not adopted
his solution of the master-problem of life, and are not working it
out. Out of every land, in all the different languages of the divided
earth, from the lips of all the ancient sages whom we reverence for
their excellence or for their wisdom, no less than from the mouths of
prophet and psalmist, preacher and apostle, there come to us voices
which with one consent bid us "fear God and keep his commandments;"--a
sacred chorus which paces down the long-drawn aisles of Time, chanting
the praise of the man who does his duty even though he lose by it, who
loves his neighbour even though he win no love in return, who breasts
the blows of circumstance with a tranquil heart, who by a wise use and
a wise enjoyment of the life that now is qualifies himself for the
better life to be.
* * * * *
This, then, is the Hebrew solution of "the common problem." It is also
the Christian solution. For when "the Fellow of the Lord of hosts,"
instead of "clutching at his equality with God," humbled Himself and
took on Him the form of a servant, the very ideal of perfect manhood
became incarnate in this "man from heaven." Does the Hebrew Preacher,
backed by the consentient voices of the great sages of Antiquity,
demand that the ideal man, moved thereto by his sense of a constant
Divine Presence and the hope of God's future judgment, should cast the
bread of his charity on the thankless waters of neighbourly
ingratitude, give himself with all diligence to the discharge of duty
whatever clouds may darken his sky, whatever unkindly wind may nip his
harvest, and maintain a calm and cheerful temper in all weathers, and
through all the changing scenes and seasons of life? His demand is
met, and surpassed, by the Man Christ Jesus. _He_ loved all men with a
love which the many waters of their hostility and unthankfulness could
not quench. Always about his Father's business, when He laid aside the
glory He had with the Father before the world was, He put off the
robes of a king to don the weeds of the husbandman, and went forth to
sow in all weathers, beside all waters, undaunted by any wind of
opposition or any threatening cloud. In all the shock of hostile
circumstance, in the abiding agony and passion of a life "short in
years indeed, but in sorrows above all measure long," He carried
Himself with a cheerful patience and serenity which never wavered, for
the joy set before Him enduring, and even despising, the bitter cross.
In fine, the very virtues inculcated by the Preacher were the very
substance of "the highest, holiest manhood." And if we ask, What were
the motives which inspired this life of consummate and unparalleled
excellence? we find among them the very motives suggested by Coheleth.
The strong Son of Man and of God was never alone, because the Father
was with Him, as truly with Him while He was on earth as when He was
in the heaven from which He "came down." He never bated heart nor hope
because He knew that He would soon be with God once more, to be judged
of Him and recompensed according to the deeds done in the body of his
humiliation. Men might misjudge Him, but the Judge of all the earth
would do Him right. Men might award Him only a crown of thorns; but
God would touch the thorns and, at his quickening touch, they would
flower into a garland of immortal beauty and honour.
Nor did the Lord Jesus help us in our quest of the Chief Good only by
becoming a Pattern of all virtue and excellence. The work of his
Redemption is a still more sovereign help. By the sacrifice of the
Cross He took away the sins which had rendered the pursuit of
excellence a wellnigh hopeless task. By the impartation of his Spirit,
no less than by the inspiration of his Example, He seeks to win us to
the love of our neighbour, to fidelity in the discharge of our daily
duty, and to that cheerful and constant trust in the providence of God
by which we are redeemed from the bondage of care and fear. He, the
Immanuel, by taking our flesh and dwelling among us, has _proved_ that
"God is with us," that He will in very deed dwell with men upon the
earth. He, the Victor over death, by his resurrection from the grave,
has _proved_ the truth of a future life and a future judgment with
arguments of a force and quality unknown to our Hebrew fathers.
So that now as of old, now even more demonstrably than of old, the
conclusion of the whole matter is that we "fear God and keep his
commandments." This is still the one solution of "the common problem"
and "the whole duty of man." He who accepts this solution and
discharges this duty has achieved the Supreme Quest; to him it has
been given to find the Chief Good.
_Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors and inconsistencies have been silently
normalized. Archaic and variable spellings and hyphenation have been
retained