Of the writings ascribed to Solomon, there are three books, each of
which corresponds to the different periods of his life,--to his pious
youth, to his prosperous manhood, and to his later years of cynicism and
despair. They all alike blaze with moral truth, and appeal to universal
experience. They present different features of human life, at different
periods, and suggest sentiments which most people have realized at some
time or another. And if in some cases they are apparently contradictory,
like the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, they are equally striking and
convincing, and are not more inconsistent than the man himself. Who does
not change, and yet remain individually the same? Is there not a change
between youth and old age? Do not most great men utter sentiments hard
to be reconciled with one another, yet with equal sincerity? Webster
enforces free-trade at one time and a high tariff at another, as light
or circumstances change. Gladstone was in youth and middle age a pillar
of the aristocracy; later he was the oracle of the masses, yet a lofty
realism underlay all his utterances. The writings of Solomon present
life in different aspects, and yet they are alike true. They are not
divine revelations, like the commandments given to Moses amid the
lightnings of Sinai, or like the visions of the prophets respecting the
future glories of the Church. They do not exalt the soul into inspiring
ecstasies like the psalms of David, or kindle a holy awe like the lofty
meditations of Job; but they are yet such impressive truths pertaining
to human life that we invest them with more than human wisdom.

The Song of Songs, long ascribed to King Solomon, has been attended with
some difficulty of explanation. It is a poem liable to be perverted by
an unsanctified soul, since it is foreign to our modes of expression.
For two hundred years it has been variously interpreted. It was the
delight of Saint Bernard the ascetic, and a stumbling-block to Ewald the