I found, but a woman among all those have I not found.... The race is
not to the swift, the battle to the strong; neither bread to the wise,
nor riches to the man of understanding.... On all things is written
vanity." Such are some of the dismal and cynical utterances of Solomon
in his old age. The Ecclesiastes contrasted with the Proverbs is
discouraging and sad, although there is great seriousness and even
loftiness in many of its sayings. It seems to be the record of a
disenchanted old man, to whom all things are a folly and vanity. There
is a suppressed contempt expressed for what young men and the worldly
regard as desirable, equalled only by a sort of proud disdain of success
and fame. There is great bitterness in reference to women. Some of the
sayings are as mournful jeremiads as any uttered by Carlyle, showing
great scorn of what ninety-nine in one hundred are vain of, and pursue
after, as all ending in vanity and vexation of spirit. We can understand
how riches may prove a snare, how pleasure-seeking ends in
disappointment, how the smiles of a deceitful woman may lead to the
chamber of death, how little the treasures of wickedness profit, how
sins will find out the transgressor, how the heart may be sad in the
midst of laughter, how wine is a mocker, how ambition is Babel-building,
how he who pursueth evil pursueth it to his death; we can understand how
abundance will produce satiety, and satiety lead to disgust,--how
disappointment attends our most cherished plans, and how all mortal
pursuits fail to satisfy the cravings of an immortal soul. But why does
the favored and princely Solomon, in sadness and bitterness, pronounce
knowledge also to be a vanity like power and riches, especially when in
his earlier writings he so highly commends it? Is it true that in much
wisdom is much grief, and that the increase of knowledge is the increase
of sorrow? Can it be that the book of Ecclesiastes is the mere record of
the miserable experiences of an embittered and disappointed sensualist,
or is it the profound and searching exposition of the vanities of this