anderer without
a home, but who has found something that has enabled him to say, "I
have learned, in whatsoever state I am, to be content. I know both how
to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere, and in all things,
I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to
suffer need. I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth
me." (Phil. iv. 11-13.)

What, then, is the necessary logical deduction from two such pictures
but this: The Lord Jesus infinitely surpasses all the world in filling
the hungry heart of man.

Look, oh my reader, whether thou be sinner or saint, to Him--to Him
alone.

This, then, brings us to the twelfth verse of chapter two, which
already, thus early in the book, seems to be a summing up of his
experiences. "I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and
folly:" that is I looked "full face," or carefully considered, these
three things that I had now tested; and whilst each gave me only
disappointment and bitterness as to meeting my deepest needs, yet "I
saw that there was a profit in wisdom over folly, as light is
profitable over darkness." This then is within the power of human
reason to determine. The philosophy of the best of the heathen brought
them to exactly the same conclusion. Socrates and Solomon, with many
another worthy name, are here in perfect accord, and testify together
that "the wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in
darkness." Not that men _prefer_ wisdom to folly; on the contrary;
still even human reason gives this judgment: for the wise man walks at
least as a _man_, intelligently; the spirit, the intelligence, having
its place. But how much further can reason discern as to the
comparative worth of wisdom or folly? The former certainly morally
elevates a man _now_; but here comes an awful shadow across reason's
path: "but I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them
all. Then said I in my heart, as it happeneth to the fool, so it
happeneth even to me: and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my
heart, that this also is vanity." Ah! in this book in which poor man
at his highest is allowed to give voice to his deepest questions, in
which all the chaos, and darkness, the "without form and void" state of
his poor, distracted, disjointed being is seen; death is indeed the
King of Terrors, upsetting all his reasonings, and bringing the wisdom
and folly, between which he had so carefully discrimin