to get any enjoyment from his labor. Our
translation of verse 24 seems quite out of harmony with the Preacher's
previous experiences, and the verse would better read (as in Dr. Taylor
Lewis' metrical version):

"The good is not in man that he should eat and drink
And find his soul's enjoyment in his toil;
This, too, I saw, is only from the hands of God."

CHAPTER III.

Chapter three may be paraphrased, I think, somewhat in this way: Yes,
life itself emphasizes the truth that nothing is at one stay here;--all
_moves_. There is naught abiding, like the winds and waters that he
has noted in chapter one; man's life is but a wheel that turns: death
follows birth, and all the experiences between are but ever varying
shades of good and evil, evil and good. (Let us bear in mind this is
not faith's view, but simply that of human wisdom. Faith sings a song
amidst the whirl of life:

"With mercy and with judgment,
My web of time He wove;
And aye the dews of sorrow
Were lustred with His love.")

But then if nothing thus rests as it is, it becomes a necessary
deduction that, if wisdom has collected, and labored, and built, folly
will follow to possess and scatter, what profit then in toiling? For
he sees that this constant travail is of God who, in wisdom
inscrutable, and not to be penetrated by human reasoning, would have
men exercised by these constant changes, whilst their hearts can be
really satisfied with no one of these things, beautiful as each may be
in its time. So boundless are its desires that he says, "Eternity" has
been placed in that heart of man, and naught in all these
"time-changes" can fill it. Still he can see nothing better for man,
than that he should make the best of the present, for he cannot alter
or change what God does or purposes, and everything he sees, speaks of
His purpose to a constant "round," a recurrence of that which is past
(as verse 15 should probably read.)

But still man's reason can make one more step now, one further
deduction from the _law of circuit_, as soon as God, even though He be
known only by nature's light, is introduced; and that is, the present
wrong and injustice so evident here, must in some "time" in God's
purposes, be righted; God Himself being the Judge. This seems to be a
gleam of real light, similar to the conclusion of the whole book. Yes,
further, this constant change--is there no reason for it? Has God no
purpose in it? Surely