ery heavens, taking him who
receives it far above the clouds and mists of earth's speculations and
questionings into the clear sunlight of eternal divine truth.

So here Solomon--and let us not forget none have ever gone, or can ever
go, beyond him--gives us the result of his searchings along the special
line of the power of riches to give enjoyment. His whole experience
again and again has contradicted this. Look at the 12th verse of this
very chapter. "The sleep of the laboring man is sweet, _but the
abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep_." No, no. In some
way to get _joy_, he confesses he must have _God_. He combines in
these verses these two ideas--"Joy" and "God." Look at them. See how
they recur: four times the name of God, thrice a word for joy. Now
this raises Solomon far far above the malarial swamps of mere
epicureanism, which excluded God entirely. It shows how perfect the
harmony throughout the whole book. It is again, let us recall it, the
high-water mark of human reason, intelligence, and experience. He
reasons thus: (1) I have proved the vanity and unsatisfactory character
of all created things in themselves, and yet can see no good beyond
getting enjoyment from them. (2) The power, therefore, for enjoyment
cannot be from the things themselves. It must be from God. He must
give it. (3) This assumes that there must be some kind of accord
between God and the heart, for God is the spring, and not the
circumstances without. So far the power of human reason. High it is,
indeed; but how unsatisfactory, at its highest. Consider all that it
leaves unsaid. Suppose this were where you and I were, my reader, what
should we learn of the way of attaining to this "good that is fair"?
Shall we ask Ecclesiastes one single question that surely needs clear
answer in order to attain it?

I am a sinner: conscience, with more or less power, constantly accuses.
How can this awful matter of my guilt in the sight of that God, the
confessed and only source of thy "good," be settled? Surely this is
absolutely necessary to know ere I can enjoy thy "good that is fair."
Nay, more: were a voice to speak from heaven, telling me that all the
past were blotted out up to this moment, I am well assured that I could
not maintain this condition for the next moment. Sin would well up
from the nature within, and leave me as hopeless as ever. I carry
_it_--that awful defiling thing--with me, in me. How is t