idols is one of bitter contempt.
Its rigid monotheism was intensified and embittered by the universal
prevalence of idolatry; and there is a certain hardness in its tone in
reference to the gods of the nations round about, which has little room
for pity, and finds expression in such names as those of our
text--'vanities,' 'lies,' 'nothingness,' and the like. To the Jew,
encompassed on all sides by idol-worshippers, the alternative was
vehement indignation or entire surrender. The Mohammedan in British
India exhibits much the same attitude to Vishnu and Siva as the Jew did
to Baal and Ashtoreth. It is easy to be tolerant of dead gods, but it
becomes treason to Jehovah to parley with them when they are alive.

But the point which we desire to insist upon here is somewhat wider than
the vanity of idols. It is the emptiness of all objects of human pursuit
apart from God. These last three words need to be made very prominent;
for in itself 'every creature of God is good,' and the emptiness does
not inhere in themselves, but first appears when they are set in His
place. He, and only He, can, and does, satisfy the whole nature--is
authority for the will, peace for the conscience, love for the heart,
light for the understanding, rest for all seeking. He, and He alone, can
fill the past with the light in which is no regret, the present with a
satisfaction rounded and complete, the future with a hope certain as
experience, to which we shall ever approximate, and which we can never
exhaust and outgrow. Any, or all, the other objects of human endeavour
may be won, and yet we may be miserable. The inadequacy of all these
ought to be pressed home upon us more than it is, not only by their
limitations whilst they last, but by the transiency of them all. 'The
fashion of this world passeth away,' as the Apostle John puts it, in a
forcible expression which likens all this frame of things to a panorama
being unwound from one roller and on to another. The painted screen is
but paint at the best, and is in perpetual motion, which is not arrested
by the vain clutches of hands that would fain stop the irresistible and
tragic gliding past.

These vanities are 'lying vanities.' There is only one aim of life
which, being pursued and attained, fulfils the promises by which it drew
man after it. It is a bald commonplace, reiterated not only by preachers
but by moralists of every kind, and confirmed by universal experience,
that a hope fulfilled i