A HEBREW " JOURNAL INTIME." T HE world has almost always
acknowledged the fascination of any writer who could take it completely into his confidence. For the sake of candour men will forgive almost anything, so intense is the natural desire to analyse the human heart. It is the story of a man's thoughts, not his acts, that we all want to know; and it is just this story which so few men have power to tell. Perhaps it was never better told than two thousand three hundred years ago,—the date assigned by the latest Hebrew scholars to the Book of Ecclesiastes. We know what the writer thought about life and about death, about the poor and the rich, about men and about women; how the eternal problems of religion tortured his spirit in his youth, and what conclusion he came to in his old age. His conviction that there is nothing new under the sun is strangely illustrated before our eyes as we read his work to-day. The truth is .the one thing that keeps fresh. Any affectation is like a fly in the ointment. The " Sorrows of Werther " are more stale now than those of the rich Jew who far away in another age wrote a journal intifine.
The writer describes his outward state vividly and con- cisely. It is merely the gorgeous background against which he desires to show his inward. misery: He is a very rich man, able, accomplished, probably of Royal blood. " Whatsoever mine eyes desired," he tells us, " I kept not from them." " I made me great works; I builded me houses ; I planted me vineyards : I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits : I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me : I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces : I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great." Such was the home of a rich Oriental when we English were savages. It is possibly not so very unlike the home of a millionaire to-day.
In the year 400 B.C., as in 1903 A.D., " the eye is not satis- fied with seeing, nor the ear filled- with bearing," and the master of all these delightful possessions finds them altogether vanity. Still cruder methods of obtaining happiness he tries. " I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine," and " to lay hold on folly "; but in license, as in luxury, he finds only vexation of spirit. A very modern virtue distracts his mind from his enjoyments. He cannot get rid of the sense of pity. On the side of the oppressors is power, and the poor have no comforter. The sight of the "evil work" of these oppressors maddens him. He would gladly help the downtrodden. He despises those who suffer the pangs of compassion and do nothing to alleviate suffering,—the people who sit still and eat their hearts out. " The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh," he exclaims. Yet he himself cannot see what to do. Prosperity does not solve the question of the. residuum. " When goods increase, they are increased that eat them"; and he feels, moreover, that the worth of all action is brought down by the constant menace of death. Philanthropist and pauper both perish together. The fear of annihilation has a strong hold. on him, and paralyses him at every turn. In another mood- the question of poverty appears to him in a fairer light. He envies the • sweet sleep of the labouring man. The dignity of agriculture gilds the sordid side of toil. "-The profit of the earth is for all," he reflecte; " the king himself is served by the field." There are points at which the life of the labouring classes compares favourably with that of his own. Evidently he has been impressed by the serenity and patience of:the poor in the face of suffering. and death, while the rich man " bath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness." Again, with the strange moral insight which belongs to his race,-and remains with its sons however earthy they may become, he per- ceives that the power to oppress is hardly a benefit. It is one of the evils which he sees under the sun that " one man ruleth over another to his own hurt." A great man may live in bondage to a tyrannical temper. " Better," he says, " is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king who will no more be admonished. For out of prison he cometh to reign." Inquisitorial power is to be eschewed by those who seek happiness. " Take no heed unto all words that are spoken," he writes ; " lest thou hear thy servant curse thee : for oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise halt cursed others."
Being a Jew, intellectual pleasures are exceedingly keen to him, and he is not without intellectual arrogance. Perhaps with knowledge will come satisfaction. " I applied my heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things " ; but happiness still eludes him, and impossibility of philosophic assurance and the absolute certainty of death make him give up the pursuit. " 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 P " Diametrically opposed sentiments do not startle the reader in these pages. Every man who has the heart to note down the incidents of his inner life must register
contradictions. His reason and his conviction are continually at variance. Consistency belongs to self-suppression rather than to self-revelation. "Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged," we find this philosopher declaring, "yet. surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God." Within a page he argues that " there is no better thing under-the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry," because "there be just men, unto whom it happenetb
according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked Inen, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous." With cynical precision be declares that he has never met a really good woman, and seldom a really good man. "Counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not : one man among a thousand have I found ; but a woman among all those have I not found." Then with a sudden revulsion of feeling: " Lo, this only have I found, that God bath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." Continually he asserts the Epicurean doctrine. Life is so short. He will live for enjoy- ment. But as continually "the spirit of man that goeth upward" breaks through his determination, and makes him contradict himself.
In a search after wisdom no Jew could forget religion. As was inevitable to a man of his type, the ordinary-religious services of his day failed to satisfy this ancient writer. The ceremonial of the Temple repels him. No wise man has ever despised, however, the reading of the Scriptures. "Be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools," he says to himself. "God is in heaven, and thou upon earth : therefore let thy words be few." Why should men elaborate their ignorance? he seems to wonder. "For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words." Still, he does not call in question
the existence of the Deity. In the multitude of dreams and many words," he reflects, " there are also divers vanities : but fear thou God."
Towards the end of the book there is less reasoning and more giving in to convictions. The writer is mentally tired oat. He sees that this ceaseless wondering and anxiety, this living in the presence of death, will tie his hands and make his life absolutely barren. He de- termines to cease speculating and to turn his face away from his last end. It is the only way, he realises, to accom- plish anything. He begins to " cast " his "bread upon the waters," to work without too much thought of results. " He that observeth the wind shall not sow ; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap," he declares to be hie experience. Therefore, "in the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand : for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good." As the time ap- proaches when the pitcher shall " be broken at the fountain," and " the spirit shall return unto God who gave it," the terror of death seems to leave him, and out of the wearing sense of responsibility he has never wholly shaken off arises a hope of a future life. " God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing," he concludes, and we feel that he would rather wake to judgment than sleep for ever.
Did this man really live so long ago? It seems impossible. The doubts and discontents he endured, the problems and possibilities he discussed, are so exactly like our own. We are constrained to believe his own words : " Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new ? it hath been already of old time, which was before us."
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