judgment-seat of the Most High, and awfully suffer throughout eternity for a mere foolish dream, for vain imaginations, for shadows of vanity. Take, therefore, great care while it is yet time, and avert the wrath of God from your souls, misery and sufferings from your bodies, an old age full of diseases and remorse, a death full of horrors, and an eternity of darkness and agony. If the sacrifice of earthly and vain pleasures seem great to you in the days of your youth, you will one day see them in quite another light, you will be astonished how rational men can be given to them, you will laugh at them, and say that childhood and youth are vanity." 1. Remember, therefore, thy Creator in the days of thy youth, Ere the evil days come and the years arrive When thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2. Ere the sun and his light, and the moon and the stars become dark, And the clouds return after the rain. In the two verses of the foregoing chapter, the young man was warned that he will stand in judgment before the awful throne of his God, and that he will have to answer for every sin and extravagance committed by him in the days of his vigour. That lesson implied that youth is by no means to rely on as any excuse for sin before the Judge of the whole earth-that the verdict of the highest tribunal will never say concerning a criminal," his chief crimes and errors were committed at a period when his earthly desires and fleshly lusts were in their height, when the world and its foolishness appeared to his youthful fancy in all beauty and splendour, and had every attraction for his inexperienced eyes; hence that all these sins cannot be counted unto him." No; all this shall be counted among the chief reasons for his condemnation, seeing that he spent the best time of his life, the most useful portion of his earthly pilgrimage, in the service of Satan, instead of having devoted them as the first fruits of his life in the service of his God; seeing that he extravagantly devoted the most vigorous and useful days and hours to foolish pursuits and sinful pleasures, instead of applying them for the promotion of the glory of his Creator, who called him into existence for that purpose and for that alone. After the above warning given, Solomon opens the present and last chapter with an earnest and wholesome advice to the young man to "remember his Creator in the days of his youth"-to remember early in life that he belonged soul and body unto God; that his duty was to love, fear, and to serve Him with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might; that therefore he is bound to consecrate himself as early as possible to the service of the Lord, and to renew the covenant of His grace in the most tender youth. This, says Solomon, should be done "Ere the evil days come," viz., before the useless, helpless, and lazy days of old age, of weakness, and of diverse sufferings come, and regarding which man says, "I have no pleasure in them,' viz., when nothing pleases, nothing amuses, when nothing is undertaken with vigour, and nothing is accomplished with energy and satisfaction-such is not the time for which a mortal man should delay his conversion and his reconciliation to God. For this reason the royal penitent advises young men to embrace the earliest opportunity for entering the service of their living and faithful God, before their energy and youthful vigour be for ever gone, "Ere the sun and his light, and the moon and the stars become dark, and the clouds return after the rain." Man's short life is accompanied by many storms, trials, disasters, and disappointments, and oftentimes he finds himself enveloped in utter darkness, as if the sun, moon, and stars had for ever abondoned him. In the days of youthful vigour, however, these lights pierce through (as it were) the dark clouds, and the young man sees himself once more extricated from darkness, and again agreeable hopes and pleasant expectations stand before his eyes and cheer his youthful fancy. But in old age, when one would think that as the clouds had so long emptied themselves, that light would now continue to shine in all its brilliancy, it is quite the reverse, for it is then that the worldly man finds himself lost in obscurity, and filled with and surrounded by thick darkness, without the least hope of the reappearance of light. After a rainy and stormy life, gloomy clouds cover all the horizon above him; the darkness is thicker and more threatening than ever before, and neither his age, nor his experience, nor his past life and practice, allow him to entertain the least hope of a favourable change. This world and its foolishness affording no more stimulants for his stained and stagnant soul, he is lost in a labyrinth of fighting thoughts, relentless remorse, piercing grief, melancholy fears, bewildering doubts, and dreadful forebodings of eternal misery and never-ending torment. Is such a time favourable for conversion and salvation? Should a question so grave, so important, as that of the salvation or condemnation of a never-dying soul be in differently delayed for such a period of darkness and uncertainty? Should eternal life be hung up on a withered leaf driven about by the wind? This every child of Adam must decide for himself as long as time is granted him to do so. But the inspired Solomon advises every man to decide about his conversion and salvation in the days of his youth, before the arrival of the "evil days," the symptoms and characteristics of which are the following: 3. In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, And when the strong men shall bend, And the grinders shall cease (grinding), And those which look through the windows become darkened. 4. And the outer doors shall be shut up, And thus the sound of the grinding shall become low. And he shall arise at the voice of a bird, And all the daughters of song shall be depressed: 5. When also they shall be afraid of high places, And when terrors shall be in the way; When the almond-tree shall shake off its flowers, And when the locust shall become a burden (to himself), And when all desires shall fail; Yea when the man shall go to his eternal home, And the mourners walk about in the street. 6. [Remember therefore thy Creator] Ere the silver cord be relaxed, And the golden bowl be broken, And the pitcher be shivered at the fountain, And the wheel roll into the pit. 7. Then shall the dust return to the earth, as it was before, And the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.* *The following is, in our humble opinion, the most probable explanation of the figures employed by Solomon in verses 3-7 for describing the changes, weakness, and infirmities of old age, which end with the dissolution of the body in X It was in the most noble poetical language, and the grave:-Ver. 3. "When the keepers of the house shall tremble;" viz., when the feet and the legs which keep and support the earthly tabernacle, the body, begin to be feeble and tremble under their burden (see Judges xvi. 25-30); "And the strong men shall bend" (or the fighting men shall bow), viz., when the hands and arms shall lose their power, shall be able no more to fight and defend the body, and when they shall lay hold on anything they shall bend and give way at the least resistance. "And the grinders shall cease (grinding), because they become few (in number)," viz., when the teeth cease to exercise their grinding and masticating functions. because the most of them and the strongest are gone, and the few shaking ones can do nothing. "And those which look through the windows become darkened; viz., when the eyes get dim and dark, and when, looking out of their holes and eyelids, they cannot perceive objects with the facility of youth, for shadows are placed before them. Ver. 4. "And the outer doors shall be shut up, and thus the sound of the grinding shall become low;" viz., old people, who, for the want of teeth are obliged to masticate their food with their gums and jaws, must shut up their lips when eating, that the food should not drop out, and thus the sound of grinding is scarcely heard. "And he shall arise at the voice of a bird," viz., the least noise awakens old people, for their sleep is no more sound. "And all the daughters of song shall be depressed;" viz., the voice and the ear are the natural instruments or daughters of song, of music; these are depressed and disabled when the trumpet of the ear is stopped by old age, and when the throat, breast, and lungs are incapable of performing their offices. Ver 5. "When also they shall be afraid of high places, and when terror shall be in the way;' viz., old persons are too feeble to ascend high places, their steps being so uncertain that they are afraid of falling even on the broad highway. "When the almond tree shall shake off its flowers;" viz., when the silver white hairs of head and beard begin to fall out from weakness and age, as do the snowy flowers of the almond tree at the end of its flourishing season (-Naeitz, never signifies "flourish," as the different versions render it, but always means "to cast off, shake off.") Nothing can be a more striking comparison to the creeping out of the silver locks by old age than the falling down of the beautiful almond flowers when the tree is agitated by the wind. "And the locust shall become a burden (to himself). J. Parkhurst, in his Hebrew Lexicon, under a explains this comparison in the following terms: "The dry, shrunk, shrivelled, crumpling, craggy old man, his backbone sticking out, his knees projecting forwards, his arms backwards, his head downwards, and the apophyses, or lunch |