be called upon to give an account of thy proceedings. If at thy departure hence, thou dividest the remainder of thy trust between thy children and relations, prepare them before God and man, to employ thy Master's property exclusively in His service, and according to His directions. If thou shalt prove thus faithful in the management of earthly talents, the treasures of heaven shall be opened unto thee, and throughout eternity thou shalt enjoy the confidence and favour of the Lord, thy heavenly King and thy God.

But O, thou blinded and avaricious worshipper of Mammon! Thou unfaithful treasurer who wickedly and rebelliously wrestest unto thyself the property of thy God! Thou who, in the pride of thy deceived heart, sayest with Nebuchadnezzar, "Is not this the great Babylon that I have built

by the might of my power?" Thou who sayest, "These are my own treasures, my own property, I shall use them according to my desire, in the exclusive service of my flesh, for the satisfaction of my wishes.' O thou deceived soul! look for one moment around thee and see how many Mammon-worshippers are daily torn away from their idols, and delivered into the arms of death and decay. Consider that yet a while, and thine eyes shall see no beauty, thine heart feel no satisfaction, and thy soul no pleasure in the pieces of dumb matter in which thou gloriest at present. Remember how thou and all that thou callest now thine own shall soon be divided-viz., thy body to the worms of the grave, thy riches remain on earth the property of Him unto whom all things created belong, and thy soul return unto Him who gave it unto thee. O selfish and misguided man! It is thy soul, and she alone, that will remain of thee, of thy desires, riches, and all, and she alone is to be responsible for all. Are you then honest

or wise enough to acknowledge the real owners of things belonging unto thy fellow-mortals, and which can be required of thee through an earthly judge, to escape whom thou hast thousand means, and art neither honest nor wise enough to acknowledge the owner of thy life and all, unto whom thou must soon restore every thing, and whose judgment and punishment thou canst never avoid? Soon thou (that is thy soul) shall be accused and convinced of robbery before the great and holy judge of the whole earth, and condemned to eternal misery, while the objects robbed by thee shall remain still untouched in the possession of Him who called everything into existence. There is, therefore, no advantage for thee even to imagine that thou canst rob God and possess anything earthly exclusively for thyself. O, consider this while it is yet time, and hasten to free thyself from that fearful sacrilege. Make all haste to deliver thyself, soul and body, and possessions, in the hands of thy provoked Master. Honour Jehovah, O thou immortal soul! with thy body and substance, which are his. Count all earthly things as they really are, "Vanity of vanities," and begin thy journey heavenwards, by the high road of Revelation. Thou shalt then be really rich, and thy treasures thine, and thou shalt fear no storm, no change, no robber, no thief, no moth, no death, and no grave, and no judgment, for thy righteousness (received by grace) shall go before thee, and the glory of thy God shall gather in thy soul unto eternal happiness.

In the following verses Solomon proceeds to give some examples illustrative of the sameness of the earth, and of the continuance of a regular revolution in the systematic bodies of the universe in general, as of the unchanging activity of some bodies attached to our globe in particular. These he contrasts with the above-mentioned unsteady and shifting human

family, one generation being taken away and another coming to be swept away in the same manner.

5. The sun also riseth;

The sun also goeth down;

But he hasteneth* to his place;
There he shineth again.

The sun, like man, has his rising and setting time. But there had never yet occurred the least weariness in the sun, by which he should have retarded his appearance in the morning after he had set on the previous evening. No! with the same majestic and regular steps by which he traverses our hemisphere during our day, he eagerly and unchangeably pursues his course through the other hemisphere during the night, and hastes, as with a panting desire to return to his starting-point, and after a night's absence there we find him in the morning as bright, as vigorous, and as glorious as ever. So David in the 19th Psalm says, "and he (the sun), as a bridegroom goeth forth from his chamber; he rejoices like a giant in running his course. From the end of the heavens is his going forth, and his circuits unto the ends of them; and nothing is hid from his flame." Both these passages describe the phenomena of nature in the sweet simplicity of Scripture language, which, not intended to teach us philosophy, speaks of things as they appear to the naked eye of the simple observer.

*

(Shaaph) originally "to draw," as air by the weary one; signifies figuratively a panting desire for anything, an ardent wish, &c. In our verse it might also be rendered "he panteth for his place," expressive of the apparent eagerness with which the sun seems inspired for returning at the exact time and in regular order to his place of rising. We considered, however, the word "hasteneth" to be, if not more expressive, at least more suitable to the phrase, while a panting haste must be understood as the meaning of the Hebrew text.

Both passages speak of the constancy, faithfulness, and durability with which that brilliant luminary continues his insurpassable services to our globe and its inhabitants, in shedding streams of splendour and fertility on and around them.

In our verse Solomon intends to shew, that while the sun was, is, and will always continue to be the same in his nature, glory, and course, whilst he will always continue to go down and disappear in the evenings, and with the same certainty and regularity re-appear and brilliantly shine every morning, the generations of men, however they might have shone and dazzled during the day of their earthly existence, the night of death comes, eclipses, and covers them, never to re-appear upon the stage of life, nor ever to interfere again in sublunary transactions, " for there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will But man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he then? Yea, man lieth down and riseth no more," &c. (Job xiv. 7, 10, 12.) How foolish and how vain are therefore man's unsatiable desires, and his laborious searches for earthly treasures and possessions, which, having accumulated, he must abruptly leave, never to return to them again!

not cease.

6 Going towards the south,

Then turning round towards the north,*
Around around veereth the wind,

And for his circuits the wind returns again.

Here the inspired author refers to an element in

* Some commentators divide this verse, transferring the one-half of it to verse 5, and arguing that it also does refer to the course of the sun-that whilst verse 5 referred to its daily course, this clause, "Going towards the north, then turning

nature, which, though often changing stations and courses, is still more constant, more certain, more durable than mortal man. The wind on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean blows for a certain season of the year from north to south, then it changeth its course, and a southerly wind takes its place, blowing for several months towards the north. Such is the appearance of its course as if engaged to run to a certain point of the globe to make some turns, to return again with the same velocity and manner to its original starting-point, and be ready to enter upon a new course or circuit at the hour appointed. It has never yet seemed that the wind should have remained out a whole year-never has the wind yet lost himself in some pathless desert, or in some of the vast regions of the trackless ocean. He always re-appears again in usual time to enter his new courses in the same manner as he did the

round towards the south," referred to the sun's annual course through the signs of the zodiac. But, ingenious as this invention seems to be, neither the textual construction of the whole passage, nor indeed Solomon's astronomical views (as far as developed in the same) can admit of such an arrangement. The difficulty which commentators found here was, to explain what Solomon meant in saying that the wind is going towards the south and turning to north, seeing that the only constant wind which prevails within the tropical regions (trade wind) moves regularly from east to west round the globe. But we need not transport Solomon beyond the Mediterranean, nor force him to speak of any other winds than those which periodically prevail on her shores. All over Egypt and part of Palestine (though irregular in the latter country sometimes, because interrupted by the mountains in the interior) the northerly wind prevails regularly during the greater portion of the year, and is then discharged by a southerly wind which likewise continues for several months (though sometimes with more irregularity than the former.) To this system of winds Solomon must refer in our verse, describing things as they appear to the simple observer. "Going towards the south," viz., the northerly wind, which breathes towards the south, as if marching on and then at once "turning round towards the north," &c.