The sun rises and the sun sets; it hurries back to where it rises. Sermons
I. NATURE PRESENTS A SPECTACLE OF CONSTANT CHANGE AND RESTLESSNESS. The three examples given in these passages are such as must strike every attentive observer of this earth and the phenomena accessible to the view of its inhabitants. The sun runs his daily course through the heavens, to return on the next morning to fulfill the same circuit. The wind veers about from one quarter to another, and quits one direction only in a few hours, or a few days, or at most a few weeks, to resume it. The rivers flow on in an unceasing current, and find their way into the sea, which (as is now known) yields in evaporation its tribute to the clouds, whence the water-springs are in due time replenished. Modern science has vastly enlarged our view of similar processes throughout all of the universe which is accessible to our observation. "Nothing continueth in one stay." There is in the world nothing immovable and unchangeable. It is believed that not an atom is at rest. II. NATURE SEEMS TO EFFECT NO PROGRESS BY ALL THE CHANGES EXHIBITED. Not only is there a want, an absence, of stability, of rest; there is no apparent advance and improvement. Things move from their places only to return to them; their motion is rather in a circle than in a straight line. It was this cyclic tendency in natural processes which arrested the attention and perplexed the inquiring mind of the wise man. And modern science does not in this matter effect a radical change in our beliefs. Evolutionists teach us teat rhythm is the ultimate law of the universe. Evolution is followed by involution, or dissipation. A planet or a system evolves until it reaches its climax, and thenceforward its course is reversed, until it is resolved into the elements of which it was primevally composed. In the presence of such speculations the intellect reels, dizzy and powerless. III. REFLECTION MAY, HOWEVER, SUGGEST TO US THAT THERE IS UNITY IN DIVERSITY, STABILITY IN CHANGE; THAT THERE IS A DIVINE PURPOSE IN NATURE. If there be evidence of reason in the universe, if nature is the expression of mind, the vehicle by which the Creator-Spirit communicates with the created spirits he has fashioned in his own likeness, then there is at least the suggestion of what is deeper and more significant than the cycles of phenomena. There is rest for the intelligence in such a conviction as that of the theist, who rises above the utterances to the Being who utters forth his mind and will in the world which he has made, and which he rules by laws that are the expression of his own reason. He looks behind and above the mechanical cycles of nature, and discovers the Divine mind, into whose purposes he can only very partially penetrate, but in whose presence and control he finds repose. IV. ANALOGY POINTS OUT THAT IN AND BENEATH THE MUTABILITY OF THE HUMAN LOT AND LIFE THERE IS DIVINE PURPOSE OF INSTRUCTION AND BLESSING. If, as it seems, it occurred to the mind of the wise man that, as in nature, so in human existence, all things are cyclic and unprogressive, such an inference was not unnatural. Yet it is not a conclusion in which the reasonable mind can rest. The fuller revelation with which we have been favored enlightens us with respect to the intentions of Eternal Wisdom and Love. Our Savior has founded upon earth a kingdom which cannot be moved. And the figures which he himself has employed to set forth its progress are an assurance that it is not bounded by time or space; that it shall grow until its dimensions and beneficence exceed all human expectations, and satisfy the heart of the Divine Redeemer himself. Each faithful Christian, however feeble and however lowly, may work in his Master's cause with the assurance that his service shall be not only acceptable, but effective. Better shall be the end than the beginning. The seed shall give rise to a tree of whose fruit all nations shall taste, and beneath whose shadow humanity itself shall find both shelter and repose. - T.
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh. The circle is the archetype of all forms, physically as well as mathematically. It is the most complete figure, the most stable under violence, the most economical of material; its proportions are the most perfect and harmonious; and therefore it admits of the utmost variety consistent with unity of effect. The universe has apparently been framed according to this type. Nature attains her ends, not in a series of straight lines, but in a series of circles; not in the most direct, but in the most roundabout way. All her objects, organic and inorganic, have a tendency to assume the circular form, and in the attainment of this form consists their highest perfection. The lowly lichen on the wall spreads itself out in a circle; the mushroom in the meadow, with its round cap and stem, grows in fairy rings; the moss-tuft on the tree — the clump of fern in the shady bank — the plot of wild-flowers in the wood — the trees in the forest, alike in their individual and social state, exhibit this form in endless and graceful diversity. The cell, which is the ultimate germ of all life, is round, and every increase which it makes by growth or reproduction, preserves the same shape. The leaf, with all its varied modifications in the different parts of the plant — the stem, the flower, the fruit, the seed — are all more or less circular. So also are the different parts and organs of animals, from the simple primary cell of the animalcule, barely visible under the microscope, up through increasingly complex structures, to the highly-organized and wonderfully-formed head of man — the apex of creation; and though dead, inert minerals may seem to offer an exception to the law, crystallizing, or, in other words, attaining the highest perfection of which they are capable, not in circles but in straight lines, yet, when exposed to the influence of natural agencies, they speedily assume the circular form. The various forces of nature, and the properties of the matter upon which they act, are so arranged and balanced, that they invariably bring out curved lines in the surface of the earth. The winds and the waters produce undulating surfaces wherever they operate. The sea and the lake flow in curving waves and ripples to the shore: the rivers and streams meander in silvery links through the landscape; the clouds float in ever-varying curves of magical loveliness along the sky; the very winds — emblems of fickleness and change — obey fixed laws, and blow over the earth in cyclones and rotatory currents. The same law of circularity may be observed in the alternations of day and night, and in the vicissitudes of the seasons. Each bright blue day of sunshine, with all its work and enjoyment, is folded and shrouded up in its grave of darkness. Night comes, as it were, to undo the work of the day — to reverse the processes and functions of life — to restore the molecules of matter which the sunlight had kept in incessant motion and change to their previous condition, and by this recoil and rest to qualify for greater exertions and further advancement on the morrow; and thus, with alternations of darkness and light, the year progresses to its close. Spring clothes the earth with verdure; summer develops this verdure into its highest beauty and luxuriance, and autumn crowns it with ripeness and fruitfulness; but winter comes with its storms and frosts to mar and destroy the fair fabric which it had taken so many months to perfect. And yet this apparently wanton destruction, this retrograde movement, tends more to advance the progress of nature than if summer were perpetual. The exhausted soil is permitted to rest, in order that it may acquire new elements for increased production, and the forces of vitality are suspended that they may burst forth again with more exuberant energy. Flowers die down to their roots, yet it is no grave into which they have retired, but the hiding-place of power, from whence they shall start into greater beauty and luxuriance when stimulated by the showers and the sunbeams of spring. Life is a ceaseless vortex, a perpetual whirlpool, from the beginning to the ending, and from the ending to the beginning. Every death is a new birth, every grave a cradle. Ascending beyond our earth, to the regions of the astronomer, we find the same law in operation there also. We know nothing of the forms and attributes of extra-terrestrial existence; but we know at least that all the heavenly bodies are more or less circular, and move in more or less circular orbits. The sun, the moon, the planets have this shape: and we know that our earth revolves on its own axis, and moves round the sun; that the solar system advances in space, not in a straight line, but in a series of mighty revolutions round a central sun. Passing from the physical world to the domain of man, we find there also innumerable traces of the law of circularity. "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh." The circulation of blood in the veins, the circulation of matter in the body, the circulation of impressions in the nerves and impulses in the muscles, are all helps and means of physical growth; while the vicissitudes of circumstances, the opposite conditions of prosperity and adversity, health and sickness, joy and sorrow, tend to develop the mental and moral character. Action and reaction is the law of man's life. A season of misfortune is usually followed by a season of success; and when circumstances are most prosperous, a time of reverses is not far off. Nowhere, either in science or in morals, has a straight line ever been drawn. There is no distinct, definite line of demarcation between pain and pleasure, between joy and sorrow, between relative evil and good. "Thus far and no further," is said to all moral operative causes, as well as to the waters of the ocean; but the line along the coast is not uniformly straight and unbending; on the contrary, it winds in and out, in gulfs and promontories, in capes and bays, in the most charming and picturesque irregularity. It is a fact of the deepest significance in the philosophy of human progress, that no great step can be taken in the intellectual or moral advancement of our race except by the sacrifice of at least one generation. There is not a single great truth that has influenced mankind but has passed through a process of contempt and injustice before it was established upon a firm and lasting foundation of popular favour; the invention or discovery that one generation despised is turned to profitable account by the next; the scientific creed that is persecuted in one age forms an undoubted and essential part of the faith of the succeeding age. The general progress of the human race has been marked by strange fluctuations. Civilization after civilization advances from the dim horizon, reaches the zenith of its prosperity, blazes for a while with unexampled splendour, then sets in darkest midnight. Such facts as these show us how hopeless is the boasted gospel of natural progress; how vain it is to expect that humanity can develop itself by its own unaided powers; that any race or country is capable of carrying on the process of improvement uninterruptedly and continuously, by the simple motherhood of nature. Man is, indeed, naturally progressive to the fullest extent of his capacities; and whatever he is capable of becoming, the aspirations of his soul are in themselves proofs and pledges, that he will ultimately become. In the progress and revolutions of time he has steadily advanced to a nobler dignity. Each civilization that appeared on the stage of history borrowed from its predecessors materials for a higher range of advancement. The Roman civilization was a propagation of the Greek, and the Greek of the Egyptian and the Hebrew. But this progressive elevation was not attained by a natural process of development, carried on in a uniform, undeviating, straight line. On the contrary, wherever humanity was left to its own unaided powers, unassisted by supernatural means and influences, it has everywhere in the end degenerated and declined, however long and glorious may have been its heroic age. And analogy would lead us to conclude, that as it has been in the past, so it may be in the future, that again and again may be exhibited the solemn-spectacle of civilizations "advancing in charmed circles," races passing from hardihood to courage, from courage to conquest, from conquest to power, from power to wealth, from wealth to luxury and effeminacy, and from thence to the last stages in the melancholy drama — corruption, decline, and extinction. History is given to repeating itself. The persistency with which forms of faith and aspects of society appear age after age is truly marvellous. Fashions of dress, schools of art and philosophy, theories and speculations of science and theology, seem to have the same kind of periodicity which marks the phenomena of nature. As regularly as the same primroses bloom on the woodland bank spring after spring, and the same roses blush by the wayside summer after summer, so regularly and uniformly do the same modes of thought, and the same types of manners, appear and reappear. Phases of human error and folly are found occurring again and again, after long intervals. In every department of human affairs such instances are easy to find, proving the truth of the trite aphorism, that "there is nothing new under the sun": that the moral world, as well as the physical, revolves in a circle, and thus necessarily often comes back to the point from which it started. These examples of retrogression appear melancholy and disheartening to those who believe in the uninterrupted development of mankind in straight lines; but, rightly considered, they are far from being perplexing and unintelligible. The law of circularity is also a law of conservation; and every instance of retrogression may be regarded as a brake upon the wheels of the oar of progress, absolutely necessary for its safe and steady motion. The Bible affords so many illustrations of this doctrine, that it is somewhat difficult to make a selection. Almost the first event in the spiritual history of the human race was an act of degradation, a retrograde movement. "God created man upright, but he has sought out many inventions." And yet, by a wonderful interposition of Divine love, this retrograde step, which issued in so much disaster, has raised man to a higher position than he could have attained, even had he continued pure and sinless as at the first. He is not merely brought forward to the point from which he retrograded: he is advanced greatly beyond it. Schiller boldly says, "the Fall was a giant stride in the history of the human race." The Deluge affords another illustration of the law we are considering. It was a terrible remedy for a terrible disease. Another retrograde movement, of scarcely less importance, occurred very speedily after this event. The confusion of languages, and the consequent dispersion of mankind, and their separation into distinct nations and races, seems at first sight an unaccountable procedure — hostile to the best interests and wisest processes of civilization; and yet, on the contrary, it has proved eminently helpful in forwarding the progress of the human race by the formation of national feeling, or patriotism, and the full, harmonious development of the "many-sidedness" of human nature. Descending the stream of Scripture narrative, we find that Joseph was sold into slavery as the path to the highest honours of Egypt; and that the latter end of Job, after he had been stripped of everything, was more prosperous than the beginning. When the children of Israel had reached the borders of Canaan, after their long and toilsome wanderings win the wilderness, and the enterprise which had been attended with so much trouble and hardship, and from which they had hoped to reap the richest result, was on the eve of being accomplished, the Divine command was given them to return to the very point in the wilderness from which they started. The immediate cause of this ignominious failure and retreat was, no doubt, their own obstinacy and unbelief. A wise and benevolent purpose lay hid under the apparently harsh and severe judgment, which subsequent events unfolded and explained. The children of Israel, as their conduct too plainly proved, were not as yet in a fit state to occupy the land, and carry out God's intention of supplanting its wicked and idolatrous tribes by "a peculiar people, zealous of good works." In the New Testament we also find several striking examples of this law. The salvation of the world is accomplished through treachery, false witness, and a cross. We are told by the evangelists that the disciples, after the resurrection, went back by the express command of Christ to Galilee, to the scenes and pursuits in which they were engaged when first called to follow Him. The same circumstances were repeated, the same miracles performed, as on the first occasion. This retrogression seems to have been wisely ordered as a preparatory discipline for reinstating them in that office from which, by their shameful desertion and denial of Christ, they had fallen at His death. By bringing them back to the old life, to the beginning of their course, He not only gave them a significant symbol of His willingness to overlook and forget all that had occurred during the interval, but also placed them in more favourable circumstances for the fulfilment of their noble mission as Christ's witnesses and apostles to the world. The careful reader will observe a close similarity between the closing chapters of Revelation and the commencement of Genesis. The first and most prominent doctrine which Christianity teaches is the doctrine of retrogression as an essential element of progress. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," was its watchword when it first raised its voice amid the deserts and mountains of Judea. Repentance is the germinal bud of living Christianity. "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." And the beautiful profound truth hidden under this paradox is that not only are the spirit of childhood and the spirit of manhood not inconsistent with each other, but their union is essential to the highest spiritual culture. The afflictions and trials that bring the Christian low contribute in the end to raise him to a higher condition of heavenly-minded-ness. They may be regarded as a complication of inverse aids and assistances, by a right use of which the force of spiritual character may be more successfully displayed. And just as the earthquake that fills a wide tract of country with ruins, and the storm that strews our coast with wrecks, or tears down our forests, or destroys life, are links in the chain of the weather which purifies our atmosphere, and supplies the materials of health and vigour to all animated nature, so are suffering and trials the iron links in that golden chain which connects earth with heaven. It is not suffering then glory, but suffering therefore glory. Our light affliction worketh out an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. Death seems to the eye of sense the saddest and most mysterious of all retrogressions. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," is the beginning and end, the source and destiny of the material part of our being. Death despoils us of all with which we were invested, terminates all the functions and feelings of life, resolves the body into its original particles, and scatters them over the face of the earth. But though to the eye of sense appearing a great loss, an unaccountable retrogression, it appears to the eye of faith, gifted with a keener and farther-reaching vision, a great, an immeasurable gain. The day of death is better than the day of birth, because death is a higher and nobler birth. Nay, the continuity of the path will not be broken, It is no strange and unknown scene upon which the just are ushered at death. The sacred employments of life will continue without pause or interruption amid circumstances the most favourable and congenial. The river that hides itself for a time in the earth, and breaks forth at a distance with a greater volume and a wider channel, does not sever its connection with the former part of its course. One more vision of retrogression, the sublimest and the most awful, reveals itself in dim outlines to our gaze from the pages of Revelation. When the earth shall have served the purpose for which it was created, as a scene of circumstances and temptations for the education of the immortal spirit, it will be reduced, we are told, to the state of chaos from which it sprung. "The elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth, and all the works therein, shall be burnt up." And yet this sublime retrogression will be necessary to bring in a better world, where sin and sorrow shall be unknown. The scene of probation passing through this terrible ordeal will become the scene of enjoyment; and earth, purified by the baptism of fire, shall be transformed into heaven.(H. Macmillan, D. D.) I. CONSIDER THE REPRESENTATION THE TEXT GIVES US OF THE GENERATIONS OF MEN. For what is here spoken is not concerning one man, or one family of the human race, or one city, or a particular nation, or a certain age. It is true of all nations, of all generations, from the time of Adam and Noah to the present. 1. "One generation passeth away."(1) Look back to the past. Many generations that once existed in this world are gone. Men; famous for their various exploits, are now no more. In the past generations, some rose from mean and low stations to the highest rank; while others fell from posts of dignity to a state of poverty and depression. All of them — high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, kings and their people — all are swept away. In former ages, immense armies of men; one army is said to have consisted of a million; but they have all passed away, and nothing is known of any one of them, except their commander. Nations once great .and flourishing are now almost forgotten: even Babylon can scarce be found. "One generation passeth away."(2) This is true also of the present. The generation to which we belong is moving off the world. There is no continuance, no abiding here. Our old friends and acquaintances are gone, and we all feel that we live in a dying generation. Yes, great and useful men are taken away; parents are taken from children. There is no standing still, even if you live. "One generation passeth away."(3) This is true of all future generations. They all will pass away, and all in the same manner. 2. As one generation passeth away, another cometh. This implies that it is the design of the great Author of our being that, though death has entered the world by sin, the world shall not be depopulated. What a wonderful idea does this give us of the almighty power and infinite wisdom of God! Of His almighty power. — We admire the wisdom and power of God in the creation. But is the power of the Preserver less than that of the Creator? Think of the creatures that swarm on the face of the earth, going away one generation after another, yet all preserved from the time of Noah until now — millions consumed, yet continually replenished. The wisdom of God, too, is apparent in this. For is it not observable that race has so succeeded race, that the world has never been depopulated. Labourers have never been wanting to till the ground; men endowed with talents of various descriptions have sprung up from time to time to carry on the various purposes of society. So in the Church of Christ. The designs of God have been compared to those of a great builder. One man comes and fells a tree and retires; another attained, even had he continued pure and sinless as at the first. He is not merely brought forward to the point from which he retrograded: he is advanced greatly beyond it. Schiller boldly says, "the Fall was a giant stride in the history of the human race." The Deluge affords another illustration of the law we are considering. It was a terrible remedy for a terrible disease. Another retrograde movement, of scarcely less importance, occurred very speedily after this event. The confusion of languages, and the consequent dispersion of mankind, and their separation into distinct nations and races, seems at first sight an unaccountable procedure — hostile to the best interests and wisest processes of civilization; and yet, on the contrary, it has proved eminently helpful in forwarding the progress of the human race by the formation of national feeling, or patriotism, and the full, harmonious development of the "many-sidedness" of human nature. Descending the stream of Scripture narrative, we find that Joseph was sold into slavery as the path to the highest honours of Egypt; and that the latter end of Job, after he had been stripped of everything, was more prosperous than the beginning. When the children of Israel had reached the borders of Canaan, after their long and toilsome wanderings in the wilderness, and the enterprise which had been attended with so much trouble and hardship, and from which they had hoped to reap the richest result, was on the eve of being accomplished, the Divine command was given them to return to the very point in the wilderness from which they started. The immediate cause of this ignominious failure and retreat was, no doubt, their own obstinacy and unbelief. A wise and benevolent purpose lay hid under the apparently harsh and severe judgment, which subsequent events unfolded and explained. The children of Israel, as their conduct too plainly proved, were not as yet in a fit state to occupy the land, and carry out God's intention of supplanting its wicked and idolatrous tribes by "a peculiar people, zealous of good works." In the New Testament we also find several striking examples of this law. The salvation of the world is accomplished through treachery, false witness, and a cross. We are told by the evangelists that the disciples, after the resurrection, went back by the express command of Christ to Galilee, to the scenes and pursuits in which they were engaged when first called to follow Him. The same circumstances were repeated, the same miracles performed, as on the first occasion. This retrogression seems to have been wisely ordered as a preparatory discipline for reinstating them in that office from which, by their shameful desertion and denial of Christ, they had fallen at His death. By bringing them back to the old life, to the beginning of their course, He not only gave them a significant symbol of His willingness to overlook and forget all that had occurred during the interval, but also placed them in more favourable circumstances for the fulfilment of their noble mission as Christ's witnesses and apostles to the world. The careful reader will observe a close similarity between the closing chapters of Revelation and the commencement of Genesis. The first and most prominent doctrine which Christianity teaches is the doctrine of retrogression as an essential element of progress. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," was its watchword when it first raised its voice amid the deserts and mountains of Judea. Repentance is the germinal bud of living Christianity. "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." And the beautiful profound truth hidden under this paradox is that not only are the spirit of childhood and the spirit of manhood not inconsistent with each other, but their union is essential to the highest spiritual culture. The afflictions and trials that bring the Christian low contribute in the end to raise him to a higher condition of heavenly-mindedness. They may be regarded as a complication of inverse aids and assistances, by a right use of which the force of spiritual character may be more successfully displayed. And just as the earthquake that fills a wide tract of country with ruins, and the storm that strews our coast with wrecks, or tears down our forests, or destroys life, are links in the chain of the weather which purifies our atmosphere, and supplies the materials of health and vigour to all animated nature, so are suffering and trials the iron links in that golden chain which connects earth with heaven. It is not suffering then glory, but suffering therefore glory. Our light affliction worketh out an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. Death seems to the eye of sense the saddest and most mysterious of all retrogressions. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," is the beginning and end, the source and destiny of the material part of our being. Death despoils us of all with which we were invested, terminates all the functions and feelings of life, resolves the body into its original particles, and scatters them over the face of the earth. But though to the eye of sense appearing a great loss, an unaccountable retrogression, it appears to the eye of faith, gifted with a keener and farther-reaching vision, a great, an immeasurable gain. The day of death is better than the day of birth, because death is a higher and nobler birth. Nay, the continuity of the path will not be broken, It is no strange and unknown scene upon which the just are ushered at death. The sacred employments of life will continue without pause or interruption amid circumstances the most favourable and congenial. The river that hides itself for a time in the earth, and breaks forth at a distance with a greater volume and a wider channel, does not sever its connection with the former part of its course. One more vision of retrogression, the sublimest and the most awful, reveals itself in dim outlines to our gaze from the pages of Revelation. When the earth shall have served the purpose for which it was created, as a scene of circumstances and temptations for the education of the immortal spirit, it will be reduced, we are told, to the state of chaos from which it sprung. "The elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth, and all the works therein, shall be burnt up." And yet this sublime retrogression will be necessary to bring in a better world, where sin and sorrow shall be unknown. The scene of probation passing through this terrible ordeal will become the scene of enjoyment; and earth, purified by the baptism of fire, shall be transformed into heaven. (H. Macmillan, D. D.) I. CONSIDER THE REPRESENTATION THE TEXT GIVES US OF THE GENERATIONS OF MEN. For what is here spoken is not concerning one man, or one family of the human race, or one city, or a particular nation, or a certain age. It is true of all nations, of all generations, from the time of Adam and Noah to the present. 1. "One generation passeth away."(1) Look back to the past. Many generations that once existed in this world are gone. Men; famous for their various exploits, are now no more. In the past generations, some rose from mean and low stations to the highest rank; while others fell from posts of dignify to a state of poverty and depression. All of them — high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, kings and their people — all are swept away. In former ages, immense armies of men; one army is said to have consisted of a million; but they have all passed away, and nothing is known of any one of them, except their commander. Nations once great .and flourishing are now almost forgotten: even Babylon can scarce be found. "One generation passeth away."(2) This is true also of the present. The generation to which we belong is moving off the world. There is no continuance, no abiding here. Our old friends and acquaintances are gone, and we all feel that we live in a dying generation. Yes, great and useful men ate taken away; parents are taken from children. There is no standing still, even if you live. "One generation passeth away."(3) This is true of all future generations. They all will pass away, and all in the same manner. 2. As one generation passeth away, another cometh. This implies that it is the design of the great Author of our being that, though death has entered the world by sin, the world shall not be depopulated. What a wonderful idea does this give us of the almighty power and infinite wisdom of God! Of His almighty power. — We admire the wisdom and power of God in the creation. But is the power of the Preserver less than that of the Creator? Think of the creatures that swarm on the face of the earth, going away one generation after another, yet all preserved from the time of Noah until now — millions consumed, yet continually replenished. The wisdom of God, too, is apparent in this. For is it not observable that race has so succeeded race, that the world has never been depopulated. Labourers have never been wanting to till the ground; men endowed with talents of various descriptions have sprung up from time to time to carry on the various purposes of society. So in the Church of Christ. The designs of God have been compared to those of a great builder. One man comes and fells a tree. and retires; another goes to a pit, and collects a few stones, and he is gone; a third rears some pillars, and you see no more of him; a fourth lays rafters and beams, and goes his way; these men retire one after another; still the building goes on. Is it not evident that some one is. at the head of all this, who has formed a plan, and who has skill to contrive? II. DEDUCE SOME INFERENCES FROM THIS SUBJECT — TO PROMOTE A PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT OF THE WHOLE. 1. Are all that have been before passed away? and are all that are now present, and all that will be in future, passing? What will be your state if you were to die now? 2. Then let us be concerned to do with diligence the work which God requires of us while in the present world. Now, the first thing which God requires of us is that we believe on the name of the Son of God: without this, nothing else will avail. 3. Then we who are pious, and active, and useful, in the present generation, should be concerned to do what we can that the succeeding generation which is to follow us may be wiser, holier, and better able to do good than we are. It should be our aim as parents in our families, as teachers in Sabbath and other schools, to train children up in the fear of the Lord, that the generation to come may be a seed to serve Him. We have great reason to rejoice that we were born in such a generation as this. We might have lived at the time when our ancestors bowed down to stocks and stones, and practised the most horrid abominations. 4. Has the grave been filling for thousands of years, and will the present and future generations of men descend thither also? What an awful and sublime idea does this give us of the last day! 5. Let us rejoice that there is another state of society in which there will be no such changes and passing away. In passing through this world, let us fix our eyes of faith on that "inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for those who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation." (S. Hillyard.) (with 1 John 2:17): — The antithesis is not really so complete as it sounds at first hearing, because what the Preacher means by "the earth" that "abideth for ever" is not quite the same as what the apostle means by the "world" that "passes," and the "generations" that come and go are not the same exactly as the men that "abide for ever," But still the antithesis is real and impressive. The bitter melancholy of the Preacher saw but the surface; the joyous faith of the apostle went a great deal deeper, and putting the two sets of thoughts and ways of looking at man and his dwelling-place together, we get lessons that may well shape our individual lives.I. THE SAD AND SUPERFICIAL TEACHING OF THE PREACHER. The Preacher says "All is vanity." That conviction had been set vibrating in his heart, as it is set vibrating in the heart of every man who does as he did, viz. seeks for" solid good away from God. That is his starting-point. It is not true. All is not vanity, except to some blase cynic, made cynical by the failure of his voluptuousness, and to whom all things here are out of joint, and everything looks yellow because his own biliary system is out of order. He looks out upon humanity, and sees that in one aspect the world is full of births, and in another full of deaths. Coffins and cradles seem the main furniture, and he hears the tramp! tramp! tramp! of the generations passing over a soil honeycombed with tombs, and, therefore, ringing hollow to their tread. All depends on the point of view. This strange history of humanity is like a piece of sheer silk: hold it at one angle, and you see the dark purple; hold at another, and you see the bright golden tints. Look from one point of view, and it seems a long history of vanishing generations. Look to the rear of the procession, and it seems a buoyant spectacle of eager young faces pressing forwards on the march, and of strong feet treading the new road. But yet the total effect of that endless procession is to impress on the observer the transiency of humanity. Man is the lord of earth, and can mould it to his purpose, but it remains and he passes. He is but a lodger in an old house that has had generations of tenants, each of whom has said for a while, "It is mine," and then they all have drifted away, and the house stands. "One generation cometh and another goeth," and the tragedy is made more tragical because the stage stands unaltered, and the earth abides for ever. That is what sense has to say "the foolish senses" — and that is all that sense has to say. Is it all that can be said? If it is, then the Preacher's bitter conclusion is true, and "all is vanity," and chasing after wind. He immediately proceeds to draw from this undeniable, but, as I maintain, partial fact, the broad conclusion which cannot be rebutted, if you accept what he has said in my text as being the sufficient and complete account of man and his dwelling-place. There is immense activity, and there is no progress; it is all rotatory motion round and round and round, and the same objects come round duly and punctually, as the wheel revolves, and life is futile. Yes; so it is unless there is something more to be said. If all that you have to say of him is, "dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," then life is futile, and God is not vindicated for having produced it. And there is another consequence that follows, if this is all that we have got to say. If the cynical wisdom of Ecclesiastes is the ultimate word, then I do not assert that you destroy morality, because right and wrong are not dependent either upon the belief in a God or the belief in immortality. But I do say that to declare that the fleeting, transient life of earth is all is to strike a staggering blow at all noble ethics. The man whose creed is only "to-morrow we die" will very speedily draw the conclusion "let us eat and drink," and sensuous delights and the lower side of his nature will become dominant. There is more to be said; the sad, superficial teaching of the Preacher needs to be supplemented. II. THE JOYOUS AND PROFOUNDER TEACHING OF THE APOSTLE. The cynic never sees the depths; that is reserved for the mystical eye of the lover, so John says: "No, no; that is not all. Here is the true state of affairs: 'The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." And what of the man whose life has been devoted to the things seen and temporal, when he finds himself in a condition of being where none of these have accompanied him? Nothing to slake his lusts, if he be a sensualist! No money-bags, ledgers, or cheque-books, if he be a plutocrat or a capitalist or a miser! No books or dictionaries if he be a mere student. Nothing of his vocations if he lived for "the world"! And yet the appetite is abiding; will that not be a thirst that cannot be slaked? The world is passing, and the lust thereof, and all that is antagonism to God, or separated from Him, is essentially as "a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanishes away," whereas the man who does the will of God abideth for ever in that he is steadfast in the midst of change. He shall "abide for ever," in the sense that his work is perpetual. In one very deep and solemn sense, nothing human ever dies, but in another all that is not running in the same direction as, and borne along by the impulse of, the will of God, is destined to be neutralized and brought to nothing at last. There may be a row of figures as long as to reach from here to the fixed stars, but if there is not in front of them the significant digit, which comes from obedience to the will of God, all is but a string of cyphers, and their net result is nothing. And he "abideth for ever," in the most blessed and profound sense in that through his faith, which has kindled his love, and his love which has set in motion his practical obedience, he becomes participant of the very "eternity of the living God." This is "eternal life," not merely "to know," but to do the will of our Father. Nothing else will last, and nothing else will prosper any more than a bit of drift-wood can stem Niagara. Unite yourself with the will of God, and you abide. III. THE PLAIN PRACTICAL LESSONS THAT COME FROM BOTH THESE TEXTS. May I say, without seeming to be morbid or unpractical, one lesson is that we should cultivate a sense of the transiency of this outward life? One of our old authors says some. where, that it is wholesome to smell at a piece of turf from a churchyard. The remembrance of death present in our lives will often lay a cool hand upon a throbbing brow; and, like a bit of ice used by a skilful physician, will bring down the temperature, and stay the too tumultuous beating of the heart. Let me say again, a very plain, practical lesson is to dig deep down for our foundations below the rubbish that has accumulated. If a man wishes to build a house in Rome or in Jerusalem he has to go fifty or sixty feet down, through potsherds and broken tiles and triturated marbles, and the dust of ancient palaces and temples. We have to drive a shaft clear down through all the superficial strata, and to lay the first stones on the Rock of Ages. Do not build on that which quivers and shakes beneath you. Build on God. And the last lesson is, let us see to it that our wills are in harmony with His, and the work of our hands His work. We can do that will in all the secularities of our daily life. The difference between the work that shrivels up and disappears and the work that abides is not so much in its external character or in the materials on which it is expended, as in the motive from which it comes. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) But the earth abideth for ever We may look at the durability of the earth —I. AS A CONTRAST. It abides in contrast with very much whose only constancy is the constancy of change. 1. The earth abideth in contrast with its own ever-varying appearances. Every year tells of the change of the seasons in which earth changes her raiment, and what does not geology tell of cycles in which the earth has changed her countenance and form beyond all that we can describe. 2. The earth abideth in contrast with human structures. Houses, villages, cities, citadels, where are they? Some utterly swept away: some in ruins: all destined to decay. 3. The earth abideth in contrast with the lives of individual men. 4. The earth abideth in contrast with the existence of nations. II. AS A TYPE. It is a type of much that will outlast itself. 1. Of man. His animal nature may pass; his mental and spiritual being shall continue. 2. Of truth. Here, again, like man's body, like the moods of the seasons, the forms of truth may change. But truth is eternal. 3. Of God. "They shall perish, but Thou remainest." (U. R. Thomas.) Permanence, then, characterizes the material world, while man, viewing him apart from his immortal hopes, lives a mere transitory life. There is, indeed, a sense in which even the material world suffers change. Of all outward things none are so associated with our conceptions of durability as "the everlasting hills." And yet we know that the hills, in scientific strictness, are not everlasting: that rain and sun and storm are leaving their traces upon the scarred and seamed precipices, and that what the globe is at the present moment is the result of agencies irresistible and unceasing, though carried on through periods of time quite inconceivable. But the writer of Ecclesiastes is not viewing the world from a scientific, but from a practical point of view. Everlasting indeed is the material world in relation to the sixty, seventy, or eighty years allotted to human beings. And what makes the permanence of the material world as compared with the briefness of human life so oppressive is this: that man, thus hemmed in by outward limitations, compelled to do all which his hand finds to do within quite a moment of time, is yet conscious of views, feelings, longings, immeasurably too large for a creature whose life hero is evanescent. There is no imputation upon the lovingkindness of the Creator in the fact that He has created, let us say, a may-fly to be born in the morning and to die in the afternoon. It has no anticipation of a future. There is nothing startling in the fact that to a fly is assigned only the life of a fly. Am I putting contempt on the present life? Far from it. It is good, but yet as connected with another and higher life. It is bright with a light thrown back upon it from immortality. But view it without reference to that life. Withdraw the radiance which everlasting hopes throw around it; think of it as the kindling of ideas which are merely to be quenched; of cravings which are never to be satisfied; of high anticipations which never, never are to be fulfilled; and then must you not allow that this being, so strangely constituted, walking in a vain shadow and disquieting himself in vain, is really worse off than the may-fly, and that his existence is absolutely irreconcilable with faith in a wise and good Creator? I know not what amount of evidence would satisfy me, if I saw a bird of newly-discovered species with powerful wings, that it never was intended to fly and never in fact did fly. That it was capable of flying would be to me conclusive proof that it was intended to do so; and by analogy the existence of faculties and capacities unnecessary for a brief life here, out of proportion with such a life, and demanding eternity for their exercise, would convince me that man was made for immortality, and that his troubled and sin-stained life here was but the prelude to an endless existence, untroubled and unstained, under the eye of Him who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. I own that I could see no reasonableness in urging the truth contained in my text, if I were unable to supplement it with this latter truth. What call would there be to meditate on the brevity of my life here, if it was not to be followed by another with which it is connected in a very momentous way? The creed of the Epicurean is odious and degrading; but the question is, Is it not the legitimate inference from a denial of man's immortality? If man's death is but as the death of an animal, how can his life be anything more than an animal life? But once accept the thought that his existence here is but a brief introduction to a diviner existence, and, while you ennoble this life, you make it a reasonable thing to dwell on its transiency, not to suggest merely lugubrious thoughts, nor to inspire an unpractical dejection of feeling, but because, short as it is, it is the seedtime of immortality, and because into this little space assigned us here below are crowded duties, responsibilities, opportunities, having the most intimate relation to our undying life beyond the grave. "One generation passeth away and another cometh." There is something within us which makes it difficult to conceive this in its simple truth. Only by thought and training do we lay hold of the fact that the men of the past were not shadows. I am aware that those who have no trust that we shall live hereafter speak nevertheless of a continuity which belongs to the human race, and remind us truly enough that though the individual passes away, the race continues, and moves forward to a better destiny; and that even if we as individuals are to be blotted out from God's universe, we ought to work with energy in the faith that posterity will be blessed by our efforts, when we are ourselves forgotten. There is doubtless an element of truth in this, and also an element of disinterestedness which is valuable; but after all we shrink from the thought of being forgotten. Still more, there is surely something unspeakably dreary in the prospect, when we have striven hard for others, of passing into nothingness, and missing the result of our strivings. It is not in human nature to rouse itself to energy under such an absence or feebleness of motive. It is not alone the thought of being forgotten. An unselfish man, though he might be better pleased to be remembered, will bear even being forgotten if he may have some assurance that his labor is not in vain in the Lord; but to work without this assurance were dismal indeed — we may welt say impossible. To work and wait is the lot of the Christian. It is small consolation to us that the material earth abideth for ever, if the things we care for most are daily passing away, and we and they are hurrying to annihilation. Take away the immortality of man, and the continuity of the race is practically an unreality. It is not this poor negation which has done such mighty things in the world. I would dwell on the transiency of this life, not to depress, but to awake you to a profounder conviction of the value of the present moment, of the greatness of the issues which must be determined within this short life, by vast numbers so grievously misemployed, by vast numbers so utterly frittered away. We are to "number our days," not so as to embitter life by the thought how few they are, but so as to "apply our hearts unto wisdom." Much indeed that is said about the shortness of life is sadly unpractical. Perhaps it is best to think much more of life than of death, much more of living unto God without a moment's delay, than of conjuring up anticipations of our last moments. There is comparatively little in the New Testament about death. Life, the new life in Christ, so glorious as to make the dissolution of the body comparatively unimportant — this was the thought which filled the foreground of the Christian prospect. Dwell, then, on the thought of death mainly as a motive to newness of life. The commencement of a year is a memento to us that one generation is passing away and another coming. There are other mementoes which God often sends. He sends the failing health, the waning strength, the disappointment of life's most cherished hopes, the gathering of clouds round the eventide of life. Thus God often painfully reminds us how time is passing. True religion is not the putting ourselves right by some clever expedient which enables us to combine a worthless life with a Christian's death. It is the making the life right. It is the regarding our existence here as an anticipation of the rest that remaineth for the people of God. The one condition of a Christian death is a Christian life.(J. A. Jacob, M. A.) This place of our sojourn, this earth, has many things tending to beguile us out of reflection, to lull us into unconcern. But it has some things fitted to awaken us to thought and apprehension. This should, in all reason, be the effect of such circumstances, and facts, as force on our attention the contrast between the duration of the earth itself and that of our abode on it. There are many things to illustrate this comparison, and force our thoughts upon it. History itself; — why is history, but because the generations of men are gone? We want to know something of them, and to converse with them, as a former world of men. And history tells us of one generation, and of another, that has passed away, leaving not a living "rack behind." It is obviously suggested here, that we have another illustration of the text in places of interment, that have been such for ages. The earliest of the generations that have terminated their earthly existence, are gone beyond memory or tradition. In greater number there are dates of a later generation, still far gone in the past. And so you come down, at last, to the recent grave and tomb. But not only the abodes of the dead, — those of the living also, may yield illustration of the contrast, those of them which were built in a former age; or, take them collectively, in a village, town, or city. How many successions of the inhabitants, since it became a populous city! Would it be an extravagant conjecture that seven or eight times as many persons have died in it, as are at this hour living in it? But think, now, of the whole population having been so many times changed! It requires thought; because the change, being gradual, is at no one time presented in its full magnitude. Were it in the nature of things that there should be, at one grand sweep, the removal of so vast a number, repeated at the average period of an age of man, the event, and the succession of such events, would have an overwhelming awfulness. But what is in effect equal to this takes place, and but feebly excites attention. There may be many things incidentally suggesting themselves to reflecting minds that will strongly enforce the consideration of the brevity of life as contrasted with the permanence of the scene in which it is passed. Reflections of this character may occur under occasional and transient states of feeling, — excited at one time by objects that would not excite them at another. But we should think it must have happened to many, or to most men, to have this reflection excited at the view of some object or other, — "How much longer this has been — or shall be — than I — or any now living man." There are, as we said, occasional states of feeling in which the reflection, so suggested, comes with vivid impression. And it were well to cultivate that reflective habitude through which the mind should he susceptible of instructive and solemn suggestions and impressions from any and all objects. To a mind so habituated, the transiency of life, the "passing away of the generations," will be forcibly suggested by the view of such things as mountains, massive rocks, ancient trees, the never-tiring, never-ending, action of the sea, and the solid structures of human labour. Well may such objects make an impression of contrast with man, when we find them in Scripture taken as emblems to represent the unchangeableness and eternity of God. And we may observe, it is the manifest intention of the Divine Spirit, as shown in the sacred writings, that we should be taught to find emblems, in the world we are placed in, to enforce solemn instructions upon us. The reflection may include the ideas of all the various personal qualities — states of mind and character, — and condition altogether, of this unknown long succession. "Depravity has been here, in how many forms! Misery, of how many kinds and degrees! Visions of anticipation — deeply pondered schemes — fluctuations of hope and fear — thoughtlessness and consideration — practical atheism and devout sentiment! All this has passed away — and here is the object still, to which all this was, once, present!" And then to think there is yet to come more of all this, to be present to it — after we shall see it no more. What a train of sinners yet, but also, we trust, of saints, are to reside, or pass and repass, within sight of that pile of rocks. In a solitary and contemplative state of the mind, the permanent objects give the impression as if they rejected and scorned all connection with our transitory existence — as ii we were accounted but as shadows passing over them. They strike the thoughtful beholder with a character of gloomy and sublime dissociation and estrangement from him. It is true that the altering effect of time is visible on many of the objects thus contrasted with us by their permanence. But the extreme slowness of that alteration serves to display again that contrast, and to enforce the instruction. For example, the gradual decay of some mighty, ancient structure, — or of some magnificent cedar or oak, — the working away of the very rocks on the seacoast. The effect has been wrought, but so slowly and imperceptibly that no man can say that he has seen its progress. The man that has looked on the objects in his childhood can hardly, in his most advanced age, say that he perceives any difference. But then let him turn and look at his fellow-mortals, such of them as remain alive! He can recall the image of the childhood of even the oldest of them. The great general instruction from all this is, — how little hold — how little absolute occupancy we have of this world. When all the scene is evidently fixed to remain, we are under the compulsion to go. We have nothing to do with it, but as passing from it. The generation "comes" but to "pass away," seeing another following it closely under the same destination. Men may strive to cling — to seize a firm possession — to make good their establishment — resolve and vow that the world shall be theirs. But it disowns them, — stands aloof; — it will stay, but they must go. It signifies to us, that equally to all it will yield one matter of permanence — just one, and no more, and that is — a grave. If that enduring possession of the earth will content us, that is secure. In all other senses of possession it will eject us. Men, in their earnest adhesion to it, may raise mighty works of enduring stability — towers, palaces, strongly built houses, as if they absolutely would connect themselves with the world's own prolonged duration. Well! they may do so; and the earth will retain these, but will expel them. But should not the final lesson be, that the only essential good that can be gained from the world is that which can be carried away from it? Alas! that mere sojourners doom themselves to depart in utter deprivation — when their inquisitive glance over the scene should be after any good that may go with them, — something that is not fixed in the soil, the rocks, or the walls. Let us look on the earth in the spirit of this inquiry, "What has the bounteous Creator placed here? — what has the glorious Redeemer left here, that I may, by His grace, seize and take with me, and find it invaluable in another world?" It will then be delightful to look back, with the reflection, "I could not stay on that earth. I saw but a little while its enduring objects, — its grand solidities, — I saw them but to be admonished that I should remove. I have left them maintaining their unchanging aspects; but in my passage I descried, by the aid of the Divine Spirit, something better than all that they signified to me was no possession for me — I seized the pearl of great price, and have brought it away."(J. Foster.) Homilist. —Opposite ideas of life: the materialistic and the spiritual: — There are at least two very opposite ideas of human life working in men; and these ideas make life to man virtuous and blessed, or vile and miserable. Materialism propounds the one, spiritual Christianity the other. Solomon speaks what material philosophers teach, and what all mere worldly men feel life to be; Christ and His apostles reveal the experience of all genuine disciples of spiritual Christianity. I. The one idea represents life as a TRANSIENT APPEARANCE, the other as a PERMANENT REALITY. Solomon says, speaking out the philosophy of Materialism, "One generation passeth away and another generation cometh." "All is vanity, all is vanity" — a mere pageant, an empty show. Men, what are they? They rise from the dust and to the dust they go. A whole generation is but a troop of pilgrims, pursuing their journey from dust to dust. They soon reach their destination and disappear, but the earth, the old road over which they trod their way, "abideth for ever." "Let us eat and drink, then, for to-morrow we die." Ephemerous as we are, let us sport in the sunbeam while we have it; the starless night of eternal extinction will soon spread over us. So say the Materialists; their philosophy has no higher idea of life. In sublime contrast with this is the idea propounded in the New Testament. "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." "He that believeth in Me," says Christ, "shall never die." II. The one idea represents life as an ENDLESS ROUTINE, the other as CONSTANT PROGRESS. Solomon saw in nature what modern philosophers call the law of circularity everywhere. He saw the sun, the wind, the rivers, moving in an invariable circle, returning ever to the point whence they Set out. He compares this to human life, a mere endless routine. The motion of all organic life is from dust to dust. This is, says the Materialist, but a figure of man's moral history; there is no progress, — it is an eternal round. Mankind, in all their efforts to improve themselves, are only like Sisyphus of ancient fable, rolling a heavy stone up a steep hill; the moment the hand is withdrawn it rushes to the valley again. This is a crushing idea of life; it comes over the soul like a black, rayless cloud of ice. There is some truth in it, but thank God it is not the whole truth. The true path of the soul is not a circle, — it is a ladder, like Jacob's ladder, reaching from earth to the throne of the Eternal. Every golden rundle it climbs, it pierces a new cloud, gets new light; it hears new voices, sees new heavens, and thus passes "from glory to glory." "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He does appear we shall see Him as He is." III. The one idea represents life as UNSATISFYING LABORIOUSNESS, the other as a BLESSED ACTIVITY. "All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing," etc. Voltaire, the brilliant wit, the literary idol of France, expressed his experience of life in one word, "Ennui. The man who has laboured most, and laboured in the highest departments of labour with a worldly spirit, must ever experience dissatisfaction of soul. Worldly labour can never satisfy the human soul. You may as well endeavour to empty the ocean with your bucket, or quench Etna with your tears, as to get happiness due of any amount or kind of labour wrought in a worldly spirit. The idea of labour, however, propounded by Christianity is the opposite of this. Labour need not be, and ought not to be unsatisfying. A good man is blessed in his deed." This idea is the true one. All labour should be inspired with the spirit of love to God, and trust in His paternal care. Such labour will be ever satisfying, ever blessed. The labour of love is the melody of life. Every true deed beats heavenly music into the soul. IV. The one idea represents life as DOOMED TO OBLIVION — the other as IMPERISHABLY REMEMBERABLE. The past is forgotten, the present will soon be in oblivion. Men and their doings are speedily lost in forgetfulness. Such is the gloomy idea of Materialism — an idea under whose dark and chilling shadow men may well weep and wail. But is it true? "The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance." The good man, "being dead, yet speaketh." Thank God! Christianity tells us that man will never be forgotten. He will live for ever in the memory of those who love him. The genuine disciple of Christ has his name written in an imperishable book — "the Lamb's Book of Life." (Homilist.) People David, SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Ariseth, Goes, Hastening, Hastens, Hasteth, Hurries, Panting, Quickly, Risen, Rises, Riseth, Rising, SetsOutline 1. the preacher shows that all human courses are vain4. because the creatures are restless in their courses 9. they bring forth nothing new, and all old things are forgotten 12. and because he has found it so in the studies of wisdom Dictionary of Bible Themes Ecclesiastes 1:5Library Two views of Life'This sore travail hath God given to the sons of man, to be exercised therewith.--ECCLES. i. 13. 'He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness.'--HEBREWS xii. 10. These two texts set before us human life as it looks to two observers. The former admits that God shapes it; but to him it seems sore travail, the expenditure of much trouble and efforts; the results of which seem to be nothing beyond profitless exercise. There is an immense activity and nothing to show for it at the end … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture What Passes and what Abides The Past and the Future Eusebius' Birth and Training. His Life in Cæsarea Until the Outbreak of the Persecution. Introduction to vita S. Antoni. "And Hereby we do Know that we Know Him, if we Keep his Commandments. " Literature. Temporal Advantages. Of the Imitation of Christ, and of Contempt of the World and all Its Vanities The Order of Thought which Surrounded the Development of Jesus. Messiah's Easy Yoke How to Make Use of Christ as the Truth, for Growth in Knowledge. Joy Ecclesiastes Links Ecclesiastes 1:5 NIVEcclesiastes 1:5 NLT Ecclesiastes 1:5 ESV Ecclesiastes 1:5 NASB Ecclesiastes 1:5 KJV Ecclesiastes 1:5 Bible Apps Ecclesiastes 1:5 Parallel Ecclesiastes 1:5 Biblia Paralela Ecclesiastes 1:5 Chinese Bible Ecclesiastes 1:5 French Bible Ecclesiastes 1:5 German Bible Ecclesiastes 1:5 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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