Page:Job and Solomon (1887).djvu/267

 One generation goeth, another cometh; but the earth abideth for ever: And the sun ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and panteth unto his place where he ariseth: It goeth to the south, and whirleth about unto the north, the wind whirleth about continually; and upon his circuits the wind returneth. All streams run into the sea, and the sea is not full; unto the place whither the streams go, thither they go again. All things are full of weariness; no man can utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

Compare with this the words, so Greek in tone, of xi. 7, as well as the constantly recurring formula 'under the sun' (e.g. i. 3, iv. 3). We can see that even Koheleth was affected by nature, but without any lightening of his load of trial. The wide-open eye of day seemed to mock him by its unfeeling serenity. He lacked that susceptibility for the whispered lessons of nature which the poet of Job so pre-*eminently possessed; he lacked too the great modern conception of progress, embodied in that fine passage from Carlyle. He was prosaic and unimaginative, and it is partly because there is so little poetry in Ecclesiastes that there is so little Christianity. But I am already passing to another order of considerations, without which indeed we cannot estimate this singular autobiography aright. We have next to consider Koheleth from a directly religious and moral point of view.