d construction
that no key that can be made will adapt itself to all its windings.
Many skilled men have tried their hands and failed,--till at length the
wisest of all attempts it, and even he in despair cries "vanity." Then
another key is put into our hands by One who claims to have made the
very lock we have found. We apply it, and its intricacies meet every
corresponding intricacy; its flanges fill every chamber, and we open it
with perfect facility. What is the reasonable, necessary conclusion?
We say--and rightly, unavoidably say--"He who made the lock must have
made the key. His claim is just: they have been made by one maker."

So by the perfect rest it brings to the awakened conscience--by the
quiet calm it brings to the troubled mind--by the warm love that it
reveals to the craving heart--by the pure light that it sheds in
satisfactory answer to all the deep questions of the spirit--by the
unceasing unfoldings of depths of perfect transcendent wisdom--by its
admirable unity in variety--by the holy, righteous settlement of sin,
worthy of a holy, righteous God--by the peace it gives, even in view of
wasted years and the wild sowing of the past--by the joy it maintains
even in view of the trials and sorrows of the present--by the hope with
which it inspires the future;--by all these we know that our key (the
precious Word that God has put into our hands) is a reality indeed, and
as far above the powers of Reason as the heavens are above the earth,
therefore necessarily--incontestably--DIVINE!

This brings us to the concluding words of our book. Now who has been
leading us all through these exercises? A disappointed sensualist? A
gloomy stoic? A cynic--selfish, depressed? Not at all. Distinctly a
wise man;--wise, for he gives that unequivocal proof of wisdom, in that
he cares for others. It is the wise who ever seek to "win souls," "to
turn many to righteousness." "Because the preacher was wise, he still
_taught the people knowledge_." No cynic is Ecclesiastes. His
sympathies are still keen; he knows well and truly the needs of those
to whom he ministers: knows too, how man's wretched heart ever rejects
its own blessing; so, in true wisdom, he seeks "acceptable words":
endeavoring to sweeten the medicine he gives, clothes his counsel in
"words of delight" (margin). Thus here we find all the "words of
delight" that human wisdom _can_ find, in view of life in all its
aspects from youth to old age.