ollows: "the conclusion of the whole matter." Here
is absolutely the highest counsel of true human wisdom--the climax of
her reasonings--the high-water-mark of her attainments--the limit to
which she can lead us: "Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this
is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into
judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be
evil."

Who will deny that this is indeed admirable? Is there not a glorious
moral elevation in this conclusion? Note how it gives the Creator-God
His rightful place; puts the creature, man, in the absolutely correct
relationship of obedience, and speaks with perfect assurance of a
discriminative judgment where every single work, yes, "secret thing,"
shall be shown out in its true character as it is good or evil in His
holy sight: where everything that is wrong and distorted here shall be
put right.

It is truly much, but alas for man if this were indeed the end. Alas
for one, conscious of having sinned already, and broken His
commandments, whether those commandments be expressed in the ten words
of the law, as given from Sinai, or in that other law which is common
to all men, the work of which, "written in their hearts," they
show--conscience. There is no gleam of light, ray of hope, or grain of
comfort here. A judgment to come, _assured_, can only be looked
forward to, with, at the best, gloomy uncertainty, and awful
misgiving--if not with assured conviction of a fearful condemnation;
and here our writer leaves us with the assurance that this is the
"conclusion of the whole matter."

Who can picture the terrors of this darkness in which such a conclusion
leaves us? Guilty, trembling, with untold sins and wasted years
behind; with the awful consciousness that my very being is the corrupt
fountain whence those sins flowed, and yet with a certain judgment
before in which no single thing is to escape a divinely searching
examination: better had it been to have left us still asleep and
unconscious of these things, and so to have permitted us to secure, at
least, what pleasure we could out of this present life "under the sun,"
without the shadow of the future ever thrown over us;--yea, such
"conclusion" leaves us "of all men most miserable."

I would, beloved reader, that we might by grace realize something of
this. Nor let our minds be just touched by the passing thoughts, but
pause for a few minutes, at least, and meditate