ed
it be not stronger than that, to the attempt to deny to Solomon the
authorship of Ecclesiastes based on the _words_ used.

The next method of argument is one in which we shall feel ourselves
more at home, inasmuch as it is not so much a question of scholarship,
but ordinary intelligent discernment. Time and space forbid that I
attempt here a full or detailed exhibit of the sentences, thoughts,
ideas in the book itself which are taken as being quite impossible to
King Solomon. I will, however, attempt to give a representative few
that may stand for all. In the body of the book I have touched, in
passing, on the argument deduced from the words in the first chapter,
"_I was king;_" so need only to ask my readers' attention to it there.

That "he says of himself that he was wiser and richer than all before
him in Jerusalem points, under enlightened exposition, clearly to an
author different to the historical Solomon." Indeed! If my readers
can appreciate the force of such an argument, they do more than can I.
That the writer should seek that his words should have the full force,
his experiences have the full weight that could only attach to one in
every way gifted to test all things to their uttermost, is taken as
clear proof, "under unbiased exposition," that the only one who was
_exactly thus gifted was not the author_! The claim to freedom from
bias is in almost ludicrous harmony with such reasoning.

Again, "that also which is said--chap. vii. 10--of the depravity of the
times accords little with the age of Solomon, the most brilliant and
prosperous of Israelitish history." Another lovely example of
rationalistic "freedom from bias"! For what is this that is said of
the "depravity of the times" so inconsistent with the glory of
Solomon's reign in chap. vii. 10? "Say not thou, What is the cause
that the former days were better than these? For thou dost not inquire
wisely concerning this." And this is proof of the "depravity of the
times"!--not proof, mark, of just that very thing that is the heart and
soul of the book: the weary, unsatisfied, empty heart of poor man
looking backward or forward for the satisfaction that the present
always fails to give "under the sun," and which he, who was wiser than
all who came before him, Solomon, warns his readers _against_! Oh,
poor blind rationalism! missing all the beauties of God's Word in its
own exceeding cleverness, or--folly! How would the present applicatio