What comes after that no one can say. `For who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?' (3:22). Yet

again in chapter 5:18,19:

`Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his

labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: FOR IT IS HIS PORTION. Every

man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to TAKE HIS

PORTION, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God'.

Finally in 9:9,10:

`Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which He hath given thee

under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for THAT IS THY PORTION in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest

under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor

knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest'.

These passages come as a revelation from heaven upon the true nature of this present life. Here in this life we

are but practising our scales, the public performance is future. We are now perfecting our powers of drawing, the

academy picture is future. We do not call our friends around us to hear our scales, neither do we hang in the public

gallery our many attempts with chalks and crayon. So with this life. Solomon realized that his portion was in the

doing, and not in the result.

`If what shone afar so grand

Turns to nothing in thine hand,

On again: the virtue lies

In the getting, not the prize'.

This is perhaps pessimistic. Life's lessons need not `turn to nothing'. The `exercise' may yield peaceable fruits

of righteousness, the sorrows may accomplish our perfecting. A professor of economics once said to his students,

LIVE ALL THE TIME'. His meaning was - `Do not set out in life with the idea that you will work hard till you are, say,

50 years of age, and that then you will retire to some nice country house, with well-kept lawns, and enjoy life, for

you will do no such thing'. `Live all the time'. Think, that little one of yours, for whose `future' you anxiously and

wearily toil, whose budding life you hardly know you are engrossed so much with the imaginary youth of the future.

If you would learn the lesson of Ecclesiastes, you will put aside that opportunity of `extra business', which would

add so many more pounds to your reserve for your child's `future', and you will go and `live' with the little one for

an hour or so; you will then enter into your portion, all the rest is simply vanity and vexation of spirit. Too late

many a parent wakes up to the fact that in thus slaving and saving he has really robbed his child and himself of their

true inheritance. `Live all the time'.

It is quite untrue to think that the conclusion of Ecclesiastes is wicked or sad. Having faced facts and realized

what life is, we conjure up no illusions, and chase no mirages. `Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest' says

Koheleth, not live morbidly, morosely, grudgingly. Entertain no false ideas of life, and then life can be a blessed

thing. Life is a pilgrimage, a series of halts and moving on again. When we make up our minds to achieve anything

for its own sake then we find that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. When we realize that nothing is a goal in itself,

but merely a means to an end, we shall not call the time wasted that helped us on another stage of our pilgrimage,

even though the moment we achieved some object of desire, it ceased to attract or be of service. So immediately

following upon the rejoicing with which Koheleth had engaged in the labours he had planned, we find

dissatisfaction and vexation when viewed in themselves and for their own sakes.

`Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and,

behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun' (Eccles. 2:11).

The labour that you may be `exercised' therewith is good. The resulting `work' which you produce may be very

emptiness. If your heart is in the discipline, all is well, but if your heart is set on the result here in this life, then all is

vanity. Even Alexander wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. Let us thank God for the portion He

gives us, and ever remember that parallel Psalm 73. Speaking of the seemingly prosperous wicked, Asaph says: