But once more let us listen to what the highest, purest attainment of the wisdom of man can give. And now he speaks of wealth and the abundance of earthly prosperity which he, of all men, had so fully tested. "He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance, with increase"; and again there is the sorrowful groan, "This is also vanity." "If goods increase," he continues, "the household necessary to care for them increases proportionately, and the owner gets no further satisfaction from them than their sight affords. Nay, he who toils has a distinct advantage over the wealthy, who is denied the quiet repose the former enjoys." Carefully the Preacher has watched the miser heaping up ever, and robbing himself of all natural enjoyment, until some disaster--"evil travail"--sweeps away in a moment his accumulations, and his son is left a pauper. And such, at least, is every man he marks, be he never so wealthy, when the end comes. Inexorable Death is, sooner or later, the "evil travail" that strips him as naked as he came; and then, though he has spent his life in selfish self-denial, filling his dark days with vexation, sickness, and irritation, he is snatched from all, and, poor indeed, departs. Such the sad story of Solomon's experience; but not more sad than true, nor confined by any means to Scripture. World-wide it is. Nor is divine revelation necessary to tell poor man that silver, nor gold, nor abundance of any kind, can satisfy the heart. Hear the very heathen cry "_semper avarus eget_"--"the miser ever _needs_"; or "_Avarum irritat non satiat pecunia_"--"the wealth of the miser satisfies not, but irritates." But more weighty and far-reaching is the word of revelation going far beyond the negation of the king. "They that desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition, for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
But let us pass to the last three verses of the chapter. The Preacher here says, in effect, "Now attend carefully to what I tell thee of the result of all my experience in this way. I have discerned a good that I can really call comely or fair. It is for a man to have the means at his command for enjoyment, and the power to enjoy those means. This combination is distinctly the 'gift of God.' From such an one all the evils that make up life pass off without eating deep into his being. A cheerful spirit takes him off from the present evil as soon as it is past. He does not think on it much; for the joy of heart within, _to which God responds_, enables him to meet and over-ride those waves of life and forget them."