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This is the key-note of the book. The word "vanity" means a breath of wind, and thus it comes to mean something airy, fictitious, and unsubstantial. As the expression, "holy of holies" conveys the meaning of that which is holy beyond every other thing, so this word in the sense of emptiness beyond comparison is applied by the writer to the course of nature and to the work of man. Again and again he takes excursions into the natural world, and again and again he returns to the old refrain, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." The writer of these words felt that the order of the world was out of joint. But language like this has been more often used by those who have had bitter experience of life. Human nature is wont to turn round upon itself, and when it has drunk out the cup of indulgence will express disgust of gratifications which have ceased to please. "Vanity of vanities" was the speech of the great English cardinal as he lay dying and reflected that he had given the best years of his life for the present without care for the future. This was the temper of the language ascribed to Prince Louis XIV. of France when death was near at hand, and his life of pleasantry was closing. Vanity of vanities! And something like this may be heard in more than one London household at this time of the year at the close of the season. Three or four months of fatigue have been prepared for and submitted to as a military campaign would be prepared for. Time, peace of mind, health, regular hours of prayer, have been sacrificed to the pursuits of some social will-o'-the-wisp. To marry this daughter, to secure this introduction, to achieve more distinction than others, have been the objects before the minds of many. And now, when time and money, health and temper have been sacrificed and nothing achieved, we hear in modern language the words of the text from numbers rushing away by express train to bury their disappointment in country villages. "Vanity of vanities!" This earthly life cannot possibly satisfy a being like man if it be lived apart from God. Apart from God, wisdom leads to disappointment and lands us at death in the sublime despair of philosophy. Apart from God, wealth and all that it can command yields much less satisfaction than intellectual achievement, since it is further removed from the higher and imperishable nature of man. Apart from God, Nature, regarded as matter inter. penetrated by force, presents nothing on which man's inmost being can rest. Here we have only cycles of laws repeating themselves through the ages with a momentum which mocks our intellects. Vanity, emptiness, and disappointment are traced on Nature, on wealth and thought. As a matter of fact man does not find in either real satisfaction. He finds only a wasting fever of the heart, nothing which makes him strong for life, or in the hour of approaching death. The reason is plain. All that belongs to earth has failure in it, and man's life has come under this failure as well as Nature. All we may see is not as it should be. The best of men are conscious of this. The telling of circumstance against him, the tendency downwards of which he is conscious, the precautions which he takes against himself in the shape of rule and law — all these things tell, and tell truly, of some big catastrophe from which human life has suffered in its deepest recesses. Nature, too, with its weird mysteries speaks to the same effect. And here the apostle comes to our aid when he tells us that "the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope." He also says, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now." Nature has on it this certificate of failure. Besides this, wealth and Nature are finite, so that they must fail to satisfy a being like man. The human soul, itself finite, is made for the Infinite. The soul cannot comprehend the Infinite, but it can apprehend the Infinite. In the inmost source and heart of man God has placed a vast, unfathomable capacity for understanding Himself. Man can think of a Being who has "neither beginning of days nor end of years," who "inhabits eternity," and is Himself eternal. And as man struggles more and more perfectly to apprehend this Being, to reach Him, to enjoy Him, to possess Him, he feels that the counterpart of all that is deepest and most mysterious in himself is the eternal world, and that he can only really be satisfied with that, and with nothing else or less. "Thou hast made us for Thyself," says , "and our heaths are restless until they rest in Thee." Man is like those captives of whom we read who, once having believed a throne to be within their grasp, have never settled down as contented subjects. He is predestined for an unseen magnificence; and therefore when he turns to survey the grandest objects that woo his heart in this earthly life he can exclaim, not indeed in scorn, but in a spirit of religious and strictest accuracy, "Vanity of vanities!" Once more; all that belongs to created life passes quickly away. All around is vanishing. "One generation passeth away and another cometh," so says the Preacher. "Man fades away like the grass," so sings the psalmist. "The earthly house of our tabernacle shall be dissolved," so adds one apostle. "The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat," so proclaims another apostle. Yes, all is passing, even the choice furniture of the human mind itself, all but the imperishable. Personality with its moral history in the past survives; all else goes, and is forgotten. And therefore it is because Nature and the outer husks of life do not satisfy that they cannot afford a stay for the imperishable soul of man. "Vanity of vanities!" he exclaims as he discovers their real character. But to this way of regarding the matter there is an objection. Is it a healthy one? Is it calculated to make man do his duty in that state of life in which it has pleased God to call him? Will it help him to do his duty enthusiastically and thoroughly? Is he not likely to fail, and to make life responsible for the failure? To this I say that human effort is only vanity when it is pursued without reference to God. Man's capacities are given to lead him to God, and all that leads to Him, so far from being vanity, is lasting and substantial. The man who is living for another world is not less alive to his duties here, His heart has followed his treasure; his citizenship is already in heaven; he looks at "the things which are not seen": he lives as "a stranger and pilgrim": he is but a soldier on campaign duty. All that comes in his way is precious, as enabling him to conquer the enemy and to reach his home.

(Canon Liddon.)

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KJV: Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

WEB: "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher; "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."