bonum of philosophical inquiry, on which the strongest intellects had worked themselves even to exhaustion, leaving it still without solution, is propounded with simplicity and effect in the books of Scripture. Throughout the sacred writings, the vanity of the world, the errors and miseries of mankind in committing themselves to its fascinations and its mockeries, and the objects of a pure and permanent felicity, are subjects of description; but in no part of them are the vexatious cares of mortals and the frustration of their purposes and hopes so much within the scope of the author, as in the "Book of Ecclesiastes," which the "Lectures" of Dr. Wardlaw have brought under our present attention.

These expository Discourses, we learn from the preface, were originally delivered in the ordinary course of the Author's weekly ministrations, in the years 1810 and 1811, and were then suggested by the same circumstances to which the publication of them is now attributed-the distresses of the country. -They are almost entirely of a practical character; it professedly forming no part of the preacher's design, to furnish critical or philological disquisition on the several topics that might suggest themselves to a critical expositor of the original work. Of the labour necessary to put the hearer and the reader of these "Lectures" in possession of the sense of the passages of the Book as they successively come under consideration, the Author has, however, not been sparing, He assumes with very few exceptions the correctness of the common English version, and is of opinion, correctly we apprehend, that the difficulties of the Book on which he comments, have been unnecessarily multiplied. This is no uncommon practice, we believe, with professed critics and commentators, who as much delight in the opportunity of displaying their erudition and penetration as in eliciting the meaning of their author; and who are frequently diverted into the bye-paths of remote and inapplicable elucidation, by their mistaken solicitude to surprise their readers with the novelties of interpretation. Dr. Wardlaw is an Expositor of a very different description. Intelligent, sound in judgement, and correct in feeling, he directs his labours to the sense of his author, and endeavours to ascertain its exact import and bearing. He is never frivolous; he always remembers that the office of a lecturer on the sacred writings is one of grave and interesting relation; and he is quite successful in the first appeal which every religious instructer will be desirous of having answered by the feelings of his readers;—he obtains our suffrage in favour of his solicitude to make us wiser and better. His volumes possess so much excellence, and are calculated for so much usefulness, that we

cheerfully give them every advantage which they can derive from our warmest recommendation. To furnish some brief ex-> tracts as specimens of these expository discourses, will be nearly the whole of the service which, in the discharge of our present duty, we can owe the public and the Author; and this course will best fulfil our own wishes in favour of the most extensive circulation of his work.

The character introduced in the illustration of the passage, chap. iv. vs. 7, 8, is described with great truth of representation, and with great felicity and strength of expression.

• Verses 7, 8. "Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun. There is one (alone) and (there is) not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother; yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither (saith he) For whom do I labour and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity; yea, it is a sore travail."

This is a strikingly graphical, though brief description of the avaricious keenness and carefulness of a toiling, griping, hoarding, insulated miser. "There is one, and there is not a second;" no heir apparent, no connexion, either by blood or by particular friendship, to succeed him; " neither child nor brother," (that is, no near relative,) to inherit his accumulated treasures:- "yet is there no end of all his labour;" he toils with unintermitting solicitude, "rising early and sitting late," nor ever can bear the thought of retiring from active business, as long as he can add a single penny by it to his store :— "neither is his eye satisfied with riches;" constantly either contemplating his acquisitions, or on the eager look-out for more; never saying, It is enough; a greedy receiver, but a reluctant and parsimonious giver. He takes no enjoyment of his wealth; but starves in the midst of abundance; not only "labouring," but "bereaving his soul of good;" living with the most pitiful penuriousness; grudging himself every morsel of meat, every rag of clothing, every common comfort of life. And the habit grows upon him; he becomes increasingly avaricious as he advances in wealth and in years; no selfish consideration can move him, nor any claim of charity touch his soul; his hollow eye contracts the timid glance of lurking suspicion; his whole countenance the marked and settled expression of anxiety and unfeeling narrowness; and his wasted frame, his antique and thread-bare clothing, and every part of his appearance, betrays the confirmed and unimpressible MISER. Those who first assigned this designation to the character were happy in their selection. Miser signifies wretched; and surely there is not on earth a more pitiable object than the man here described; the unhappy victim of one of the strangest aberrations of understanding, one of the most unaccountable contradictions to all right feeling, and to every ordinary principle of human nature, that is to be found amongst the intellectual and moral varieties of the species.

'Solomon's description shews us that these varieties have, in every age, been much the same. Many a time has it since been realized

with wonderful accuracy.-The character may be traced to various origins. In some instances, it has arisen from a fatal error in education, from early and ill-judged lessons of excessive parsimony, impressed upon the youthful mind, gradually forming in the heart an undue "love of money," an habitual desire of getting, and dread of losing, or of being necessitated to give away :-in other cases, from the apprehension and presentiment of a diseased mind, a hypochondriachal foreboding of approaching poverty, of dying in want; an evil, to which every penny that is lost or parted with is of course conceived by the disordered. imagination to contribute :-and in others still, from the weak-minded vanity of being noticed and spoken of, during life, and after death, as the possessor of so much wealth, or as the man that had left it behind him. From whatever source it may have arisen, and whatever may have promoted its growth, it is well denominated "vanity and a sore travail." The poor rich fool lives in misery, and dies unlamented. Those, whosoever they may be, to whom he bequeaths his wealth, give him little thanks for it. He has only given it when he could hold it no longer. He has not parted with it; he has been obliged to leave it; and not one farthing of it, they know well, should they ever have touched, could he by any possibility have retained possession. They are glad the useless old fellow is, out of the way; they lay him in the dust without a sigh; and with secret self-gratulation, take possession of his hoards."

Vol. I. pp. 189-192.

- Nocitura petuntur.'-If the miser greedy of gain,' is unable to bear the thought of retiring from active business, the instances, are not few in which retirement from commercial employments, has proved a "sore travail" to men, who, having laboured to acquire" a competency," and solaced themselves under the fatigues of business by frequent anticipations of the repose and pleasure which they should enjoy on their being re leased from its cares, find themselves restless and wretched in their chosen retreats. Mankind are ever committing the most fatal errors in reference to their own good; they are mistaken alike in the end which they determine for themselves, and in the means which they adopt for its attainment. Every situation, and every circumstance of life, are perilous to man. Toil and care, cessation from labour, and want of internal repose, too much or too little of the world, are ever his annoyances.

In a practical expositor, no qualification is more desirable, after the higher demands of religious principle have been satisfied, than that union of correct taste with the exercise of a sound judgement, which preserves him from the hazard of becoming tedious and uninstructive by the discussion of particulars, when the design of his author and the improvement of his readers may best be consulted in the illustration of the general sentiment of the text. We may quote the following passage, from

the seventh Lecture, on chap. iv. 4-16, as evidence of the just claims of Dr. Wardlaw to this kind of excellence.

:

Verses 9-12. "Two (are) better than one, because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow but woe to him (that is) alone when he falleth; for (he hath) not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm (alone)? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not easily broken.”

The figures which are employed in these verses are in themselves so plain as to require no explanation. They are all intended to illustrate the same general sentiment,-the advantages of union and cooperation; and the sentiment may be applied to every description of faithful and well-principled alliance,-to marriage, to friendship, to Christian communion. Many and valuable are the benefits of such associations amidst the changes of this uncertain world; some common to all the varieties of union, and some peculiar to each. It affords to the parties mutual counsel and direction, especially in seasons of perplexity and embarrassment; mutual sympathy, consolation, and care in the hour of calamity and distress; mutual encouragement in anxiety and depression; mutual aid, by the joint application of bodily or mental energy to difficult and laborious tasks; mutual relief amidst the fluctuations of worldly circumstances, the abundance of the one reciprocally supplying the deficiencies of the other; mutual defence and vindication, when the character of either is injuriously attacked and defamed; and (what may be considered as particularly appropriate to the phraseology of the tenth verse) mutual reproof and affectionate expostulation when either has, through the power of temptation, fallen into sin :-"Wo to him that is alone when he❞ so “falleth, and hath not another to help him up!" no one to care for his soul, and to restore him to the paths of righteousness.

In all cases, union,-affectionate, principled, faithful union, the connexion and intercourse of kindred souls,-must be eminently productive of reciprocal satisfaction and delight. Vol. I. p. 192.

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"Out of

The explication of the passage, chap. iv. vs. 14, prison he cometh to reign," interpreted, not of the wise and poor child, but of the old and foolish King, which is suggested by the Lecturer, p. 197., is, we think, rather more fanciful than just; and the following view of the 16th verse," (There is) no end of all the people, &c." is evidently inadmissible.

“No end” seems here to mean no fixed point in which the people can rest with any settled satisfaction; they have no stability; they never reach an object in which their gratification is permanent, a goal of their capricious and fluctuating desires. They are ever fickle, ever fond of novelty and change." There is no end to all the people." They have all, in this respect, the same generic character; in having no terminating point and settled resting-place to their views and wishes. So

it was with "all the people," forming the generation of Solomon's contemporaries; so it had been with "all who were before them;" and "they also who were to come after" would discover the same tendency.' Vol. I. p. 200.

The word translated end is clearly not susceptible of the signification thus assigned to it.' The Author expresses a doubt of the propriety of his interpretation, and subjoins the correct explanation of the phrase.

As a specimen of the Author's serious and urgent manner in the improvement of his subjects, we might copy from any part of his closing addresses: we give the following from the conclusion of the tenth Lecture.

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Human life, considered in itself, apart from its connexion with eternity, is vanity; a fleeting shadow; a fading flower; a vapour that endureth for a moment, and then vanisheth away. Man, contemplated merely as the possessor of such a life, is vanity; a creature formed of the dust, and soon to return to the dust again :-all his pursuits, be they what they may, that are confined to this transitory and precarious existence, are vanity; and all will be found in the end, as they have many a time been found in present experience, to be "vexation of spirit." If this lesson is not learned, with salutary effect, in this world, it will be learned in all the everlasting anguish and unavailing desperation of the next. Oh! if the soul, when trembling on the verge of eternity, when the last fibre of the thread of life is parting, can only look backward with tormenting regret, and forward with more tormenting doubt and despair!-what a state for an immortal and accountable creature !—to feel the torturing conviction, that he has been trifling, or worse than trifling, all his days, that he has thrown his life away on vanity," and has nothing left as the result but "vexation of spirit;" that it is too late to make provision for the world to come, and which is just opening to him in all its darkness, and all its unknown terrors; that he has finished and sealed the "senseless bargain" (oh, how bitterly does he feel it to be so!) of "Eternity for bubbles;" that he has bartered and damned his soul for the "pleasures of sin" and the worthless nothings of a world that has passed away from him!-It is not necessary that a man should have " seen no good," or should have had "no power to enjoy" his "riches, and wealth, and honour," and family, in order to his feeling their emptiness in his latter end, when his soul is absorbed in one grand concern, and longs for a peace and a hope which they are incapable of imparting. Even though he had derived from them through life the whole amount of pleasure which, without the influence of true religion, it is in their power to bestow; still it is pleasure that is gone with each passing moment; and leaves the soul at last drearily desolate, and unprovided for the boundless prospect that lies before it.' Vol. I. p. 297.

The following explanation of a very difficult passage will probably be satisfactory to many of our readers: it is certainly