“I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards; ... I got me servants and maidens; ... I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces. I gat me men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem.... And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor.... Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do; and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly; for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done.” [Sidenote: _Unsatisfied_] “I hated life.... Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun.”[237] By his own bitter experience, Solomon learned the emptiness of a life that seeks in earthly things its highest good. He erected altars to heathen gods, only to learn how vain is their promise of rest to the soul. [Sidenote: _The Late Return_] In his later years, turning wearied and thirsting from earth’s broken cisterns, Solomon returned to drink at the fountain of life. The history of his wasted years, with their lessons of warning, he by the Spirit of inspiration recorded for after-generations. And thus, although the seed of his sowing was reaped by his people in harvests of evil, the life-work of Solomon was not wholly lost. For him at last the discipline of suffering accomplished its work. But with such a dawning, how glorious might have been his life’s day, had Solomon in his youth learned the lesson that suffering had taught in other lives! * * * * * [Sidenote: _God’s Witnesses_] For those who love God, those who are “the called according to his purpose,”[238] Bible biography has a yet higher lesson of the ministry of sorrow. “Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God,”[239]—witnesses that He is good, and that goodness is supreme. “We are made a theater unto the world, both[240] to angels and to men.”[241] [Sidenote: _Accusation from Satan_] Unselfishness, the principle of God’s kingdom, is the principle that Satan hates; its very existence he denies. From the beginning of the great controversy he has endeavored to prove God’s principles of action to be selfish, and he deals in the same way with all who serve God. To disprove Satan’s claim is the work of Christ and of all who bear His name.