God is all in all. His works are manifested; and whilst it is His strange work, yet Judgment _is_ His work, as every age in Time has shown; as the Eternal age, too, shall show--in time, this judgment is necessarily temporal; in eternity, where character, as all else, is fixed, it must as necessarily be _eternal_! Solemn, and perhaps unwelcome, but wholesome theme! We live in a time peculiarly characterized by a lack of reverence for _all_ authority. It is the spirit of the times, and against that spirit the saint must ever watch and guard himself by meditation on these solemn truths. Fear is a godly sentiment, a just emotion, in view of the holy character of our God. "I will forewarn whom ye shall fear," said the Lord Jesus: "Fear him which, after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him." The first Christians, walking in _the fear of the Lord_ as well as the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied; and when Annanias and Sapphira fell under God's judgment, great _fear_ came on all the _church_; whilst apostasy is marked by men feeding, themselves without fear. All shall be "_right_." It is the wrong and disorder and unrighteous allotment prevailing here that caused the groans of our writer. Let us listen to them. Their doleful, despairing sound shall again add sweeter tone to the lovely music of God's revelation, speaking, as it does, of One who solves every mystery, answers every question, heals every hurt; yea, snatches His own from the very grasp of Death; for all is _right_, for all is _light_, where Jesus is, and He is coming. Patience! Wait! CHAPTER IX. The last two verses of Chapter VIII. connect with the opening words of this chapter. The more Ecclesiastes applies every faculty he has to solve the riddle under the sun, robbing himself of sleep and laboring with strong energy and will, he becomes only the more aware that that solution is altogether impossible. The contradictions of nature baffle the wisdom of nature. There is no assured sequence, he reiterates, between righteousness and happiness on the one hand, and sin and misery on the other. The whole confusion is in the sovereign hand of God, and the righteous and the wise must just leave the matter there, for "no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them." What discrimination is there here? Do not all things happen alike to all? Yes, further, does not Time, unchecked by any higher power, sweep all relentlessly to one common end? Love cannot be inferred from the "end" of the righteous, nor hatred from the "end" of the sinner; for it is one and the same death that stops the course of each. Oh, this is indeed an "evil under the sun."