Although the verses quoted by Maurice to Tennyson (xii. 13, 14) are not genuinely in Koheleth they correspond with sentences in the genuine text of very different import. Koheleth, though his quotations are godless, believes there is a God, and a formidable one. Sometimes he refers to him as Fate, sometimes as the unknowable, but as without moral quality. "To the just men that happeneth which should befall wrong-doers; and that happeneth for criminals which should be the lot of the upright" (viii. 14), and "neither (God's) love nor hatred doth a man foresee" (ix. 1). God has set prosperity and adversity side by side for the express purpose of hiding Himself from human knowledge (vii. 14); not, alas, as the Yalkut Koheleth suggests, in order that one may help the other. God does benefit those who please him, and punish those who displease him; this is 'good' and 'evil' to Him; but it has no relation with the humanly good and evil (viii. 11-14). As it is evident that God's favor is not secured by good works nor his disfavor incurred by evil works, a prudent man will consider that it may perhaps be a matter of etiquette, and will be punctilious, especially "in the house of God"; he will not speak rashly and then hope to escape by saying "it was rashness." His words had better be few, and if he makes any vow (which may well be avoided) he should perform it. But as for practical life and conduct, God, or fate, is clearly indifferent to it, consequently let a man eat his bread and quaff his wine with joy, love his wife,--the best portion of his lot,--and whatever his hand findeth to do that do with vigor, remembering that "there is no work, nor thought, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the inevitable grave." Such is Koheleth's conception of life, which, except so far as it is marred by a vague notion of Fate which is fatal to philanthropy, is not very different from the idea growing in our own time. "The All is a never-ceasing whirl" (i. 8), and Koheleth advises that each individual man try to make what little circle of happiness he can around him. "O my heart!" says Omar Khayyám, "thou wilt never penetrate the mysteries of the heavens; thou wilt never reach that culminating point of wisdom which the intrepid omniscients have attained. Resign thyself then to make what little paradise thou canst here below. As for that close-barred seraglio beyond thou shalt arrive there--or thou shalt not!"