The _Songs of Solomon_, which abound in passages we can not quote in this place, are defended by the clergy on the theory that they were meant to describe the love of Christ for his church. But Solomon had never heard of Christ. And, then, why should Christ use the language of a debauchee to express his affection for the church? How desperate must be the case of the bible champions to resort to so foolish an explanation! In the book of _Ecclesiastes_, another of Solomon's philosophical treatises, there are expressed ideas which are positively hurtful. The whole tenor of his teaching is that everything is a vanity. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," he cries. Like a satiated oriental sultan, he has lost the ability to take pleasure in life. Like Macbeth, he wishes "the estate of the world were now undone." Life to him is but a "strut" across the stage. There is no difference, he says, between a man and a beast; between a fool and a wise man, between a good man and a bad man, for what happens to the one happens to the other. And the conclusion he arrives at is this: _A man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry._ * * Ecclesiastes viii, 15. Few people, and even few preachers, who quote the words "Let us eat and drink and make merry, for to-morrow we may die," know, or are willing to admit, that the words did not originate with some French infidel, but with the wisest man God ever created. Speaking of women, Solomon is "inspired" to make the following comment: _Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: One man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found._ * * Ecclesiastes vii, 28. No other man but an "inspired" Jew would be forgiven for such an insult to woman. Solomon plainly states that while both men and women are bad, yet women are much worse, for he has found one good man among a thousand, but not one good woman "among all those." Could any book be more unholy than the one which contains so sweeping and spiteful an accusation? And yet this is the book the reading of which our preachers are trying to make compulsory in the home and school. But the saddest and strangest of all is the conduct of the women, who notwithstanding this insult, fall upon their knees before this Asiatic volume and kiss the text that filches from them their good name!