In striking contrast with the praises of knowledge which permeate the Proverbs, is the book of Ecclesiastes, supposed to have been written in the decline of Solomon’s life, when the pleasures of sin had saddened his soul, and filled his mind with cynicism.  Unless the book of Ecclesiastes is to be interpreted as ironical, nothing can be more dreary than many of its declarations.  It even seems to pour contempt on all knowledge and all enjoyments.  “In much knowledge is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow....  What profit hath a man of all his labor?...  There is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool....  There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink....  A man hath no pre-eminence over a beast; all go to the same place....  What hath the wise man more than the fool?...  There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in wickedness....  One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I not found....  The race is not to the swift, the battle to the strong; neither bread to the wise, nor riches to the man of understanding....  On all things is written vanity.”  Such are some of the dismal and cynical utterances of Solomon in his old age.  The Ecclesiastes contrasted with the Proverbs is discouraging and sad, although there is great seriousness and even loftiness in many of its sayings.  It seems to be the record of a disenchanted old man, to whom all things are a folly and vanity.  There is a suppressed contempt expressed for what young men and the worldly regard as desirable, equalled only by a sort of proud disdain of success and fame.  There is great bitterness in reference to women.  Some of the sayings are as mournful jeremiads as any uttered by Carlyle, showing great scorn of what ninety-nine in one hundred are vain of, and pursue after, as all ending in vanity and vexation of spirit.  We can understand how riches may prove a snare, how pleasure-seeking ends in disappointment, how the smiles of a deceitful woman may lead to the chamber of death, how little the treasures of wickedness profit, how sins will find out the transgressor, how the heart may be sad in the midst of laughter, how wine is a mocker, how ambition is Babel-building, how he who pursueth evil pursueth it to his death; we can understand how abundance will produce satiety, and satiety lead to disgust,—­how disappointment attends our most cherished plans, and how all mortal pursuits fail to satisfy the cravings of an immortal soul.  But why does the favored and princely Solomon, in sadness and bitterness, pronounce knowledge also to be a vanity like power and riches, especially when in his earlier writings he so highly commends it?  Is it true that in much wisdom is much grief, and that the increase of knowledge is the increase of sorrow?  Can it be that the book of Ecclesiastes is the mere record of the miserable experiences of an embittered and disappointed sensualist, or is