Ecclesiastes 7:10 - Exposition

The same impatience leads a man to disparage the present in comparison with a past age. What is the cause that the former days were better than these? He does not know from any adequate information that preceding times were in any respect superior to present, but in his moody discontent he looks on what is around him with a jaundiced eye, and sees the past through a rose-tinted atmosphere, as an age of heroism, faith, and righteousness. Horace finds such a character in the morose old man, whom he describes in 'De Arte Poet.,' 173—

"Difficilis, querulus, laudater temporis acti

Se puero, castigator censorque minornm."

"Morose and querulous, praising former days

When he was boy, now ever blaming youth."

And 'Epist.,' 2.1.22—

"... et nisi quae terris semota suisque

Temporibus defuncta videt, fastidit et odit."

"All that is not most distant and removed

From his own time and place, he loathes and scorns."

For thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this. In asking such a question you show that you have not reflected wisely on the matter. Every age has its light and dark side; the past was not wholly light, the present is not wholly dark. And it may well be questioned whether much of the glamour shed over antiquity is not false and unreal. The days of "Good Queen Bess" were anything but halcyon; the "merrie England" of old time was full of disorder, distress, discomfort. In yearning again for the flesh-pots of Egypt, the Israelites forgot the bondage and misery which were the accompaniments of those sensual pleasures.