96 being old is no advantage, and there is just as little advan- tage in being young. If a man wishes to believe that youth is an advantage, then he rejects the edification, and will only listen to the worldly speech of the like-minded, his fellow-conspirators, about how pleasant it is to be young. If one wishes to believe that youth itself with respect to this thought about the Creator, has a decided opportunity which can never later be repurchased: who would dare to say this to himself, who would dare say it to another, for fear lest it might be too late, for fear lest the edifying thought might transform itself into a terrifying one. But it is not so. When, therefore, the Holy Scriptures make this a condition for entering into the kingdom of heaven, that a man should become a child again, then this speech is really edifying, because it addresses itself to every man, while otherwise understood it would be the most foolish and disheartening speech the world has ever heard; for the child itself does not know what it means to be a child.
What is true about childhood is also true about youth, but with this difference, that insofar as youth is past, it can also be lost or greatly neglected. So the speech about youth can indeed occasion the individual concern, but if it makes it impossible for this concern to become profitable for his reassurance, to become a regret for the past which effects his improvement, then the speech is not edifying, but worldly-minded, contentious, and con- fused.
On the other hand, if the speech may also influence a single youth to anticipate the painful aftercost of this neglect, it will indeed imbue him with the significance of youth, even if the speech concerning authority, only vouches for it.
REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR 97 REMEMBER THY CREATOR IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth; for in youth one does it best and most naturally, and if a man throughout all the rest of his life preserved the thoughts of youth, then he would accomplish a good work. Let this be our eulogy of youth, even if it is more rarely heard, although youth is praised often enough. Moreover, as it might be injurious for the tiny babe to be handled too much, so it seems that too much praise might be detri- mental to the wholesomeness of youth. For when the false or injudicious friendship of dejection is the spokes- man, will it not besmirch with its fiery unwholesome- ness, will it not bring a darting unrest and craving into the careless confidence of youth? Because despondency is envious of youth, must we therefore make youth envious of itself and perplexed about itself? As one does not pay too much attention to the tiny babe, so let us not pay too much attention to youth, but neither let us, there- fore, do the opposite: let us not make it old before its time, lest it drain the bitterness; nor keep it from being young when it is, so that it may not a second time drain the bitterness of not having been young when it was young.
Nor does the Preacher counsel thus. When a youth is joyful and happy at a banquet, then the Preacher is not a disconsolate figure who wishes to tear him away from the wild passion and enjoyment of the moment; not an alarming spectre who wishes to forget himself in the circle of youth; not a fool who imagines that, although advanced in age, he is still young; but neither is he a carp- ing and irritable critic who cannot rejoice with the hap- py. He accompanies the happy, and when the youth has 98 98 enjoyed himself with all his heart, when he has danced himself weary, not exactly of life, for youth ought not to do that, but for the evening, then the Preacher sits down in a room off the ball-room, and speaks more seriously. But he makes the transition as naturally as does the youth; for youth can do this with a smile upon his lips and exul- tation in his bearing, worthy to listen to the talk about high and holy things. So, then, let youth "wear the gar- lands of rosebuds before they be withered"; but let no one teach youth this— teach youth to "use creation as youth's possession," and in this or some other way cause it to "reason wrongly" as if this were the only thing it had to do. For the thought about the Creator is still the most beautiful glory of youth, a rosebud that does not wither.
And in youth one does it most naturally; for a man thinks most naturally who can think this thought in con- junction with all the other things he thinks; and he thinks it most naturally who does not himself have to be changed in order to think it, and who does not need to have the thought changed in order to think it, because in the thought he finds the childlike simplicity which makes the game the best. So that word of the Preacher is from the beginning a proof that this thought must be most natural for youth. If he had not been speaking to youth, he might perhaps have made lengthy preparations. He might perhaps have proved that God exists; and after he had kept the learner busier than the Jews in Goshen in slaving for the truth under his supervision, he would per- haps give him to understand that he might finally get to the point where God became the Creator.
And so it goes. When one grows older, then everything becomes so wretched. God in heaven must sit and wait for the fates to decide whether He exists, and finally He REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR 99 comes into being by means of some proofs; men must put up with waiting until the matter is decided. Suppose one dies before that time; suppose that by the time the matter is decided, someone had grown unaccustomed to thinking of God as the Creator, and the joy in the thought was past! The Preacher does not speak in this way, but as a friendly man predicts a happy future for the child in its cradle, so the Preacher uses the word, and the youth understands it at once. He understands immediately that a God exists, for to the young God's house lies next door to his father's yard, and it seems quite natural to him to be there. But when one becomes older, then the way to church is often very long; when the wind is severe in winter, then it is so cold in the church; when the birds sing in the woods in the summer time, the church does not lie in the direction he is going. To youth God dwells close at hand; in the midst of sorrow and joy he hears God's voice call- ing; if he does not hear it, then he misses it at once, if he has not learned evasion, if he does not know how to hide himself— until he hears it again. When one becomes older, then it is far to heaven; and the earthly noises make it difficult to hear the voice; and if one does not hear it, then the earthly noises make it easy for one not to feel the want of it.
Youth understands it at once. Is not this wonderful! But is the fact that it is wonderful not also a clarification! There was a thinker, whose memory is revered, who be- lieved that wonder was a characteristic of the Jewish peo- ple, that this wonder, in a peculiar manner, overleaped the intervening causes to arrive at God. But, if we wish to select a youth who was not brought up among that people, I wonder if the miraculousness of wonder might not again appear. And then I wonder what essentially belongs to 100 youth, and what, not as the accidental, belongs to an indi- vidual nation; I wonder if manhood dares to forget this completely. But when we become older, then come the in- tervening causes; and if someone reaches God by the long way of these intervening causes, then he can say that he comes from afar— if he reaches God, for many doubtless perish on the way. Is this the fault of the intervening causes or of the pilgrims?
Youth understands at once that God is the Creator, that He has created "the heavens and the earth, and all that in them is." "All that in them is"— is not this a great word, is it not becoming to youth? What has youth really seen? It has merely glanced at the world. What does it understand about the world in comparison with one who has circum- navigated the globe? But youth understands about God, and since He is never far away, if one is to find Him he should not look for Him far away.
There was a thinker who became a hero by his death. He had said that from a single straw he would prove the existence of God. Let the thinker keep his proof; give youth the straw, he can— not prove it. But why, too, is proof needed, when one has the straw and— God! When one becomes older, then the proof comes, and the proof is a distinguished traveler whom all regard with admiration. Youth understands that God has created the world, and yet that was six thousand years ago. But he understands it at once— what wonder, indeed; for how does six thousand years to youth differ from yesterday when it is past. When one becomes older, then six thousand years are many years; then one realizes that it is six thousand years since the world was created— and also six thousand years since everything was very good.
But as the youth quite naturally thinks that God is the REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR 101 Creator, so he just as naturally thinks what follows from that; and since he does not need to waste his time in understanding the first, he can at once begin on the last. But what does follow from this? Moreover, when one be- comes older and very intelligent, then extremely strange things result from it. Then one repudiates an earlier thinker, becomes a disciple of a later one, or gives others the name of that one, and does other similar things which concern neither God nor one's self, but only the judgment of the world. On the contrary, youth has with the first already begun on the last; for what indeed follows farther from that except that which lies so near that it does not seem to result from it, even less to follow farther from it. And what is this other except thanksgiving in quiet hu- mility, confidence resting in a childlike intimacy, the pain over the interruption of the harmony so deep that peace cannot long remain away, the concern so childlike that youth does not need to go far in order again to live and move and have his being in God.
And in youth one does it best; for he really thinks a thought best who has it always near at hand, and yet hides it the deepest; he, who does not have to seek among many things to find it, does not seek in out of the way places in order to find it.
Youth does not have many thoughts, but from that it merely follows that he can better cherish the one he has, even if he is constantly using it. When one gets older, then one has many thoughts; and if one of them is lost, then, like that woman, one lights a candle and goes and searches for it, and in the meantime allows the other ninety-nine to shift for themselves. Or it sometimes seems to someone that one of his thoughts was lost, and time is wasted in 102 102 looking for it, for it was a delusion. Such things cannot happen to youth; for when one has but one thought, how could he lose it? When one has many thoughts, he is like one who has many suits of clothes. Sometimes he wears one suit, sometimes another. But youth has just one thought, which always clothes him equally well, and he does not waste time in choosing. On the other hand, youth has always the same place to hide his thoughts as does the older man, and scarcely less room. But when one has only one thought, then one can always get a good and ample place.
Youth does not see many men, but from that it does not follow that he cannot cling with his whole heart to man and to the human.
There was a pagan sage. Ridiculed by many, he thought he would ridicule the others. He went about with his lan- tern by day, seeking a man. One ought not to ridicule him; for whoever while young has not found a man, may indeed need a lantern. When one becomes older, then one sees many men, individually and collectively, but if from his youth up, one has not found a man, then what does one find? And he who does find one, whom does he find except the preacher and the schoolmaster, his equals, and all the rest he has known so well at home? And what- ever he finds which replaces the best, that he gradually loses. So, too, with the thought about God. When the older man finds this thought again, what does he find different from that which he had found in his youth! He thought it in his youth, and the first time he thought it, it was as if he had already thought it an eternity. Com- pared with such an imperishable memory, the years think it with more difficulty. When one is older, then this thought has frequently only its own season, and this is as REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR 103 it must be. Other thoughts have their times and seasons, and everything is parcelled out. And if in other respects one has an abundance, with respect to this thought one often lives meagerly enough. But youth is the time of abundance. When one grows older, then one ceases to grow, but youth is the season of growth, and he grows to- gether with his one thought, like the lovers who grew to- gether. When one becomes older, then one often reflects on one's thoughts, and becomes absorbed in them. For one grows best in concealment, and, physically speaking, one never grows as much as during the nine months when he lies in his mother's womb; and, spiritually speaking, never so much as in the secret life of youth, when he grows to a divine stature. The older one becomes, the more complicated the reckoning becomes, and yet that thought of the Creator is the one which the schoolmaster of childhood talked so much about; it is the number to carry, and if one ever forgets the number to be carried, then is one's whole calculation wrong.
So let childhood then keep the angels who always be- hold the face of God; but grant to youth, O God, a friendly care, which will prevent it from losing the best. Woe to the one who defrauds the widow and the father- less, but woe also to the one who defrauds youth of this thought, even if he gave it everything else! Woe to the one who removes the landmarks of the poor, but woe also to the one who removes the landmarks of youth!
Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth; for this thought comes repeatedly, and it may sometime later help you to think best and most naturally about the Creator; how it may help you in a more intimate way, must be determined individually.
104 It is hard, men say, to separate those who were for- merly united; but how much harder is it not, when these are thus separated: the thought of youth about the Creator and the Creator? Human language says little about this concern, for not only men's speech but prac- tically their language is selfish; it speaks only about their own affairs, little about God's, whose concern the separa- tion is.
But what is it, then, which separates them? My hearer, ought you not yourself to know what it was which sep- arated you, and ought not the individual to know what it was which separated him from God, even if the cause of the separation differed for different individuals! Perhaps it was age which separated them, in that he grew old while God always remained the same. He was not to blame for growing older; on the contrary it is worthy of commendation, if a man in this respect recognizes the time and the hour; and nothing is more disgusting than to see the unhappy beggar whose eyes and expression beg everyone for the flattering untruth that he still seems young. Or that wretched one who, although advanced in years, still fortifies himself by means of the lie that he still retains his youth. Or that helpless one who has no other defense against the years except the impotent wish that he might still be young. On the contrary, he who recognizes the time and the hour and the opportunity, to him the separation is least noticeable, and he is farthest from having forgotten his youth, which that man has in- deed done who spends his days and nights in wishing it back. Whether a man will succeed in becoming older in such a way that he never notices the separation, which would provide another kind of understanding, we do not know; but it happens with most men, that, as they are REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR 105 separated from what belonged to their youth, as they leave their father's house and their mother's solicitude, the more they are separated from these, the more, too, are they separated from God.
Hence, perhaps a man became older, and with the years came understanding, and with understanding knowledge, and with knowledge sorrow, and with increased knowl- edge increased sorrow. But as he was thus developed and educated, the simple became to him more difficult, and since without this guidance he must act for himself, everything became more and more complicated. Perhaps he chose the guidance of thought, and in order not to owe anyone anything, he let this propagate itself, and the one thought develop out of another, until at last the infinite appeared before him and made him giddy. The more he stared at it, the more his eye lost the power of vision to find its way back in the finite. Perhaps pleasure blinded him, life became a jest, and he let God sorrow in heaven while he chose gladness, and let enthusiasm talk in vain about battle and conflict, about courage in danger, pa- tience in affliction, love in life, victory in death, rewards in heaven, while he permitted every day to have its own pleasure.
Perhaps worldly concern about food and clothing di- verted his mind, so that he did neither one thing nor the other. Perhaps he subjected himself to a sorrowful ear- nestness which transformed life down here into slavery, God in heaven to a strict task-master, His will into a ter- rifying law, and so he wandered about in a wilderness without finding any refreshment.
Perhaps it was sin and perdition which lay divisively between him and his youthful thought about God, and his resentment at the separation seemed to make an unio6 io6 demanding impossible. We might, indeed, carry this course of reasoning farther, but to what end? When the separation exists, then it is not so important to scrutinize the reason for it as to sorrow over the separation which may appear in so many different ways, when the evil days come, about which the Preacher speaks, or when the retreat must begin. For as the first book in the Old Tes- tament is called the Birth, the second the Departure, so we might certainly say that there is a third book in human life which is called the Retreat. Hence there appears to be a necessity to return to what was once so beautiful, but which later came to be despised, forgotten, overlooked, polluted, and yet to which everyone, with a certain degree of shamefacedness, resorts for refuge. And the shame is certainly a cheap price for him to pay, in that he, what- ever the error of his way had been, experimented with everything before he resolved to return. But then was it not a blessing that he had something to which he could return? Was it not fortunate that the blind man had a child who could lead him? And so one goes his little hour like a blind man who is led by a child.
We do not deny that the return of one person can be very different from that of another; that of the one may be a more peaceful return, that of the other an escape from a pursuing terror; but it is the Preacher who says: "Remember therefore thy Creator in the days of thy youth, remember Him for the sake of the return." Even if the moment when the retreat must begin is sufficiently terrifying, even if a man, at enmity with himself, has de- stroyed much of what lay behind him: merely a memory of this thought must always help him somewhat. Perhaps there was someone who, reduced to the last extremity, only endeavored to concentrate his bitterness, his wrath, REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR 107 in a single passionate outburst, and sought vainly in the shrewdness which ordinarily understands life's emptiness and nothingness, until at last he burst forth: "Oh, the world and the lust thereof perish!" but lo, this word then awakened like a memory in his soul; and with it awak- ened a saving recollection, which still called to him with the faithfulness of youth: "but God's word endur- eth forever." Thus the youthful memory helped him where there was no other help, thus it does help him. It dissolves the spell of brooding earnestness, so there is again joy in heaven and on earth; it disperses the mists of the busy concern in a resigned freedom from care; it dis- solves the troublesome evil in quiet wonder over the dark saying of hoping against hope; it saves the despairing soul from seeing the despair through the frankness which understands nothing, which does not understand the specious assertion of self-accusation, but understands only God's mercy.
Perhaps there was someone who had pondered deep and long about the divine, while he still sometimes even understood what he had found out far more simply than he had discerned it, until at last, as he sat thoughtful and brooding, he could smile at his long meditation by giving heed to the memory of youth, which whispered the simple truth to him, and thus through its intervention trans- formed for him the beautiful earnestness into a still more beautiful jest.
Perhaps there was one whose plans always gained the victory for him and the adulation of men, while he him- self, when he compared the results with his calculations, always discovered a little irregularity, until at last, as he stood there austere and dominating, he was softened by listening to the memory of youth which softly hummed io8 the simple truth to him and, by entwining itself within it, transfigured his beautiful earnestness into an even more beautiful jest.
We do not praise the retreat, as if this were the sole significance of life, as if memory were everything in life. We do not speak presumptuously and slightingly about the truth which the more mature human wisdom discov- ers; or about the beauty which human art produces; even less do we disparage the honest work of manhood; we speak only about the beautiful significance of the retreat for human life, and we speak about how to have remem- bered the Creator in the days of youth is the angel of salvation of the retreat.
So let a man's work exact from him what belongs to it, his time and his industry; but in the advancing years, O God, preserve Thou a memory of his youth which pre- serves for him the youthful thought about the Creator. Woe to him who separates what God has joined together; woe to him who separates manhood from its youth.
If there be someone whom this meditation merely pain- fully reminds of his own lack, then it would in truth be unseemly and unworthy to be an edifying discourse; es- pecially unfortunate for itself, if it were without sym- pathy; for then it would not be edifying, and would not have found the universal truth, but would have been de- ceived by the accidental. It is indeed seldom that a man can truly feel this lack, and perhaps he sometimes de- ceives himself, repels the sense of guilt, maintains his soul in cowardice, deceives it with good intentions, and chooses the pain of want instead of the sorrow of repent- ance.
REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR IO9 If this is the case, then the discourse is reassured. Even if such a man will not understand himself, the discourse has certainly understood him.
If, on the contrary, there was a man whose youth had preserved for him no affectionate solicitude; if he had gone out into life poorer than the son of the poor to whom his parents had bequeathed only poverty, poorer than the one to whom his father still bequeathed a bless- ing, his mother an admonition; helpless, forsaken, de- pressed because he had had no youth; oh, there is still no youth so God-forsaken that the crumbs when they are carefully gathered together so that nothing shall be wast- ed, may not become through the blessing of God an abun- dant compensation. And there is no youth, however brief it is, so God-forgotten that the memory of or the deep inward sorrow for it, would not be able to rejuvenate the one who never was young. For, spiritually speaking, the fulfillment is always in the wish, the soothing of the concern in the concern, just as God is already in the sor- row which is near Him. And spiritually he understood his need, and, spiritually speaking, he yearned for his youth. In another sense youth is only vanity, and the longing for it an even greater vanity: for "beauty is deceitful and favor is vain," and the flighty mind goes forth with short-lived hope, and the dance ends, and the jest is forgotten, and strength wanes, and youth is past, so that its place knows it no more. But the thought of youth about the Creator is a rosebud that does not wither, be- cause it knows neither times nor seasons, and it is the child's most beautiful ornament, the bride's most glorious adornment, and the best raiment for the dying.
VI THE EXPECTATION OF AN ETERNAL HAPPINESS For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. II Cor. 4:17, 18 TIELL a man who your friends are, and he knows you; confide to him your wishes, and he understands you; for not only is your soul revealed in your wish, but he will also see through you in another way, since the wish cunningly betrays to him what you are in your- self. That is, while you are voicing your wish, he examines it to see if it can legitimately be wished. If this is not the case, then he knows not only your wish, but he draws an inference as to the confusion of your mind. In this con- nection someone has said that wishing is a foolish art, and we are tempted to compare one who has the habit of wishing with one who resorted to the beggar's staff through laziness: they both live on charity; they both are irresponsible; they both have nothing but importunities; they both are suspect in the eyes of justice.