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The question is sometimes discussed as to whether it were better to have lived in the first ages of the world, or in these later times. For some reasons, perhaps, it would have been better to have lived in the earlier ages, but we who live in the ends of the world have opportunity to profit by the experience of those who have gone before us. They tried a variety of experiments, and we may be guided by the results which often cost them so much.

I. LET US NOTE AND ILLUSTRATE THE FACT AFFIRMED BY OUR TEXT. Mr. Romanes, who has specially studied the minds of animals, says that we may infer intelligence in an animal whenever we see it able to profit by its own experience. But is it not the sign of a higher intelligence, the sign of human intelligence, that we are able to profit by the experience of others? Just as when a ship is lost, if it be possible some signal is placed on the fatal spot to apprise other vessels of the danger and to direct them into safe channels, so the merchant, the general, the statesman, consult the signals held forth by history that they may not make shipwreck of fortune, fame, or greatness. And yet our text accusing men of disregarding the lessons of history is painfully true. Whilst as a general rule men are anxious to profit by the experience of their ancestors on questions touching social or material interests, they are not nearly so scrupulous to profit by the moral page of history. Baxter tells how he once saw a man driving a flock of lambs, and something meeting and hindering them, one of the lambs leaped on the wall of a bridge and fell over into the river; whereupon the rest of the flock one by one leaped after it and were nearly all drowned. Thus we men often act blindly, madly.

II. WE INQUIRE INTO THE REASONS OF THIS STRANGE CONDUCT. How is it men allow themselves in courses which have manifestly proved fatal to their predecessors?

1. Men blind themselves to the lessons of history by persuading themselves that variations of time and circumstance will prevent in their case the disastrous consequences which happened to others. No error could be greater than this, none more disastrous. What are circumstances to us? Absolutely nothing in comparison to the principle involved in the act, and whatever may be the surface variations the underlying principle will not fail to assert itself; and lust, pride, greed, vanity, materialism, ambition, thoughtlessness, will produce the fruit of misery and shame and ruin in any body, in any age, and in any place.

2. Men blind themselves to the lessons of history by presuming on their cleverness. It is manifest that specific sinful courses have proved the ruin of myriads, but we to-day meditating the same courses expect to come safely through by virtue of our acuteness. We form the fatal fancy that men perish not because they are wicked, but because they are weak; not because they are sinners, but because they are simpletons. In some parts of the Tyrol where the shooting has been severe, the birds of passage are said to deflect from their usual line of flight so that they may avoid the dangerous districts; but we persist in crossing dangerous places although we know countless numbers have fallen victims to the fowler, and this we do from one generation to another. Darwin tells us that animals learn from experience, imitating each other's caution, and no animal can be caught long in the same kind of trap. But man is far less cautious. The devil keeps on using a few old traps smelling of the blood of ruined generations, and he has little need either to hide his traps or to change them; the same old baits — thirty pieces of silver, a wedge of gold, a rag of purple, a pretty face, a bottle, are abundantly and sorrowfully successful one age after another. If there is any acuteness about us, let us show it by letting evil things alone.

3. Men blind themselves to the lessons of history by presuming on their strength. "I know where to draw the line, where to pull up, where to put my foot down; they will find no weakness in me." Men forget that once committed to a downward course they soon acquire a momentum not to be broken, not to be controlled. Some time ago the papers told us about a Californian stage-driver who was dying, and who in his delirium kept on exclaiming, "I am on the down-grade, and I can't reach the brake." Many a soul to-day is swinging down the dizzy steep and cannot stop. History teems with warnings. And you need not go to remote days for awakening, convincing examples. "This their way is their folly, yet their posterity fellow in their steps." Oh I do not join them. Join the noble procession that moves upward, and with them shine as the stars for ever and ever.

(W. L. Watkinson.)

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KJV: This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah.

WEB: This is the destiny of those who are foolish, and of those who approve their sayings. Selah.