Ecclesiastes 7:2

It is better to go to the house of mourning,.... For deceased relations or friends, who either lie unburied, or have been lately inferred; for the Jews kept their mourning for their dead several days afterwards, when their friends visited them in order to comfort them, as the Jews did Martha and Mary, Joh 11:

The house - Where mourners meet to celebrate the funeral of a deceased friend. The living - Will be seriously affected with it, whereas feasting is commonly attended with levity, and manifold temptations.

The uses to be gathered from the house of mourning are, (1.) By way of information: That is the end of all men. It is the end of man as to this world, a final period to his state here; he shall return no more to his house. It is the end of all men; all have sinned and therefore death passes upon all.

Proving that it is not a sensual enjoyment of earthly goods which is meant in Ec 3:13; A thankful use of these is right, but frequent feasting Solomon had found dangerous to piety in his own case.

THE maxim that happiness lies between two extremes is, I believe, the dictate of prudence and has the sanction of God's Word. The ancients always spoke of this as being the most happy state of life. Somewhere between the two extremes of ecstatic joy and doleful melancholy lies the thing we call, "happiness." Ancient poets used to sing of the via media, or the middle way. We know that Agur, an Inspired writer, prayed to God that He would give him "neither poverty nor riches," that he might walk in the middle way of life.

THE maxim that happiness lies between two extremes is, I believe, the dictate of prudence and has the sanction of God's Word. The ancients always spoke of this as being the most happy state of life. Somewhere between the two extremes of ecstatic joy and doleful melancholy lies the thing we call, "happiness." Ancient poets used to sing of the via media, or the middle way. We know that Agur, an Inspired writer, prayed to God that He would give him "neither poverty nor riches," that he might walk in the middle way of life. And as the medium with regard to wealth is to be preferred, so I believe the middle way is to be chosen with regard to happiness. In the green plains between two high hills is the place where happiness generally resides. The man who is not often lifted up with joy, nor often depressed in spirit through grief—who walks through the world in a calm and quiet atmosphere, bearing about with him a holy complacency, a calm serenity and an almost uniformity—that man is a happy man! He who journeys along without mounting up as an eagle, or without diving down into the depths of the sea—he who keeps along the even tenor of his way to his death is entitled to the name of a happy man. But, my Friends, I think it falls to the lot of very few of us to always stay there. I know it does not fall to my portion to always walk between the two extremes. I cannot always sing in the vale, like Bunyan's shepherd boy—I wish I could live there, but I cannot. There is a high mountain on that side of the valley, and another on this side—and I have to climb the steep sides of both those mountains. On the brow of the hill on that side there stands a fantastic structure, very much like those fairy palaces which we fabricate in our dreams by the aid of the architect of fancy.

It is better to go to the house of mourning - Birthdays were generally kept with great festivity, and to these the wise man most probably refers; but according to his maxim, the miseries of life were so many and so oppressive that the day of a man’s death was to be preferred to the day of his birth. But, in dependently of the allusion, it is much more profitable to visit the house of mourning for the dead than the house of festivity.

That - Namely, what is seen in the house of mourning. Lay it to his heart - Consider it attentively.