Ecclesiastes 7:10
Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this. Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.
To declare the former days better than the present is not wise inquiry but mistaken judgment. The mistake lies in treating present worldliness, frivolity, and trouble as new, when the same pursuits of pleasure and trade and the same faults of greed and wrongdoing belonged to earlier ages, even in Solomon's day, because human nature remains unchanged and recurs from age to age. Gratitude that older Sabbath-school methods brought souls to faith does not prove those days better as a whole.
To insist the former days were better serves to deny that God's supernatural workings still belong to the church, and such use of the claim is unwise. Instead of mourning what is past or wishing today were yesterday, believers are to receive the clearer light and fresh life, with the joy and strength and victories that God gives in the present. Spiritual life from conversion onward is appointed to advance toward ever greater maturity and understanding, with no provision for decline.
Those who held otherwise taught that former times were better in respect to the home and the young. The decay they pointed to was the loss of household discipline and of respect for parents and for age. It was seen further in children no longer attending church and Sunday school regularly as before.