The spirit of the Hebrew poetry

WH I lit'

LIBRARY

OF THE

Theological Seminary,

PRINCETON, N.J.

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I

THE SPIRIT OF THE HEBREW
POETRY.

THE

SPIRIT OF THE HEBREW

POETRY.

BY

ISAAC '^TAYLOR.

LONDON:

BELL AND DALDY, 186, FLEET STKEET.
1861.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Preface ix

CHAPTER I.

The Relation of the Hebrew Poetry to the Religious

Purposes it subserves ...... 1

CHAPTER II.

Commixture of the Divine and Human Elements in the

Hebrew Poetic Scriptures 24 \^

CHAPTER III.

Artificial Structure of the Hebrew Poetry, as related to

its Purposes ....... 42

CHAPTER IV.

The Ancient Palestine — the Birthplace of Poetry . 64

CHAPTER V.

The Tradition of a Paradise is the Germ of Poetry . 98 ^

CHAPTER VI.
Biblical Idea of Patriarchal Life .... 106 ^

vi Contents.

PAGE

CHAPTER VII.

The Israelite of the Exodus, and the Theocmcy . . 116

CHAPTER VIII.
Poetry in the Book of Job . , 139

CHAPTER IX.

Poetry in the Psahus ...... 148

CHAPTER X.

Solomon, and the Song of Songs .... 181

CHAPTER XI.

The Poetry of the Earlier Hebrew Prophets . . 19G

CHAPTER XII.

Culmination of the Hebrew Poetry and Prophecy in .-,

Isaiah . . . . . . . .215

CHAPTER XIII.

The Later Prophets, and the Disappearance of the Poetic

Element in the Hebrew Scriptures . . . 236

CHAPTER XIV.

Tlie Millennium of the Hebrew Poetry, and tlie Prin-
ciple which pervades it . .. . . 256

CHAPTER XV.

The Hebrew Literature, and otlicr Literatures . . 270

Contents. vii

PAOB

CHAPTER XVI.

The Hebrew Poetry, and the Divine Legation of the

Prophets 286

CHAPTER XVII.

Continuance of the Hebrew Poetry and Prophecy to

the World's End 307

Notes 317

PREFACE.

^T^HE title of this volume is the same as
-*- that of a course of lectures which I de-
livered at Edinburgh, and afterwards at Glas-
gow, in the winter of 1852. At the time I
was asked to publish these lectures ; but as in
the preparation of them I had not been able
to command much leisure, I felt no inclina-
tion to bring them forward, such as they were
when delivered.

But in looking at the notes of those lec-
tures, once and again in the course of these
ten years, they seemed to contain some germs
of thought which might be brought to bear
upon the great biblical argument that has
lately awakened the attention of the religious
community. This biblical argument which,
as to its substance, is still in progress, gives a
new meaning, or an enhanced importance, to
most of the questions that come within the
range of Christian belief, or of biblical criti-
cism ; and it follows therefore that what mio^ht

X Preface.

be said or written ten years ago, on any of
these subjects, will need to be reconsidered,
and, in fact, re-written, at the present time.
So it has been that, in preparing this volume
for the press — with the notes of the lectures
before me — a few passages only have seemed
to me entirely available for my purpose. I
have indeed adopted the title of the lectures
as the title of the volume ; and as much per-
haps as the quantity of three of the following
chapters has been transferred from those notes
to these pages. This explanation is due from
me to any readers of the book who, by
chance, might have been among the hearers
of the lectures, either at Edinburgh, or at
Glasgow, in the November of 1852.

A momentous argument indeed it is that
has lately moved the religious mind in Eng-
land. So far as this controversy has had
the character of an agitation, it must, in the
course of things, soon cease to engage popular
regard : — agitations subside, and the public
mind — too quickly perhaps — returns to its
point of equipoise, where it rests until it is
moved anew in some other manner. It would
however be an error to suppose that the agi-
tation will not have brought about some per-

Preface. xi

manent changes in religious thought ; and
moreover, if a supposition of this kind would
be an error, something worse than simply an
error would be implied if any should indulge
a wish that things might be allowed to col-
lapse into their anterior position, unchanged
and unbenefited, by the recent controversy.
A wish of this sort would indicate at once
extreme ignorance as to the cause and the
nature of the argument, and moreover a cul-
pable indifference in relation to the progress
and the re-establishment of Christian belief.

Animated, or — it may be — passionate, reli-
gious controversies are hurricanes in the world
of thought, ordained of God for effecting pur-
poses which would not be effected otherwise
than by the violence of storms ; and let this
figure serve us a step further. — The same
hurricane which clears the atmosphere, and
which sweeps away noxious accumulations
from the surface of the earth, serves a not
less important purpose in bringing into view
the fissures, the settlements, the forgotten
rents in the structures we inhabit. It is
Heaven's own work tluis to purify tlie at-
mosphere ; but it is man's work to look anew
to his own house — after a storm, and to repair

xii Preface.

its dilapidations. To rejoice gratefully in a
health-giving atmosphere, and a clear sky, is
what is due to piety ; but it is also due to
piety to effect, in time, needed repairs at
home.

As to the recent out-speak of unbelief, it is of
that kind which must, in the nature of things,
be recurrent, at intervals, longer or shorter.
The very conditions of a Revelation that has
been consigned to various records in the course
of thirty centuries involve a liability to the re-
newal of exceptive argumentation, which easily
finds points of lodgment upon so large a sur-
face. But this periodic atheistic epilepsy
(unbelief within the pale of Christianity never
fails to become atheistic) will not occasion
alarm to those who indeed know on what
ground they stand on the side of religious
belief This ground has not, and will not,
be shaken.

Looking inwards upon our Christianity —
looking Churchward — there may indeed be
reason for uneasiness. This recent agitation
could not fail to bring into view, in the sight
of all men — the religious, and the irreligious —
alike, a defect, a want of understanding, a
flaw, or a fault, in that mass of opinion con-

Preface. xiil

cerning the Scriptures, as inspired books,
which we have inherited from our remote
ancestors. No one, at this time, well knows
what it is which he believes, as to this great
question; or what it is which he oug-ht to
believe concerning those conditions— literary
and historical — subject to which the Revela-
tion we accept as from God, and which is
attested as such, by miracles, and by the
Divine prae-notation of events, has been em-
bodied in the books of the Canon.

There are indeed many who, not only will
reject any such intimation of obscurity or
doubtfulness on this ground, but who will
show a hasty resentment of what they will
denounce as an insidious assaidt upon the
faith. The feehngs, or say — the prejudices,
of persons of this class ought to be respected,
and their inconsiderateness should be kindly
allowed for ; their fears and their jealousies
are — for the truth ; nor should we impute to
good men any but the best motives, even when
their want of temper appears to be commen-
surate with their want of intellio:ence. But
after showing all forbearance toward such
worthy persons, there is a higher duty which
must not be evaded : — there is a duty to our-

xiv Preface.

selves, and there is a duty to our immediate
successors, and there is a duty to the mass
of imperfectly informed Christian persons,
who, in due time, will be seen insensibly to
accept, as good and safe, modes of thinking
and speaking which, at one time, would have
seemed to them quite inadmissible and dan-
gerous.

The remaining defect or flaw in our scheme
of belief concerning the conveyance of a Su-
pernatural Revelation makes itself felt the
most obtrusively in relation to the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures. It is here, and it is on this
extensive field, that minds, negatively consti-
tuted, and perhaps richly accomplished, but
wanting in the grasp and power of a healthful
moral consciousness, and wholly wanting in
spiritual consciousness, find their occasion.
The surface over which a sophisticated reason
and a fastidious taste take their course is here
very large ; for the events of a people's history,
and the multifarious literature of many cen-
turies, come to find a place within its area.
The very same extent of surface from which
a better reason, and a more healthful moral
feeling gather an irresistible conviction of the
nearness of God throughout it, furnishes, to

Preface. xv

an astute and frigid critical faculty, a thousand
and one instances over which to proclaim a
petty triumph.

So must it ever be." There is here a con-
trariety which is inherent in the nature of the
case ; and which the diverse temperaments
of minds will never cease to bring into col-
lision with religious faith. What is it then
which might be wished for to preclude the
ill consequences that accrue from these pe-
riodic collisions? Do we need some new
theory of inspiration? Or ought there to
take place a stepping back, along the whole
line of religious belief? Or do we need to
make a surrender of certain articles of faith ?
Or should we shelter ourselves under evasions?
Or would it be well to quash inquiry by au-
thority, or to make a show of terrors for in-
timidating assailants ? None of these things
are needed ; nor, if resorted to, could they be
of any permanent service.

The requirement is this, as I humbly think
— That, on all hands, we should be willing to
throw aside, as unauthentic and unwarranted,
a natural prejudice ; or, let it rather be called
— a spontaneous product of religious feeling,
which leads us to frame conditions, and to

xvi Preface,

insist upon requirements, that ought, as we
imao^ine, to limit the Divine wisdom in em-
bodying the Divine will in a written Reve-
lation. Instead of insisting upon any such
conditions, ought we not rather, in all humi-
lity, to acknowledge that, in the Divine
methods of proceeding toward mankind —
natural, providential, and supernatural — we
have everything to learn, and nothing to

premise ?

Stanford Rivers,

September, 1861.

THE SPIRIT OF THE HEBREW
POETRY.

Chapter I.

THE RELATION OF THE HEBREW POETRY TO THE
RELIGIOUS PURPOSES IT SUBSERVES.

WHEN" the Scriptures of the Old Testament
are accepted, collectively, as an embodiment
of First Truths in Theology and Morals, three
suppositions concerning them are before us ; one of
which, or a part of each, we may believe ourselves
at liberty to adopt. The three suppositions are
these : —

1. We may grant that these writings— symbolic
as they are in their phraseology and style, and, to
a great extent, metrical in their structure, as well as
poetical in tone — were well suited to the purposes
of religious instruction among a people, such as we
suppose the Israeli tish tribes to have been at the
time of their establishment in Palestine, and such as

6 they continued to be until some time after the return
of the remnant of the nation from Babylon.

2 The Spirit of the

2. More than this we may allow, namely, this —
that these same writings — the history and the poetry
taken together, are also well adapted to the uses
and ends of popular religious instruction in any
country and every age, where and when there are
classes of the community to be taught that are nearly
on a level, intellectually, with the ancient Hebrew
race : — that is to say, among those with whom phi-
losophic habits of thought have not been developed,
and whose religious notions and instincts are com-
paratively infantile.

3. But a higher ground than this may be taken,
and it is the ground that is assumed throughout the
ensuing chapters ; and it is in accordance with this
assumption that whatever may be advanced therein
must be interpreted. It is affirmed then, that, not
less in relation to the most highly-cultured minds
than to the most rude — not less to minds disciplined
in abstract thought, than to such as are unused to
generalization of any kind — the Hebrew Scriptures,
in their metaphoric style, and their poetic diction,
are the fittest medium for conveying, what it is their
purpose to convey, concerning the Divine Nature,
and concerning the spiritual life, and concerning
the correspondence of man — the finite, with God —
the Infinite.

It is on this hypothesis concerning the Hebrew
Scriptures, and not otherwise, that the books of the
New Testament take position as consecutive to the
books of the Old Testament — the one being the

Hebrew Poetry. 3

complement of the other ; and the two constituting a
homogeneous system. The Prophets (and they were
Poets) of the elder Revelation, having fulfilled a
function which demanded the symbolic style, and
which could submit to no other conditions than those
of this figurative utterance, the Evangelists and
Apostles, whose style is wholly of another order, do
not lay anew a foundation that was already well
laid ; but they build upon it whatever was peculiar
to that later Revelation of which they were the
instruments. In the Hebrew writings — poetic in
form, as to a great extent they are — we are to find,
not a crude theology, adapted to the gross concep-
tions of a rude people ; but an ultimate theology —
wanting that only which the fulness of time was to
add to it, and so rendering the Two Collections —
a One Revelation, adapted to the use of all men, in
all times, and under all conditions of intellectual
advancement.

If on subjects of the deepest concernment, and in
relation to which the human mind labours with its
own conceptions, and yearns to know whatever may
be known — Christ and His ministers are brief and
allusive, they are so, not as if in rebuke of these
desires ; but because the limits of a divine convey-
ance of the things of the spiritual world had already
been reached by the choir of the prophets. All
that could be taught had been taught " to them of
old ;" and this sum of the philosophy of heaven had
been communicated in those diverse modes and

4 2%e Spirit of the

styles which had exhausted the resources of human
utterance to convey so much as is conveyed.

To give reality to what had been foreshown in
shadows ; to accomplish what had been predicted ; to
expound, in a higher sense, whatever is universal
and eternal in morals ; to authenticate anew what
might have been called in question — these functions
were proper to the ministers of the later Dispensa-
tion ; and the books of the New Testament are the
record of this work of completion, in its several
kinds. Yet this is the characteristic of the Chris-
tian writings, that they abstain from the endeavour
to throw into an abstract or philosophic form those
first truths of theology to which the prophets of the
Old Testament had given expression in symbolic
terms and in the figures of the Hebrew poetry. The
parables of Christ — symbolic as they are, but not
poetic — touch those things of the new " kingdom of
Heaven " which belong to the human development
of it ; or to the administration of the Gospel on earth ;
or within the consciousness of men singly.

Those who choose to do so may employ their time
in inquiring in what other 7nodes than those which
are characteristic of the Hebrew Scriptures the
highest truths in theology might be embodied, and
whether these principles may not be, or might not
have been, subjected to the conditions of abstract
generalization, and so brought into order within the
limits of a logical and scientific arrangement. Let
these philosophic diversions be pursued, at leisure,

Hebrew Poetry. 5

until they reach a result which might be reported
of and accepted. Meantime it is enough for us to
know that no such result has hitherto ever rewarded
the labours, either of oriental sages in the remotest
periods, or of Grecian philosophers, or of the Alex-
andrian teachers, or of mediaeval doctors, or of the
great thinkers of the sixteenth century, or of those
of the times in which we live. Metaphysic Theo-
logies, except so far as they take up the very terms
and figures of the Hebrew Scriptures, have hitherto
shown a properly religious aspect in proportion as
they have been unintelligible : — when intelligible
they become — if not atheistic, yet tending in that
direction. When this is affirmed the inference is
not — that a True Theology might not be embodied
in abstract terms, in an upper world ; but this, that
the terms and the modes of human reason are, and
must ever be, insufficient for purposes of this kind.
This failure, or this succession of failures, may
indeed affect the credit of Philosophy ; but in no
degree does it throw disadvantage upon the religious
well-being of those who are content to take their
instruction and their training from the Holy Scrip-
tures. These writings, age after age, have in fact
met, and they have satisfied the requirements of
piety and of virtue in the instance of millions of the
humble and devout readers of the Bible ; and it has
been so as well among the most highly-cultured as
among the unlearned ; and they have imparted to
such whatever it is needful and possible for man to

6 Tke Spirit of the

know concerning God, the Creator, the Ptuler, the
Father, and concerning that life divine, the end of
which is — the life eternal.

The most obvious difference between the terms
and style of Speculative or Metaphysic Theology,
and the Theology of the Scriptures — of the Old
Testament especially — is this, that while the lan-
guage of the one is reduced to a condition as remote
as possible from the figurative mode of conveying
thought, the language of the other is, in everi/ in-
stance, purely figurative ; and that it abstains abso-
lutely, and always, from the abstract or philosophic
usage of the words it employs. Yet this obvious
difference between the two is not the only dissimi-
larity ; nor perhaps is it that which is of the
highest importance to be kept in view, for these two
modes of theologic teaching have different inten-
tions ; or, as we might say, the centre toward which
the various materials of each system tends is proper
to each, and is exclusive of the other.

Scientific Theology professes to regard the
Divine Nature and attributes as its centre ; and
from that centre (supposed to be known) inferences
in all directions are logically derived. But the very
contrary of this is true of Biblical Theology ; for
the central area of Biblical Theism is — the human
spirit, in its actual condition, its original powers, its
necessary limitations, its ever-varying conscious-
ness, its lapses, its sorrows, its perils, its hopes, and
its fears: — its misjudgments, its faiths, its unbelief:

Hebrew Poetry. 1

— its brightness, its darkness : — whatever is life-like
in man, and whatever portends death. Although
the two systems possess in common whatever is true
concerning God, everything within each wears an
aspect widely unlike the aspect which it presents in
the other.

The instinctive tendency of the human mind (or of
a certain class of minds) to generalize, and to pursue,
to their end, the most abstract forms of thought, is
not in itself blameworthy, nor must it be charged
with the ill-consequences and the failures which
often are its fruit. Where there is no generalization
there will be no progress : where there is no endea-
vour to pass on from the concrete to the abstract,
men individually, and nations, continue stationary in
a rude civilization : — there may be mind ; but it
sleeps ; or it is impotently active : — it is busy, but
it does not travel forward. Yet it is only within
the range of earth, or of things that are indeed
cognizable by the human mind, that this power of
abstraction — the highest and the noblest of its
powers — can be productive of what must always be
its aim and purpose, namely, an absolute philosophy ;
or a philosophy which shall be coherent in itself,
and shall be exempt from internal contradictions.

It is on this ground, then, that the Hebrew
writers, in their capacity as teachers of Theology,
occupy a position where they are broadly distin-
guished from all other teachers with whom they
might properly be compared, whether ancient or

i^

^ 8 The Spirit of the

modern, oriental or western. Philosophers, or foun-
ders of theologies, aiming and intending to pro-
mulgate a Divine Theory — a scheme of theism —
have spoken of God as the object, or as the creation
of human thought. But the Hebrew writers, one
and all, and with marvellous unanimity, speak of
God relatively only ; or as He is related to the
immediate religious purposes of this teaching. Or
if for a moment they utter what might have the
aspect of an abstract proposition, they bring it into
contact, at the nearest possible point, with the spi-
ritual wants of men, or with their actual moral con-
dition ; as thus — " Great is the Lord, and of great
power, and His understanding is infinite. He telleth
the number of the stars : He calleth them all by
their names ;" but this Infinite and Almighty Being
is He that " healeth the broken in heart, and
bindeth up their wounds." It is the human spirit
always that is the central, or cohesive principle of
the Hebrew Theology. The theistic affirmations
that are scattered throughout the books of the Old
Testament are not susceptible of a synthetic adjust-
ment by any rule of logical distribution ; and
although they are never contradictory one of another,
they may seem to be so, inasmuch as the principle
which would show their accordance stands remote
from human apprehension : — it must be so ; and to
suppose otherwise would be to affirm that the finite
mind may grasp the Infinite. The several elements
of this Theism are complementary one of another.

Hebrew Poetry. 9

only in relation to the needs, and to the discipline
of the human mind ; — not so in relation to its modes
of speculative thought, or to its own reason. Texts
packed in order will not build up a Theology, in a
scientific sense: — what they will do is this — they
meet the variable necessities of the spiritual life, in
every mood, and in every possible occasion of that
life. Texts, metaphoric always in their terms, take
effect upon the religious life as counteractive one of
another ; or as remedial appliances, which, when
rightly employed, preserve and restore the spiritual
health.

If we were to bring together the entire compass
of the figurative theology of the Scriptures (and
this must be the theology of the Old Testament) it
would be easy to arrange the whole in perifery
around the human spirit, as related to its manifold
experiences; but a hopeless task it would be to
attempt to arrange the same passages as if in circle
around the hypothetic attributes of the Absolute
Being. The human reason faulters at every step
in attempting so to interpret the Divine Nature ; yet
the quickened soul interprets for itself— and it does
so anew every day, those signal passages upon which
the fears, the hopes, the griefs, the consolations of
years gone by have set their mark.

The religious and spiritual life has its postulates,
which might be specified in order ; and under each
head they are broadly distinguishable from what,
on the same ground, might be named as the postu-

10 The Spirit of the

lates of Speculative Thought. Indispensable, for
instance, to the healthful energy of the religious
life is an unsophisticated confidence in what is
termed the omnipresence and omniscience of God,
the Father of spirits ; but on this ground, where
the Hebrew writers are clear, peremptory, unfalter-
ing, and unconscious of perplexity. Speculative
Thought stumbles at its first attempts to advance ;
and as to that faculty by aid of which we realize, in
some degree, an abstract principle, and bring it
within range of the imagination, it is here utterly
baffled. The belief in this doctrine is simple ; — we
may say it is natural : — but as to an intellectual real-
ization of it, this is impossible ; and as to a philo-
sophic expression of such a belief in words, the most
acutely analytic minds have lost their way in utter
darkness ; or they have landed themselves in Pan-
theism ; or they have beguiled themselves and their
disciples with a compage of words without meaning.
The power of the human mind to admit simultane-
ously a consciousness of more than one object is so
limited, or it is so soon quite exhausted, that a doc-
trine which we grant to be incontestably certain,
refuses more perhaps than any other, to submit
itself to the conditions of human thought : — it is
never mastered. Aware, as every one who thinks
must be, of this insurmountable difficult}^, we ought
not to except against that mode of overleaping the
obstruction which the Hebrew writers offer to our
acceptance : — figurative in phrase, and categorical

Hebrew Poetry. 11

in style, they affirm that — "The eyes of the Lord
are in every place, beholding the evil and the good;"
or thus again — " Thou knowest my downsitting and
mine uprising ; Thou understandest my thought afar
ofF."

The longer we labour, in scientific modes, at the
elements of Theism the deeper shall we plunge in an
abyss ; and we shall learn, perhaps too late, the
wisdom of resting in a devout acknowledgment to this
efiect — " Such knowledge (of God) is too wonderful
for me: it is high, I cannot attain unto it." But the
Hebrew writers make short work of philosophic stum-
bling-blocks ; and they secure their religious inten-
tion, which is their sole intention, in that one mode
in which a belief which is indispensable to the reli-
gious life presents itself, on what might be called its
conceivable side. They affirm the truth in the
most absolute and unexceptive style, giving it all
the breadth it can have ; but in doing so, and in the
same breath, they affirm that which serves to lodge
it in the spiritual consciousness, as a caution, or as a
comfort ; they lodge the universal principle as near
as may be to the fears, and to the hopes, and to thei
devout yearnings of the individual man. If we dc
not relish this style and this method, we shouh
think ourselves bound to bring forward a better
style, and to propound a more approvable method.
At any rate, we should give a sample of some one
style or method other than this, and between which
and the Biblical manner we might make a choice.

12 The Spirit of the

No alternative that is at once intelligible and admis-
sible has ever yet been brought forward. God may
be known and His attributes may be discoursed of,
as related to the needs of the human spirit ; — but not
otherwise : — not a span beyond this limit has ever
been attained.

" Do not I fill heaven and earth ? saith the Lord.
Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall
not see him ? Am I a God nigh at hand, and not
a God afar ofi^?" We may read the 139th Psalm
throughout, and be convinced that what is incon-
ceivable as an abstraction, or as an axiom in spe-
culative theism, has, by the Hebrew writers, been
firmly lodged in the beliefs of men in the only mode
in which such a lodgment could be possible. This
element of the Infinite finds a coalescent surface — a
point of adhesion in the individual consciousness ; a
consciousness towards God which removes all other
beings from our view, and which leaves us, each for
himself, alone with his Creator and Judge.

In the place of interminable and abstruse defini-
tions— defining nothing, propounding doubts and
solving none — in the place of this laborious empti-
ness, the writer of the ode above referred to so affirms
the doctrine of the omniscience and the omnipre-
sence of God as at once to expand our belief of it to
the utmost, and to concentrate it also upon the ex-
periences of the spiritual life. God is everywhere
present — in the vastness of the upper heavens — in
the remotest recesses of Shcol (not Gehenna) every-

Hebrew Poetry. 13

where, to the utmost borders of the material uni-
verse ; but these affirmations of a universal truth
are advanced in apposition to a truth which is more
affecting, or which is of more intimate concernment
to the devout spirit : — this spirit, its faults, its ter-
rors, its aspirations ; and this animal frame, of which
it is the tenant, is in the hand of God, and is de-
pendent upon His bounty, and is cared for in what-
ever relates to its precarious welfare ; and thus is
so great a theme — the Divine omniscience — brought
home to its due culmination in an outburst of reli-
gious feeling : " How precious also are thy thoughts
unto me, O God ! how great is the sum of them !
If I should count them, they are more in number
than the sand : when I awake, I am still with Thee."
A problem absolutely insoluble, as an abstraction,
and which in fact is not susceptible of any verbal
enunciation in a scientific form, is that of the Divine
Eternity ; — or, as we are wont to say — using terms to
which perhaps an attenuated meaning may be at-
tached— the non-relationship of God to Time, and
His existence otherwise than through successive in-
stants. This is a belief which the human mind de-
mands as a necessary condition of religious thought,
and of which it finds the need at every step of the
way in systematic theism, which yet is equally in-
conceivable, and inexpressible. In the Mosaic Ode
(the 90th Psalm) the theistic axiom is so placed in
apposition with the brevity and the precarious tenure
of human life that the inconceivable belief becomes.

14 The Spirit of the

in a measure, conceivable, just by help of its coal-
escence with an element of every one's sense of the
brevity and frailty of life. So it is that the theology
and the human consciousness are made to consti-
tute a one article of belief in that spiritual economy
under which man, as mortal, is in training for im-
mortality ; — as thus — " Before the mountains were
brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth
and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting,
Thou art God." But now, in the immediate con-
text of an affirmation which approaches the abstract
style, there is found what serves to bring the higher
truth into a near-at-hand bearing upon the vivid
experiences of our mortal condition. " Thou turnest
man to destruction, and sayest. Return, ye children
of men ; for a thousand years in thy sight are but as
yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the
night." Then there is conjoined with this doctrine
a cautionary provision against the oriental error of
so musing upon vast theologic conceptions as that
the individual man forgets himself, and becomes
unconscious of his own spiritual condition. It is
not so with the writer of this Psalm : — " Thou hast
set our iniquities before Thee ; our secret sins in the
light of Thy countenance. ... So teach us to num-
ber our days that we may apply our hearts unto
wisdom."-

For making sure of this amalgamation of theologic
elements with those emotions and sentiments that
constitute the religious life there is found, in several

Hebrew Poetry. 15

of the Psalms, a formal alternation of the two classes
of utterances. An instance of this interchange oc-
curs in the 147th Psalm, just above referred to ; for
in this Psalm, with its strophe and its antistrophe,
there is first a challenge to the worship of God, as
a delightful employment — then an evoking of reli-
gious national sentiment — then a message of comfort
and hope, addressed to the destitute, the oppressed,
the sorrowful ; and last, there is the interwoven
theologic element in affirmation of the Providence,
Power, and bounty of God ; for it is said of Him
who " healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up
their wounds," that " He telleth the number of the
stars, and calleth them all by their names ; for
great is our Lord, and of great power : — His under-
standing is infinite."

So it is throughout the devotional and poetic por-
tions of the Hebrew Scriptures, that the theologic
and the emotional elements are counterpoised — not
as if the two diverse elements might be logically
compacted into a scheme of theism ; nor as if they
were contradictory, the one of the other ; but they
are so placed as to be counteractive^the one of the
other, in their influenceTrp^JtrlHe human spirit. Lest
the devout affections should pass off into a feeble
sentimentalism (as it is their tendency to do) there
is conjoined with the expression of pious emotion
some reference to those attributes of the Divine
Nature which inspire awe and fear ; and again, lest
the meditation of infinite power and purity should

16 The Spirit of the

lead the way (as it has so often done) into panthe-
istic mysticism, the worshipper is quickly reminded
of his individual frailty — his dependence and his
unworthiness. A structure, simple in its principle,
and in its intention, may be traced throughout these
Scriptures as a method that is always adhered to,
whatever those diversities of style may be which
attach to the writer — whether it be Moses, or David,
or one of the later prophets.

The reading and hearing of the Old Testament
from the earliest childhood — at home and in church
— in these Bible-reading lands, has brought us to
imagine that the belief of the Personality of God — •
God, the Creator, the Father of Spirits — is a belief
which all men, unless argued out of it by sophistry,
would accept spontaneously. These early and con-
tinuous lessons in Bible learning have imbued our
minds with the conception of the Infinite Being —
the Creator of all things, who, in making man in His
own likeness, has opened for us a ground of inter-
course— warranting, on our part, the assurance that
He with whom we have to do is conscious as we are
conscious, and that — so far as the finite may re-
semble the Infinite, He is, as we are — is one with us,
is communionable, and is open to a correspondence
which is properly likened to that of a father with
his children.

But now, whether we look abroad in antiquity —
Asiatic and European — or look to the now prevalent
beliefs of eastern races, or look near at hand to recent

Hebrew Poetry. 17

schemes of nietaphysic theism, we must admit it to
be true, in fact, that whatever the unsophisticated
instincts of the human mind (if such could any-
where be found) might prompt men to accept and
profess, their actual dispositions — perverted as these
are — impel them to put, in the place of this belief,
either a sensuous and debasing polytheism, or a
vapid pantheism. So it has been in all time past,
and so at the moment now passing : — so it has been
among brutalized troglodytes ; — and so is it among
" the most advanced thinkers" of modern literature.

Always, and now, it is true that the Hebrew
writers stand possessed of an unrivalled preroga-
tive as the Teachers — not merely of monotheism,
but of the spirit-stirring belief of God — as near to
man by the nearness or homogeneousness of the
moral consciousness. Near to us is He, not only
because in Him " we live and move and have our
being," but because He — infinite in power and in-
telligence— is in so true a sense one with us that the
unabated terms of human emotion are a proper and
genuine medium of intercourse between Him and
ourselves.

To remove this Bible belief to as great a distance
as possible from daily life and feeling, has been the
intention of all superstitions, whether gay or ter-
rific ; and it has been the aim also of abstract spe-
culation, and, not less so, of Art and of Poetry, with
their manifold fascinations ; and therefore it is that
the Hebrew Scriptures are so specially distasteful

c

18 The Spirit of the

to those whose convictions they have not secured,
and whose faith they do not command. It is the

1 clearness — it is the fulness — it is the unfaltering deci-
siveness of the Hebrew writers, from the earliest of
them to the latest, on this ground, that constitutes
the broad characteristic of the Old Testament Scrip-
tures, when brought into comparison with any other
literature — ancient or modern. We may reject the
anthropomorphic symbolism of these writings, as
repugnant to our abstract notions of the Divine
Nature ; but this we must grant to be their dis-
tinction— namely, a uniform consistency in the use
they make of the vocabulary of human sentiment,
passion, emotion, so as to bring the conception of
the Personal God into the nearest possible alliance
with the human consciousness, on that side of it
where a return to virtue, if ever it is brought about,
must take place. God is near to man — and one
with hirafor his recovery to wisdom and goodness.
The instances are trite ; — and they will occur to the
recollection of every Bible reader ; yet let one or
two be here adduced.

The Hebrew prophet, and poet, meets and satisfies
the first requirement of the awakened human spi-
rit, which is an assured communion with God on
terms of hopefulness and amity, as well as of the
profoundest awe, and of unaffected humiliation.
And this assurance is so conveyed as shall inti-
mately blend the highest theistic conceptions with
the health-giving consciousness of unmerited favour.

Hebrew Poetry. 19

— " Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inha-
biteth eternity, whose name is Holy ; I dwell in the
high and holy place, with him also that is of a con-
trite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the
humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones :
for I will not contend for ever, neither will I be
always wTath ; for the spirit should fail before me,
and the souls which I have made."

The same conditions are observed — and they
should be noted — in this parallel passage — " Thus
saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the
earth is my footstool. Where is the house that ye
build me ? and where is the place of my rest ? For
all these things hath my hand made ; and all these
things have been, saith the Lord : but to this man
will I look, even to him that is poor and of a con-
trite spirit, and that trembleth at my word."

These familiar passages are illustrations, and
they are demonstrations, of that mode of teaching
" the things of God " which distinguishes the He-
brew Scriptures from all other writings — professedly
religious — ancient or modern (those of course ex-
cepted which follow this same guidance). The terms
are symbolic, or figurative purely ; and the Divine
attributes are not otherwise affirmed than in their
bearing upon the spiritual welfare of that one class
of minds that needs, and that will rightly avail itself
of, this kind of teaching. To minds of the metaphysic
class there is no conveyance of theistic axioms : — to
minds of the captious temperament there is none : —

20 The Spirit of the

to the sensual and sordid, or the contumacious and
impious, there is none. These passages are as a
stream of the effulgence of the upper heavens, sent
down through an aperture in a dense cloud, to rest
with a life-giving power of light and heat upon the
dwelling of the humble worshipper. Whether this
humble worshipper be one who turns the soil for
his daily bread, or be the occupant of a professor's
chair, it shall be the same theology that he hence
derives : the former will not think to ask — and the
latter will be better trained than to ask — how it is
that the Omnipresent can be said, either to be seated
on a throne in an upper heaven, or to make earth
His footstool : — neither the one nor the other will
take offence at the solecism of " inhabiting eternity."
A solecism if it be ; — nevertheless it is probable that
no compact of words coming within the range of
language has better conveyed than this does the
inconceivable idea of the Divine Existence — irre-
spective of Time.

Biblical utterances of the first truths in Theology
possess the grandeur of the loftiest poetry, as well
as a rhythmical or artificial structure ; and they hold
off from entanglement with metaphysic perplexities
— was it because the writers were men of a nation
incapable of abstract thought ? If this were granted,
then, on merely natural principles, we ought to find
them sometimes forgetful of their purpose as reli-
gious teachers, while they wander forth, in oriental
style, upon grounds of gorgeous imagination. Never

Hebrew Poetry. 21

do they do this. Poets as they were in soul, and in
phrase too, they are strictly mindful of their function
as teachers of spiritual and ethical principles. David
says — as our version has it — " The Lord is in His
holy temple : the Lord's throne is in heaven : His eyes
behold, His eyelids try the children of men." Four
affirmations meet us within the compass of these few
words, and each of them has a specific meaning —
inviting the religious teacher to open it out, and
bring it to bear with effect upon the religious life ;
and in the third and the fourth of these clauses a
meaning of peculiar significance is conveyed, which,
instead of a vague averment of the Divine omnisci-
ence, turns this doctrine in upon the conscience
with a burning intensity. No phrases could more
vividly than do these, give force to the conception
of this critical observation of the characters and
conduct of men — singly; for in relation to a process
of moral discipline, He who is the Father of spirits
" beholds the children of men, and His eyelids try
them." It is true of the Creator, that He " knoweth
all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts
of the forest, and that the cattle upon a thousand
hills are His ;" but it is a truth of another order
that is affirmed — it is a truth penetrative of the con-
science— it is a truth, not metaphysic or poetic, but
sternly ethical, that is here presented in metaphor.
A keen scrutiny of the concealed motives and of the
undeveloped tendencies of the heart on the part of
One who is firmly-purposed, and who is severely exact

22 Til e Spirit of the

in his observation of conduct is conveyed in these
expressions : — the dropping of the eyelid for the
purpose of reflective scrutiny indicates a determina-
tion to look through disguises, and rightfully to
interpret whatever may wear a semblance of false-
ness. This is a truth to be thought of by those who
accustom themselves to repeat the prayer, " Search
me and try me, and see what evil way there is in
me :" it is a truth for those who submit themselves
wdllingly to the severest conditions of the spiritual
discipline. As for men of another class, who desire
no such schooling, it is said of them that — " The
Lord knoweth them afar off" — what they are it
needs no careful observation to discern.

Parallel instances are abundant in the Psalms,
and throughout the prophetic books ; but this is
not all that should be said, for instances of a con-
trary kind nowhere occur. The Hebrew writers,
in long series, not only teach the same theology ;
but they teach it always, and only so, in metaphoric
terms ; and more than this — it is always under the
condition of connecting their affirmations of the
Divine attributes with the purposes and the needs
of the spiritual training of the individual soul.

There is before us then a method — invariably
adhered to ; — there is a rule that is never violated ;
but it is a method and a rule of which we become
cognizant only when we look back from the latest to
the earliest of a long series of writers, each of whom
has his own manner, his individual characteristic

Hebrew Poetry. 23

style. Not one in the series gives evidence of his
personal consciousness of the law which, neverthe-
less, he is silently obeying ; and it is a law which is far
from obvious in itself, and it is by no means such as
would spontaneously offer itself, even to minds of
the highest order ; much less to the fervent and the
inartificial. We — of this late age — trained as we
are in, and familiar with, the habitudes and the
phrases of abstract thought, easily recognize the
principle which gives continuity to the writings of
the Old Testament ; and we are able to put an
abstraction of this kind into words. But it is cer-
tain that no such enunciation of an occult law
would have been intelligible to the writers them-
selves, who nevertheless, each in his turn, implicitly
and always conforms himself to it. Here indeed —
as throughout the material world — there is Design
— there is an intention which gives coherence to a
complicity of parts; but it is — as in the material
world, so here — an intention which was unperceived
and unthouo'ht of, while it was in course of execution.

24 The Spirit of the

Chapter II.

COMMIXTURE OF THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN ELE-
MENTS IN THE HEBREW POETIC SCRIPTURES.

THE mere use of any such phrase as this — The
Hebrew Poetry, or the speaking of the Pro-
phets as Poets — is likely to give alarm to Bible
readers of a certain class, who will think that, in
bringing the inspired writers under any such treat-
ment as that which these phrases seem to imply, we
are forgetting their higher claims, and thus disparage
them as the Bearers of a message immediately from
God to men.

Alarms of this kind arise, either from a misappre-
hension of the facts before us ; or from absolute
ignorance of those facts ; or, it may be, from some
inveterate confusion, attaching to our modes of
thinking on religious subjects. The remedy must
be found in the removal of this ignorance — in the
clearing up of these confusions, and especially — and
most of all — in the attainment of a thorough and
deep-felt confidence in the Divine origination and
authority of the Canonical writings. Those reh-
gious alarms or jealousies which impede the free

Hebrew Poetry. 25

course of thought on this ground — if they do not
spring from stolid and incurable prejudices, are yet
the indication of a shaken and variable belief in
the Bible, as the medium of a supernatural Reve-
lation.

It will be in no dread of the imputation of unbe-
lief that we enter upon the field now in view. A
tremulous tread on this ground would be sure sign,
either of incertitude as to first principles, or of a
treasonable cowardice ; and probably of both : we
here disclaim the one as well as the other of these
sinister restraints. If indeed there be dangers on
our pathway, let them be manfully encountered, and
they will disappear, as do always the phantoms of
superstition when boldly looked at. The risks to faith
that haunt this subject are factitious, and have had
their origin in an ill-judged modern eagerness to
conform our doctrine of Inspiration to the arbitrary
conditions of a logical or pseudo-scientific system.
No such attempt can ever be successful; but the
restless and often-renewed endeavour to effect a
purpose of this kind breeds perplexities — it feeds a
bootless controversy, and it furnishes disbelief with
its only effective weapons.

If unwarranted and unwarrantable modern
schemes, as to the nature and the extent of Inspira-
tion, are put out of view, and if interminable argu-
mentation be cut short, then the Bible will return
to its place of power and of benign authority, yield-
ing to us daily its inestimable treasures of instruc-

26 The Spirit of the

tion, admonition, and comfort; but so long as we
adhere to a theory of Inspiration, whether it be of
better quality or of worse, we shall be open to dis-
turbance from the inroads of textual and historical
criticism, and shall be haunted by the grim suspi-
cion that the Scriptures are confusedly constituted
of heterogeneous elements — some of which are purely
divine, while some are merely human : or we shall
accept the comfortless hypothesis that the divine
substance in Holy Scripture has become flawed or
intergrained with the grit and debris of human
inadvertence, accident, ignorance, or evil intention ;
and that thus the Bible is a conglomerate of mate-
rials, precious and worthless. Under the influence
of suppositions of this kind, and in proportion to our
personal candour and intelligence, we shall be ask-
ing aid from any w^ho can yield it, to inform us, at
every section, and verse, and line, what it is that
we may accept as " from above," and what it is
that should be rejected as " from men." A Bible-
reading method less cumbrous than this, and less
comfortless too, and less embarrassing, is surely
attainable.

When we accept a mass of writings as a gift from
God, in a sense peculiar to themselves, and which is
their distinction, as compared with all other human
compositions, we do so on grounds which we think
to be sufficient and conclusive. Already therefore
we have given in our submission to the Book, or to
the collection of books, which we are willing to re-

Hebrew Poetry. 27

gard as rightfully determinative of our religious be-
lief, and as regulative of our conduct and temper.
If it be so, then no other, or middle course can, con-
sistently with undoubted facts, be taken than this ;
we must bring ourselves to think of these writings
as, in one sense, wliolly human ; and read them as if
they Avere nothing more than human ; and, in ano-
ther sense, as wholly divine ; and must read them
as if they were in no sense less than divine.

Endless confusions, interminable questionings,
come from the mitigative supposition — That, in any
given portion, page, or paragraph, certain expres-
sions, or separate clauses, or single words — here five
words, and there seven words, are of human origin-
ation ; while other five words, or seven, or other
clauses or sentences or paragraphs, are from heaven ;
and that thus a perpetual caution or marginal indi-
cation is needed, by aid of which we may, from line
to line, discriminate the one species of writing from
the other — sifting the particles of gold from out of
the sand and clay in the midst of which we find them.
It is manifest that the better instructed a Bible
reader may be, and the more intelligent and con-
scientious he is, so much the deeper, and so much
the more frequent will be his perplexities, and so
much the less comfort and edification will he draw
from his Bible daily : it will be so if a notion of this
kind has lodged itself within him.

That in Holy Scripture which is from above is
an element over and beyond, and beside, the me-

28 The. Spirit of the

dium of its conveyance to us, although never sepa-
rated therefrom. That which we find, and which
" finds us " also, is not the parchment and the ink,
nor is it the writing, nor is it the Hebrew vocables
and phrases, nor is it the grammatical modes of an an-
cient language ; nor is it this or that style of writing,
prosaic or poetic, or abstract or symbolical ; for as
to any of these incidents or modes of conveyance,
they might be exchanged for some other mode, with-
out detriment to the divine element — the ulterior
intention, which is so conveyed. We all readily
accept any, or several of these substitutions — and
we moderns necessarily do so — whenever we take
into our hands what we have reason to think is a
trustworthy translation. It is not even the most
accomplished Hebraist of modern times (whoever
he may be) that is exempted from the necessity of
taking, from out of his Hebrew Bible, a meaning —
as to single words, and as to combinations of words
— which is only a substitute for the primitive mean-
ing intended to be conveyed by the Hebrew writer
to the men of his times. Thought, embodied in
words, or in other arbitrary signs, and addressed
by one human mind to another human mind, or by
the Divine mind to the human mind, is subjected to
conditions which belong to, or which spring from,
the limitations of the recipient mind. The ques-
tion is not of this sort, namely, whether Thought
or Feeling might not be conveyed from mind to
mind with unconditioned purity, in some occult

Hebrew Poetry. 29

mode of immediate spiritual communion. This may
well be supposed, and, as we are bound to believe it
possible, it may be accepted as a truth, and as a
truth that has a deep meaning in Religion.

But the position now assumed is this — that
Thought or Feeling, when embodied in language,
is, to its whole extent of meaning, necessarily con-
ditioned, as well by the established laws of language,
as by all those incidental influences which afffect its
value and import, in traversing the chasms of Time.
Statements of this kind are open to misapprehen-
sions from various sources, and will not fail to
awaken debate. So far as such misapprehensions
may be precluded, this will best be done in submit-
tinof actual instances to the reader's consideration.

Take, as an instance — one among many that are
equally pertinent to our purpose, — the Twenty-third
Psalm. 'This is an ode which for beauty of senti-
ment is not to be matched in the circuit of all lite-
rature. In its way down through three thousand
years, or more, this Psalm has penetrated to the
depths of millions of hearts — it has gladdened homes
of destitution and discomfort —it has whispered hope
and joy amid tears to the utterly solitary and for-
saken, whose only refuge was in Heaven. Beyond
all range of probable calculation have these dozen
lines imparted a power of endurance under suffer-
ing, and strength in feebleness, and have kept alive
the flickering flame of religious feeling in hearts
that were nigh to despair. The divine element

30 The Spirit of the

herein embodied has given proof, millions of times
repeated, of its reality, and of its efficacy, as 2i for-
mula of tranquil trust in God, and of a grateful
sense of His goodness, which all who do trust in
Him may use for themselves, and use it until it has
become assimilated to their own habitual feelings.
But this process of assimilation can take place only
on the ground of certain assumptions, such as these
— It is not enough that we read, and often repeat this
composition approvingly ; or that we regard it as
an utterance of proper religious sentiments : this is
quite true ; but this is not enough : this Psalm will
not be available for its intended purpose unless these
expressions of trust in the divine beneficence be
accepted as warrantable. May not this confident
belief in God as the gracious Shepherd of souls be a
vain presumption, never realized ?— May it not be an
illusion of self love ? Not so — for we have already
accepted the Psalms, of which this is one, as portions
of that authentic Holy Scripture which has been
given us from above. Thus it is, therefore, that
throughout all time past, and all time to come, this
Psalm has possessed, and will possess, a life-giving
virtue toward those who receive it, and whose own
path in life is such as life's path most often is.

Whoever has attained to, or has acquired this
thorough persuasion of the reality of Holy Scrip-
ture, as given of God, in a sense absolutely peculiar
to itself, will stand exempt — or he may so stand
exempt, from alarms and suspicions, as if criticism,

Hebrew Poetry. 31

whether textual or historical, might rob him of his
treasure, or might diminish its value to him. In its
relation to the religious life, and to the health of the
soul, this Psalm is wholly divine ; and so every par-
ticle of it is fraught with the life-giving energy ;
nor need religious persons — or more than one in ten
thousand of such persons — concern themselves in any
way with any questionings or considerations that
attach to it as a human composition.

But the Psalm now in view is also wholly human,
as it is also wholly divine in another sense — every
particle of it being of the same stamp as other human
compositions ; and therefore it may be spoken of,
and it may be treated, and analysed, and commented
upon, with intelligent freedom, even as we treat,
analyse, and expound, whatever else has come down
to us of ancient literature. Let it be remembered that
neither in relation to classic literature, nor to sacred
literature, does free criticism include any right or
power to alter the text, or to amend it at our pleasure.
The text of ancient writings, when once duly ascer-
tained, is as fixed and as unalterable as are the con-
stellations of the heavens : and so it is that the Canon
of Scripture, if it be compared with the inconstancy
and variableness of any other embodiment of reli-
gious belief or feeling, is a sure foundation — abiding
the same throughout all time to the world's end.

It is not only the material writing — and the He-
brew words and phrases of this Psalm, or of any
other Psalm — portions as they are of the colloquial

32 The Spirit of the

medium of an ancient people, that are liable to the
ordinary conditions of written language ; for further
than this it must be granted, that, as the metrical
structure of the Ode is highly artificial, those rules
of construction to which it conforms itself may be
said to over-ride the pure conveyance of the thought ;
— metre ruling words and syllables. It was by these
artificial adaptations to the ear and memory of the
people to whom, at the first, the composition was
confided, it was rendered available, in the best man-
ner, for the purposes of the religious life. Yet this
is not all that needs to be said in taking this view
of the instance before us. Every phrase and allu-
sion in this ode is metaphoric — nothing is literal ;
the Lord is — the Shepherd of souls ; — and there are
the green pastures — the still waters — the paths of
righteousness — the valley of the shadow of death —
the rod and the staff — the table prepared — the anoint-
ing oil — the overfull cup — and that House of the
Lord which is an everlasting abode. But figures and
symbols are incidents of the human mind — they are
adaptations to its limits — they are the best that can
be done, in regard to the things of the spiritual life.
Let us speak with reverence — Divine Thought is
not conditioned in any manner ; certainly not by
metaphor or symbol.

There is yet a step further that should be taken
in considering this Psalm as a human composition —
and it is so with other Psalms, still more decisively
than with this, for it gives expression to religious

Hebrew Poetry, 33

sentiments which belong to the earlier stage of a
progressive development of the spiritual life. The
bright idea of earthly well-being pervades the Old
Testament Scriptures ; and this worldly sunshine is
their distinction, as compared with the New Testa-
ment ; but then there are many cognate ideas which
properly come into their places, around the terres-
trial idea. If earthly weal — if an overrunning cup
— if security and continuance, belong to the centre-
thought, then, by necessity, the antithetic ideas — not
only of want and pain, but of whatever ill an enemy
may do, or may intend — must come in, to encircle,
or beleaguer the tabernacle of those whom God has
blessed. Thus, therefore, does the Psalmist here
give expression to feelings which were proper, in-
deed, to that time, but are less proper to this time :
" Thou preparest a table before me in the presence
of my enemies." A feeling is here indicated which
was of that age, and which was approvable then,
although it has been superseded since by sentiments
of a higher order, and which draw their reason from
the substitution of future for present good.

This separahleness of the Divine element from
the human element throughout the Inspired writ-
ings, the understanding of which is highly impor-
tant, will make itself perspicuous in giving attention
to two or three instances of different kinds.

Turn to the two astronomic Psalms — the eighth,
and the nineteenth (its exordium). Quite unmatched
are these Odes as human compositions : — the soul of

D

34 The Spirit of the

the loftiest poetry is in them. Figurative they are
in every phrase ; and they are so manifestly figura-
tive in what is affirmed concernino' the celestial
framework that they stand exempt, in the judgment
of reasonable criticism, on the one hand from the
childish literal renderings of superstition; and on
the other hand from the nugatory captiousness of
rationalism. A magnificent image is that of the
sun coming forth refreshed each morning anew
from his pavilion, and rejoicing as a strong man to
run a race ! Frivolous is the superstition which
supposes that an astronomic verity is couched in
these figures, and that thus the warranty of Inspira-
tion is pledged to what is untrue in nature. Equally
frivolous is the criticism which catches at this super-
stition, and on the ground of it labours to prove that
the Bible takes part with the Ptolemaic theory, and
rejects the modern astronomy ! Be it so that David's
own conception of the celestial system might be
of the former sort, and that he would have mar-
velled at the latter ; but, as an inspired writer, he
no more affirms the Ptolemaic astronomy, than he
affirms that the sun — a giant — comes forth from a
tent every morning.

Look to the Eighth Psalm, and estimate its the-
ologic value — its inspired import — by reading it as
a bold contradiction of errors all around it — the
dreams of Buddhism — the fables of Brahminism —
the Atheism of the Greek Philosophy, and the malign
Atheism of our modern metaphysics. Within the

Hebrew Poetry. 35

compass of these nine verses the celestial and the
terrestrial systems, and the human economy are not
only poetically set forth ; but they are truly reported
of, as the three stand related to Religious Belief, and
to Religious Feeling. Grant it, that when David the
Poet brings into conjunction " the moon and the
stars," he thought of them, as to their respective
bulks and importance, not according to the teaching
of Galileo ; and yet, notwithstanding this miscon-
ception, which itself has no bearing whatever upon
his function as an inspired writer, he so writes con-
cerning the Universe — material and immaterial, as
none but Hebrew prophets have ever written of
either. What are the facts? The astronomies of
Oriental sages and of Grecian philosophers are well-
nigh forgotten ; but David's astronomy lives, and it
will ever live ; for it is true to all eternity.

A sample of another kind is presented in the Fif-
tieth Psalm. This Ode, sublime in its imagery and
its scenic breadth of conception, is a canon of the
relationship of men, as the professed worshippers of
God, toward Him who spurns from His altar the
hypocrite and the profligate and the malignant, but
invites the sincere and the humble to His presence,
on terms of favour. This Psalm is sternly moral in
its tone : — it is anti-ritualistic — if rites are thought of
as substitutes for virtue ; and moreover, by the singu-
larity of its phrases in three instances, it makes its
way with anatomic keenness through the surface to
the conscience of those who are easily content with

36 The Spirit of the

themselves, so long as they keep clear of overt acts
of sin. The man who is here threatened with a ven-
geance from which there will be no escape (v. 22) is
not himself perchance the thief ; but he is one whose
moral consciousness is of the same order, and who
would do the same — opportunity favouring. He is
not himself perchance the adulterer ; but he is one
who, being impure in heart, is ready for guilt, and
pleases himself with the thought of it. Indebted for
his virtue entirely to external restraints, he thinks
himself free to give vent to censorious language, and
to shed the venom of his tongue upon those who are
nearest to him in blood. Here, then, there is not
merely a protest in behalf of virtue, but it is a deep-
going commixture of spiritual and ethical truth, with
a promise of grace for the condign ; it is a presen-
tation of justice and of favour: — it is a discrimination
of motives and characters also : — it is such that it vin-
dicates its own Divine origination in the court of
every human conscience. In this Psalm it is the
voice of God we hear ; for man has never spoken in
any such manner as this to his fellows.

Let it be asked, then, in what manner the Divine
and the human elements, i?i this one instance, sustain
each other throughout all time ? In tens of thousands
of copies we possess this literary monument ; and it is
an imperishable and an unalterable document : it is
liable to no decay or damage ; and it may yet endure
ages more than can be numbered : nothing on earth's
surface is more safe from destruction ; none can ever

Hebrew Poetry, 37

pretend to have authority to substitute one word for
another word ; or to erase a letter. Here, then, we
take our hold upon a rock. Human opinion, in
matters of religion, sways this way and that way,
from age to age ; but it is ever and anew brought
back to its point of fixedness in the unalterable text
of the Hebrew Scriptures. Upon this Fiftieth Psalm
Esra and the Rabbis of his school commented at
their best, in that age when Anaximander, Anaxa-
goras, Thales, and their disciples, were theorising to
little purpose concerning "the Infinite;" and were
in debate on the question whether it is matter or
mind that is "the eternal principle," and the cause
of all things : — a question unsettled as yet among our
"profoundest thinkers." Upon this Psalm, with its
bold, outspoken, and determinate morality, its gran-
deur and its power, the Rabbi of a later and sophis-
ticated time commented also, weaving around it the
fine silk of his casuistry, and labouring hard in his
work of screening the then-abused conscience of his
race from its force ; so " making void the Word of
God by his traditions." Upon this Psalm the
Christian theologues, in series, from the Apostolic
Fathers to Jerome and Augustine, in their comments
give evidence, each in his age, at once concerning
those secular variations of religious and ethical
thought which mark the lapse of time ; and of what
we must call the restraining power of the canon of
Scripture, which, from age to age, overrules these
variations — calling back each digressive mood of the

38 The Spirit of the

moment ; as if with a silent, yet irresistible gravita-
tion— a centripetal force.

" Thy word," says David, " is settled in Heaven ;'*
— it is fixed as the constellations in the firmament ;
and if we would justly estimate what this undecaying
force of the canon of Scripture imports, in relation
to the ever-shifting variations of human thought and
feeling, and in relation to the fluctuations of national
manners and notions, from one fifty years to ano-
ther, we should take in hand some portion of the
Old Testament Scriptures — say such a portion as is
this sublime Psalm — and trace its exegetical his-
tory through the long line of commentators — from
the Kabbis, onward to Origen, Tertullian, Basil,
Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, the Schoolmen, and
Bernard of Clairvaux ; then the pre-reformation
Romanists ; the Reformers, the Jesuits, the Jansen-
ists, the Puritans of England and Scotland, the Eng-
lish Methodists ; and so on till we reach these last
times of great religious animation, and of little reli-
gious depth — times of sedulous exactitude in scho-
larship, and of feeble consciousness as toward the
unseen future and the eternal ; — times in which
whatever is of boundless dimensions in Holy Scrip-
ture has passed beyond our range of vision, while
our spectacled eyes are intent upon iotas.*

But the Psalms of David, and of Moses, and of
others, shall live on, undamaged, to the times that

* See Note.

Hebrew Poetry, 39

are next ensuing ; and far beyond those times. Our
Bibles shall come into the hands of our sons, and of
our grandsons, who, reading Hebrew as correctly
as the most learned of their sires have read it, shall
do so in a season of religious depth, and of religious
conscientiousness, and who, in such a season, shall
look back with grief, and shame, and amazement,
when they see how nugatory were the difficulties
which are making so many among us to stumble,
and to fall. Human opinion has its fashion, and it
shifts its ground with each generation ; — a thirty or
forty years is the utmost date of any one clearly de-
finable mood or style of religious feeling and opinion:
each of such ephemeral fashions being a departure,
upon a radius, from the central authority — the Canon
of Scripture, accepted as from God.

But the imperishable fixedness of Holy Scripture
■ — first, in a purely literary sense, as an ascertained
ancient text, which none may now alter ; and next,
as the vehicle or depository of the Divine Will to-
ward mankind, does not imply or necessitate, either
a superstitious and blind regard to the letter of
Scripture, as if it were not human, or an enchain-
ment to the words, as if the Divine element therein
contained, and thereby conveyed, might not have
been otherwise worded, and diffused among the peo-
ple in other forms of language than in this one — to
which, as a fixed standard, all must in fact return.
Not only is the Divine, in Scripture, greater than
the human, but it has an intrinsic power and vitality

40 The Spirit of the

which renders it largely independent of its embodi-
ment in this or that form of language. There is no
version of the Psalms — ancient or modern (or none
which comes within the cognizance of a European
reader) — which does not competently convey the
theology and the ethical majesty, and the juridical
grandeur, of the one Psalm that has here been re-
ferred to. In no version, even the most faulty —
whichever that may be — does an awakened con-
science fail to catch the distant sound of that thun-
der which — in a day future — shall shake, not the
earth only, but heaven. In no such version does
the contrite spirit fail to hear in it that message
which carries peace to the humble in heart.

If indeed the Hebrew text had perished ages ago —
say at the time of the breaking up of the Jewish reli-
gious state — and if, consequently, we could now make
an appeal to nothing more authentic than to ancient
versions, believed to be, on the whole, trustworthy,
then the constant tendency toward deflection and
aberration, in human opinion, could have received
no effective check. In each age, the rise of schemes
of opinion — sometimes superstitious and fanatical,
sometimes philosophical and negative — would have
produced successive vitiations of those unauthentic
documents, until even these had lost their cohesive
principle, and would have ceased to be thought of.
This is not our position ; and therefore versions and
commentaries, some critical and exact, some popu-
lar and paraphrastic ; comments wise, and com-

Hebrew Poetry, 41

ments unwise, sceptical, or imbecile, may all take
their course — they may severally win favour for a
day, or may retain it for a century: — all are harm-
less as toward the Rock — the imperishable Hebrew

1 ext, which abides — aTto tov aiwvoc Kai fwg Tov aiMvoq

— and until the human family shall have finished
its term of discipline on earth.

42 The Spirit of the

Chapter III.

ARTIFICIAL STRUCTURE OF THE HEBREW POETRY, AS
RELATED TO ITS PURPOSES.

THE attempt to bring the Poetry of the Hebrew
Scriptures into metrical analogy with that of
Greece and Rome has not been successful. This
would demand a better knowledge of the quantity of
syllables when the language was spoken, and of the
number of syllables in words, and of its rhythm,
than is actually possessed by Modern Hebraists.
But that a people so pre-eminently musical by con-
stitution should have failed to perceive, or should
not have brought under rule, the rhythm of words
and sentences could not easily be believed ; yet to
what extent this was done by them, or on what prin-
ciples, it would now be hopeless to inquire.

There is, however, a metrical structure, artificial
and elaborate, which gives evidence of itself, even
in a translation : it does not affect the cadence, or
musical adjustment of words ; but it does affect the
choice of words and the structure of sentences. To
treat the Hebrew Poetry in any technical sense
does not come within the purpose of the present

Hebrew Poetry. 43

work, nor indeed the qualifications of the Author.
What we are concerned with is — the spirit, not the
body, the soul, not the form. Yet weighty inferences
are derivable from the fact that religious principles
were conveyed to the Hebrew people, and through
these have reached other nations, in a mode that
conforms itself to arbitrary rules of composition,
which determine the choice of words, the structure
of sentences, and the collocation of members of sen-
tences, and the framework of entire Odes. Even in
passages which breathe the soul of the loftiest and
the most impassioned poetry, a highly artificial ap-
position and balancing of terms and clauses prevails ;
— as if the Form were, in the estimation of the writer,
of so much importance that it should give law even
to the thought itself.

This subject stands full in our path, and demands
to be considered before we pass on : it is a subject
that touches, not merely the Hebrew Poetry, but
also the belief we should hold to concerning the
Divine origination of Holy Scripture.

The conveyance of thought through the medium
of language is a conditioned expression of a speaker's
or a writer's inmost meaning — more or less so. In
a strict sense the embodiment of thought at all,
in words and combinations of words, and in sen-
tences, is — a conditioned, as well as an imperfect
conveyance of it ; for words have only a more or
less determinate value, which may be accepted
by the hearer — especially when involved sentences

44 The Spirit of the

are uttered, in a sense varying from that of the
speaker by many shades of difference. Thought,
symbolised in words, is subjected, first, to those con-
ditions that attach to language from the universal
ambiguity, or the convertible import of language ;
and then to the indistinctness of the speaker's con-
ceptions, and of the hearer's also. Yet when a per-
fectly intelligible and familiar fact is affirmed in
words that are intended to be understood in their
literal, or primitive sense, we may loosely say that
such utterances are unco?iditioned ; as thus — Brutus
stabbed Csesar in the senate-house at Rome. Julius
Caesar, with his legions, landed in Britain. Wil-
liam of Normandy did the like with his Normans
centuries later.

It is otherwise in affirmations such as the follow-
ing— The main principles of political economy, as
taught by Adam Smith, rest upon a rock, and will
never be overthrown. The great principle of reli-
gious liberty, as embodied in Locke's First Letter on
Toleration, have hitherto, and will ever defy the
utmost efforts of intolerant hierarchies to shake
them. The aristocracy of England is the pil-
lar of the British monarchy : — the throne and the
aristocracy must stand or fall together. In affirma-
tions of this kind the Thought of the speaker or
writer — that is to say, his ultimate intention — is
conditioned by its conveyance in terms that are
wholly figurative, and which therefore must await,

Hebrew Poetry. 45

if it be only an instant, the result of a mental pro-
cess in the mind of the hearer, who — unconsciously
perhaps — renders them into their well-known pro-
saic values. Such as they are when they meet the ear,
they convey no meaning that is intelligible in relation
to the subject. Unconditioned thought may be still
further conditioned, if I employ, not va&ceXy figura-
tive terms, but such as are suggested at the moment
of speaking by vivid emotions, or by stormy pas-
sions ; as if, in addressing a political meeting from
a platform, I should affirm what I intend to say in
a declamatory style, as thus — " The deadly miasma
of republican doctrines, rising from the swamps of
popular ignorance, is even now encircling the Bri-
tish polity : — year by year is it insidiously advancing
toward the very centre of the State ; nor can the
time be distant when it shall have destroyed all life
within the sacred enclosures of our ancient institu-
tions." In this instance, not only are the w^ords
and phrases figurative, and are such therefore as
need to be rendered into their literal equivalents,
but they are such also as indicate an excited state
of feeling in the speaker, which a calm philosophic
mood will not approve ; and the exuberances of
which may well bear much retrenchment. Never-
theless, thus far, this conditioning of thought — as
well of the impassioned style, as of that which is
simply figurative — may properly be called natural ;
for it is natural to the human mind to utter itself

46 The Spirit of the

in figures ; and also to indulge in that fervid style
which is prompted by powerful emotions.

Beyond this stage, and quite of another sort, is
that conditioning of Thought which we must desig-
nate as technical, and which is maiuAy factitious ^
or arbitrary ; as, for instance ; — let us take up the
above example of political ill-augury, and bring — if
not the very same words, yet their nearest equivalents,
— into cadence, as blank verse : in this case some of
the words must by necessity be rejected as unfit alto-
gether for a place in verse ; and substitutes must be
found for others, because they are not easily reduced
to cadence. Moreover, the position of every word
must be determined by a rule which, in relation to
the requirements of unconditioned thought, is arbi-
trary and artificial ; the passage might thus run —

E'en now this poison of the people's error
Creeps on insidious, and from day to day
Invades yet more the precincts of the state-
Not long to wait, alas ! All life — all soul,
Shall cease and die within these regal courts !

Thought, in this form, submits itself to the re-
quirements of quantity and rhythm, by means of
several substitutions of word for word ; and also by
deflections from the simpler and the more natural
order of the words. A still further yielding of the
original thought to the requirements of art would
be needed if, in addition to cadence, we should de-
mand rhyme ; for in that case not only must ano-
ther law of cadence be complied with ; but also the

Hebrew Poetry. 47

fortuitous law of a jingle in the last syllable of each
line must prevail. On these conditions the same
meaning might thus be conveyed —

Now while we speak comes on the noisome death-
Birth of the swamps — it poisons every breath.
Doctrine delusive ! creeps it o'er the state,
And dooms its ancient glories to their fate.
Soon shall we mourn, in desolated halls.
Departed greatness — where an Empire falls.

For any purposes of political instruction, or of
warning, the Thought, whether it be that of the
platform speaker, or that of a philosophical writer,
may be fully expressed, either when made to con-
form itself to the laws of cadence, or when subjected
to the still more technical necessities of rhyme.
Nevertheless it must be granted, that, if the utter-
ance of the orator — figurative and impassioned as it
is — be the fittest possible for conveying his mean-
ing, and if the words he uses, and the order in
which he arranges these words, be the best possible,
then the reduction of these same thoughts to the
rules of blank verse, and, still more, their reduction
to the conditions of rhyme, involve a disadvantage
which must be of more or less consequence.

There are, however, instances in which Thought,
embodied in the language of symbols, and of
material images, is of a kind which sustains no
damage under these conditions ; in truth, the poetic
style may be the very fittest for giving utterance
to feelings, or to moods of mind ; or, as already

48 The Spirit of the

affirmed, to truths or principles to which no abstract
terms or combinations of terms can ever be ade-
quate.

Yet there are some purely technical conditions
in submitting to which the spontaneous language
of feeling, or the severe utterances of abstract
truth, can hardly be granted to stand wholly
exempt from a real disadvantage. There may, in-
deed, be approvable reasons, warranting the em-
ployment of such artificial means — albeit they do
involve a disadvantage ; nevertheless, where we find
it existing, it must be accepted as it is — it is a con-
ditioning of Thought which, when it is admitted on
occasions the most serious, indicates the extent of
that adaptation of the Divine to the human of which
we can never lose sight without falling into per-
plexities.

With the exception of two or three lines — cited
by St. Paul from the Greek poets — the Scriptures
of the New Testament are everywhere prosaic in
form : — the intention of the writer or speaker is con-
veyed always in the most direct manner which the
rules of language admit of — figurative terms are
employed where none other are available. Thought
is here unconditioned, so far as it can be — the sub-
ject-matter, considered. Not so in the Scriptures
of the Old Testament. Nearly a half of the entire
mass, or, in the proportion of twenty-two to twenty-
five, the Hebrew writings are not merely poetic, as to
their diction, but they are metrical in form ; — or we

Hebrew Poetry. 49

should better say — the Thought of the writer is sub-
jected to rules of structure that are in the highest
degree artificial. This fact — well understood as
now it is — escapes the notice of the reader of mo-
dern versions ; albeit, when once it has been ex-
plained to a reader of ordinary intelligence, he
easily perceives it — wherever it is actually found.

We have here named what is about the propor-
tion of prose to verse throughout the Old Testa-
ment ; but, in truth, if those parts of the historical
books are set off from the account which are genea-
logical merely, and those also which are repetitive
or redundant, and those, moreover, which barely,
if at all, convey any religious meaning, then it will
appear that very much more than a half of the
Canon of Scripture in the Hebrew takes this latter
form ; or, as we say, is conditioned in conformity
with artificial rules of structure.

Of this structure, which of late has been carefully
set forth, and illustrated, even in popular works,
there can be no need in this place to give any ac-
count in detail. The fact of its existence is all we
have to do with ; and this, briefly stated, is this —
that each separate utterance of religious thought
— theological, ethical, or devotional — is thrown into
an antithetical form, so making up a couplet, or a
triplet; or an integral verse in four, five, or six
measured lines. The second line of the two is
often a repetition only of the first, in other terms :
— often it is an antithetic utterance of the same

£

50 The Spirit of the

thought: — sometimes it is an illustrative supple-
ment to it : — sometimes an exceptive caution ; yet
everywhere the ode or lyrical composition, regarded
as a whole, is thus built up of members — limbs —
apposed, one to the other — balancing one the other,
and finding their reason, not simply in the require-
ments of Thought — uttered in the prosaic form —
but, beyond this, in the rules or the usages of an
arbitrary system of composition.

Then, besides this kind of structure, many of the
odes of the Hebrew Scriptures obey a law of alli-
teration— which is still more arbitrary, inasmuch as
it requires the first word of each verse, in a certain
number of verses, to begin with the same letter, and
these in alphabetic order. Any one who will try
for himself a few experiments, in English, will find
that, in yielding obedience to requirements of this
kind. Thought must take a turn, or must very greatly
mould itself to a fashion which it would not other-
wise have chosen. Thought submits to a process of
conditioning which intimately affects it, if not in
substance, yet in its modes of utterance. The second
verse in Milton's Christmas Hymn stands thus : —

Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow ;
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,
Confounded, that her Maker's eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

Hebrew Poetry. 51

Now let the requirement be this — that, without
displacing the rhyme, or greatly altering the sense,
every line of the eight shall begin with the same
letter— shall it be W ?

With only speeches fair
Woos she the gentle air,
Wistful to hide her front with innocent snow ;
Wide on her naked shame.
Wasted with sinful blame
White, as a saintly maiden veil to throw :
Woe were it, that her Maker's eyes,
Wrathful, should look upon her foul deformities.

We should never accept this, or any other allitera-
tive form of the verse, as if it were in itself prefer-
able to its original form, constrained only by the
laws of metre, and by the rhyme. Nevertheless,
the sentiment, or final meaning of the original, is
conveyed, with little, if any damage, in the more
constrained . form that is demanded by the rule of
alliteration : — the injury inflicted in this instance is
technical, more than it is substantial. It may easily
be admitted, that, if a composition of great length
were intended to subserve purposes of popular in-
struction, the alliterative form might be chosen for
the sake of the aid it affbrds to the memory, and
thus tending to secure a faultless transmission of
the whole, from father to son, or, rather, from the
religious mother to her children. It will be our
part hereafter to show that the religious intention
of the Inspired writings is securely conveyed under

52 The Spirit of the

all forms, however arbitrary they may be as to their
literary structure.

As to the several species of the Hebrew Poetry,
it can only be in an accommodated sense that we
could apply to it any of those terms that belong to
the Poetry of Greece, and which had their origin in
the artistic intelligence of its people. There would
be little meaning in the words if we spoke of Odes,
Lyrics, or Epics, in this case. The Hebrew Poetry
has its kinds ; but they are peculiar to itself : it has
originated species of Poetry : it has conformed it-
self to no models : it has sprung from nothing ear-
lier than itself ; or nothing that is extant : — it has
had no cognates among contemporary literatures.
Through the medium of innumerable versions the
Biblical literature has combined itself in an inti-
mate manner with the intellectual existence of mo-
dern (civilized) nations. Every people has made
its wealth their own : in truth, itself drawing its
force from the deepest and most universal princi-
ples of human nature, the Hebrew Scriptures, when
once they have thoroughly permeated the popular
mind, become an undistinguishable element, not
only of the religious and the moral life of the
people, but, to a great extent, of their intellectual
life also. With ourselves — the British people — the
Inspired writings of the Old Testament have be-
come to us the milk of infancy and childhood,
and the nourishment of manhood in its most robust
stage. It is to these books that we owe whatever

Hebrew Poetry. 53

in our literature possesses most of simple majesty
and force ; whatever is the most fully fraught with
feeling ; whatever is the most true to nature, when
nature is truest to virtue, and to wisdom. What-
ever it is that enters, as by right, the moral con-
sciousness ; — whatever it is that the most effectively
draws the soul away from its cleaving to the dust,
and lifts the thoughts towards a brighter sphere —
all such elements of our English literature, whether
avowedly so or not, must trace their rise, directly
or indirectly, to the Hebrew Scriptures, and espe-
cially to those portions of them that are, in spirit
and in form, poetic.

If we were to affirm that certain portions of this
Poetry are descriptive, or moral, or pastoral, this
would be to misunderstand the purport of the sam-
ples we might adduce of these kinds. Vividly con-
scious as these writers, or most of them, are to what
is sublime and beautiful in the visible world, they
are thus conscious toward the things around them
in one sense 0/2^?/— namely, as parts of God's crea-
tion. The Hebrew poet attempts no local descrip-
tion : — he does not dwell upon the picturesque ; —
albeit our modern sense of the picturesque has sprung
from tastes and habits that have had their rise in
the Hebrew Scriptures ; nor do they at any time
stop on their way to bring before us the scenic cha-
racteristics of their country. None of them has
leisure to paint particular scenes, as do our Thom-
son, or Burns, or Cowper. It is a glance only that

54 The Spirit of the

they take of Nature, and it is such a glance as, from
its vividness and breadth, is so much the more intel-
liofible in all lands.

The Hebrew Poetry — artificial in structure — is
not artistic in its purpose or intention. A work
may be designated as artistic which, as the produc-
tion of genius, manifestly has no higher aim than
that of giving pleasure, and of exhibiting the artist's
power to achieve this one purpose. But the Poets
of the Bible not only have in view always another,
and a far higher object than that of the delectation
of their hearers, or the display of their personal
ability ; for, in every instance, they are intent upon
acquitting themselves of a weighty responsibility ; —
they are charged with a message: — they are bearing
a testimony : — they are promising blessings : — they
are threatening and predicting woes. Therefore it
is that those several species of composition to which
the taste and genius of the Persians, or of the
Greeks, have given a definite form, do not make
their appearance within the compass of the Inspired
writings.

It is not to win admiration by the opulence of
his imagination — it is not to charm a listening mul-
titude by the soft graces of song, or by its sublimi-
ties, that the Hebrew bard ever utters himself. We
ought not to say that a scorn of popular favour be-
trays itself — as if suhaudite — in these deliverances
of a message from the Almighty ; yet it is almost
so. We should here keep in view the distinction

Hehrew Poetry, 55

between the genius which contents itself with its
own triumphs, in achieving an excellent work, and
the ability which executes, in the best manner, a
work the aim of which is loftier than that of com-
manding applause. It might not be easy to adduce
single instances in which this important distinction
obtrudes itself upon notice in a manner beyond dis-
pute ; nevertheless a comparison at large of the
Hebrew literature, with the literature of other na-
tions, would not fail to make its reality unquestion-
able.

So it is, as we shall see, that, although Palestine,
such as then it was, abounded with aspects of nature
that might well tempt description, and had many
points of scenic effect, nothing of this sort is extant
within the compass of the Scriptures. Why might
not spots in Lebanon have been brought in picture
before us ? — why not the luxuriance of Coelo-Syria,
where the Jordan springs to light from an Eden of
beauty ? — why not the flowery plain of Esdraelon ?
— why not the rugged majesty of the district bor-
dering upon the Dead Sea ? Alive to every form of
natural beauty and sublimity, and quick to seize his
images from among them, the Hebrew Poet never
lingers in such scenes : he uses the wealth of the
visible world for his purposes : — Nature he com-
mands ; but she commands not him.

It may be said that the earliest born of the poetic
styles in every land has this same characteristic —
namely, that of having a fixed purpose — an inten-

56 The Spirit of the

tion ; but then, in the course of things this archaic
directness, this primitive seriousness, gives place,
in the following age, to the elaborate or artistic
style — to those modes of composition that find their
beginning and their end in the Poet's personal am-
bition. This process goes on until a national litera-
ture (of the imaginative class) which was wholly
genuine in its earliest era, has become wholly facti-
tious towards its close. Yet it is not so in the in-
stance with which now we are concerned : — the
Hebrew Poetry, in the course of a thousand years,
passed through no stages of artistic sophistication.
Take the instance of those of the Psalms which, on
probable grounds of criticism, are of a date as early
as the exodus of Israel from Egypt — compare them
with those which, by their allusion to the events of
a much later time, must be dated toward the years
of the sealing of the prophetic dispensation : the
same avoidance of whatever the Poet's own ambi-
tion might have dictated is observable throughout
this lapse of ages.

Do we find an exceptive instance in that one com-
position which stands by itself in the canonical col-
lection— the Canticle of Solomon? This instance
may yield a confirmation of our doctrine, rather
than a contradiction of it ; but the anomalous cha-
racter of this matchless poem, as well as its singular
beauty, demands a distinct consideration of it — or,
we might say, a criticism — apart.

Then, again, the Hebrew literature has no Drama;

Hebrew Poetry. 57

nor has it an Epic ; and the reasons why it has
neither of these are such as demand attention. It
would be to put upon the word Drama a very forced
meaning to apply it to the Book of Job ; — and, in
so doing, to allow place for a notable exception to
what we here allege.

These writers treat human nature in no superfi-
cial manner ; — they touch it to the quick ; but they
do not undertake to picture forth separately its ele-
ments, its passions, its affections, or its individual
characteristics. To do this, either in the mode of
the Drama, or in the mode of an Epic, would im-
ply invention, or fiction, in a sense of which no
instances whatever occur within the compass of
the Canonical Scriptures. The apophthegm is not
a fiction, for it puts not on the historic guise : — the
allegory is no fiction, for it is never misunderstood
as a truthful narrative of events. No concatenation
of actual events, no course of incidents in real life,
ever brings out separate passions, or sentiments, in
dramatic style, or with a unison of meaning. The
dramatic unity, as to the elements of human nature,
must be culled, and put together, with much selec-
tive care — with artistic skill. A composition of this
order must be a work of genius — like a group of
figures in sculpture.

No actual man, no real person of history, has
ever been always a hero, or has ever done and said
the things that may be fitting to an Epic. There-
fore it is that an Epic Poem must be an invention ;

58 The Spirit of the

it must be an artistic achievement : the Poem may
be quite true in human nature generically ; but it is
never true as a real narrative: — it borrows a some-
thing from history ; but it creates ten times more
than it borrows. Scarcely then need we say why
it is that the Hebrew literature possesses neither
Drama nor Epic : the reasons, as we shall presently
see, are distinctly two.

The Epic — which is history transmuted into fic-
tion— for a forgone purpose, or in regard to a final
cause, has stood foremost in the esteem of every
people that has risen above the rudest barbarism —
of every people — one only excepted ; and this one
is a people whose literature, mainly poetic as it is,
has taken hold of the sympathies of mankind more
extensively, and more permanently, than any other.
Reasons drawn from a consideration of the social
condition of this one people might perhaps be
brought forward in explanation of this unique fact ;
and there would then be room for much ingenuity
in showing how we may solve the problem — in some
way short of an admission which those who distaste
the true reason will labour to exclude. But we take
it otherwise.

This series of writers, through the many centu-
ries of their continuous testimony, spoke not, wrote
not, as if they possessed a liberty of discursive choice
— now scattering the decorations of fiction over
realities ; and now striving to impart to fiction, in
as high a degree as possible, the verisimilitude of

Hebrew Poetry, 59

truth. They spoke and wrote with a consciousness
of their obligation to absolute Truth, and with a
stern fixedness of purpose as toward an authority
above them : among no other writers do we find a
parallel instance of determinate purpose. But whe-
ther distinctly conscious of their mission, or not so ;
or only imperfectly conscious of it, yet they spoke as
they were moved by Him who is the axpevdrjQ Qsoq —
the " truthful God." Solemnly regardful were these
"holy men of God" of the sovereignty of Truth —
Truth dogmatic or theological — Truth ethical, and
Truth historical. Utterly averse, therefore, were
they — abhorrent, let us say — not merely as toward
faisi/icafio7i, but as toward fabi'ication, or any ap-
proach toward that sort of commingling of the real
with the unreal which might engender falseness ; or
might give rise to a dangerous confounding of the
two. The Hebrew Scriptures, as compared with
any other national literature, are pre-eminently —
they are characteristically — they, and they alone,
are throughout truthful in tone, style, and structure.
Need we ask, then, why they contain neither the
Drama nor an Epic ? Not from the want of fitting
subjects — not from poverty of materials ; but as min-
isters of Heaven to whom a task had been assigned,
did these men of genius — and they were such — fail
to display their skill in the creation of romances ;
it was not because they could not do it, that they
have not attempted to immortalize themselves, and
the heroes of their national history, in producing

60 The Spirit of the

an Oriental Iliad, or Odyssey, or iEneid. To have
done this would have been to introduce among their
people an element of confusion and of ambiguity,
which would have interfered with the purpose of the
separation of this race from all other races.

And yet this is not all that should be said ; and
the second reason would be by itself sufficient in
solving the problem ; and, not less than the first, is
it conclusively demonstrative of the Divine origina-
tion of these writings. Because they are Inspired —
OsoTTVBvaTa — and teach the things of God, and enjoin
the worship of God, therefore do the writers ab-
stain from themes which give licence to the worship
of man : — they take no account of heroes ; and yet
it was not so that an ambitious poet, who might be
thirsting for the applause of his countrymen, could
find no subject in the national history adapted to his
purpose. Why not, in this manner, undertake to
immortalize Moses, Samuel,^David, Solomon ? Why
not ? It was because the Hebrew Scriptures, dictated
from above, are constantly and sternly truthful ; —
and they are so whether the great men of the He-
brew polity were as faultless as national fondness
would have painted them ; or were indeed as faulty
as men at the best ever are.

It has been the ambition — and a noble ambition,
of the most highly gifted minds, in every cultured
people, to give expression to a perfect ideal of hu-
manity— to picture a godlike virtue, wisdom, valour,
self-control, and temperance, according to the na-

Hebrew Poetry. 61

tional conception of what these qualities should be.
Among the thousand themes of poetry, this one —
the imaging of a godlike magnanimity and virtue —
has held the highest place.

The Hebrew literature gives the several elements
of virtue and piety in precept ; but nowhere is
it presented in the concrete. In place of the daz-
zling Ideal — the romance of humanity — we find
only the real human nature of history — vouched for
as such by the presence of those conditions of hu-
man frailty which the Idealist would have taken
care to exclude. A circumstance full of meaning
it is, that, in these writings, all that we learn of the
acts, and of the personal qualities of the prominent
persons of the national history, is found in the nar-
rative and prosaic books, or portions of books : —
none of it appears in the poetic books, or in those
passages the style of which is figurative and impas-
sioned ; and which, as to its form, is metrical. What
then is the import of these facts, which have no
parallels in the national poetry of other countries ?
It is this, that whenever the individual man comes
forward in these writings — whenever it is he who
draws upon himself the eyes of his fellows, whether
chief or prophet, he must do so — such as he is : — if
his virtue, his wisdom, his valour, are to attract no-
tice, so do his sins, his weaknesses, his falls, in the
moments of severest trial; all these things make
their appearance also, and proclaim the veracious-
ness of the record.

62 The Spirit of the

Greatly do we often miscalculate the relative
credibility or incredibility of passages in ancient
writings. No logic — or no sound logic — can make
it appear incredible that God should raise the dead ;
or that He should make the waters of the sea to
stand up as a heap ; or that, in any other mode, the
Almighty should show All Might. But utterly
incredible would be the pretension that any con-
geries of events, such as are usually packed toge-
ther by a poet with a definite artistic intention, has
ever actually had existence in the current of the
world's affairs. Utterly beyond the limits of rea-
sonable belief would be the supposition that a man
— even one of ourselves — has ever acted and spoken,
from year to year, throughout his course, with un-
failing consistency, or in that style of dramatic co-
herence which the contriver of a Romance, or of an
Epic, figures for his hero. No such embodiment of
the Ideal has ever, we may be sure, broken in upon
the vulgar realities of human existence ; — there have
been good men, and brave men, and wise men,
often ; but there have been no living sculptures
after the fashion of Phidias, no heroes after the
manner of Homer or Virgil.

Then there comes before us another balancing of
the incredible and the credible: — as thus. The
Hebrew Poets — it is not one or two of them, but all
of them in long: series — have abstained from those
idealizings of humanity at large upon which the poets
of other nations have chosen to expend their powers.

Hebrew Poetry. 63

How is it that they should have been thus absti-
nent— should thus have held off from ground which
tempts every aspiring mind ? We shall find no ad-
missible answer to this question, except this, that
this series of writers followed, not the impulses of
their individual genius, but each of them wrote as
he was inspired from above. Nothing in any de-
gree approaching to a worshipping of man — nothing
of that sort which elsewhere has been so common —
nothing which could have given a warrant to the
unwise extravagances of the saint-and-martyr wor-
ship of the Church in the third century, anywhere
makes its appearance within the Canonical Scrip-
tures of the Old Testament. On the contrary — as
well by solemn injunction, as by their uniform ex-
ample— the Inspired writers, historians, prophets,
poets, repeat the warning — as to the rendering of
worship to man, or to any creature — " See thou do
it not : worship God."

64 The Spirit of the

Chapter IV.

THE ANCIENT PALESTINE — THE BIRTH-PLACE OF
POETRY.

POETRY will never disown its relationship to
the beautiful and the sublime in the visible
world ; in fact it has always proved its dependence
upon influences of this order. Born and nurtured,
not at hazard on any spot, but only in chosen re-
gions, it finds at hand, for giving utterance to the
mysteries of the inner life, an abundance of material
symbols — fit for purposes of this kind — among the
objects of sense. It is the function of Poetry to
effect such an assimilation of the material with the
immaterial as shall produce one world of thought
and of emotion — the visible and the invisible, inti-
mately commingled.

Poetry, nursed on the lap of Nature, will have its
preferences — it must make its selection ; and this,
not merely as to the exterior decorations of its
abode, but even as to the solid framework of the
country which it favours ; there must be, not only a
soil, and a climate, and a various vegetation, favour-
able to its training ; but a preparation must have

Hebrew Poetry. ^5

been made for it in the remotest geological eras.
The requirements of a land that is destined to be
the home of poetry have in all instances been very
peculiar : — it has sprung up and thriven on coun-
tries of very limited extent — upon areas ribbed and
walled about by ranges of mountains, or girdled
and cut into by seas. These — the duly prepared
birth-places of poetry — have been marked by abrupt
inequalities of surface — by upheavings and extru-
sions of the primaeval crust of the earth : — these
selected lands have glistened with many rills — they
have sparkled with fountains — they have been
clothed with ancient forests, as well as decked, each
spring anew, with flowers. Moreover a wayward
climate, made so by its inequalities of surface, has
broken up the wearisome monotony of the year — such
as it is in tropical and in arctic regions — by irregular
shiftings of the aerial aspect of all things ; and there
has been, in such countries, a corresponding variety
in the animal and vegetable kingdoms ; — there has
thus been a large store in the Poet's treasury of
material symbols.

A land such as this is — or was, three thousand
years ago — the country in which the Hebrew Poetry
had its birth, and where it reached its maturity,
and where it ceased to breathe; nor has it been
under conditions very different from these that
Poetry has ever sprung up and flourished. It
has not been a native of Tartarian steppes, nor
of savannahs, or interminable prairies, nor of

F

66 The Spirit of the

trackless swamps, nor of irrigated rice-levels, nor
of leagues on leagues of open corn-land, nor of
Saliaras. Poetry has not weathered the tempests,
nor confronted the terrors of the Atlas ranges : — it
has not sported on the flanks of Caucasus, or on the
steeps of the Andes, or the Himalayas ; nor has it
breathed on the rugged vertebrae of the North Ame-
rican continent. In none of those regions has it
appeared which oppress the spirit by a dreary same-
ness, or by shapeless magnitudes, or featureless sub-
limity. Poetry has had its birth, and it has sported
its childhood, and it has attained its manhood, and
has blended itself with the national life in coun-
tries such as Greece, with its rugged hills, and its
myrtle groves, and its sparkling rills ; but not in
Egypt : — in Italy ; but not on the dead levels of
Northern Europe. Poetry was born and reared in
Palestine — but not in Mesopotamia: — in Persia —
but not in India. Pre-eminently has Poetry found
its home among the rural graces of England, and
amid the glens of Scotland ; and there, rather than
in those neighbouring countries which are not infe-
rior to the British Islands in any other products of
intellect or of taste.

Exceptions — apparent only, or of a very partial
kind — might be adduced in contradiction of these
general affirmations. Exceptions there will be to any
generalization that touches human nature ; for in a
true sense the human mind is superior to all exterior
conditions ; and its individual forces are such as to

Hebrew Poetry. 67

refuse to be absolutely subjected to any formal re-
quirements : greater is the individual man than
circumstances of any sort ; and greater is he far than
materialists would report him to be — according to
system. A Poet there may be, wherever Nature
shall call him forth ; but there will not be Poetry
among a people that is not favoured by Nature, as
to its home : — the imaginative tastes and the crea-
tive genius have been, as to the mass of the people^
indigenous to Greece ; but not to Egypt : to Italy ;
but not to France : to the British Islands ; but not to
Holland. And thus too, it was the ancient people
of Palestine, pre-eminently, that possessed a poetry
which was quite its own. But then we must be
looking back a three thousand years, as to the people ;
and we must be thinking of the country, such as it
was in the morning hours of Biblical time. In later
ages — the people fallen ! and the land — mourning
its hopeless desolation !

Palestine, rather than any other country that
might be named, demands the presence, and needs
the industry of man, for maintaining its fertility.
Capable, as it has been, of supporting millions of
people, those millions must actually be there ; and
then only will it justify its repute as a " very good
land." A scanty population will starve, where a
dense population would fatten. On this land, em-
phatically, is the truth exemplified — that " the hand
of the diligent maketh rich :" — it is here that, if
man fails of his duty, or if he misunderstands his

68 The Spirit of the

own welfare, the very soil disappears under his feet.
So has it been now through many dreary centuries ;
and here has been accomplished the warning — that
the sins of the fathers are visited, not only upon the
children to the third and fourth generation ; but upon
their remotest descendants, and to their successors,
who may be masters of the land.

The desolations of Palestine have been sensibly
increased, even within the memory of man ; — and
unquestionably so within periods that are authen-
tically known to history. Those who have visited
Palestine, at intervals of fifteen or twenty years,
have forcibly received this impression from the
aspect of its surface, as well as from the appear-
ance of the people, that decay is still in progress : a
ruthless and rapacious rule, dreading and hating
reform, withers the industry — such as it might be —
of the people, and makes the land a fit roaming
ground for the Bedouin marauder. A ten years of
British rule, and a million or two of British capital,
might yet make this land " blossom as the rose :"
the wilderness and parched land how should they be
made glad for such a visitation !

Yet beside the social and political causes of decay,
some purely physical influences have been taking
effect upon Palestine, as upon all the countries that
skirt the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Within
the lapse of what is called historic time, Libyan
wastes have become far more arid than once they
were, and, in consequence, they have acquired a

Hebrew Poetry. C9

higher mean temperature. North Africa is much less
abundant in corn, and is less graced with tropical
vegetation, than in ancient times it was. In the
course of two or three thousand years the sand hur-
ricanes of Libya, and of the Sahara, in sweeping
over the valley of the Nile, have not only sepul-
chred its sepulchres, and entombed its temples and
palaces in a ten, or twenty, or thirty feet of deposit
— narrowing continually the green bordering of the
Nile ; but they have given dryness for moisture to
the neighbouring countries. Dense forests once
shed coolness and humidity over large tracts of
northern Arabia. The countless millions of people
that were subjected to the Assyrian, the Babylonian,
the Median despotisms, flourished upon the fatness
of the Mesopotamian corn-lands, and by their in-
dustry and their water-courses not only preserved
the fertility which they created, but rendered the
climate itself as temperate as its latitude should
make it. Under differing: conditions the same
course of physical change has affected Asia Minor
— once more populous, in a tenfold proportion, than
in modern times these regions have been; for then,
population, fertility, mildness of climate, sustained
each other.

Those countries of Europe which formed the
background of the ancient civilization have, in the
course of twenty centuries, been denuded of their
forests ; — and this is, no doubt, a beneficial change ;
but this clearance has had great influence in affect-

70 The Spirit of the

ing the climate and the productions of Greece, of
Italy, of France, and of Spain.

As to Palestine, the ruins which now crown almost
every one of its hill-tops, and the very significant
fact of the remains of spacious theatres in districts
where now human habitations are scarcely seen,
afford incontestable evidence of the existence of a
dense population in times that are not more remote
than the Christian era. Galilee, at that time, and
Decapolis, and the rich pasture-lands beyond Jor-
dan, the Hauran, and Gerash, and Bosrah, as well
as all the towns of the coast, teemed then with the
millions of a population which mainly, if not entirely,
was fed from the home soil. At the time of the
return of the people from Babylon, and for the three
centuries following, every acre supported its com-
plement of souls ; and the country, according to its
quality, returned a full recompence to the husband-
man, in every species proper to the latitude : — abun-
dant it was in its dates, its olives, its vines, and its
figs ; in its cereals, its herds, with their milk and
butter ; and, not of least account, its honey. These
are facts of which the evidence meets us on every
page of ancient literature where this garden-land is
named.

It is most of all in the hill-country of Judea,
throughout which the bare limestone basement of
the land now frowns upon the sky, that the negli-
gence of the people and the misrule of their masters
have wrought the greatest mischief. Throughout

Hebrew Poetry. 71

that region which, by its elevation as well as by its
latitude, should be temperate, there was a luxuriant
growth on all sides in those times when the Hebrew
Poetry breathed its first notes. In that age every
slope was carefully terraced, and the viscid soil was
husbanded : — every swell of the land gave delight
to the eye in the weeks of spring, and of an early
summer, in which it was laden with a double har-
vest. By the multitude of its springs, and the
abundance of its rains — well conserved in tanks
(such as the Pools of Solomon) — drought was seldom
known, or was mitigated when it occurred ; and a
mantle of opulence clothed the country where now
a stern desolation triumphs.

Still to be traced are the vestiges of the ancient
wealth, the margin of the Dead Sea only excepted.
Throughout Judea human industry reaped its re-
ward ; and in the south — as about Hebron, and in
Galilee, and in Samaria, and in the plains of Jeri-
cho, and on the flanks of Lebanon, and round about
Banias, and throughout the east country — the Ha-
uran and Bashan — the fertihty of the soil was as
great as in any country known to us. An easy
industry was enough to render a sensuous existence
as pleasurable as the lot of man allows. In truth,
within this circuit there were spots upon which, if only
they were secure from the violence of their fellows,
men might have ceased to sigh for a lost Paradise.
But that Paradise was forfeited, as well as the first,
and now a doleful monotony, and a deathlike silence

72 The Spirit of the

have established their dominion, as if for ever ! As
to the wealth of the hills, it has slid down into the
ravines : — wintry torrents, heavy with a booty
wasted, have raged through the wadys, and have
left despair to the starving few that wander upon
the surface.

But now this Palestine — which five English coun-
ties, Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lanca-
shire, Lincolnshire, would more than cover — brings
within its narrow limits more varieties of surface,
and of aspect, and of temperature, and of produce,
than elsewhere may be found in countries that have
ten times its area. Palestine, in the age of its
wealth, was a samplar of the world : — it was a mu-
seum country^many lands in one : the tread of
the camel, in two or three hours, may now give the
traveller a recollection of his own — come whence he
may, from any country between the torrid zone and
our northern latitudes. Not in England, not in
Switzerland, nor in Greece — in no country known
to us — may there be looked at, and experienced, so
much of difference in all those external things of
nature which affect the bodily sensations — the con-
ditions of life, and in what quickens the imagina-
tion ; — and all upon an area the whole of which may
be seen from three of its elevations, or from four.
Thus it was, therefore, that the Hebrew Poet found,
always near at hand, those materials of his art which
the poets of other lands had to seek for in distant
travel. Imagery, gay or grave, was around him

Hebrew Poetry. 73

everywhere ; and these materials included contrasts
the most extreme : then these diversities of scenery,
so near at hand, must have made the deeper impres-
sion upon minds sensible of such impressions, inas-
much as this same land was bordered on every side
by mountain ranges, or by the boundless table-land
desert, eastward and southward ; and by the Great
Sea in front. Palestine was as a picture of many
and bright colours, set in a broad and dull frame.

In other lands, as in a few spots in England and
at rare moments — in Greece, and its islands, often —
in Italy, at a few points, and in many of the Para-
disaical islets of the Eastern Ocean, and of the
Pacific, there may be seen that which the eye rests
upon with so much pleasure in a sultry summer's
day — the deep blue or purple of the sleeping ocean,
serving to give brighter splendour to a foreground
of luxurious foliage, and of gay flowers. Trees,
shrubs, festooning climbers — garden, and wild flow-
ers, then most recommend themselves to the pain-
ter's eye when the background is of that deep colour
— the like to which there is nothing on earth — the
purple of a profound sea, shone upon by a fervent
sun, under a cloudless sky. But then in none of
those countries or islands do splendid landscapes of
this order present themselves in contrast with stony
deserts, dismal as the land of death ! But in Pales-
tine—such as it was of old — the soft graces of a
rural scene — the vine-covered slopes — the plains,
brilliant with flowers, the wooded glens and knolls

74 The Spirit of the

— sparkling with springs, and where the warbling
of birds invites men to tranquil enjoyment — in Pa-
lestine there is, or there was, ever at hand those
material symbols of unearthly good which should
serve to remind man of his destination to a world
better and brighter than this.

From the lofty battlements of most of the walled
towns the ancient inhabitant of Palestine looked
westward upon what was to him an untraversed
world of waters: the "Great Sea" was to him the
image of the infinite. He believed, or he might
believe, that the waves which fell in endless mur-
murs upon those shores, had come on — there to end
a course which had begun — between the two firma-
ments— where the sun sinks nightly to his rest. From
the opposite turrets of the same fenced city he
watched for the morning, and thence beheld the
celestial bridegroom coming forth from his cham-
bers anew — rejoicing as a strong man to run a race !
To those who now, for an hour, will forget our
modern astronomy, the Syrian sun-rising well an-
swers to the imaginative rendering of it by the Poet :
— the sun, as it flares up from behind the mountain-
wall of Edom, seems well to bear out whatever
may be conceived of it, as to its daily course through
the heavens.

Again, the ranges of Lebanon might be called a
sample of the aspects of an Alpine region — a speci-
men of sublimities, elsewhere found far apart. The
loftier summits — the crown of Jebel-es- Sheikh — is

Hebrew Poetry. 15

little lower than the level of perpetual snow : in
truth, Hermon, in most years, retains throughout
the summer its almond-blossom splendour ; — and
as to the lower ranges, they overhang slopes, and
glades, and ravines, and narrow plains, that are unri-
valled on earth for wild luxuriant beauty. In an-
cient times these rich valleys were mantled with
cedar forests ; and the cedar, in its perfection, is as
the lion among the beasts, and as the eagle among
the birds. This majestic tree, compared with any
others of its class, has more of altitude and of volume
than any of them : it has more of umbrageous am-
plitude, and especially it has that tranquil aspect of
venerable continuance through centuries which so
greatly recommends natural objects to the specula-
tive and meditative tastes. The cedar of Lebanon,
graceful and serviceable while it lives, has the merit
of preparing in its solids, a perfume which commends
it, when dead, to the noblest uses : — this wood in-
vites the workman's tool for every ingenious device ;
and its odoriferous substance is such as to make it
grateful alike in palaces and in temples.

It is only in these last times — at the end of thirty
centuries — that a river, which has no fellow on
earth — which has poured its waters down to their
rest near at hand to the civilized world, and has
been crossed at many points — it is only now that it
has come to be understood ; and the mystery of its
seventy miles of course opened up. Why it was
not understood long ago is itself a mystery. The

76 The Spirit of the

brevity of ancient authors, who touch for a moment
only upon subjects the most exciting to modern
curiosity, is indeed an exercise of patience to those
who, for the first time, come to acquaint themselves
with the mortifying fact that where pages of descrip-
tion are eagerly looked for — five words, or, at the
most, as many lines, are what we must be content
to accept at their hands. Why did not Herodotus
describe to us the Al-Kuds — the Holy city
which he visited? Why not tell us something of
the secluded people and their singular worship ?
So it is as to Diodorus, and Strabo, and Pliny ; and
so, in many instances, is it with the prolix Josephus ;
who gives us so often more than we care to read ;
but fails to impart the very information which we
are in need of, on points of importance. The Jor-
dan— which, physically and historically alike, is the
most remarkable river in the world — is mentioned
by ancient authors only in the most cursory manner,
as dividing the countries on its right and left bank —
or as emptying itself into the Asphaltic Lake. Even
the Biblical writers, although the river is mentioned
by them very often, say little that implies their ac-
quaintance with the facts of its physical peculiarities.
And yet, unconscious as they seem to have been of
these facts, they drew from this source very many
of their images. Has there ever been poetry where
there is not a river ? This Jordan — rich in aspects
alternately of gloom, and of gay luxuriance, some-
times leaping adown rapids, and then spreading

Hebrew Poetry. 77

itself quietly into basins — reaches a prison-house
whence there is no escape for its waters but — upward
to the skies ! Within a less direct distance than is
measured by the Thames from Oxford to the Nore,
or by the Severn from Shrewsbury to the Estuary
of the Bristol Channel, or by the Humber, or the
Trent, or the Tweed, in their main breadths, the
waters of the Jordan break themselves away from the
arctic glaciers of Hermon, and within the compass
of one degree of latitude give a tropical verdure to
the plains of Jericho, where the summer's heat is
more intense than anywhere else on earth — unless it
be Aden. To conceive of these extraordinary facts
aright, we should imagine a parallel instance, as if
it were so that, in the midland counties — or between
London and Litchfield — perpetual snow surrounded
the one, while the valley of the Thames should be a
forest of palm-trees, with an African chmate !

When the traveller crosses the Ghor, and ascends
the wall of the Eastern table-land, that illimitable
desert spreads itself out before him in traversing
which meditative minds indulge in thoughts that
break away from earth, and converse with whatever
is great and unchanging in an upper world. If we
retrace our steps in returning fi'om the Eastern de-
sert, and recross the Jordan, travelling southward,
we come upon that region of bladeless desolation
which constitutes the wall of the Asphaltic Lake, on
its western side ; yet from this land of gloom a few
hours' journey suflSces to bring into contrast the

78 The Spirit of the

vineyards, the olive-groves, the orangeries, of a
luxuriant district — and a theatre of peaks, ravines,
gorges, and broken precipices, within the circle
of which the summers and the winters of all time
have effected no change : it is now, as it was thou-
sands of years ago, the land of the Shadow of Death
— a land where the lot of man presents itself under
the saddest aspects ; — for the Earth is there a prison-
house, and the sun overhead is the inflicter of tor-
ment.

Yet, near to the abodes of a people among whom
powerful emotions are to find symbols for their utter-
ance, there is found one other natural prodigy, and
such as is unmatched upon the surface of the Earth ;
— for nowhere else is there a hollow so deep as is
this hollow : there is no expanse of water that sends
its exhalations into the open sky, resembling at all
this lake of bitumen and sulphur. And what might
that chasm show itself to be, if the caldron were
quite emptied out, or if the waters of the Jordan
could be turned aside for a while into the Great
Sea, leaving evaporation to go on until the lowest
rent were exposed to view ! Unfathomed, un-
fathomable, is this lake at its southern end: — its
mysteries, be they what they may, are veiled by
these dense waters : — but the traveller, conscious as
now he is of the actual depth of the surface— so far
below the level of the busy world as it is — needs
little aid of the imagination to persuade himself that

Hebrew Poetry. 79

a plunge beneath the surface would bring him upon
the very roofing of Sheol.

It is the wild flowers of a land that outlive its de-
vastations : — it is these that outlive the disasters or
the extermination of its people : — it is these that out-
live misrule, and that survive the desolations of war.
It is these "witnesses for God" — low of stature as
they are, and bright, and gay, and odoriferous — that,
because they are infructuous, are spared by ma-
rauding bands. These gems of the plain and of the
hill-side outlast the loftiest trees of a country: —
they live on to witness the disappearance of gigantic
forests : they live to see the extinction of the cedar,
and of the palm, and of the ilex, and of the terebinth,
and of the olive, and of the acacia, and of the
vine, and of the figtree, and of the myrtle : — they
live to see fulfilled, in themselves, the word — " every
high thing shall be brought low ; and the humble
shall rejoice." So has it been in Palestine : once it
was a land of dense timber growths, and of frequent
graceful clusters of smaller trees, and of orchards,
and of vineyards, which retains now, only here and
there, a remnant of these adornments. Meanwhile,
the alluvial plains of the land, and its hill sides, are
gay, every spring, with the embroidery of flowers —
the resplendent crocus, the scented hyacinth, the
anemone, the narcissus, the daffbdil, the florid poppy,
and the ranunculus, the tulip, the lily, and the rose.
These jewels of the spring morning — these children

80 The Spirit of the

of the dew — bedded as they are in spontaneous pro-
fusion upon soft cushions of heather, and divans of
sweet thyme — invite millions of bees, and of the most
showy of the insect orders : — flowers, perfumes, but-
terflies, birds of song, all things humble and beau-
tiful, here flourish, and are safe — for man seldom
intrudes upon the smiling wilderness !

Nevertheless, skirting the flowery plains of Pales-
tine, in a few spots, there are yet to be found secluded
glades, in which the cypress and the acacia main-
tain the rights of their order to live ; and where, as
of old, " the birds sing among the branches." And
so live still, on spots, the fruit-bearing trees — the
apricot, the peach, the pear, the plum, the fig, the
orange, the citron, the date, the melon, the tamarisk,
and — noblest of all fruits — the grape, " that maketh
glad man's heart :" all still exist, as if in demonstra-
tion of what God has heretofore done for this sample
land of all lands, and may do again.

A sample land, in every sense, was the ancient
Palestine to be, and therefore it was so in its cli-
mate. The round of the seasons here exhibits a
greater compass of meteorologic changes — there are
greater intensities of cold and of heat — there is more
of vehemence in wind, rain, hail, thunder, lightning,
not to say earthquake, than elsewhere in any country
between the same parallels of latitude, and within
limits so narrow. Altogether unlike to this condi-
tion of aerial unquietness are the neighbouring coun-

Hebrew Poetry. 81

tries — Egypt, Arabia, Persia, or Mesopotamia. To
find the climate of Palestine in winter, or in sum-
mer, we must include a fifteen degrees of latitude,
northward and southward of its own.

Already we have adverted to those physical
changes in the surrounding countries which, in the
course of thirty centuries, have very materially
affected the climate of Palestine : the reality of
such changes can hardly be doubted. Throughout
the Psalms, the Book of Job, and the Prophets, there
are many passages, relating to variations of tem-
perature, and the like, which agree much rather
with our experience in England, than they do with
what is 710 w common to Syria. This is certain
that throughout the ages during which the Biblical
literature was produced, the climate of Palestine
was such as to render its allusions to the external
world easily intelligible to the people of all lands,
excepting only those of the arctic circle. How
much more intelligible, in this respect, are those
books, than they would have been if the Poets and
Prophets of the Bible had been dwellers in Mesopo-
tamia, or in Egypt, or in Nubia, or in Libya, or in
Thrace, or in Southern Tartary, or in Northern
Europe, or in North, or in South America, or in
any of the scattered islets of the Eastern Ocean !
Palestine, situated at the juncture of continents, at
the head of seas, at the centre of travel by camel
or ship, is, or it was at the time in question, as to
its Fauna and its Flora, a museum land ; — as to its

G

82 The Spirit of the

climate, it was the congener of all climates — as it
was also in its adaptation to modes of life, and to the
means of subsistence. Palestine was favourable to the
habits of the hunter, the herdsman, the agriculturalist,
the gardener, the vinedresser, and to them that culti-
vate the fig, and the olive, and the date-palm. Pa-
lestine, if man be there to do his part with his hoe,
and his knife, and his plough, is at once an Asiatic
country, and it is European. It has its counterpart
in Greece, in Italy, in France, in England, as to
what is the most peculiar to each ; and so it is that
the Scriptures of the Old Testament are intelligible
(in those allusions to Nature with which they abound)
to the greatest number of the dwellers on earth ;
and that the countries in which these allusions might
not be understood are as few as they could be.

It is not possible to determine how far changes
of climate throughout the surrounding coun-
tries have had influence in giving to the aerial
aspect of Palestine that clear, sharp, and unpic-
torial visibility which is now its characteristic.
This clearness does not fail to attract the eye of
the traveller who visits the Holy Land, with the
aerial phenomena of his own landscape scenery in
his recollection : striking is the contrast that pre-
sents itself in this respect. The hill country of
Judea — itself now bare, and almost treeless — is
seen through a medium which throws upon its
hills and rocky surfaces an aspect of hardness and
poverty : so it is that the home of sacred mysteries

Hebrew Poetry. 83

is itself shrouded in no mystery. In England, a
distance of twenty or thirty miles is enough to im-
part to mountain ranges the pictorial charms of
many delicate tints, and these always changing ;
and to give even to objects less remote a sort of
unreality, grateful to the eye of the poet and the
painter. But it is not so in Palestine, where, under
ordinary conditions of the heavens, a range of hills,
which may be forty or fifty miles distant, shows it-
self to be — what it is, and nothing more ! Illusions
of the atmosphere do not lend the distance any
unreal charms.

Bring together from the stores of our modern
English Poetry those passages which borrow their
rich colouring fi'om our fitful atmosphere and its
humidity: — the soft and golden glozings of sunrise
and sunset, and the pearly distances at noon, and
the outbursts of sunbeam, and the sudden oversha-
dowings, and the blendings of tints upon all dis-
tances of two or three miles : it is these atmospheric
illusions, characteristic of a climate that is humid,
and yet warm, which have given to the English
taste in landscape its peculiarity, and which shows
itself equally in the national poetry, and landscape-
painting. That sense of the picturesque, which is
so eminently English, must, in part, at least, be
traced to those aerial illusions which we willingly
admit, as compensation for the discomforts of a
variable climate.

If the English temper be moody, and if its tastes

84 The Spirit of the

are largely inclusive of the melancholic element,
much of this sombreness of feeling, and its tender-
ness, is no doubt attributable to a climate, an atmos-
phere, a sky, that are too little cheered by the sun :
and the national poetic feeling, with its wistfulness,
and its retrospective depths of feeling, is in accord-
ance with this want of settled fervent effulirence.
Among the deeper shadows, and richer colours, and
the mysteriousness of the latest autumn, the Poetry
of Eno^land takes its tone.

But the English traveller, with his recollections
of a home landscape — its grey gentleness of tints,
and its mysteries of shadow — should prepare him-
self for disappointment in making his way on such
a route as that from Jaffa to Jerusalem : no sha-
dowy illusions are there ! It is naked reality that
surrounds him far and near in this arid land. The
feeling that is due on this surface must be chal-
lenged to come where we know it ought to come ;
and it is not what he sees, but what he thinks of,
that gives excitement to his journey. Enchantment
has been dispelled ; let then the gravest thoughts
take the place of agreeable illusions ! If English
landscape be a painting in oils, the Syrian land-
scape is a painting in fresco : each line of hills
cuts its hard outline — one rangje in front of another
— and the most remote come upon the sky with a
too rigid distinctness. At an early hour the sun
drinks up all moisture from the earth's surface; and
thenceforward all things are seen through a medium

Hebrew Poetry. 85

that is perfectly translucent. In Palestine, as now
it is, Nature exhibits herself as a marble statue —
colourless and motionless: — whereas at home we
are used to see her less fixed in her attire, and
making her toilette anew from hour to hour. Has
it always been so in Palestine as now it is? No
certain answer can be given to this question ; yet
it may be believed that, in the times of David and
of Isaiah, not only was the land itself everywhere
richly clad, but the atmosphere had a changeful
aspect, almost as much so as with ourselves.

And yet if the transparent atmosphere of Syria,
under a fervent sun, gives too much of naked reality
to the landscape, vast is the advantage which is its
compensation, when the sparkling magnificence of
the starry heavens takes its turn, instead of the
things of earth, to engage the meditative eye.
Grant it that the day there (now at least it is so)
offers a spectacle less rich than in our latitude of
mists : — but then the Night, upon the mountains of
Israel, opens a scene incomparably more sublime
than we are used to witness. There — it seems so
— bearing down upon our heads with power are the
steadfast splendours of that midnight sky ! Those
only who have gazed upon the starry heavens
through a perfectly transparent atmosphere can
understand the greatness of the disadvantage that
is thrown over the celestial field by an atmosphere
that is never well purged of the exhalations of earth.
In a latitude so high as ours, and which yet has a

86 The Spirit of the

mean temperature higher than its degrees should
give it, the chill of the night serves only to shed
fog or mist upon the lower stratum of air ; but in
warmer climates, — and in no country is it more so
than in Syria, — the vast burden of the watery ele-
ment which the fervour of day has raised aloft be-
comes, quickly after sunset, a prodigious dew, break-
ing down upon the earth, as a mighty, yet noiseless
deluge : — the aerial load is suddenly thrown off upon
the lap of earth, and so it is that, almost in a mo-
ment, the veil is drawn aside from the starry fields.

The planets, and the stars upon which the shep-
herds of Palestine were used to gaze, and which to
them were guiding lights, do not seem as if they
were fain to go out from moment to moment ; but
each burns in its socket, as a lamp that is well fed
with oil. We, in this latitude, have borrowed — for
technical purposes in our Astronomy — the Chaldean
groupings of the stars into the contours of monsters
and demi-gods ; but, unless we had so borrowed
these celestial romances, we should never have
imagined them for ourselves. The nightly heavens
in warmer climates show the celestial giants with a
bold distinctness; and under those skies these im-
puted forms of the astral clusters look down upon
the earth as if they were real beings, and as if each
glowing cluster — Pleiades, Orion, Mazzaroth, and
Arcturus, and their companions— were possessed of
a conscious life.

The pastoral usages of Palestine greatly favoured

Hebrew Poetry, 87

a meditative and religious contemplation of the
starry heavens ; and throughout long periods of the
Hebrew national life in which the land had its rest
from war, and when the shepherd's enemy was not
his fellow-man, but the wolf only, and the lion, and
the bear : the shepherd — whose own the sheep were
— passed his night abroad, taking his rest upon the
hill-side ; and these shepherds were often of a mood
that led them to " consider the heavens," the work
of the Creative hand ; and to gather from those
fields the genuine fruits of the highest philosophy —
which is — a fervent piety. The Palestinian shep-
herd of that age did indeed misinterpret the starry
heavens in a sense ; — or, we should say, he was at
fault in his measurement of the distance between
the celestial roofing above him, and the earth on
which he trod ; yet, notwithstanding this error,
much nearer did he come to the firmament of uni-
versal truth than does the modern atheist astro-
nomer, who, after he has found, by parallax, the
distance of the nearest of the stars, professes to see
no glory in the heavens, but that of the inventors
of his astronomic tools ! The ladder which rested
its foot upon earth, and lodged its uppermost round
upon the pavement of heaven, was indeed of far
greater height than the Syrian shepherd imagined
it to be; nevertheless it was to him a firm ladder
of truth ; and upon it have passed those who have
kept alive the intercourse between man and his
Maker through many centuries.

88 The Spirit of the

Always with some high prospect in view, and
most often when he had a messagfe of rebuke to
deUver, the Hebrew prophet drew many of his sym-
bols from those meteorologic violences which, as
we have said, are of frequent occurrence in Pa-
lestine. Thus it was that in predicting the over-
throw of empires, the fall of tyrants, the destruction
of cities, the scattering of nations — the messenger
of God found, ready for his use, a figurative dialect
which had a colloquial import among the people :
besides these deluges of rain, and these awful thun-
derings and lightnings, and these cataracts of hail,
the people had experience of the terrors of earth-
quake— if not of volcanic eruptions.

It was thus, therefore, that, within limits so narrow
as those of the land occupied by the Hebrew people,
provision had been made (may we not use this
phrase ?) at once for supplying to its Poets, in the
greatest abundance and variety, the material imagery
they would need ; and for bringing within the daily
experiences of the people every condition of the
material world which could be made available for
the purposes of a figurative literature. In these
adjustments of the country to the people, and of
both to the ulterior intention of a Revelation for
THE WORLD, wc need not hesitate to recognize the
Divine Wisdom, making preparation, in a marked
manner, for so great and peculiar a work. Other
provisions, having the same meaning, will meet us
Yet at this point there is an infer-

Hebrew Poetry^ 89

ence that should be noted— namely, this — That the
mode or style of a communication of the Will of
God to the human family was to be symbolical, or
figurative ; and that by consequence it should not
be scientific or philosophic — or such as could be
interpretable in an abstract, or an absolute sense.

A question now meets us, an answer to which is
important to our present line of argument. The
ancient Palestine, we have said, was rich in its mate-
rial garniture, as related to the needs and purposes
of a figurative literature. And so are, and have
been, other lands ; but those who have trod the soil
and tilled it may have had little or no tasteful con-
sciousness toward the aspects of Nature, as beautiful
or sublime. Poetry has not had its birth among
them : the language of the people has reflected only
the primitive intention of a colloquial medium ; and
therefore it has been poor in its vocabulary as to the
specific differences of objects, and as to less obtru-
sive distinctions among objects of the same class.

In these respects, then, how was it with the He-
brew people ? Writers of a certain class have
allowed themselves to repeat, a thousand times, the
unsustained allegation that this people was — " a
rude and barbarous horde." Do we find it to be
such ? We possess portions of the people's litera-
ture ; and, more than this, we have in our hands
their language ; or, at least, so much of it as suflSces
for putting us in position, on sure grounds of ana-
logy, for filling in some of the chasms, and for safely

90 The Spirit of the

presuming what this language must have been, in its
entireness, when it was the daily utterance of the
people.

A difference should here be noted, as to the infer-
ences that are warrantably derivable, on the one
hand, from certain literary remains of an ancient
people, and, on the other hand, from their language^
so far as this may be known by means of these
remains. Among a rude people there may have
been instances, one in a century, of Nature's gifted
spirits : — individual minds, rich and productive,
working the wonders of genius in solitary self-
sufficient force. In such instances — rare indeed
they are — the tools, the materials of genius are
wanting : — it was not a rich and copious language that
was at the poet's command ; for the " horde " were
as indigent in thought as they were rude in their
modes of life. How was it then with the ancient
people of Palestine ?

A people's language is the veracious record of its
entire consciousness — intellectual, moral, domestic,
civil, political, and technical. The people's glos-
sary is the reflection — whether clear or confused,
exact or inexact — first, of the notice it took of
Nature, and of the material world ; and then of its
own inner life of passion, affection, emotion; and
then it is the voucher for the people's rate of civili-
zation, and of its daily observances, its occupations,
and the customary accidents of these. Whatever is
in the language is now, or once was, in the mind

Hebrew Poetrt/. 91

and the life of the people. The single words of the
language, and its congested phrases, are tokens, or
they are checks with which some corresponding
reality duly tallied, whether or not any extant his-
tory has given it a place on its pages. Exceptive
instances might here be adduced ; but they are not
such as would interfere with our argument in this
case. Races that have fallen, in the course of ages,
from a higher to a lower stage of intellectual and
social advancement, may, to some extent, have
retained, as an inheritance which they do not
occupy, the copious glossary of their remote ances-
tors.

As to the extent and the richness of the Hebrew
tongue at the time when it was the language of
common life, or during the twelve centuries from
the Exodus to the Captivity, there must be some
uncertainty ; not merely because the extant remains
of the Hebrew literature is of limited extent, but be-
cause these remains are of two or three kinds only,
and — whatever may be their kind — they have one
and the same intention. The writers, whether his-
torians, moralists, poets, prophets, are none of them
discursive on the fields of thought : not one of them
allows himself the liberty to wander at leisure over
the regions of fancy, or of speculation. Each of
them has received his instructions, and is the bearer
of a message ; and he hastens onward to acquit him-
self of his task. Inasmuch as the message should
command all attention from those to whom it is de-

92 The Spirit of the

livered, so it must seem to command the whole mind
of the messenger, and to rule, and to overrule, his
delivery of it. Thus it is that copiousness and
variety should not be looked for within the compass
of books which not only have all of them a reli-
gious purpose, but which speak also in the pre-
scribed terms of an authority. Such writings are
likely to take up much less of the colloquial me-
dium than would be found in the miscellaneous and
unconstrained productions of writers whose purpose
it was to entertain the idle hours of their contempo-
raries.

Unless the botanies of Solomon were an excep-
tion, it might be that the Hebrew people had no
literature beside their religious annalists, and their
prophets. Yet we may believe that the talk
of common life, throughout the ancient Palestine,
contained a large amount of words and phrases
which have found no place in the extant Hebrew
books : — these books have immortalized for our Lexi-
cons perhaps not more than a third part of the
spoken tongue. If, therefore, it were affirmed that
the Hebrew language is not copious, or rich in syn-
onyms, what might be understood is this (if, in-
deed, this be true, which it is not) that its extant
sacred literature is not rich in words. But even if
this were allowed, then the question would return
upon us — whether the popular mind was not vividly
conscious toward the two worlds — the material, and
the immaterial — toward the outer and the inner

Hebrew Poetry. 93

life ? There is evidence that it was so : there is
evidence in contradiction of modern nugatory asser-
tions concerning " the rude and barbarous horde."
A people is not rude that notes all diversities in
the visible world; nor is it barbarous if its language
abounds in phrases that are the need of the social,
the domestic, and the benign emotions.

Proof conclusive to this effect is contained, by
necessary implication, in the fact that the Hebrew
people were addressed ordinarily by their Teachers
in a mode which (as to its structure) is subjected to
the difficult conditions of elaborate metrical rules,
and in the style of that fervid and figurative
phraseology which is evidence of the existence
among the people of an imaginative consciousness,
and of an emotional sensibility, far more acute than
that of the contemporary nations of whom we have
any knowledge. The Prophets and Poets of this
people use the material imagery — the bold meto-
nyms, the transmuted phrases — of the imaginative
and emotional style with an ease and a naturalness
which indicates the existence of corresponding in-
tellectual habitudes in the popular mind. As was
the Prophet, such, no doubt, were the Prophet's
hearers — obdurate and gainsaying often; neverthe-
less they were accessible always to those modes of
address which are intelligible, even to the most ob-
durate, when they have belonged to the discipline
and economy of every man's earliest years. Every
man's better recollections were of a kind that put

94 The Spirit of the

him in correspondence with the Prophet's style,
when he rebuked the vices, and denounced the
wrong-doings of later life.

The crowds assembling in the courts of the Tem-
ple, where the Inspired man took his seat, and the
promiscuous clusters that surrounded the pillars
whereupon the Prophet's message was placarded,
found the language of these remonstrances to he
familiar to their ears. The terms and the style
went home to the conscience of the hearer : — these
utterances did not miss their aim by a too lofty up-
shot : they took the level of the popular intellect ;
and so it was that, as well the luxurious princes of
the people as the wayfaring man, though of the
idiotic class, might read and understand the Divine
monition.

Inasmuch as the poetic and symbolic style draws
its materials from the objects of sense, it is implied
that the popular mind has a vivid consciousness of
these objects, and is observant of the specific diver-
sities of the natural world. This discriminative
consciousness undoubtedly belonged to the popular
Hebrew mind. The proof is this — that if we take
as an instance any one class of natural objects —
earth, air, water, the animal orders, or the vege-
table world — we shall find, in the Hebrew Glossary,
as large a number — as good a choice — of distinc-
tive terms, thereto belonging, as is furnished in
the vocabularies of other tongues, one or two only
excepted. We may easily bring our affirmation

Hehrew Poetry. 95

to the test of a sort of comparative estimate, as
thus : —

England is a sea-girt land, and it is a land of
rivers, and streams, and springs, and brooks, and
lakes, and pools, and ponds, and canals, and ditches :
it is also a land in which rural employments and
out-of-doors habitudes prevail : it is a country in
which the mass of the people has lived much abroad,
and has dwelt amidst humidity. Nevertheless fifty
or sixty words exhaust the vocabulary of the Eng-
lish tongue in this watery department. More than
this number are not easily producible, either from
our writers, or from colloquial usage. With this
number our poets have contented themselves, from
Chaucer to these times. France is also a sea-girt
land, and it is well watered ; but its vocables of this
class are not more in number than our own. But
now, although a portion only of the language of the
Hebrew people has come down to us in the canon-
ical books, this portion brings to our knowledge as
many as fifty words of this one class : it is not to
be doubted that in the colloquial parlance of the
people many more words had place ; — as many, pro-
bably, as would fully sustain our afiirmation as to
the comparative copiousness of this tongue. In al-
lowing sixty words of this class to the English lan-
guage, many are included which are technical or
geographical, rather than natural or colloquial, and
which are rarely occurrent in literature — seldom, if
ever, in religious writings. Such are the words —

96 The Spirit of the

Roadstead, Estuary, Watershed (American) Lock,
Canal, Drain, Bight.

There is yet another ground of comparison on
which an estimate may be formed of the relative
copiousness of languages. It is that which is
afforded by collating a translation with the ori-
ginal— in this manner — to take as an instance the
class of words already referred to. The Hebrew
Lexicon, as we have said, gives us as many as fifty
words or phrases which are representative of natural
objects of this one class ; and each of these terms
has — if we may take the testimony of lexicographers
— a well-defined meaninor of its own. We have

o

then to inquire by how many words are these fifty
represented in the Authorized English version. We
find in this version twenty-five words answering for
the fifty of the Hebrew — apparently because the
English language, at the date of this version, did
not furnish a better choice. In very many places
the same English word does duty for five, six, or
seven Hebrew words — each of which has a notice-
able significance of its own, and might fairly claim
to be represented in a translation. As for instance
the three words River, Brook, Spring, are employed
as a sufficient rendering of eight or ten Hebrew
words, each of which conveyed its proper sense to
the Hebrew ear, and might not well have given
place to a more generic, or less distinctive term.

A collation of the Greek of the Septuagint — say,
in any one of the descriptive Psalms — will give a

Hebrew Poetry. 97

result equally significant, we think more so, as evi-
dence of what may be called the picturesque or the
poetic copiousness of this ancient language ; and in
a note at the end of the volume the reader who
may wish to pursue the suggestions here thrown
out will find some further aid in doing so.

The conclusion with which we are here concerned
is this— That, whereas the ancient Palestine was a
land richly furnished with the materials of a meta-
phoric and poetic literature, so were the people of a
temperament and of habitudes such as made them
vividly conscious of the distinctive features of the
material world, as these were presented to them in
their every-day Hfe abroad. As proof sufficient of
these averments we appeal, /rs^, to the obvious cha-
racteristics of their extant literature ; and then, to
the fact of the richness, and the copiousness, and
the picturesque distinctiveness of their language,
which in these respects well bears comparison with
other languages, ancient or modern.

H

98 The Spirit of the

Chapter V.

THE TRADITION OF A PARADISE IS THE GERM OF
POETRY.

THE golden conception of a Paradise is the
Poet's guiding thought. This bright Idea,
which has suffused itself among the traditions of
Eastern and of Western nations in many mythical
forms, presents itself in the Mosaic books in the
form of substantial history ; and the conception, as
such, is entirely Biblical. Genuine Poetry follows
where a true Theology leads the way ; and the one
as well as the other must have — Truth in History
— as its teacher and companion. It is in the style
and mode of a true history that we receive the theo-
logic principle of a Creation which was faultless, at
the first. The beginning of history thus coincides
with that first axiom of Religion which affirms all
things to be of God, and all perfect. A morning
hour of the human system there was when man —
male and female — unconscious of evil, and unlearned
in suffering, was inheritor of immortality. In this
belief Piety takes its rise ; and in this conception of
the tranquil plenitude of earthly good — a summer's
day of hom's unnumbered and unclouded — Poetry

Hebrew Poetry. 99

has its source ; and toward this Idea — retained as a
dim hope — it is ever prone to revert. The true
Poet is the man in whose constitution the tendency
so to revert to this Idea is an instinct born with
him, and with whom it has become a habit, and an
inspiration.

Whatever it may be, within the compass of Poetry,
that is the most resplendent, and whatever it is that
awakens the profoundest emotions — whether they
be joyful or sorrowful — whatever it is that breathes
tenderness, as well as whatever kindles hope — draws
its power so to touch the springs of feeling from the
same latent conception of a perfectness and a happi-
ness possible to man, and which, when it is set
forth in words, presents itself as a tradition of Par-
adise. Poetry, of any class, would take but a feeble
hold of the human mind — distracted as it is with
cares, broken as it is with toils, sorrowing in recol-
lection of yesterday, and in fear as to to-morrow —
if it did not find there a shadowy belief, like an
almost forgotten dream, of a world where once all
things were bright, gay, pure, and blessed in love.
The Poet comes to us in our troubled mood, pro-
fessing himself to be one who is qualified to put
before us, in the vivid colours of reality, these con-
ceptions of a felicity which we vaguely imagine,
and think of as lost to humanity ; and which yet,
perhaps, is recoverable. We tm^n with distaste —
even with contempt or resentment — from the false
professor of the noblest of arts whose creations con-

100 The Spirit of the

tain no recognition, explicit or tacit, of this proper
element and germ of true Poetry.

Whether or not a belief of this kind may have
obtained a place in our Creed, the feeling is deep
in every human spirit, to this effect — That, at some
time — we know not when — in some world, or region
— we know not where — the brightest of those things
which the Poet imagines were realized in the lot of
man. But is, then, this conception an illusion ? Is
it a myth that has had no warrant? It is not so,
nor may we so think of it. If there had been no
such reality, there could have been no such imagin-
ation. If there had been no Garden of Eden, as a
first page in human history, never should the sooth-
ings of Poetry have come in to cheer the gloom of
common life, or to temper its griefs ; — never should
its aspirations have challenged men to admit other
thoughts than those of a sensual or a sordid course.

Four words — each of them full of meanino- — •

a

comprise the conceptions which we attribute to the
Paradisaical state. They are these — Innocence,
Love, Rural Life, Piety ; and it is toward these
conditions of earthly happiness that the human
mind reverts, as often as it turns, sickened and dis-
appointed from the pursuit of whatever else it may
ever have laboured to acquire. The Innocence
which we here think of is not virtue, recovered : —
it is not virtue that has passed through its season of
trial ; but it is Moral Perfectness, darkened by no
thought or knowledge of the contrary. This Para-

Hebrew Poetry. 101

disaical Love is conjugal fondness, free from sen-
suous taint. This Rural Life is the constant flow
of summer days — spent in gardens and a-field —
exempt from exacted toil. This Piety of Paradise
is the grateful approach of the finite being to the
Infinite — a correspondence that is neither clouded,
nor is apprehensive of a cloud.

It was in the fruition of each of these elements of
good that the days, or the years, or the centuries, of
the Paradisaical era were passed ; and it was then
that those things which to their descendants are
Poetry, to these — the parents of Mankind — were
realities. Each of these conditions of earthly well-
being was indispensable to the presence and preser-
vation of the others ; for there could be no Paradise
if any one of them were supposed to be wanting or
impaired. Without innocence earthly good is a
debasing sensuality : — without love it is selfishness
and war : — without piety eartlily good, at the very
best, is the dream of a day in prospect of an eternal
night; and to imagine a Paradise planted in the
heart of cities is a conception that is almost incon-
ceivable.

In like manner as there could be no Paradise in
the absence of these, its four elements, so neither
can there be Poetry where these are not its inspira-
tion, its theme, or its intention : or if not, we put it
away as either a mockery of the sadness of human
life, or as a vilifying slander. Love must be the
soul of poetry : Purity must be its purpose and aim :

102 The Spirit of the

— Nature abroad must be its desire, and its chosen
enjoyment, and Piety must be its aspiration. From
Poetry that has no correspondence with these con-
ditions of a Paradise we turn in dull despair to
resume the heavy task of life ; for if so, then beyond
its austere conditions there is nothing in prospect of
humanity: — the path we tread must be a continuity
of care in sullen progress to the grave.

We take, then, the Mosaic Paradise as the germ
of all Poetry ; and unless this first chapter of human
history be regarded as real — as true — it could stand
in no relationship to those deep-seated instincts —
those slumbering beliefs of possible felicity, which
this tradition has fed and conserved in the human
soul. If this first chapter be a fable, then we reject
this belief also as a delusion. But it is not a delu-
sion ; and as often as a group of children, with
ruddy cheek and glistening eye, is seen sporting in
a meadow, filling their chubby hands with cow-
slips— laughing in sunshine — instinct with blameless
glee — then and there, if we will see it, we may find
a voucher for the reality of a Paradise which has
left an imprint of itself in the depth of every heart :
the same truth is attested with the emphasis of a
contrast when — infancy and childhood, sporting and
merry at the entrance of a city den, and still snatch-
ing from the pavement a faded handful of flowers,
speaks of this instinct, and exhibits the pertinacity
of a belief which no pressure of actual wretchedness
can entirely dispel.

Hebrew Poetry. 103

Man in the garden of God, accepting, as the gift
of his Creator, the plenitude of earthly good, com-
bined in his lot Poetry and reality, which in the
experience of his descendants are always severed;
and yet the first of these is not lost, although it
stands aloof. In ten thousand ordinary minds there
is an element latent which, in the one in ten thou-
sand, quickens and becomes productive. The
musings and the yearnings of millions of souls are
so many inarticulate utterances of a dreamlike con-
ception of innocence, love, ease, leafy fragrant
bowers, and shining skies, which those who have
never found these things in their lot, nevertheless
persist in thinking have been wanting in it only
through adverse accidents and their evil stars ! So
long as sorrows, regrets, remorses, broken promises,
broken hopes, continue to call forth sighs, and to
moisten cheeks with tears — so long as blighted, or
wounded, or wasted affections eat as a canker into
sensitive hearts, so long as the bereaved, and the
friendless, and the homeless, and the lost, continue
to think themselves unblessed, though they might
have been blessed, then will these many sufferers be
dreaming of a lot which can never be theirs, wherein
the bright conditions of a lost Paradise should have
been represented, if not fully realized.

Refine these yearning beliefs — train them in
artistic expression, and then the product is — Poetry ;
and how elaborate soever this product may be, it
has had its rise in what was once as real, as are

104 The Spirit of the

now its contraries. If it had not long ago been
real it would have had no power to generate the
unreal, which has ever floated before the imagina-
tion of mankind : — there are no dreams where there
have been no substances.

Let it be so now that we listen to the exceptions
of a captious and gratuitous criticism, and that, at
its instance, we consent to remove from the book of
Genesis its initial portions ! Let it be that two,
three, or more chapters of this book are rejected as
" not historical." If so, then that which has rooted
itself in human nature has itself no root ! If it be
so, then dreams have sprung of dreams in endless
series : — if so, and if Poetry takes no rise in History,
then must a deeper darkness spread itself as a pall
over the abounding evils, sorrows, pains, and ter-
rors that attend humanity. Thenceforward let it
be — for who shall dare to gainsay Satan the Anti-
quarian ! — let it be so that not only pain and toil,
want, care, and grief, but also cruelty, wrong, vio-
lence, and war, shall proclaim an eternal triumph !
The monster henceforward takes a firmer grasp of
his victim : — if it be so — then, for aught we know,
the rights of this tyranny are immemorially ancient :
— they are as old as "the human period" of Geo-
logy : — for aught we know, the kingdom of Evil is
from everlasting, and it shall be everlasting.

It shall not be so. Give me back that which a
genuine criticism allows me to retain — the initial
chapters of the Mosaic record. Give me — not as a

Hebrew Poetry. 105

myth, but as a history — the beginning of the human
family in its Eden, and then a darkness is dispelled :
then hope and peace are still mine (and Poetry also)
for if this Proem of human history may stand ap-
proved, then on the skirts of the thickest gloom a
brightness lingers. If there was once a Paradise
on earth, then I know how to see and acknowledge,
as the gifts of God, whatever is good and fair in my
actual lot, and whatever is graceful ; and whatever
is in nature beautiful, and whatever it is which art
elaborates, and which genius exalts. In all these
graces of life I see so many vouchers for the fact
that this Earth once had a Paradise.

And this is not all — for, with the same Mosaic
belief as my ground of speculation — my turret of
observation, I may look upwards and around me
upon the sparkling fields of the infinite, and then
am free to surmise, what I have reason to infer from
an actual instance ; and thus I may assuredly believe
that, upon millions of worlds, there are now, and
will be, gardens of God, where all is fair and good.

106 The Spirit of the

Chapter VI.

BIBLICAL IDEA OF PATRIARCHAL LIFE.

PARADISE was lost ! Nevertheless, in accord-
ance with the primaeval Biblical Idea, the
religious man — the chief of a family — was permitted
to enjoy, through a long term of years, a terrestrial
lot in which were conserved the rudiments, at least,
of the forfeited felicity, and thus through the lapse
of centuries a conception of Life on Earth was
authenticated, in meditation upon which Piety
might re-assure its confidence in the Divine wisdom
and goodness.

The Patriarchal Idea is Oriental, not European ;
it excludes the energy, the individual development,
the progress, that are characteristic of the Western
races: — it is — Repose, and the fruition of unam-
bitious well-being. The Patriarchal life, in part
nomadic, in part precariously dependent upon the
chase, in part agricultural and of the vine culture ;
— the life of the tent, more than of strongholds and
walls, combines those conditions of earthly existence
which are the most favourable to religious contem-
plative tranquillity, and under which the sanctities

Hebrew Poetry. 107

of the domestic relationships should be reverentially
conserved. Within the precincts of this economy
of unwritten obligation and of traditional vene-
ration, piety toward God — the Invisible — was a
higher species of that filial regard of which the
senior and the chief was the visible centre.

The Patriarchal Idea is wholly Biblical, and as
such it has suffused itself through the poetry of
modern nations. And there is much in the mild
domestic usages and sentiments of modern nations
that is to be traced up to its rise in this conception.
It is Biblical, not merely because it is monotheistic
in doctrine ; but because also it gives a most deci-
sive prominence to the belief of the near-at-hand
providence of God — of Him that immediately orders
and appoints and controls all events affecting the
individual man. This ever-present Almighty —
Righteous and Benign — the Hearer of prayer — the
Giver of all good — the Avenger of wrong — is held
forth, and is vividly brought within range of human
conceptions in the incidents of the Patriarchal his-
tory. Far away from the interference of futile
speculative questionings, these religious beliefs, as
exemplified in the life of the servants of God,
received at once an historic warranty, and a dra-
matic— or, it might be said, even a picturesque —
realization, in the records of this era.

The Paradisaical elements are conserved in the
Patriarchal life— each of them attempered by blend-
ing itself with whatever in the actual lot of man has

108 The Spirit of the

become saddened by his sins and frailty — by his
pains, his toils, his cares ; and it thenceforward pre-
sents itself as if in shining fragments, commingled
with the ruins of purposes frustrated — hopes shat-
tered.

Within and around the patriarchal encampment,
near to the springs and the palms of the sultry wil-
derness, we are to find — in the place of Innocence —
Virtue — put to the proof, and not always triumphant
in its conflict with temptation. Within this enclosure,
instead of unsullied, uncontradicted Love, there are
yet heard the deep yearnings of domestic afifection,
rendered intense by tearful sympathies ; perhaps
by resentments that strike into the very roots of
human feelinof. Around this enclosure are assem-
bled, not the wild animal orders in awe of their
lord — doing homage to man ; but flocks and herds,
the product of his provident and laborious care.
Instead of a garden, wildly luxuriant in flowers
and fruits, there are trim enclosures of esculent
plants — flowers and perfumes giving way to roots
and fruits : — there may be heard the singing of birds ;
— yet this is less heeded than the lowing of kine.
Human existence is in its state of transition — con-
serving as much of its primaeval felicity as shall be
the solace and excitement of a life which still may
be happy, if man be wise ; and the wisdom, which
is to ensure his welfare, is that to which the patri-
archal altar gave its sanction. The Divine favour
is there pledged to the obedient and devout ; but it

Hehrew Poetry. 109

is pledged under conditions which are, in the simplest
mode, ritual, and which, while they assure the wor-
shipper in his approach to God, restrict him also.

The Patriarchal man knew that he had forfeited
terrestrial immortality, and that his years on earth
were numbered ; and yet, in the place of a now-
undesirable endless life, there was given him — lon-
gevity ; and beyond it, a far more distinct vision of
the future life than modern Sadducean criticism has
been willing to allow. This length of years — a
stipulated reward of piety — and this more than a
glimmer of the life eternal, imparted a dignity to
the modes of thinking, and to the demeanour and
carriage of those " Sons of God " who, each in his
place, stood, toward all around him, as Chief, and
Prophet, and Priest. Life under these conditions
— beneath the heavens — a life, inartificial and yet
regal — a course abhorrent of sordidness, and thrift,
so realized itself during a lapse of centuries, as to
have become a Pattern Idea, the presence and in-
fluence of which are conspicuous in the cherished
sentiments and in the literature of modern and wes-
tern nations.

To its rise in the Patriarchal era may be traced
that one conception, which might be called the
Ruling Thought, as well of Art, as of Poetry — the
Idea of Repose. Order, symmetry, beauty, secu-
rity, conscious right and power, are the constituents
of this Idea. When embodied, or symbolized in
Art or in Poetry, it is this Repose which is the

110 The Spirit of the

silent voucher for whatever shall be its consumma-
tion in a higher sphere — even for " the Eest that re-
maineth." It contradicts, and refuses to be consorted
with, the ambition, the discontent, the adventure, the
turmoil, the changeful fortunes, the pressure, and
the progress, of that lower life which knows nothing
of the past, and is mindless of the remote future.

The first man had lived — for whatever term — in
the fruition of the happiness which springs from the
spontaneous development of every faculty — bodily
and mental. The man — wise and good in his de-
gree— under the patriarchal scheme, enjoyed as
much of the things of life as were allowed to him —
individually — under the conditions of a providential
scheme, divinely established and administered, in a
manner which rendered the Providential Hand and
Eye all but visible : the Patriarch — religious in
mood and habit, and thus cared for by Him whose
Name was a promise — the Patriarch eschewed am-
bition, he dreaded change in the modes of life — he
contented himself with those simple conditions of
common life which, in a warm and equable climate,
are more agreeable — more sufficing, than are the far
more elaborate provisions of a higher civilization in
a more austere climate. Especially did this patri-
archal nomad life — this following of pasturage where
it might be found — greatly favour that meditative
mood in which piety delights itself — entertaining
the idea of terrestrial life as a pilgrimage, under
tents, always onward bound towards a future, where

Hebrew Poetry. Ill

security and repose shall be — not precarious, but
perpetual.

Toward this model Idea, embodied as it has been
in the early history of the human family, and au-
thenticated as good for its timej by the apostolic
recognition of it, religious feeling in all times has
constantly shown itself to be tending. At times
and in places when and where the patriarchal well-
being has been wholly unattainable, there came, in
the room of it, or as its best substitute, the earlier
and the less fanatical form of the monastic life — the
anchoret'ic — not the conventual — the sentimental
and mystical, rather than the ascetic ; and it is
observable that this milder style of the wandering
pilgrimage life over the ruggedness of earth to
heaven drew itself as near as it could to the scenes
of its patriarchal archetype. The commendation of
this primaeval piety may be this : — that it was in
•place as a preparation for a more advanced stage of
the religious training of the human family ; — but
the condemnation of the later mood — in itself inno-
cent, was this, that it was out of place — out of date^
after the ultimate Revelation had been promulgated.
The ascetic had forgotten evangelic principles: —
the anchoret had retreated from evangelic obliga-
tions. The Patriarchal life was the foreshadowing
of a future, wherein communion with God being
the high end or intention of existence, whatever
else is done will be regarded only as a means con-
ducive to that end.

112 The Spirit of the

In accordance with its intention and its external
conditions, the piety of the Patriarchal era was in-
dividual, not congregative ; — it was domestic, not
ecclesiastical ; — it was genuine and affectionate, not
formal or choral, or liturgical : — it did not emulate,
or even desire, the excitements of a throng of wor-
shippers, assembling to "keep holy day," and making
the air ring with their acclamations : more of depth
was there in this ancient piety ; and it may be be-
lieved that the worshipper drew much nearer to the
throne of the Majesty on high than did the promis-
cuous crowd that, in after times, assembled to cele-
brate festivals and to observe national ordinances.
On these conditions, namely — the renouncing of
worldly ambition, and the restless imagining of a
something better, supposed to be attainable by
thought and labour; then the Patriarchal repose
took its rest upon the hope and promise of a land —
unseen — the land of souls, whereinto the servants of
God are gathered, each in his turn as he fails from
his place on earth. How desirable a lot might we
now think this, if only its material conditions might
be secured ! — but they may not — this is not possible ;
for man is summoned to work, and to suffer ; and
the piety of meditative repose, and of conscious
transit to the paradise of spirits, must give way to a
piety that needs to be strenuous, self-denying, and
martyr-like ; and that must win its crown, after a
conflict.

Nevertheless, this enviable lot having once been

Hebrew Poetry. 113

realized in the remoteness of ages, it still lives in
the imaginations of men, and toward it, not poets
only, but the most prosaic of the order of thrift
are seen to be tending. Toil and turmoil through
sixty years are endured, if only these may purchase
a closing decade of rest — rural occupation — secu-
rity— or, in a word, a sort of suburban resemblance
of the leisure and the dignity that was long ago
realized in the desert, by them of old.

The Poetry of all nations has conserved more or
less of these elements of the primseval repose ; and
in fact we find them conserved also, and represented,
in that modern feeling — the love of, and the taste
for — the Picturesque. Modern, undoubtedly, is
this taste, which has not developed itself otherwise
than in connection with pictorial Art, in the de-
partment of landscape. What is the picturesque ?
A question not easily answered ; yet this is certain,
that any attempt that may be made to find an an-
swer to it must bring us into contact with the very
elements which already have been named ; and
which are assembled in the Ideal of the Patriarchal
Repose. The picturesque could not belong to Para-
dise ; for it finds its gratification in those forms of
decay and disorder which bespeak damage and in-
action. The picturesque is not simply — beauty in
Nature ; — it is not luxuriance ; it is not amplitude
or vastness ; it is not copiousness ; it is not the
fruit of man's interference : but rather is it the con-
sequence of an indolent acquiescence on his part, in

I

114 The Spirit of the

things — as they are, or — as they have become. The
picturesque belongs to the foreground always ; or
to the stage next beyond the foreground ; — never
does it take its range upon the horizon. The pic-
turesque claims as its own the cherished and deli-
cious ideas of deep seclusion, of lengthened, undis-
turbed continuance, and of the absence, afar-off, of
those industrial energies which mark their presence
by renovations, by removals, and by a better order-
ing of things, and by signs of busy industry, and of
thriftiness and order.

Within the sacred precincts of the picturesque,
the trees must be such as have outlived the winters
of centuries, and been green through the scorching
heats of unrecorded sultry summers : they stoop,
and yet hold up knarled giant branches, leafy at the
extreme sprays ; and their twistings are such as to
look supernatural, seen against an autumnal evening
sky. The fences that skirt the homestead of the
picturesque must have done their office through the
occupancy of three or four generations. The dwel-
lings of man must declare themselves to be such as
have sheltered the hoary quietude of sires long ago
gone to their graves. Inasmuch as the picturesque
abjures change, it rejects improvement ; it abhors the
square, the perpendicular, the horizontal ; and it
likes rather all forms that now are other than at
first they were, and that lean this way and that
way, and that threaten to fall ; but so did the same
building threaten a fall a century ago ! In a word.

Hebrew Poetry. 115

the picturesque is the Conservatism of Landscape
Beauty. It is where the picturesque holds undis-
puted sway that we shall find — or shall expect to
find — secure and placid longevity— domestic sanc-
tity and reverence ; together with a piety that holds
more communion with the past than correspondence
with the busy and philanthropic present. Give me
only the picturesque, and I shall be well content
never to gaze upon tropical luxuriance, or upon
Alpine sublimities ; nor shall ever wish to tread the
broad walks that surround palaces ; shall never be
taxed for my admiration of those things which wealth
and pride have superadded to Nature.

116 The Spirit of the

Chapter VII.

THE ISRAELITE OF THE EXODUS, AND THE
THEOCRACY.

IT was upon no such bright themes as those of
the Paradisaical era — it was upon no subjects so
well adapted to the purposes of Poetry as those of
the Patriarchal era — that the Hebrew Prophets em-
ployed themselves. It was far otherwise : leaving
subjects of this order open and unoccupied to the
genius of distant ages, these witness-bearing men, in
long succession, addressed the men of their times
upon matters of more immediate concernment, and
in a mood and style adapted to the people with whom
they had to do. If it be so — and on this point there
can be no reasonable question — then it must be true
in this instance, as in every similar instance, that a
correct notion of the people who were so addressed,
as to their deo^ree of culture, as to their moral con-
dition, and their social advancement, and as to their
comparative intelligence, may with certainty be
gathered from these remains of their literature : —
the literature beingr reg^arded as the mirror of the
national mind. Yet if we so regard it, and so use

Hebrew Poetry. 117

it, this safe method of induction may perhaps lead
the way to conclusions that materially differ from
those which, on the one side, as well as on the other
side, of a controversy concerning the Old Testament
History, have been advanced, and have been tacitly
assented to.

To defame, by all means, the ancient Israelitish
people, as a " horde of barbarians," has been the
purpose of a certain class of writers ; and on the
other side a mistaken timidity has beguiled writers
into the error of supposing that, in admitting this
imputed barbarism, an extenuation, or a palliation
might be found for those events and those courses of
action in the history of the people which most
offend our modern tastes, or which stand condemned
by Christian principles. What has been wanting,
and the want of which has shed confusion upon the
subject, has been — we need not say — candour and
truthfulness on the one side ; but more of intellectual
and moral courage on the other side of this modern
arcrument.

o

The ancient Israelite had no peer among his
contemporaries ; nor do we find analogous instances
on any side that might render aid in solving the
problem of this race, either in its earlier or its later
history. In truth, there is as much need of an ad-
mission of the supernatural element for under-
standing the national character^ as there is for
understanding the narrative of its fortunes and its
misfortunes — the catastrophes that have overwhelmed

118 The Spirit of the

it, and the fact of its survivance of each of them in
turn. The Jew — such as we now meet him in the
crowded ways of European cities — is indeed a mys-
tery insoluble, unless we are willing to accept the
Biblical explication of the problem. So understood,
we do indeed yield credence to the supernatural ;
but then, in not yielding it, the alternative is a
congeries of perplexities that are utterly offensive
to reason.

Taken on the ground of ordinary historical rea-
soning, the earliest literary remains of the Israelitish
people give evidence of a far higher range of the
moral and religious consciousness than is anywhere
else presented in the circle of ancient literature.
The inference hence derivable is not abated in its
meaning by the anomalous and remarkable fact —
a fact which has no parallel — that these writings,
through a great extent of them, take a form of re-
monstrant antagonism toward the people — toward
the masses, and toward their princes and rulers.
Those who take upon themselves the unwelcome
and dangerous office of administering national re-
buke, and of uttering denunciations, are not wont to
attribute to their hearers more of intelligence and
of right feeling than they find among them. We
may believe, then, that there was, in fact, with these
hearers that measure of mind and of virtue, the
existence of which is fairly to be inferred from the
language of these public censors, whose often-re-
curring phrases are of this order — " Ye are a stiff-

Hebrew Poetry. 119

necked people — a foolish nation : — as were your
fathers, so are ye."

As was the country, so the people : — the country,
geographically, was embraced within the circuit of
the East ; nevertheless, in climate and productions
it was European more than it was Asiatic. And so
the people — Orientals by origin, by physiognomy,
by usages, and yet in many points of mental con-
stitution, and by its restless energy, it was more
European than Oriental. Toward the trans-Euphra-
tean races — the ultra-Orientals — the Israelite showed
a decisive contrariety or alienation : he refused his
sympathies toward the sun-rising ; or, if in some
instances amalgamation in that direction took place,
the sure and speedy consequence was loss of nation-
ality in every sense — physical, ritual, social. The
captive tribes, when carried eastward, forgot their
institutions — forgot their very name.

But toward the people of the " Islands of the
sea" — the European races — the Jew, while main-
taining a sullen antagonism, and continuing to re-
but scorn with scorn, has done so in a manner that
gave proof of his consciousness of what might be
called — intellectual and moral consanguinity. By
his sympathies, by his intellectual range, by his
moral intensity, by his religious depth, and even by
his tastes, the Jew has made good his claim to be
numbered with those that constitute the common-
wealth of western civilization. Intimately consorted
with European nations, this integrate people has

120 The Spirit of the

repelled commixture, as if it might serve as an
alloy ; but it has shown its quality, in this way,
that, if the Western nations, like the perfect metals,
are fusible, and malleable, and ductile, and apt for
all purposes of art, this race also — unlike the Ori-
ental races — fully partakes of the same original
qualities, and is apt also toward the highest civili-
zation. Not so those races that are properly Ori-
ental, and which, like the imperfect metals, show a
sparkling surface, but are stereote in thought, in
usages, in political structure — the same from the
beginning to the end of millenniums. As the Jew
of modern times is our equal, intellectually and mo-
rally, so has he been from the first ; — such was the
Israelite of the Exodus, and of the next following
centuries.

Orientals — those who are such by destiny — have
always, as now they do, surrendered themselves
inertly to despotisms of vast geographical extent.
Not so the Israelite, either of the remotest times, or
of later ages. Often trampled upon and loaded
with chains, he has never ceased to resent his bonds,
or to vex and trouble his oppressor. Always, and
notoriously, has he been a dangerous and turbulent
subject. The Romans, great masters of the art of
governing dependencies, learned at length this les-
son— that the Jew must be indulged; — or, if not
indulged, then exterminated. It is true that the
kinsman of the Israelite — the Arab, has defied sub-
jugation ; — but he has done so as the roaming man

Hebrew Poetry. 121

of a trackless desert, whereupon he may flit until
his pursuers are weary of the chase. The resistance
and persistence of the Israelite, and of the Jew, has
implied loftier qualities, and deeper sentiments ; for
it has been maintained under the far more trying
conditions of city life. It is one thing to scoff the
tyrant from afar upon scorched illimitable sands : —
it is another, to maintain moral courage, and to
transmit the same spirit of heroism to sons and
daughters, while buffeted and mocked in every vil-
lanous crowd of a city ! So has the Jew held his own,
and he has done this as the true descendant of the
men with whom Jephtha, and Deborah, and Samuel,
and David, had to do. The same man — man indeed
Vie find him, in conflict with Antiochus, and when led
and ruled by the Asmonean princes. Such did he
show himself to the Roman proconsuls ; — such was
he as the problem of the imperial rule ; — such to-
ward the barbarian barons of mediaeval Europe ; —
such, from first to last {last w^e must not say of the
Jewish people) the man — firmer always in principle
and in passive courage than that the iron and the
fire should break his resolution.

The Israelite of the earliest period — the ages
elapsing from the settlement in Palestine to the
establishment of the monarchy, and onward — may be
regarded as the genuine representative of constitu-
tional social order ; for his rule is — submission up to
a limit, and resistance at all risks beyond that
limit. He had no taste for anarchy ; his inmost

122 The Spirit of the

feeling was quiescent, for it arose from his vividly
domestic, and his prsedial habits and sentiments.
The patriarchal ancestry of the nation had given
him a tradition of quietude and enjoyment — under
the vine and the fig tree — his wife as a fruitful vine
and his children as olive plants round about his
table ; and thus he was not the turbulent brawling
citizen, machinating revolution : — he was the sturdy
yeoman, and the true conservative. A soldier, and
always brave if there be need to fight — if there be
an enemy on the border ; but he was never ambi-
tious or aggressive.

Enough has become known concerning the com-
mon arts of life, as practised among the Egyptians
in the times of the Pharaohs, to secure for them an
advanced position on the scale of material civiliza-
tion : they understood, and successfully practised, as
well the secondary as the primary arts which mi-
nister to the subsidiary, as well as to the more impe-
rative requirements of the social economy. During
their long sojourn in the near neighbourhood of the
Egyptian civilization, the Hebrew people — slaves
during the latter portion only of this period — had
largely partaken of this advancement. The evi-
dences of this culture are incidental and conclusive,
as we gather them from the narrative of the forty
years' wandering in the Sinaitic peninsula. The
mechanic and the decorative arts were at the com-
mand of the people : there were among them skilled
artificers in all lines : — they possessed also a formed

Hebrew Poetry. 123

language, — and they had the free use and habit of a
written language.

If, then, we go on to inquire concerning the in-
tellectual and moral and social condition of the
thousands of the people, the warrantable method,
available for the purposes of such an inquiry, is
that of seeking the indications of this condition,
inferentially, in the remains of the literature of the
people ; — not, it may be, in treatises on abstruse sub-
jects, composed by the learned for the learned : but
in writings of whatever sort which were adapted to
popular use, and in which — for this is their mark, as
so intended — the mass of the people is challenged to
listen and to respond, and is invited and provoked
to contradict — if in any instance there be room for
a contrary averment. Such was the Israelitish
people at the moment which ended their tent-life
in the wilderness, and which immediately preceded
their entrance upon the land assigned them, as that
they, in full Ecclesia, might properly be taught,
advised, upbraided, promised, threatened, in the
manner of which the closing book of the Pentateuch
is the record and summary.

The Israelite of that time was such that to him
might be propounded, intelligently, the sublime
theology and the rightful and truthful ethics of the
book of Deuteronomy ; which have held their place,
unrivalled, as Institutes of Religion from that age
to this. What is our alternative on this ground ?
This book is either " from Heaven," in its own

124 The Spirit of the

sense ; or it is from man. If from Heaven, then a
great controversy reaches its conclusion, by admis-
sion of the opponent ; — but if from men, then the
people among whom this theology, and these ethi-
cal principles, and these institutions spontaneously
arose, and to w^hose actual condition they were
adapted, were a people far advanced beyond any
other, even of later times, in their religious concep-
tions, in their moral consciousness, in their openness
to remonstrance, and their sensibility toward some
of the most refined emotions of domestic and social
life. It is a canon, open to no valid exceptive
instance, that the spoken-to are as the speaker and
his speech. There is an easy and warrantable means
of bringing this historic canon to a test, as available
in the instance before us. Our question is — What
were these people, or — what had tlicy become, in con-
sequence of their Egyptian sojourn — what in con-
sequence of the discipline of the desert : — what,
upon a new generation, had been the influence of the
Sinaitic Law, and of the Tabernacle worship, and
of the tribune administration of social order ? Pro-
spective as were many of the Mosaic injunctions —
social and ecclesiastical — the theology was ripe and
entire, from the first ; — so were the ethical princi-
ples, and so was the worship. The generation which
then had reached maturity along with all of younger
age, from infancy upward, were — the product of
this religious and social training !

There is much more in the last book of the Pen-

Hebrew Poetry. 125

tateuch than in the preceding four — regarded as a
ground or source of inferences — concerning the in-
tellectual and moral condition of the Hebrew people
of that time ; for it consists of a series of popular
addresses, orally delivered ; and these, by the calm
majesty of the style throughout, by the remonstrant
tone, by innumerable allusions to events and usages,
carry with them a demonstration of historic verity
which no ing^enuous and cultured mind will fail to
admit. And withal, toward the close of these up-
braiding admonitions the Heaven-instructed Law-
giver and Prophet utters, with all the amplitude and
speciality of actual vision, a prediction of national
woe to arrive in the remotest distance of ages — a
prediction so irrefragably prescient as to have wrung
— to have wrenched — a reluctant admission of its
Divine origin from those who have schooled them-
selves in rebutting sufficient and reasonable evidence.

The utterance of a series of oral instructions and
remonstrances, in full assembly, differs, as we say,
much, as to its historical value, from the promulga-
tion of a written code, or of Institutes of Morals ; for
these may have been the work of a sage — theorising
and devising for the benefit of his contemporaries
more and better things than in fact they were pre-
pared to receive. Orations, if authentic, imply
more than is implied in treatises or in systems of
philosophy.

An intelligent and unsophisticated reader of the
majestic speeches which constitute the book of Deu-

126 The Spirit of the

teronomy — resplendent as they are with a bright
and benign theistic doctrine — translucent expres-
sions as they are of earnest paternal affection — deep
as they are in the knowledge of human nature —
humane as they are, will never believe — would
never imagine, that the speaker's audience were the
chiefs and the followers of a stupid, sensual, trucu-
lent, remorseless mob. Here, indeed, the ingenuous
reader feels that — as is the speaker, such are the
spoken-to. Greatly may we err, as we have already
said, in parting off the credible from the incredible
among the records of past ages. When the Hebrew
Poet challenges an imagined respondent, and asks,
in the confidence of truth — " What was it, O Sea,
that thou fleddest, and thou Jordan, that thou didst
turn back?" — we grant him readily his own expected
answer: — it was at the presence of the Almighty
that the earth then trembled, and that the sea was
then moved out of its place. This is not incredible,
nay, it is easy of belief, that He which formed the
deep, and founded the hills, should hold them in
His hand, and do with them what He wills. But
now let it be considered whether, with the books of
Moses before us, and the aged Lawgiver in view,
and with his people listening, as his sons around
him, we can imagine them to be the savages which
a malignant and perverse criticism has laboured to
paint them. We may be sure it was not so : — let
any instances be adduced which might give support
to a supposition of that kind.

Hebrew Poetry. 127

Was the Hebrew people a barbarous and san-
guinary horde ? The modern archetype of the
ancient Israelite, if we are to take our notion of him
from writers of a certain class, is to be found among
the (unchristianized) tribes of Kafir-land, or among
those — such as once they were, of New Zealand ; or
among the Red Men of the American wilderness ;
or we might find him among those that now roam
the Arabian deserts ; or we might find him among
the degraded and ferocious occupants of the dens
and cellars of great cities. But assemble now a ten
thousand of such men — the nearest resemblances
you can find of the " barbarians " of the Exodus and
of the Conquest under Joshua ; endeavour to gain
the hearing of the savage crowd — with the painted
face, and the horrid knife in the girdle, and the
skull of an enemy dangling from his belt : take
with you, for an experiment, the twenty-sixth chapter
of the book of Deuteronomy, and with it make proof
of the endeavour to find your way to the mind
and heart of untutored and of unculturable and
sanguinary savages. In fact, no such experiment
could be attempted. Try it, then, under any other
imaginable conditions. The Christian Missionary
must have laboured for many years among any of
the people of Asia — in China, in Thibet, in India,
and he must have schooled the children of those
nations from infancy to adult years, before he could
hope to surround himself with an audience that
might be expected to listen with intelligence to in-

128 The Spirit of the

structions and admonitions of this order. The Mo-
saic homilies are available as indirect, yet conclusive
evidence of the existence of a true theistic habitude
of mind among the people of the Exodus : — these
exhortations are distinguished by a majestic simpli-
city, and a fervour, and a paternal warmth, which
reflect, as in a mirror, the popular mind so far as is
needed for completing our historic conception of
the scene and its transactions : — the speaker, the
listeners, and the addresses. The well-schooled and
Christianized people of Protestant Europe excepted,
there is not now a people on earth — Eastern or
Western — among whom a hearing could be had for
recitations, and advices, such as these are. If this
exception be allowed for, then the popular mind
anywhere among the nations of Europe must have
been fused and cast in a new mould before lan-
guage like that which was addressed by their Law-
giver to the Hebrew people could meet a response
in the mind and heart of the multitude. The true
and the safe inference is this — That the thousands
of Israel, such as they were at the close of their
forty years' life in the wilderness, could not be, as
it is affirmed, a gross, stupid, and ferocious horde ;
— but on the contrary, a people — young in age, and
quick in mind and feeling ; — a people in seeking
for analogues to whom we must look among the
best trained of our modern Christianized — Bible-
taught populations : — they must have been a people
with whom there had been matured, a settled usage

Hebrew Poetry. 129

of theistic terms, a spontaneous intelligence of
these terms, devout habitudes, and withal a diffused
warmth of those social sentiments which are conse-
quent upon, and which are the proper results of, an
expansion of the domestic affections.

It is either from the want of philosophic breadth
in the mental habits of those who make great pre-
tensions to this quality ; or it is, on the other hand,
from a sickly religiousness, that the terrible events
and doings of the conquest, and the extermination
of the Canaanitish tribes, are asserted to be at va-
riance with the inferences which we thus derive
from the later portions of the Pentateuch.

These inferences are sure and conclusive ; and
they are the more so because mainly they are indirect
and circumstantial. Those events and transactions
— as they stand recorded in the Books of Joshua
and the Judges — are indeed appalling, and the
perusal of them must be painful. It ought to be so :
— it should not be otherwise than that from a stern
necessity only we rest in imagination upon recitals
of this order, let them be found where they may,
whether in our Bibles, or out of them. When similar
narratives are found out of our Bibles, our philoso-
phic habits of thought easily help us to get rid of
the difficulty ; and we abstain from petulantly draw-
ing conclusions, as to the manners or temperament of
nations, which would be precipitate and unwarrant-
able. When found within our Bibles, it is only a
gratuitous hypothesis, as to the methods of the

K.

130 The Spirit of the

Divine government in human affairs that generates,
or that aggravates, the difficulty, in view of vv^hich
our religious faith, or our Christianized sentiments,
are staggered or offended. The remedy is to be
sought — first, in a dispassionate attention to the
facts ; and then in a comparison of these facts with
others of a like order, occurring on the common
field of history.

Take in hand the Books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth,
and Samuel. Rising to view at frequent intervals in
these records, and always in a manner that is inci-
dental and inartificial, there are evidences irresistible
of the existence, diffused among the Hebrew people,
of deep and vivid domestic affections — of individual
and family piety — of humane sentiments and usages
— of a hio^h and chivalrous sense of honour and
patriotism, and of a stern sense of justice, and of
the rights and claims of the destitute and defence-
less. These facts transpire in the course of these
narratives; and the style of the prophets— even
when administering their most severe rebukes — sup-
poses the same facts. No such denunciations of the
Divine displeasure toward cruelty, violence, oppres-
sion, rapacity, could have had any meaning unless
there had been, on the side of the people, a con-
sciousness of truth, justice, mercy, humanity, purity,
and piety, of which consciousness the indications
are frequent in the history of the people ; — a history
extending a four hundred years onward from the
time of the passage of the Jordan. The acts of

Hebrew Poetry. 131

the Conquest had not found the Hebrew people a
sanguinary horde ; — nor had these acts rendered
them such : to suppose otherwise would be to reject
conclusive evidence bearing upon this instance, and
to forget parallel instances elsewhere occurring.

War will be war, everywhere and always, until
it shall have been "made to cease unto the ends of
the earth." Horrible always, at the best, will be
— slaughter — wholesale ; and it ought to be revolt-
ing in the recital, let the provocations, or the rea-
sons of necessity, be what they may ; and espe-
cially is it so when, to circumstances of urgent
national peril are added inveterate and aggravated
antipathies of race. The future readers of the his-
tory of the British rule in India— such readers,
more thoroughly Christianized than we of this time
are — will be fain to put from them the page which
tells of what was enacted by humane and Christian-
hearted British chiefs in regaining the lost su-
premacy of a foreign over the native races of Hin-
doostan. Slaughter — not effected by the predeter-
mined stroke of the magisterial sword — is, and ought
always to be, beyond, and contrary to, rule and
order. A people is indeed savage among whom
slaughter could be a recognized practice : never can
it come under the restraints of any sort of political
or moral generalization : never can it be reasoned
upon, or instituted, unless among a nation of fiends.
Nevertheless, it is certain that a people whose his-
tory is marked by no blood-stains — deep and broad

132 The Spirit of the

— has never yet held a place for itself upon the map
of continents. The world being such as it has ever
been, and is — even now in this late age — no place,
unless it be that of abject servitude, is left for any
race which is so inerme as that it could neither
provoke nor inflict sanguinary revenges. If we
resent any such allegation as this, we ought, in
proof of our consistency, not only to snatch the
musket from the soldier, but the bludgeon from the
girdle of the policeman. This may not be ques-
tioned, that, unless the ancient Israelitish people
had possessed as much of stern truculent energy as
this, they could not have maintained themselves a
ten years upon their soil — wedged in, as they were,
among the iron- charioted millions of Amalek, and
Midian, and Philistia, and of Assyria, and of Egypt.
If not so, then must there, from century to century,
have been pointed, eastward, northward, southward,
the always visible and blazing swords of seraphim.
Already we have said that we need the hypo-
thesis of the supernatural for solving the problem
of the national character, as well as for under-
standing the history of this people. And so now,
again, in this critical instance, it is nothing less
than an assumption of the supernatural in the his-
tory of the Exodus, and of the conquest of Canaan,
that can make intelligible the facts with which we
have to do — and which are these — first, That the
Hebrew tribes did indeed enact the extermination
of the Canaanitish races (so far as this was done),

Hebrew Poetry. 133

but that the work of slaughter, dire as it was, did
not settle itself down upon the national temper or
habits, so as to show itself upon the people as a
permanent disposition. No such effects followed
from the tragedy-period of their history : — it would
not necessarily do so in any case ; — it did not in
this instance, because the people, and their chiefs,
acted at the prompting of a command which, in
their view, had received unquestionable authentica-
tion from Heaven. Thus v^arranted, the act of
slaughter was, as we might say, screened from its
impact upon the moral sentiments of the people.
It was as when, shielded by a charm from the vio-
lence of fire, a man passes unharmed through a
furnace seven times heated.

Besides this hypothesis of the supernatural, which
we need in understanding the facts in view, there
is to be remembered also the often-mentioned facts
of the consummate abominations that had become
inveterate among the Canaanitish races. This
state of social putrescence — these destructive impu-
rities, and these Moloch cruelties, were known to
the invading people, and were understood by them
as the reason of their destruction. Thus commis-
sioned to exterminate those who could not be re-
formed, the work of slaughter did not unhumanize
those who effected it -. — that it did not the evidence
is various and valid.

Distinctly looked at, under its actual conditions,
the problem, so far as it affects the Israelitish peo-

134 The Spirit of the

pie of the Exodus and the Conquest, stands clear — if
not of perplexity, yet of any greater perplexity than
such as hovers over every other national history, in
this world of evil.

What, then, are the conditions of this same pro-
blem, considered in its upward-looking aspect, or as
it is related to the rules and methods of the Divine
government ?

Our first step on this ground is — to reduce the
problem, in this aspect of it, within the limits due to
it. What we are concerned with is — a limited, that
is to say, a Bible problem : — with the world-wide
problem, affecting philosophic Theism, we are not
here implicated. In this latter and more extensive
sense the existence at all, and the long-continued
existence, of nations so utterly degraded — so impure
and cruel in their manners and in their institutions —
is a far deeper mystery — it is a much more per-
plexing problem, than is their quick extermination,
whether effected by plague, or deluge, or the sword.
But then these dark depths in the human system, as
they stand related to the Divine wisdom and bene-
ficence, are not Bible troubles : — they are not
abysses which might be filled in by throwing into
them our Bibles — even millions of copies of Bibles :
— after this were done they would still yawn upon us,
as before. It is the disingenuous practice — or call
it artijice — of a certain class of writers to throw the
burden of world-wide mysteries upon the Bible,
upon which, in truth, they take no bearing.

Hebrew Poetry. 135

The dark colour of the problem — whether consi-
dered in its widest import, or in its speciality, as
related to the Biblical question now in view — has
been derived from modern modes of feeling ; and
these are the fruit of Christianity itself. No such
mystery troubled the meditations of philosophers
who looked complacently upon the trains of wretches
that graced the triumphs of Roman generals ; and
who relished the gladiatorial massacres of the am-
phitheatre. It is neither the philosophy nor the
poetry of classic civilization that has schooled the
modern mind in its mood of humanity. It is Bible
reading that has done this : it is our Christian
sensitiveness — out of which Infidelity has stolen an
advantage — that converts a misunderstanding of
those remote transactions into a sore trial of our
faith in Scripture. Christian sensitiveness, which we
should not wish to see blunted, together with a mis-
apprehension of the facts, has conjoined itself with
the besetting error of all religious speculation —
namely, the framing of some hypothesis concerning
the Divine motives which is wholly gratuitous and
unwarrantable.

It has been on the ground of some hypothesis of
this order — gratuitous and unwarrantable, that the
thoughtful of every age have made for themselves
infinite trouble, and great sorrow of heart. It has
been thus that the large economy of the animal
creation, and its stern realities, have driven many
on toward the belief of an Evil Principle — the

136 The Spirit of the

creator of the carnivora ! And thus that we
gloomily muse upon the course of events when
these are signally disastrous ; and thus that we find
occasions of offence in Biblical history. To a great
extent also we are governed, or rather we are tyran-
nized over, by the variable intensity of feelings
which so often go beyond all reason in relation to
the events of every day ; as, for instance — It is with
ungovernable anguish that we stand spectators of the
foundering of an emigrant ship : — ^five hundred souls
on board — men, women, children — lost within a
cable's length of the shore ! — a shifting of the gale
— one point — would have sufficed for bringing all
safe into port ! It is on an occasion of this sort
that our religious impulses are liable to a dangerous
strain, and we passionately ask — Why was this
calamity permitted? Our only conclusion — which
indeed brings with it very little abatement of our
distress — is the theologic apophthegm — The ways
of God are inscrutable. Yes, they are so ; neverthe-
less, knowing that they are so, we have given place
to an hypothesis concerning the Divine attributes
which rests upon no authentic ground whatever.
As if to brinor before us the incoherence of our own
modes of thinking, it happens that, the very next day
after the shipwreck, we read listlessly the report of
the Public Health ; and find there the statement —
that " fevers of the typhoid class, as well as scar-
latina, have prevailed during the last few weeks in
crowded districts, and have been fatal in as many

Hebrew Poetry. 137

as fifteen hundred cases." For the difference in the
intensity or violence of our emotions in these two
instances we can give no very satisfactory account ;
and yet it is the lesser woe that stirs the depths of
religious meditation ; while the greater woe barely
moves thouo^ht at all. The difference has much
more to do with scenic effect, than either with
reason or piety.

Thought of strictly — in their theistic import, it
is not the destruction of the cities of the plain of
Sodom, nor the overthrow of hundreds of cities
since then by earthquake, nor deluges extending
over kingdoms, nor the prevalence of plagues, nor
famines, nor the extermination of races by the
sword, that in any way touches the theology of
the Bible. These catastrophes — these miseries —
fatal to millions of men, are all of them dark items
in a catalogue for the contents of which no philo-
sophy has hitherto furnished any explication, and
for the explication of which Holy Scripture was
not given, and will not avail.

It is but few persons, even among the educated,
who have so trained themselves in the management
of their own minds as to be able — unless it be for a
moment — to take up a subject in which elements
are commingled, and to sunder these elements, and
to hold them apart, and, as in this instance is requi-
site, to think temperately, and separately of what
belongs to the human, or humanity side of it, and
of what is proper to its theistic aspect. This, there-

138 The Spirit of the

fore, must be our conclusion, as to sensitive and
imperfectly disciplined Christian people — thought-
ful and feeling as they are : — the blood-stained page
of Hebrew history must continue to give pain in the
perusal. Disciplined Christian minds, while pe-
rusing such narratives — wherever they may be
found — will read them with pain, but not with per-
plexity ; or with no more perplexity than that which
surrounds far larger and deeper questions, and which
sheds upon all an impenetrable gloom.

It is enough for our present purpose — and our
intention in giving any prominence to the subject
is completed — when we take with us, as unquestion-
able, the fact that the Israelite of those remote times
was one whose religious beliefs, and whose modes
of feeling, and whose social habitudes, were such as
to place him far in advance of any among his con-
temporaries, or even of the men of much later times.

Hebrew Poetry. 139

Chapter VIII.

POETRY IN THE BOOK OF JOB.

NOTHING that is proper to the textual or the
historic criticism of this book, or of any other
canonical book, concerns us in relation to our sub-
ject in these pages ; and we have to do with it only
so far as we find therein what is illustrative of our
immediate purpose. Undoubtingly we accept the
claim of this book to a high antiquity ; and moreover
fully admit the historic reality of the persons, as
well as the canonical validity of this portion of the
Hebrew Scriptures.

Apart from the proper criticisms, philological
and historical, which should determine the date of
the composition, and the chronology of the events,
and their reality, every reader who is not prepos-
sessed on the other side finds himself carried back
by the archaic majesty of the style, and by the
breadth of the ground it occupies (as compared with
the more strictly national style of the Prophets) to
an age as early, at least, as that of the Israelitish
settlement in Palestine. Everything in this Book

140 The Spirit of the

shows its remoteness from the Mosaic ritualistic in-
stitutions, and from Israelitish modes of life. If, in-
deed, contemporaneous with those times, the usages
it refers to, and the habits of thought it indicates,
are wholly of another order. Nor is this all. The
purpose and purport of the Book of Job is — the
working out, and the bringing to an issue, a great
problem of the moral system, on that ground which
the patriarchal dispensation occupied, and from
which the Mosaic institutions moved away, for ad-
mitting what was peculiar to a more limited econ-
omy. The patriarchal ground had been measured
off with a longer radius, which swept a more com-
prehensive field ; and within this more ample cir-
cuit there was room for the agitation of questions
which, within the straiter Mosaic enclosure, had
met their determination in a more formal manner,
that is to say, in the mode of decisions hy authority.
Within the range of those of the Hebrew Scriptures
that follow on from the Mosaic institutes, and that
recognize the national law, there do not occur any
open debatings of universal moral problems ; for
every theological, and every ethical principle is
assumed as granted, or is taken up as having been
already determined.

It is quite otherwise in the Book of Job, which
takes its place on a free field. The ground assumed
is the patriarchal ground of earthly well-being, and
the principle taken for granted is that of a visible
administration of human affairs, under the eye and

Hebrew Poetry. 141

sovereign control of the Righteous and Benign Al-
mighty;— He who is unchangeable, just, and wise,
and good, notes the ways of men — He follows the
wicked with rebukes, and He rewards and blesses
the good. But yet, in the actual course of events,
this principle meets many apparent contradictions.
Hence those perplexities which in every age dis-
tress thoughtful minds. How shall these instances
of contrariety be so disposed of as shall save the
faith and the hope of the servants of God ? Here,
then, is the purport of the Book : this the problem
that is worked out in the arguments of the speakers,
and in the conclusion of the history ; it is indeed
glanced at often in the Prophetic writings, and in
several of the Psalms — the Seventy-third especially;
but nowhere else is it formally debated, and brought
to an issue.*

The argument of the Book of Job bears— we say
— upon the visible administration of the Divine
government, as related to the earthly well-being of
those who fear and serve God. Little or nothing
within its compass touches the inner life, or opens
to view the experiences of those who are under
training for a more intimate communion with God
— the Father of spirits — and who freely court a dis-
cipline the intention of which goes quite beyond
the range of terrestrial rewards and punishments.
Here is the contrast between the Book of Job and
many of the Psalms : — the order of Thought in the
* See Note.

142 The Spirit of the

one is broad and ostensible ; in the other it is of a
more refined species : — it is more intense, it is more
peculiar, it is more full-souled ; — in a word — it is
more spiritual ; and we use this sacred term never
in the modern mode of an affected accommodation ;
but in its proper, and its Biblical sense.

Inasmuch, then, as the ground occupied by the
disputants in the Book of Job is of wider circuit
than that whereupon the Israelitish Prophets take
their stand, it might seem probable that, in availing
themselves as they do of the figurative style, and in
uttering themselves after the fashion of poets, they
should also use a discursive liberty in which, as we
have said, the Prophets of Israel do not indulge.
But it is not so ; — or it is so very partially, in the
speeches and the rejoinders of Job and his three
friends, or of their young reprover, Elihu. These
all use the poetic diction ; yet only as a means
adapted to their purpose. But then, for bringing
the argument to its close, and for winding up the
history in accordance with its intention, another
Speaker comes in — " Then the Lord answered Job
out of the whirlwind," and asks — " Who is this that
darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge ?"

Where shall we find the grandeur of Poetry,
where is majesty in language, where is boldness,
fire, or descriptive force, if not in these four closing
chapters of this Book ? Strictly metrical in struc-
ture are these passages : — antithesis and apposition
prevail throughout. Metaphoric in language — in

Hebrew Poetry. 143

single terms, and in combinations of phases are they
throughout : thus far these compositions are in ac-
cordance with the usages of the Hebrew prophetic
Scriptures ; but here the resemblance fails, and the
dissimilarity on other grounds is so extreme as to
carry with it, or rather to force upon our notice, a
principle which has been once and again referred to
in these pages, and which should receive attention
as explicative of the Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry.

Throughout the Prophetic writings allusions to
the material world — the visible creation — are fre-
quent, and they are always bold, forceful, and apt ;
yet they are brief, and they are, as we might say —
cursive — the prophet hastens forward — he lingers
never : the allusion, when it has subserved its pur-
pose, is dismissed. But in these closing passages of
the Book of Job, albeit a religious and a moral in-
tention is kept in view, it is held in abeyance till the
end ; or it is left as an inference which the hearer is
required to gather up for himself, and this inference,
or this intention, gives a foremost place to the mate-
rial subject : it is as if the visible natural object
might, in its own right, challenge principal atten-
tion— as if it might, by itself, and irrespectively of
every moral purpose in relation to the argument, be
worthily retained in view, and be turned about de-
scriptively, and be looked at on every side. The
things spoken of stand in front : — the religious pur-
pose— the doctrine — is to be sought for after.

In these notable passages it is the Lord — the

144 The Spirit of the

Creator — that speaks of, and that commends, the
works of His hands ; and it is those of them He com-
mends— and it is for such of their qualities — as least
comport with modes of feeling that are character-
istic of religiously meditative minds : these passages
are not of the fine or sentimental order : — they give
a bold contradiction to those oriental dreams which
made the animal creation an occasion of offence to
the languid, oriental devotee; and then their ac-
cordance is to be noted with those juster views of
the economy of the animal system which modern
science has lately brought itself to approve. In a
repeated perusal of these free and vigorous descrip-
tions— mainly of animal life as they are — one feels
to have reached high ground, and to have left below
the region of those delicate surmisino^s and those
melancholic refinements that float about over the
ague-levels of an over-wrought sensitiveness. We
are here called out from the cloister and the cell,
and are summoned abroad : — at this invitation we
take an upward path — we breathe a pure air, and
rejoice in sunshine. We are challenged to look far
and wide over a prospect in the sight of which — at
some moment far back in the remoteness of ages —
" The morning stars sang together, and all the sons
of God shouted for joy."

Is the Creation itself, is this material organiza-
tion— class balanced against class as it is — welfare
pledged against welfare — constituting a vast anta-
gonism for life — is it such as the tender-spirited

Hebrew Poetry. 145

among us would have made it ? It is not such : —
a robust reason, and a large acquaintance with the
conditions and the structure of animal and vegetable
life, and a knowledge, too, of the remote dependence
of orders upon orders, are here required ; and of
this sort must be our seasoning if we would gain a
right apprehension of the theology of the material
world. Thoughtful and delicately- constituted minds
need to be acclimated in the world of animal life
before they can attain a healthful intelligence of the
things around them. Let us be understood now, as
always, to speak with reverence, and to keep in re-
membrance what we profess undoubtedly to believe.
With this caution then premised, we say that, in
these signal passages of this book — regarded now
as human utterances — there is as much of a bold
and fearless Reason, as there is of the fire and mag-
nificence of Poetry. The pictorial vigour of these
descriptions may perhaps have hidden from our
view that healthful force in the treatment of sub-
jects of this class which gives these passages their
prominence in relation to other contemporary modes
of thought, elsewhere occurring. Not of the Brah-
minical mintage are these descriptions ; not of the
Gnostic ; not of the Manichsean ; and assuredly they
are of older stamp and hue than were those instincts
of the Israelite which had become to him a second
nature, and which were the product of the Mosaic
distinctions of the " clean and the unclean." Free
from trammels of every sort are these portraitures of

146 The Spirit of the

behemoth, and the unicorn, and of leviathan, and of
the ostrich, and of the wild ass, and of the war-horse.
No w ay are they 7iice : — they are in the very man-
ner of the creative energy itself, such as we see it.
If we do not relish these descriptions, it must be
because we distaste also the creation ; it must be
because the crocodile and cayman, the boa-con-
strictor, and the vulture, and the hyaena, and the
parasitical orders, are not what we would have
made them : — it must be because the revelations of
the microscope upturn our indoor-made theologies.
Inasmuch as these animal portraits overleap in
chronology the wrong theories and the national and
temporary prejudices of antiquity, and seem to com-
port better with modern scientific conceptions of the
material system, so — and in a very striking manner
— do the exordial portions of the same take on to
/ our modern geology : — they do so in breadth or
grasp of handling — in freedom of conception ; and
especially in that looking back to the morning time
of the universe which it has been the work of recent
science to school us in. These utterances are in
the mode of a personal consciousness that is older
than the material framework of the creation : — they
sound like the Creator's recollections of an eternity
past ! If they contain no definite anticipations of
the results of modern science, they are marvellously
exempt from any approximate error, akin to the
I misapprehensions of later times. It is as if He who
framed the world out of nothing w^ould speak of His

Hebrew Poetry, 147

work to a certain limit, and not beyond it: — the
truth is uttered ; but not the whole truth.

The same style which bespeaks a personal con-
sciousness, older than the material world, appears
again as the mode proper to a consciousness that is
as wide as the universe of stars. It is here as if
the recollections of an era earlier than stellar
time had brought with them the associated thought
of the clustered glories of constellations that are in-
finitely remote ; and thence, spanning the skies — of
another, and another, and yet another, of the mil-
lion groups of flaming worlds. Quick is this transit
from era to era of eternity ; and quick is this transit
from side to side of the celestial infinitude; and
quick again is the descent thence to earth, whereupon
Man is to be taught that which concerns himself
— his place, and his welfare !

148 The Spirit of the

Chapter IX.

POETRY IN THE PSALMS.

NEITHER the authorship of the Psalms— singly,
nor their date — singly, comes within the limits
of our subject; nor indeed, as already said, does
any matter that is proper to textual criticism (unless
it be incidentally) or to theological interpretation
belong to our task. We are to find in these com-
positions— the poetical element, and are to note the
conditions which attach to it, where we find it. For
securing these purposes it seems needful to distri-
bute them into classes — clearly distinguishable as
most of them are, on the ground of their style, their
purport, and their apparent intention.

The most obviously distinctive of these classes
comprises those — they are of greater length than
others — which recite the Hebrew history in its
earlier acts and incidents ; and which, if regarded
on the ground of ordinary national poetry, are re-
markable for their manifest tendency to break down,
or even to mortify, the national pride, and to keep
the people in mind of their often-repeated defections
and apostacies. Of this sort especially, and which
may be named as a sample of this class, is the 106th

Hebrew Poetry. 149

Psalm. The recital of national offences begins with
the penitential profession — " We have sinned with
our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have
done wickedly ; " and its concluding stanzas (v.
40 — 48) suggest the supposition — apart from any
critical reasons — that this ode was of a late date —
probably as late as the return of the people from
Babylon. The reflective tone of this summary of
national history gives the impression of a retrospect,
from a point of view the most remote from the times
spoken of. A congregational Psalm it manifestly
is: — it supposes, in the people, a now-matured reli-
gious feeling, abhorrent of idol- worship, and at
length so thoroughly weaned from errors of that
kind, as to treat them contemptuously. A Psalm of
feeling and sentiment it is, metrical, but not poetical.
Seventeen of the Psalms* may be classed together
under this designation — as recitals of the national
history, this being regarded always in its religious
aspect, and always more for purposes of penitential
humiliation than of glorification. And we note in
all of them the absolute avoidance of certain ele-
ments which, in national odes intended for popular
use on festive occasions, is a circumstance full of sig-
nificance. These wanting elements are what might
promote sacerdotal^ or rather, hierarchical aggran-
disement : — the despotic, and also the heroic style, or
the idolization of the ancient warriors and saoes of

* These seventeen Psalms are Pss. 44, 46, 60, 68, 74, 75, 76,
78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 105, 106, 126, 137.

150 The Spirit of the

the nation. In the loftiest and the purest sense these
odes are theistic ; and so they are, whether the times
be bright or dark. Look to the 44th Psalm, and to
the 46th, which breathe the sublimity of a tranquil
faith, rising above the storms of earth. The return
of the soul is ever to its resting-place, as in Ps. 60 :
" Give us help from trouble : for vain is the help of
man." The 68th Psalm — if now we might imagine
the scenes, the sounds, and the circumstances,
when, under management of " the chief musician,"
the courts of the temple shook with its chorus,
and the "great congregation," keeping holiday,
joined their voices with the ministers around the
altar, we should have, in sounds, in feeling, all
that poetry and music combines, and the depths of
religious awe have ever done, or might ever do, to
exalt the spirit of man, and to carry popular emotion
to the highest pitch. No wonder that, in recollec-
tion of seasons such as these, the exiled wanderer in
the wilderness should think " the tabernacles of God
amiable," or that he should expend sighs in terms
like these — " My soul longeth, yea even fainteth for
the courts of the Lord : my heart and my flesh crieth
out for the living God." — " A day in thy courts is
better than a thousand" — spent in pavilions of luxury.
No spot on earth was there then — none has there
been since — that might claim comparison with that
" Hill of the Lord" whereupon, under the blue
vault of heaven, these national anthems were per-
formed, and took effect with every aid of a composite

Hebrew Poetry. 151

musical system — with the harmony of instruments
and voices — with the popular acclamation — with the
visible adornments of the temple and its awful sacri-
ficial rites. In our dull perfunctory recitations of
these anthems of the Hebrew nation we quite fail to
estimate what was their power, their majesty, and
beauty, when and where they got utterance at the
first. Nor can it be within the chill gloom of our
Gothic cathedrals — let modern music and the organ
do its best — that an idea can be formed of the com-
mingled sublimities of that ancient worship — true in
its theology — perfect in its metrical and its musical
expressions — lofty, and yet reverential in its tone —
humanising in its sentiments, and withal indigenous
— homefelt — national — near to the heart and recol-
lections of the worshippers : — a worship homogeneous,
and which was especially in accordance with every
belief and every sentiment of that age, and of that
people. There is more in this last condition than
we may have been used to suppose. Turn now for
a moment to this 68th Psalm.

Frigid, narrow, unrealizing is that exceptive
criticism which fails to see and to feel the divine
majesty — the super-human truth and greatness of
that worship of which, in this instance, we have a
sample. Along with these ascriptions of majesty,
power, goodness, to God — the God of Israel — there
are those pieties of the afifections of which no in-
stances whatever are extant anywhere — out of the
circuit of the Hebrew Scriptures. God is " a Father

152 The Spirit of the

of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows" — who
also "setteth the solitary in families, and bringeth out
those which are bound in chains." Verse, linked in
with verse, are the images of power and majesty,
wrought into one mass with ideas of beneficence and
of mercy.

The chariots of God — twenty thousand-thousands of angels.
The Lord is among them (as in) Sinai, in the Holy.
Thou hast ascended on high —
Leading captivity captive :
Thou hast received gifts for men ;

Yea the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell
(among them.)

But now, in our modern recitations of this anthem,
and of others of the same order, the flow of feeling
is checked by the occurrence of expressions that run
counter to, or that go far beyond, the range of our
christianized sentiments. So it is here at the very
start — " Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered."
And afterwards — "The Lord shall bring his people
from the depths of the sea — that thy foot maybe dipped
in the blood of thine enemies ; and the tongue of thy
dogs in the same." Undoubtedly we stay the course
of our sympathies at points such as these ! It could
only be at rare moments of national anguish and de-
liverance that expressions of this order could be as-
similated with modern feelings. What then should
be our inference ? It should not be of the confused
or compromising sort — taking what we approve —
and rejecting this verse, or that verse ; nor should our

Hebrew Poetry. 153

inference be timid and pusillanimous, as if we were
careful to shun some apprehended ill consequence ;
our inference should not be drawn from a theology
which is hypothetic — which is a mixture of our own
abstract|notions, with Christian principles. These
war-energies of the Hebrew mind, in a past time,
were proper to the people, and to the age ; and would
continue to be so until that revolution in religious

o

feeling had been brought about which, in abating
national enthusiasm, and in bringing immortality
into the place of earthly welfare, gave a wholly new
direction to every element of the moral system.
Difficult indeed it may be — perhaps it is quite im-
possible— for the modern mind, with its training,
which has become to it a second nature, to go back
to that " Hill of God," and to join in the loud ac-
clamations of the people. Yet if we could do so, we
should doubtless find that the battle-force of parts
in the national worship did not in any way make
discord with the loftiest and the purest religious
emotions. We of this time are so schooled in ame-
nities, we are so softened and sublimed, that a de-
termined effort, which few of us can make, is needed
for carrying us back to the place and era of these an-
thems— full as they are of power, as well as of piety.
Always is the martial mood tempered with humilia-
ting recollections of national sins : — never is it ex-
alted by any flattery of chiefs or kings : — never does
this martial force seek to enhance itself (as has been
its tendency always among other peoples) by ambi-

154 The Spirit of the

tious vauntings of conquests meditated — even for
the spread of truth : the conversion of the heathen
is never connected with conquests to be effected by
the sword. Mahomet and his caliphs could find
nothing in these anthems that would be available
for the purposes of Islam.

The intention of these national and historical
poems, and their tone and spirit, are well seen in
the 78th Psalm. The intention was — the religious
education of the people, from the earliest childhood
upward : the tone and spirit are such as could not
fail to form the Hebrew mind to greatness, to depth
and soberness of feeling, and to a profound con-
sciousness of that Providential Government which
fitted the people for other and higher purposes than
those of national aggrandisement. This metrical
summary of the people's history — majestic in its
imagery, and musical (even in a translation) and so
poised in its couplets and triplets as that little of
change would be needed for bringing it under the
conditions of rhythm, in any translation — would, in
its own Hebrew, and to the Hebrew ear, commend
itself at once as poetry, as music, and as devout
sentiment. Such was its purpose. The wonders of
the Divine Government from the remotest times
were to be fixed in the memory of children's chil-
dren to the end of time.

Showing to the generations to come the praises of the Lord,
And his strength and his wonderful works that he hath done.

Hebrew Poetry. 155

These — thus trained, should in their turn teach
them to —

The children which should be born ;

Who should arise, and declare them to their children :

That they might set their hope in God,

And not forget the works of God,

But keep his commandments.

The recitations that follow have all the same pur-
port ; they are as from God — a remonstrance — a
rebuke ; and yet such as gave assurance always to
the contrite and obedient. If this poem be taken
as an inauguration of the monarchy under David,
then should we not note the archaic majesty, and
the modesty of its closing verses ? The enemies of
Israel had been discomfited, and put "to a perpetual
reproach" — the monarchy was now established upon
Zion — the city was adorned with palaces and
strengthened with bulwarks, and thus peace was
established by the arm, and under the rule of this
David, whom God had chosen : — his servant, whom
he had taken

from the sheepfolds ;

From following the ewes, great with young.

He brought him to feed Jacob his people,

And Israel his inheritance.

So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart j

And guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.

It was the warrior David whose own arm had
been the instrument of the victories which at length
had given rest to the people, and had confirmed them
in their hitherto precarious occupation of the land

156 The Spirit of the

assigned them. To the Poet-king this composition is
attributed ; and if rightly so, then had he himself
learned a religious humility which few indeed of
his class — high born, or low born — have understood.
But if there were reasons for assigning this Psalm to
a bard of a later time (not that any such reasons are
pretended) then this avoidance of the magnifying
of a people's ancient heroes is the more noticeable,
for it is an abstinence which, as it has no parallels in
other national poetry, so does it find its explication
only on that ground where the history of this one
people can be exempt from contradictions — which
is the ground of its supernatural attestations.

Distinguishable from the above-mentioned are
those of the Psalms — they may be reckoned as
twenty* — which, looking at them apart from the
guidance (if indeed it be guidance) of textual
criticism, declare their own intention as anthems,
adapted for that public w^orship which was the glory
and delight of the Hebrew people ; — a worship car-
rying with it the soul of the multitude by its simple
majesty, and by the powers of music, brought, in
their, utmost force, to recommend the devotions of
earth in the hearing of Heaven. Take the last of
the Psalms as a sample of this class, and bring the
spectacle and the sounds into one, for the imagina-
tion to rest in. It was evidently to subserve the
purposes of music that these thirteen verses are put

* The Psalms here referred to are these — 24, 47, 48, 87, 95,
96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 108, 114, 117, 118, 122, 132, 134, 148,
149, 150.

Hebrew Poetry. 157

together : it was, no doubt, to give effect first to the
human voice, and then, to the alternations of in-
struments— loud, and tender, and gay, with the
graceful movements of the dance— that the anthem
was composed, and its chorus brought out —

Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord :
Praise ye the Lord !

and so did the congregated thousands take up their
part with a shout — "even as the noise of many
waters."

It is but feebly, and as afar off, that the ancient
liturgies (except so far as they merely copied their
originals) came up to the majesty and the wide
compass of the Hebrew worship, such as it is indi-
cated in the 148th Psalm. Neither Ambrose,
nor Gregory, nor the Greeks, have reached or ap-
proached this level ; and in tempering the boldness
of their originals by admixtures of what is more
Christian-like and spiritual, the added elements sus-
tain an injury which is not compensated by what
they bring forward of a purer, or a less earthly kind :
feeble indeed is the tone of those anthems of the
ancient Church — sophisticated or artificial is their
style. Nor would it be possible — it has never yet
seemed so — to Christianize the Hebrew anthems —
retaining their power, their earth-like richness, and
their manifold splendours — which are the very splen-
dours, and the true riches, and the grandeur of God's
world -and withal attempered with expressions that

158 The Spirit of the

touch to the quick the warmest human sympathies.

And as the enhancement of all there is the nationality ^

there is that fire which is sure to kindle fire in true

human hearts —

He showeth his word unto Jacob,
His statutes and his judgments unto Israel.
He hath not dealt so with any nation :
As for his judgments they have not known them.
Px-aise ye the Lord !

Nothing that mediaeval Gothic has achieved —
nothing that modern music has efi'ected, can be suf-
ficient for carrying the modern worshipper back to
that place and age where and when these anthems
" made glad the city of the Great King." As to the
powers of Sacred Poetry, those powers were ex-
panded to the full, and were quite expended too by
the Hebrew bards. What are modern hymns but so
many laborious attempts to put in a new form, that
which, as it was done in the very best manner so
many ages ago, can never be well done again —
otherwise than in the way of a verbal repetition.

About thirty-three Psalms might be brought to-
gether, forming a class of odes which, although many
or most of them probably, took their turn in the
responsive services of the Temple, are less conspi-
cuously liturgical, and have for their principal sub-
ject the attributes of God — His wonders of power
in the creation — His providence and bounty, and
His riofhteous government of mankind.* As sam-

* These Psalms of Adoration are the following — 8, 18, 19,
20, 29, 33, 34, 49, 50, 65, 66, 67, 82, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93,

Hebrew Poetry. 159

pies of this class we might take the 8th Psalm, and
the 19th, the 29th, the 50th, the 65th, the 90th, and
the 91st. In truth a selection of specimens of this
class is not easily made, for every one of those named
below might well stand as a representative of the
others.

With these brilliant poems before us, let us ima-
gine the thirty-three, or we might now add to them
the twenty anthems of public worship already
named — fifty-three odes and anthems — printed by
themselves, without note, comment, or any other
literary or historical information connected with
them, save this only — that in some mode of indubit-
able transmission, these compositions had come into
our hands from a remote antiquity, and that they
were the only extant remains of a people, long
since scattered and perished, concerning whose for-
tunes, institutions, beliefs, manners, we could know
nothing more than what might be gathered from the
remains now in view. The reader who will give
himself the pains to do so, must put far from his
thoughts the entire mass of his Bible beliefs — all his
recollections of the pulpit, and the desk, and of con-
troversies, and of his own conclusions — thereto re-
lated— whether they be orthodox or heterodox.
Thus stripped of his modern self, let him read the
65th Psalm, and let him open his heart, and mind
too, to admit — the largeness of its intention — the

104, 107, 111, 112, 113, 115, 121, 123, 125, 135, 136, 145,
146, 147.

160 The Spirit of the

width of its look-out upon the world — the justness
of its theism — if indeed a Creator is acknowledged,
and if the Creator be good also — the warmth of its
piety, and the gladsomeness of its temper, and the
landscape freshness of its images ; and withal the
preparation which is made in its exordium for the
outpourings of a grateful piety, by the open con-
fession of sin, and the deep consciousness of it as
the reason of the Divine displeasure. This ode
supposes — it connotes — an instituted congregational
worship — a temple, a liturgy, and a teaching !

What then were these people — what their theology
— what their ethics — what their history ? How can
it have come about, or why, under the Providential
Government of the world, that a people which was
thus highly instructed — was thus immeasurably ad-
vanced beyond any others of antiquity — should have
fallen from their position, and have disappeared from
the muster-roll of the nations — leaving no monu-
ments of themselves — these odes only excepted, which
have drifted down upon the deluge -surface of human
affairs ? In its attempts to answer these, and such
like questions, speculation might wander far, and
find no conclusion ; but whatever might be our sur-
mises, as to the catastrophes of such a people, or
their apostacies, or the gradual decay among them
of their pristine virtue, nothing could destroy the evi-
dence which is here in our own hands, to this effect,
that— on some spot on earth, and in some remote age,
there was once a people fully possessed of the highest

Hebrew Poetry. 161

truths, and so possessed of these truths as to have
assimilated them with its moral sentiments, and with
its tastes also ; for its perceptions toward the visible
world were alive to whatever is beautiful therein.

If such a perusal — if such a digestion of this one
ode brings into view, with the vividness of vision, this
lost theistic nation — then go on to peruse the other
fifty of this collection ; for these, in their different
modes, will give evidence touching each leading
principle of what we admit to be a true theology,
and a true belief concerning the Creative Power,
and a true belief in Providence, and the righteous
government, and gracious administration of that
Providence toward mankind, who are dealt with in
their weakness, and their failings, and their sins.
Vivid as these poems are, and full of force, and of
feeling, and abounding as they do in allusions to the
things of the time, it is not credible that they are
mere inventions, which had no archetypes in the
mind and usages of a people. This may not be
thought. It is certain then that there has once been
a people among the nations — there has been one
among the millions of the worshippers of stocks
— there has been one people — taught of God.

The 90th Psalm might be cited as perhaps the
most sublime of human compositions — the deepest
in feeling — the loftiest in theologic conception — the
most magnificent in its imagery. True is it in its
report of human life — as troubled, transitory, and
sinful. True in its conception of the Eternal — the

M

162 The Spirit of the

Sovereign and the Judge ; and yet the refuge and

hope of men, who, notwithstanding the most severe

trials of their faith, lose not their confidence in

Him ; hut who, in the firmness of faith — pray for,

as if they were predicting, a near-at-hand season of

refreshment. Wrapped, one might say — in mystery,

until the distant day of revelation should come, there

is here conveyed the doctrine of Immortality ; for

in this very plaint of the brevity of the life of man,

and of the sadness of these, his few years of trouble,

and their brevity, and their gloom, there is brought

into contrast, the Divine immutability ; and yet it is

in terms of a submissive piety : the thought of a life

eternal is here in embryo. No taint is there in this

Psalm of the pride and petulance — the half-uttered

blasphemy — the malign disputing or arraignment of

the justice or goodness of God, which have so often

shed a venomous colour upon the language of those

who have writhed in anguish, personal or relative.

There are few probably among those who have passed

through times of bitter and distracting woe, or who

have stood — the helpless spectators of the miseries

of others, that have not fallen into moods of mind

violently in contrast with the devout and hopeful

melancholy which breathes throughout this ode.

Rightly attributed to the Hebrew Lawgiver or not,

it bespeaks its remote antiquity, not merely by the

majestic simplicity of its style, but negatively, by

the entire avoidance of those sophisticated turns of

thought whichbelong to a late— a lost age in a peoples

Hebrew Poetry. 163

intellectual and moral history. This Psalm, undoubt-
edly, is centuries older than the moralizings of that
time when the Jewish mind had listened to what it
could never bring into a true assimilation with its own
mind — the abstractions of the Greek Philosophy.

With this one Psalm only in view — if it were re-
quired of us to say, in brief, what we mean by the
phrase — " The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry " — we
find our answer well condensed in this sample. This
magnificent composition gives evidence, not merely
as to the mental qualities of the writer, but as to
the tastes and habitudes of the writer's contempo-
raries, his hearers, and his readers ; on these several
points — -Jirsty the free and customary command of
a poetic diction, and its facile imagery ; so that
whatever the poetic soul would utter, the poet's ma-
terial is near at hand for his use. There is then
that depth of feeling — mournful, reflective, and yet
hopeful and trustful, apart from which poetry can
win for itself no higher esteem than what we be-
stow upon other decorative arts, which minister to
the demands of luxurious sloth. There is, more-
over, as we might say, underlaying this Poem, from
the first line to the last, the substance of philosophic
thought, apart from which, expressed or understood.
Poetry is frivolous, and is not in harmony with the
seriousness of human life : this Psalm is of a sort
which Plato would have written, or Sophocles — if
only the one or the other of these minds had pos-
sessed a heaven-descended Theology.

164 The Spirit of the

This, then, Is our conclusion. — The Hebrew writ-
ers as Poets — such a writer as was the author of
this Psalm — were masters of all the means and the
resources, the powers and the stores, of the loftiest
poetry ; but the spirit of this poetry is, with them
always, its instrumentality — its absolute subordina-
tion and subserviency to a far loftier purpose than
that which ever animates human genius.

There is a small number of the Psalms, eleven
only,* of which Psalms 37 and 73 might be named
as samples. The tone of these odes is meditative and
ethical : they represent those balancing thoughts
by aid of which the pious, in comparing their own
lot, such as often it is, with the lot of the ungodly,
or with the outside show of that lot, bring their mind
to an even balance, and restore its hopeful confidence
in the Divine favour. These Psalms are metrical,
indeed, but they are not poetical; although the
terms employed are all figurative, and are some of
them resplendent with a mild radiance, as pictures
of earthly well-being under the favour of God, and,
as to their domestic quality, they are peculiarly
characteristic of the Hebrew social feeling, which
was at once domestic — national — pacific.

Behold, how good and pleasant (it is)
For brethren to dwell together in unity.

As if in rebuke of the turmoil, and the ambition,
and the greediness of city life, the Hebrew bard

* These Psalms are— 1, 15, 37, 53, 62, 73, 101, 127, 128,
133, 139.

Hebrew Poetry. 165

commends rather the quiet enjoyments of the home
life, and especially if home life be rural life also.

Vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late,

To eat the bread of sorrows :

So he giveth his beloved sleep.

Lo, children are (the) heritage of the Lord :

The fruit of the womb (his) reward.

As arrows in the hand of a mighty man,

So are sons of the youth (sons of early married life).

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.

They shall not be ashamed,

But they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

There are here combined several elements of the
Hebrew life, and more so still in the Psalm follow-
ing— a song of degrees — a song in the chanting of
which the fatigues of the annual journeyings to the
House of the Lord were soothed.

Happy is every one that feareth the Lord :

That walks in His ways :

The labour of thy hands thou shalt eat :

It is well with thee — and (shall he) well with thee :

Thy wife is a fruitful vine, in the inner house :

Thy sons as olive plants round about thy table.

Behold thus shall the man be blessed,

Who fears the Lord.

The Lord will bless thee out of Zion.*

Thou shalt see the prosperity of Jerusalem all thy days.

And see thy children's childi'en.

Yea — peace upon Israel.

These pictures are mild and bright : — humanizing
are they in the best sense: — they retain certain ele-
ments of Paradise ; — and yet more, the elements of

* The meanincr of this line is found in Numbei's v, 22 — 27.

166 The Spirit of the

the Patriarchal era ; with the addition of that pa-
triotism, and of that concentration in which the Pa-
triarchal life was wanting. The happy religious man,
after the Hebrew pattern, possessed those feelings
and habitudes which, if they greatly prevail in a
community, impart to it the strength of a combi-
nation which is stronger than any other, uniting
the force of domestic virtue, of rural (yeoman-like)
agricultural occupations, of unaggressive defensive
valour, and of a religious animation which is na-
tional, as well as authentic and true. Our modern
learning in oriental modes of life, and its circum-
stance and scenery, may help us to bring into view
either of two gay pictures— that of the Hebrew man
in mid-life, at rest in his country home, with his
sturdy sons about him : his wife is still young : her
fair daughters are like cornices, sculptured as de-
corations for a palace. Or else the companion pic-
ture, with its group on their way Zion-ward, resting,
for the sultry noon-hour, under the palms by the
side of a stream ; — and yet home — happy home, is
in the recollection of the party : but the Hill of
God — " whereunto the tribes of the Lord go up" —
is in the fervent purpose of all ; and while they rest
they beguile the time with a sacred song, and with
its soothing melody. Happy were the people while
their mind was such as this, and such their habits,
and such their piety ! and this was a piety which,
along with true conceptions of God, was well used
to those humbling meditations that give to the soul
its calmness and its strength too —

Hebrew Toetry. 167

Lord, what is man that thou takest knowledge of him !
The son of the dying, that thou makest account of him !
Man — like to vanity!
His days are as a flitting shadow !

In other Psalms of this class — as in the 73rd —
the religious doctrine takes place of the earthly
sentiment. The exceptional instance, namely, that
of afflicted piety, is taken up and discussed; the
sufferer narrates his own experience on this ground ;
and yet he premises his conclusion, that, after all,
the Hebrew principle holds good; for "truly, God is
good to Israel, to such as are of a clean heart." In
these compositions, feeling — piety — the truth of
things, prevail over poetry ; nevertheless, they
bring into view glimpses of modes of life upon which
the modern imagination may dwell with sweet and
soothing satisfaction.

The class next to be named includes many of the
Psalms (thirty, or more),* and they are not easily
grouped under a fitting designation which may be
applicable to all of them. They are individual and
personal — not congregational — not liturgical. They
are expressive of those alternations of anguish, dis-
may, hope, trust, indignation, or even of deeper re-
sentments, which agitate the soul of one whose lot is
cast among the malignant, the cruel, the unreason-
able ; or, in a word, the dwellers in Mesech— the un-
godly. These Psalms, or most of them, are David's

* The Psalms of this class are— 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,
14, 17, 21, 35, 36, 41, 52, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 64, 77, 94, 109,
120, 124, 129, 140, 144.

168 Tlie Spirit of the

own, and they are to be interpreted severally, by aid
of his history, in its earlier part especially. Neither
with this history, nor with the quality of the emotions
that give an impassioned tone to these compositions,
are we here directly concerned. Fully to realize
circumstances and states of mind, such as are here
brought into view, we — in these easy times — must
travel far away from the secure and tranquil meadow
lands of ordinary life. But there have been tens of
thousands, in ages past, who have trodden the rugged
heaven-ward road, and have found it to be a way,
not merely thorny and flinty to the foot, but beset
with terrors ; for spiteful and remorseless men have
couched beside this narrow way, and have rendered
it terrible to the pilgrim : — a path of anguish and of
many fears it has been. In our drowsy repetitions
of these Psalms — cushioned as we are, upon the safe
luxuries of modern life, we fail to understand these
outcries from the martyrs' field.

O Lord, the God of vengeance —
O God, the God of vengeance, shine forth.
Rise up, thou Judge of the earth ;
Recompense a reward to the proud !

Let only such times return upon us, as have been
of more frequency than are these times of ease, in
the history of the Church, and we should quickly
know how to understand a Psalm such as the 94th.
Christian men and women, when they are called, in
like manner, to suffer, are required to pay respect to
a rule of suffering which is many centuries later than

Hebrew Poetry. 169

the time of David, but which, although it is indeed a
higher rule, does not bring under blame the natural,
and the religious emotions that were proper to the
earlier dispensation. The Christian Rule which en-
joins an unresisting endurance of wrong, and a
Christ-like patience, would not stand, as it does, in
bold relief upon the ground of universal morality,
if it were opposed only to those malign and revenge-
ful emotions which prompt the persecutor. The
Christian martyr's rule is declared to be an ex-
ceptional rule, and it bespeaks its intention, as a
testimony sealed in blood, in behalf of the hope of
eternal life, in this very way, that it takes position
as the antithesis, not the contradiction, of those
emotions which, in themselves, and apart from a
peculiar purpose, are not only natural, but are
virtuous and religious. When the Christian martyr
suffers wrong to the death — in silence, or is
triumphant at the stake, it is because he is looking
for " a better resurrection" — a crown of immor-
tality : it is, therefore, and it is on this newly-
opened ground, that he forgoes rightful indigna-
tion— that he represses the instincts of resentment
— that he abstains from imprecations — that he will
not, no, even in the utmost severity of anguish — on
the rack or' in the fire, call upon God — the God of
vengeance, to render a reward to the proud and the
cruel. It is in thought of the life eternal, and of
the judgment to come, that the Christian martyr
abstains from consoling himself in the prospect of

]70 The Spirit of the

that time when his God shall bring upon his
enemies " their own iniquity, and shall cut them off
in their own wickedness/'

There is apt to be much misunderstanding on
this ground, and a consequent confusion of thought,
on the part of Christian advocates, has thrown an
advantage into the hands of those whose aim it has
been to impugn the morality of the Hebrew Scrip-
tures. The subject, although incidental only to the
purport of this volume, comes just now in our path,
and it may claim a page. We do not interfere, at
all, with what may rightfully be affirmed concern-
ing the predictive import of the imprecatory Psalms ;
for that is a subject which belongs to the theological
Biblical Commentator. In these pages we are re-
garding these compositions from our standing on a
lower level : looked at from this point of view, then
there is seen to be shed upon the field of Christian
martyrdom, a splendour — full of the glories of that
upper world in the triumphs of which the martyr
aspires to take his part. There could be no need
of martyrdoms for bearing a testimony against dark,
foul, inhuman, sanguinary passions ; inasmuch as
these receive their proper rebuke in the conduct of
the virtuous, and the pious, who admit, and who give a
governed expression to, rightful and religious resent-
ments, even to those emotions of anger, and to those
appeals to sovereign justice, which are true elements
of human nature, and which, in ftict, have in them
so irresistible an energy, that they overbear all

Hebrew Poetry. 171

contradiction, unless it spring from motives of an-
other order.

The slow and insensible advancement of Christian
motives has brought on a transfusion of the passive
martyr doctrine into the ethics of common life. It
is thus that we have come to read what are called
the Imprecatory Psalms ; — and then, so reading
them, we are perplexed in attempting to assimilate
them to the Christian rule of non-resistance ; which
rule in truth, we talk of, more than we practise it.
Human nature, in \i^ primary constitution, is entirely
such as these very Psalms suppose it to be ; nor is
this structure of the emotions to be any way repro-
bated ; — far from it — it is God's own work. As in
relation to the vindictive passions, so in relation to
other forces of human nature, the Gospel comes in — •
on exceptive occasions, and supervenes their opera-
tion : with a crown imperishable in view, it bridles
the energies of this present life, and asks a sacrifice
of the body and of the soul.*'

It is against the abounding impiety, cruelty,
wrongfulness, falseness, craftiness of the men of his
times, that the writer — or writers — of these Psalms
makes his passionate, or his mournful appeal to the
righteousness of Heaven. His confidence in the
issue of the Divine Government takes its spring, and
receives its force, from the vivacity of his own emo-
tions of disapproval and of resentment too : — the one
energy, that of faith, sustains itself upon the other

* See Note.

172 The Spirit of the

energy, that of natural feeling : remove or weaken
the one, and then the other is enfeebled, in propor-
tion. This balancing of the one force, by the other
force, must have place, unless motives derived from
a higher level were brought in to take the place, and
to do the office of the w«^wr^/ emotions of resentment.
For a substitution of this kind the time was not yet
come : — long centuries were yet to run themselves
out before this revolution was to be effected. Never-
theless, inasmuch as there was to be nothing in the
later economy which had not been predictively sha-
dowed forth in the older economy, there appears, in
several of these denunciatory and vengeance fraught
Psalms, a glimmer, and more than a glimmer, of
that light of life which was at length to bring the
servants of God into a wholly new relationship to-
ward persecutors, and the doers of wrong. These
gleams of light from a brighter world give to several
of the Psalms something of the poetic tone in which
otherwise they are wanting.

We may take as an instance of this anticipated
Christian sentiment, an expression such as the fol-
lowing,— the meaning of which scarcely comes to the
surface in our English version.

For {on account of) the oppression of the poor : for the out-
cry of the destitute,

Now will I arise, saith Jehovah :

I will put him in safety from him that would entrap him :

Thou shalt preserve them (take them outfroin) this genera-
tion, for the age to come {tke hidden future).

Or more distinctly in the closing verse of the 17th

Hebrew Poetry. 173

Psalm. Notwithstanding the short triumph of those
who have their portion in this life, the servant of God
is comforted in prospect of a life future.

As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness :
I shall be content, when I awake in thy likeness.

The still clearer revelation contained in the 16th
Psalm might demand distinct notice under another
head. Of the same import are these verses (of Psalm
36).

They (the servants of God) shall be abundantly satisfied

With the fatness of thy House ;

And (for) thou shalt make them drink

Of the river of thy pleasures.

For with thee is the fountain of life.

In thy light shall we see light.

To take account of those of the Psalms which have
most distinctly a predictive meaning, and which are
prophecies of the Messiah, would not consist, on any-
ground, with the intention of these pages : — a due
consideration of them involves what is proper to
Biblical Criticism, to Biblical Exposition, and also
to Christian Theology. Among such Psalms are to
be reckoned, without doubt, the second, the sixteenth,
the twenty-second, the forty-fifth, the seventy-second,
and the hundred and tenth.

The class which is the most numerous comprises
thirty-five, or, it may be, forty Psalms.* Of this

* The Psalms referred to are these— 6, 16, 17, 23, 25, 26, 27,
28, 30, 31, 32, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 51, 57, 61, 63, 69, 70, 71,
84, 88, 102, 103, 116, 119, 130, 131, 138, 141, 142, 143.

174 The Spirit of the

number these might be taken as samples of the rest ;
namely, the forty-second Psalm, the sixty-third, and
the eighty-fourth.

Several of these odes bring to view what have al-
ready been named as characteristic elements of the
other classes ; especially that of the often-recurrent
denunciation of the wickedness of the wicked — the
persecutor, and the impious man — who is the enemy
of God, and of His faithful servants, as well as the
despoiler of the helpless, the widow, and the father-
less. But passages of this order occupy a less con-
spicuous place in the Psalms now referred to, and
are incidental to the principal intention of them.
This principal intention is — whatever relates to indi-
vidual piety, and the experiences of the spiritual life.
In these devotional compositions the soul, with its
own spiritual welfare immediately in view — its inti-
mate emotions of love, trust, hope, humiliation, sor-
row, joy — spreads itself out, as toward God, com-
munion with whom, on terms of filial affection is, in its
esteem, a blessedness rather to be chosen than all the
goods of the present life — a greater treasure is it than
" thousands of gold and silver." The key to these
compositions is this settled preference of the welfare,
the health, of the soul, as compared with any worldly
and sensual enjoyments. It is this fixed purpose of
the heart which determines the conduct ; it is this
which sheds a glow upon a lot of destitution, bodily
suffering, or persecution : — it is this, and not any ex-
panded, or distinctly uttere 1 hope of immortality,

Hebrew Poetry. 175

which sustains the wounded spirit, imparting strength
and courage to the broken in heart. And it is this
preference which gives its charm to the public worship
of God. Witness the eighty-fourth Psalm, a better
version of which than that of the English Bible is
much to be desired.

The prevailing feeling — the ruling sentiment of
these Psalms may be shown in sample, in passages
such as this.

Many say — who will show us good ?

Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.

Thou hast put gladness in my heart,

More than in the time their corn and their wine increased.

I will both lay me down in peace and sleep ;

For thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety.

Or in the impassioned utterances of the forty-
second, or, still more strikingly so, in the sixty-third
Psalm.

O God, thou art my God ; early will I seek thee.

These two odes, by the beauty and fitness of the
imagery, and the warmth and tenderness of the emo-
tions expressed in them, stand as exceptive instances
to the rule that Poetry, throughout the Psalms, is
inversely as the Piety to which they give utterance :
or we should say— the piety of individual feeling.
It is otherwise with what may be called congrega-
tional, or collective piety ; for the anthems already
spoken of are many of them in the highest sense
poetical.

176 The Spirit of the

There is another rule which presents itself, in look-
ing to the verbal structure of these devotional
Psalms — those especially which have the most deci-
sively an individual meaning ; — it is this — That the
composition submits itself, in a more formal manner
than in other instances, to metrical and arbitrary
conditions — as to apposition of verses, in twos, in
threes ; and also, by obeying the rule of alliteration.
Take the 11 9th Psalm as an instance. In every age
has this Psalm met the requirements of individual
piety : it has been a chosen portion of Scripture, to
spiritually minded persons. Never wearied by its
repetitions, or its apparent redundancies, each verse
has given direction anew to pious meditation — each
verse has supplied its aliment of devout feeling.
Fraught throughout with religious feeling, and want-
ing, almost absolutely, in Poetry, it stands before us
as a sample of conformity to metrical limitations*
In the strictest sense this composition is conditioned ;
nevertheless, in the highest sense is it an utterance of
the spiritual life ; and in thus finding these seemingly
opposed elements intimately commingled, as they
are, throughout this Psalm, a lesson full of meaning
is silently conveyed to those who will receive it — that
the conveyance of the things of God to the human
spirit is in no way damaged or impeded, much less
is it deflected or vitiated, by its subjugation to those
modes of utterance which most of all bespeak their

* See Note.

Hebrew Poetry. 177

adaptation to the infirmity and the childlike capacity
of the recipient.

This same 11 9th Psalm opens also a subject which
might well engage careful consideration. Some of
the Psalms just above referred to contain allusions,
not obscure, to that better world— that " more endur-
ing substance" — that "inheritance unfailing," upon
which the pious in all times have kept the eye of
faith steadily fixed. But now in all the 176 couplets
of this Psalm there are not more than two or three
phrases, and these of ambiguous meaning, which can
be understood as having reference to the future life,
and its blessedness : and so it is in other Psalms of
this same class. One such expression, susceptible
of an extended meaning, there is in the 23rd Psalm :
none in the 25th, nor in the 30th, where it might
naturally be looked for, nor in the 32nd, the 42nd, the
63rd, the 84th, the 103rd ; and these are the Psalms
which might be singled out from the class they be-
long to, as samples of the deepest utterings, the most
intense yearnings, of individual devotion— the lovino-
communion of the soul with God. Can any expla-
nation be given of this apparent defectiveness, in the
instances adduced, which seem to demand the very
element that is not found in them ?

We are not called to seek for an explication of this
difficulty among groundless conjectures concerning
what might be the Divine intention, in thus hold-
ing back from these devotional odes the element
which might seem the most eminently proper to find

N

178 The Spirit of the

a place among them : what we have before us is
the incontestable fact, that these Psalms — and these
by preference — have actually fed the piety of the
pious — have sufficed for giving utterance to the
deepest and most animated religious emotions,
throughout all time, since their first promulgation ;
and it has been as much so since the time of the
Christian announcement of immortality, as before it ;
we might say, much more so. During all these ages,
these many generations of men who have sought and
found their happiness in communion with God, there
has been in use, by the Divine appointment, a liturgy
of the individual spiritual life, which, abstinent of
the excitements of immortal hope — unmindful of, al-
most, as if ignorant of, the bright future, takes its
circuit, and finds its occasions, in and among the sad
and changeful and transient experiences of the
present life. Here is before us a daily ritual of fer-
vent, impassioned devotion, which, far from being of
an abstracted or mystical sort, is acutely sensitive
towards all things of the passing moment. This me-
trical service of daily prayer, praise, intercession,
trust, hope, contrition, revolves within the circle of
the every-day pains, fears, and solaces, of the reli-
gious man's earthly pilgrimage. Pilgrimage it is,
for the devout man calls himself " a stranger, a so-
journer on earth ;" and yet the land whereunto he is
tending does not in any such manner fill a place
in his thoughts, as that it should find a place in
the language of his devotions !

Hebrew Poetry. 179

What is the inference that is properly derivable
from these facts? Is it not this, that the train-
ing or disciplme of the soul in the spiritual life— the
forming and the strengthening of those habits of
trust, confidence, love, penitence, which are the pre-
parations of the soul for its futurity in a brighter world
— demands a concentration of the affections upon
the Infinite Excellence — undisturbed by objects of
another order ? If this be a proper conclusion, then
we find in it a correspondent principle in the absti-
nence, throughout the Christian Scriptures, of de-
scriptive exhibitions of the " inheritance" that is pro-
mised. The eternal life is indeed authentically pro-
pounded ; but the promise is not opened out in any
such manner as shall make meditation upon it easy.
Pious earnestness presses forward on a path that is
well assured ; but on this path the imagination is not
invited to follow. The same purpose here again
presents itself to notice — a purpose of culture, not
of excitement.

There can be little risk of error in affirming that
the New Testament itself furnishes no liturgy of
devotion, for this reason that a liturgy, divinely ori-
ginated, had already been granted to the universal
Church ; and it was such in its subjects, and in its
tone, and in its modes of expression, as fully to satisfy
its destined purposes. Devout spirits, from age to
age of these later times, since " light and immortality
were brought to light," have known how to blend
with the liturgy of David the promises of Christ :

180 The Spirit of the

these latter distinguished from those long before
granted to Patriarchs and Prophets, more by their
authoritative style, and their explicit brevity, than
by any amplifications which might satisfy religious
curiosity.

Hebrew Poetry. 181

Chapter X.

SOLOMON, AND THE SONG OF SONGS.

IN search, as we now are, of the Poetry of the
Hebrew writings, and of that only, two infer-
ences are unquestionable — namely, first, that on
this ground the " Song of Songs" possesses a very
peculiar claim to be spoken of ; and secondly, that,
inasmuch as the alleged religious or spiritual mean-
ing of these beautiful idyls must be made to rest
upon considerations quite foreign to any indications
of such a meaning, found in themselves, we might
abstain from taking any note of this — their super-
induced spiritual significance. We might stand
excused from asking any questions thereto relating ;
nor need we perplex ourselves with difliculties there-
with connected ; and might think ourselves free to
abstain from any expression of opinion upon a ques-
tion which belongs so entirely to the theological ex-
positor. Yet, although it be so, there may be rea-
sons sufficient for adverting to this very instance —
quite peculiar as it is, and illustrative as it is, of
what was affirmed at the outset, concerning the re-
lation of the Divine element toward the human ele-
ment in the canonical Scriptures.

182 The Spirit of the

Just now we are proposing to look at these ec-
logues as remarkable samples of the poetry of the
Hebrews, in this class : — and in no other light.

By themselves they deserve to be considered on
the ground of their striking unlikeness to the mass
of the Hebrew literature ; — one other book of the
Canon — the book of Esther, stands on the same
ground of negative theistic import. In neither of
these compositions does the Divine Name so much
as once occur : in neither of them does there occur
a single religious or spiritual sentiment of any
kind : — the one — so far as appears on the surface of
it — is as purely amatory, as the other is purely na-
tional— Jewish — political. Yet this absence of the
religious element is not the only, nor, indeed, is it
the principal distinction which sets the Canticles in
contrast with the other constituents of the Old Tes-
tament. These all, as we have already said (Chap-
ter n.) exhibit a religious intention, which is so
constant, and is of such force, as to prevail over what
might have been the impulses of the individual wri-
ter's genius. Poet as he may be by constitution of
mind, and using freely for his purpose the materials
and the symbols of poetry, yet he is never the poet-
artist : — he is never found to be devising and exe-
cuting, in the best manner, a work of art : — he is
never the workman who has in view the tastes,
wishes, and commands, of those for whom he writes.

It is on this ground, as much as upon that of the
avoidance of religious expressions, or of moral sen-

Hebrew Poetry. 183

timents, that the " Song of Songs" stands quite alone
in the " goodly fellowship of the prophets." These
Canticles are compositions, apparently on a level
with compositions the purpose of which is only that of
providing delectation for the reader. The author of
the Canticles has done, in his way, what Theocritus
and Hafiz have done — each in his way. This is
w^hat must be said — reading what we read, apart
from an hypothesis which sustains itself altogether
on other grounds.

Thus regarded, and thus brought forward to
stand in a light of contrast with the mass of the
Hebrew Scriptures, these delicious compositions
carry us back, in imagination, to, or towards^ that
primaeval hour of human history, a tradition of
which is (as we have said) the very germ, or inner
reason of all poetry. The author — and we need
not doubt it — Solomon — the monarch of an era of
peace, and of plenary terrestrial good, breaks away,
as if from underneath the thick clouds and storms
of centuries past : — he leaves behind him even the
tranquil patriarchal ages : — he draws near to that
first garden of love, and of flowers, and of singing-
birds, and of all sensuous delights — even to the para-
dise of innocence : — he looks along the flowery alleys
of that garden : — he finds his subject there, and his
images ; and yet not entirely so ; for he takes up the
paradisaical elements in part ; and with these he
minorles elements of another order. Himself lord of
a palace, and yet ahve to the better delights, and

184 The Spirit of the

the simple conditions of rural life, be is fain to
bring love and flowery fields into unison with luxu-
rious babits. In song, tbis may be done ; in reality,
never. Tbe Canticle is therefore a poem : it is an
artistic work, because it brings into combination
those ingredients of an imaginary felicity for which
earth has no place.

Yet is this poem quite true to nature, if only man
were innocent, and if woman were loving only, and
lovely always. The truthfulness of the work is
found in that primaeval alliance of love and nature,
— of love and rural life — which imparts to the
warmest of emotions its simplicity and its purity —
its health fulness, and to the rural taste, its animation
and its vividness of enjoyment. Upon this associa-
tion human nature was at the first constructed ; and
toward it will human nature ever be tending. Love,
and fields, and flowers, and the trim graces of the
garden, and the free charms of the open country, and
the breathing hill-side, and the sparkling stream, are
— what they severally may be — as ingredients of hu-
man felicity, when they are found together. How^ far
they may go tow ard realizing earthly well-being has
been known to many who have been the contented
dwellers beneath a thatched roof, and whose para-
dise was a rood or tw^o of land, hedged ofi^ from a
cornfield or meadow.

If a half-dozen heedlessly rendered passages of
our English version were amended, as easily they
might be, then the Canticle would well consist,

Hebrew Poetry. 185

throughout, with the purest utterances of conjugal
fondness. Happy would any people be among
whom there was an abounding of that conjugal fond-
ness which might thus express itself. A social con-
dition of this kind is — or it would be — at once the
opposite of licentiousness, and its exclusion, and its
proper remedy ; yet it must rest upon sentiments
and usages far less factitious than are those of mo-
dern European city life : marriage, entered upon
early enough to secure for itself the bloom of
the affections, on both sides ; and so early as to
have precluded the withering and the weltering of
loving hearts that once were warm, pure, and capa-
ble of an entire abnegation of the individual selfism.
Where, and when, shall the social system return
upon its path, and become healthful, and bright,
with warm emotions, and content with the modest
sufficiency of rural life ! Who would not willingly
accept for himself the lot of the lover-husband — first
out in the moist morning of May, in this climate of
ours, and who thus calls his love — his wife abroad —

Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away ;

For lo, the winter is past,

The rain is over — is gone ;

The flowers appear on the earth,

The time of the singing is come,

And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land ;

The fig-tree hath ripened her green figs ;

And the vines — the tender grape — give fragrance.

Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away !

Conjugal fondness, if true-hearted, will not make

186 Tlie. Spirit of the

it a condition of earthly happiness that it should be
able to take its leisure in gardens of oriental fra-
grance ; but will joyfully accept very much less than
this : —

A garden shut in — my sister — my spouse ;

A spring shut up — a fountain sealed.

Thy plants — an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant

fruits ;
Camphire, with spikenard — spikenard and saffron ;
Calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense ;
Myrrh and aloes, with all chief spices :
A fountain — gardens — a well of living waters,
And streams from Lebanon.

Albeit we, of a latitude so high, dare not go on, and
say, in our early spring —

Awake, O north wind ; and come, thou south ;

Blow upon my garden,

The spices thereof to flow out.

But the later summer time has come when the
loving wife takes up the invitation : — ■

Let my beloved come into his garden,
And eat his pleasant fruits.

And he replies : —

I am come into my garden, my sister — spouse :
I have gathered my myrrh with my spice ;
I (rmll) eat my honeycomb with my honey ;
I (wiH) drink my wine with my milk.

Although the allusions in these poems are to rural
scenes, and also to the incidents of shepherd-life,

Hebrew Poetry. 187

there is nothing — there is not a taint of rusticity ; —
there is no coarseness — nothing of the homeliness of
the Sicilian cattle-keepers * — nothing of the factiti-
ousness, the affectation, of Virgil's Eclogues. The
persons speak at the impulse of real and passionate
emotions ; but, in the utterance of these genuine and
fond affections, there is always elegance, and there
are the ornate habitudes of an advanced oriental
civilization. There is also the genuine and inimi-
table oriental self-possession, and the consciousness of
personal dignity: in these love -dialogues, and in
these fond soliloquies, there is everything that may
be permitted to amorous endearment ; yet there is
no taint of licentiousness : — these are the loves of
the pure in heart. An indication at once of simpli-
city and of the refinement of tastes, and of purity of
temperament in both lovers, appears at every turn
of this abrupt composition : for ever and again is
there the commingling of the language of tender
fondness with the sense of the beauty and sweetness
of nature — the field, the vineyard, the garden, the
flowers, the perfumes, the fruits, are not out of sight,
from hour to hour, of these pastimes of love.

My beloved is gone down into his garden,
To the beds of spices,

To feed-f in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine :
He feedeth among the lilies.

* See Note.

t Not, to eat ; but, Troi/xatvitv iv mTton;.

188 7 he Spirit of the

Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field,

Let us lodge in the hamlets.

Let us get up early to the vineyards ;

Let us see if the vines flourish,

Whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates

bud forth.
There w^ill I give thee my loves.
The mandrakes give a smell,
And at our gates all kinds of pleasant (fruits) new and

old,
I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.

Fervid fondness, tenderness, and elegance — and it
is an elegance which is peculiarly oriental, and which
the western races with their refinements have never
realized — attach to, and are characteristic of, these
Canticles ; and the spirit of them brings to view, at
every pause, at every strophe, whatever is the most
bright and graceful in nature ; and it is in this same
style that the enamoured one ends her plaints ; for
this is the last challenge of her love : —

Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe,
Or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.

The reason is not obvious why there should be no
allusion, of any sort, in these pastorals — these songs
of love, to music — vocal, or instrumental. Music
elsewhere has ever done its part in soothing, and in
refining emotions of this order ; why, then, is it
absent from these eclogues? Not because music
had not, in that age, and long before, taken its place
— and a chief place— among those means of enjoy-

Hebrew Poetry. 189

ment which exalt human nature. This is abundantly
certain, apart from the explicit affirmation of the
royal preacher, " I gat me men-singers and women-
singers, and the delights of the sons of men — musical
instruments, and that of all sorts." Why, then, is
there not heard in these songs the soft breathings
of the flute, or the chimes of the lyre or harp,
so proper to the fragrant bowers where the royal
bridegroom, and his love, spend their summer
hours? Unless it should appear that the passage
just now cited from the book of Ecclesiastes carries
with it the weight of historical authority to the con-
trary,* it might be conjectured that, in the age of
David and Solomon, and perhaps until a late period
of the Israelitish people, music, instrumental and
vocal, still observant of its primaeval mood, and of
its heavenly origin, reserved its powers, in trust, for
religious purposes, and that to bring it into the
service of emotions of a lower order would have
been deemed a sacrilege, and would grievously have
offended the sense of religious propriety. Might it
not be so at a time when the dance was a conse-
crated pleasure, and when, on the most solemn oc-
casions, persons of the highest rank, leaping and
moving at the bidding of the cymbal and pipe (and
probably the fiddle) took their part in these devout
festivities? Oriental were these outbreakings of
animated religious feeling; and they were ante-
Christian too ; for Christianity, in setting the religious

* See Note.

190 The Spirit of the

emotions at a far loftier pitch, and in connecting all
such emotions with thoughts of an awful futurity,
and in combining them with the dread infinitude of
the unseen world, has imposed upon sacred music a
character which it had not at the first ; and which
did not belong to it till some while after the age
when the martyr Church, with its torrents of faithful
blood, and its tortures, and its desolations, had come
in to shed a sombre glory even upon the brightest
prospects of immortality : thenceforward Church-
music, wholly changed in its tones, was the music of
low plaintive voices, and of the Cecilian organ.
Not such was it in those remote times when the
very law and reason of piety rested upon, or allied
itself with, conceptions of earthly well-being ; in
that age the gayest music was held to be not the less
sacred, because it was gay ; — but, then, the conse-
quence was this — that the music of soft delights was
a dedicated pleasure, and was not to be held at the
service of human loves.

Conjectures, more or less probable, are all that we
can bring to bear upon this endeavour to show why
music takes no part in these songs of love. Yet
something more than conjecture we seem to need
when we are endeavouring to find a probable reason
for the more perplexing absence, throughout these
poems, of the Divine Name, and of a religious senti-
ment of any kind. An explanation of the problem
is not supplied by the supposition that these songs
of love belong to the dark period of Solomon's re-

Hebrew Poetry. 191

ligious apostacy, or of his guilty complicity in the
polytheism of his wives ; for in that case there would
not have failed to appear — at some turn of passion —
a sudden, incidental allusion to the demon worships
of the Harem : — there would have been visible some
foul stain of lascivious rites. No mark, no blot of
this kind anywhere blemishes the natural bright-
ness of this poetry : a blemish of this sort would,
undoubtedly, have sufficed for excluding the Canticle
from the Hebrew Canon.

Abstaining, as we do, from any argument which
must be properly theological and expository, we now
accept the (almost) unanimous belief of the Jewish
doctors, and the (almost) unanimous concurrence
therein of the Christian Church, concerning the
Canticle ; on the ground of which belief it was ad-
mitted into the canon of Scripture, and maintains
its place there — that it is mythical throughout ; and
has been divinely given to illustrate, or to teach,
that which St. Paul affirms to be a truth, and " a
great mystery." This granted, then it would follow
that the purely mystical import of this sacred poem
would be interfered with — would be quite damaged
and broken up — by the introduction of any of those
expressions of piety which are proper to the religious
man, and the religious woman — representatives as
these are of piety — in an unsymbolical sense. Ex-
pressions of this order, whatever they might mean,
have already been embraced within the range of the
mythical import of the Poem. On the part of the

192 The Spirit of the

celestial Bridegroom, his regard toward his mystic
bride comprehends all elements of religion, as pro-
ceeding from the divine toward the human natm'e ;
and, on the part of the mystic bride, her fond love
to her Lord contains, or conveys, all elements of
human devotion — adoration, praise, prayer, and
yearning affection. There is nothing proper to
fervent piety remaining as a residue that has not
been included in these mythic utterances. If on
this ground — hypothetic as it is — we touch the truth
of the problem, then it is manifest that the language
of unmythic piety would be utterly out of place,
would be out of harmony, in this Canticle. Might
not an argument in favour of the canonicity, and of
the religious intention of this Poem be warrantably
made to rest upon this very circumstance of the ab-
sence, throughout it, of those religious expressions,
the want of which has seemed to contravene the
general belief of the Church concerning it ?

Accepted, then, as a portion of inspired Scrip-
ture, and regarded as fraught throughout with a
religious meaning — mystically conveyed — then does
the " Song of Songs" occupy the very front place
among all other instances which might be adduced
in exemplification of that coexistence of the divine
and of the human elements in Scripture, an under-
standing of which is always important, — and is, at
this moment, peculiarly needed.

In this instance — signal beyond comparison as it
is — the Divine element subsists at a remote depth

Heh7^ew Poetry. 193

below the surface ; which surface might be passed
over and trodden, by a thousand of the wayfarers of
literature, with an utter unconsciousness of the
wealth hidden beneath. Like is this divine riches
to the " treasure hidden in a field," concerning
which an intimation must first be granted to any
one who, for the sake of it — if he knew it — would
willingly sell all that he hath of this world's goods.
This Poem, with its bright images of earthly delights
— with its empassioned utterances of human fond-
ness— its abandonment of soul, and its absorption of
heart, and its emphasis of human love, if it had come
down to modern times apart from all connection
with a body of religious writings, would so have been
read and admired, throughout all time ; nor would
ever a surmise of any deeper purpose have sug-
gested itself to the modern European reader. Such
an interpretation — let us grant it — might have been
caught at by oriental dervishes ; — for a simijar use
is made by them, in the East, of similar materials.
The inference duly derivable from an instance sa
remarkable should be carefully noted, and it is of
this sort : —

That we ought not to open the Bible with any
predetermined notions, as to those conditions within
which the divine element, in Scripture, must be ex-
pected to confine itself, in its connection with the
human element, through which it conveys itself.
On this unknown ground we must not theorise ; we
must not speculate a 'priori ; for when we do this,

o

194 The Spirit of the

and as often, and as far, as we do it, we surround
ourselves with occasions of offence, and we provide
the materials of endless doubts and perplexities. On
this ground we have everything to learn : — we have
nothing to stipulate : we must postulate nothing ;
we must quite abstain from the perilous endeavour
to circumscribe the area within the limit of which,
and not beyond it, the Divine Wisdom shall take its
course in conveying to men the mysteries of the
spiritual economy.

It may be well to look distinctly at the instance
now before us, and to gather from it in full the
lesson which it suggests. The theological expositor,
whether of the ancient Jewish Church, or of the
early Christian Church, or of the modern Church,
has accepted the " Song of Songs" as a divinely-in-
spired myth, conveying the deepest and most sacred
elements of the spiritual economy in the terms, and
under the forms, of instinctive human feeling and
passion. The exterior medium of this conveyance
is so entire, so absolute, that, until the occult mean-
ing of the poem has been suggested, or is declared
on sufficient authority^ no reader would surmise it
to be there. No religious person would have con-
jectured as probable, the insertion of this poem
within the compass of the inspired Scriptures. But
it is tliere^ and not only is it there, but it has, if so
we might speak, justified its presence in the canon
by the undoubtedly religious purposes it has served,
in giving animation, and depth, and intensity, and

Hebrew Poetry, 195

warrant too, to the devout meditations of thousands
of the most devout, and of the purest minds. Those
who have no consciousness of this kind, and whose
feelings and notions are all "of the earth — earthy,"
will not fail to iSnd in this instance that which suits
them, for purposes, sometimes of mockery, some-
times of luxury, sometimes of disbelief. Quite un-
conscious of these perversions, and happily ignorant
of them, and unable to suppose them possible, there
have been miultitudes of unearthly spirits to whom
this — the most beautiful of pastorals, has been — not
indeed a beautiful pastoral, but the choicest of those
words of truth which are " sweeter than honey to
the taste," and " rather to be chosen than thousands
of gold and silver."

196 TJie Spirit of the

Chapter XI.

THE POETRY OF THE EARLIER HEBREW PROPHETS.

TWO subjects, quite distinct and separable, pre-
sent themselves for consideration when the
" goodly fellowship of the Prophets " comes in
view. The first of these subjects embraces what
belongs of right to the function of the Biblical ex-
positor, whose office it is to examine and illustrate, in
series, those predictions which, in their fulfilment,
give evidence of a divinely-imparted prescience as
to future events. The second of these subjects
has a less definite aspect ; for it has to do with
that Prophetic mood — that hopeful, forward-looking
habit, which is the prerogative, as it is the marked
characteristic also, of the Hebrew prophetic writings,
at large : it is so generally, although not in each
instance, or in equal degrees in each of them ; but
each, without exception, is true to great Theistic
principles ; yet it is not all that display this far-
seeing, and this world-wide anticipation of good
things, on the remote horizon of the human des-
tinies— the destinies, not of the one people, but of
all nations.

This benign hilarity — this kindly Catholicism —

Hebrew Poetry. 197

this glowing cosmopolitan prescience of a far-distant
age of universal truth, righteousness, and peace, is
indeed the prophetic glory, and its prerogative : it
is the glory of the Hehrew poets — for poetry with-
out hopefulness is inane and dead. On this ground
these ancient Seers occupy a position where they
have no competitors. On this ground they are, in
a true sense, the masters of Modern Thought ; for it
is they who have suggested, and who have supplied
the text for, those forecastings of the destiny of the
nations which, in these times especially, have been
prevalent in the writings, not of divines merely,
but of philosophers. We all, in these days of great
movements, have learned to think hopefully of every
philanthropic enterprise ; and our teachers in this
line have been — the " goodly fellowship of the
Prophets."

If it were required to mention a one feature
which would be the most characteristic of our mo-
dern modes of thinking, as contrasted with ancient
classical modes of thinking, we should not find a
better than this : — the philosophers, and the states-
men, and the poets, and the orators, of classical
antiquity, thought and spoke of the past ; and their
look-out was contemporaneous only. But the phi-
losophers, and the statesmen, and the poets, and the
orators of modern Europe, although they are not
unmindful of the past, and are occupied with the
present, show — all of them — this diroKapadoicia — this
"earnest expectation"— this hopeful faith in the

198 The Spirit of the

future — this never-to-be-baffled confidence in a yet
coming morning time, and a noon too, for the
nations — savage and civilized. Subjects apparently
the most remote from the region of philanthropic
enthusiasm — speculations the most thriftlike and dry
—show this tendency to work themselves round to-
wards this sunshine — the sunshine of universal well-
being — industry — safety — peace — wealth, which is
in store for every continent. It is so that the
economist, in calculating next year's prices, ruled
by the probable supply of indigo — of cotton — of
tobacco — of sugar — of coffee — of tea, is quite likely
to come near to the very subjects which, at the
same moment, platform philanthropists are pro-
pounding to crowded meetings : nay, it is likely
that this same economist shall be working up, in
his tables of imports, the very evidence that has
lately been brought home by the wan Missionary
from India, or from Africa. And so near, on this
ground, do we often come to an actual collision,
that the astute mercantile speculist shall be heard
quoting the very man — who is quoting Isaiah !

This now established usage of the modern mind
was never the usage of antiquity — Grecian or
Roman. We owe this revolution, we owe this
shifting about toward a better, and a brighter, and
a hopeful futurity, mainly to the Hebrew Prophets.
Certain luminous passages have been made use of —
we might say — to jewel the machinery of modern
society — especially in this country, and have,

Hebrew Poetry. 199

these seventy years past, been the centre-points
of schemes of distant civilization ; and so it is
that, at the very time when a nugatory criti-
cism is questioning the superhuman prescience of
this or that single prediction, in the Old Testa-
ment, we are all of us in group — philanthropists
— missionaries — ship-owners — dealers in merchan-
dises of all sorts, we are all of us risking our
lives — risking lives dear to us — risking our fortunes
— we are sending out merchant navies, and are
building mills, and are doing a half of all that is
done in this busy world, on a belief that keeps itself
alive by aid of those passages of far-looking bright-
ness which illumine the pages of the Hebrew
Scriptures !

This catholic mood of hopefulness has been de-
rived much more from the Hebrew, than from the
Christian Scriptures ; in truth, scarcely at all from
these (as we shall have occasion to show). But with
the Prophets, the future so governed them that they
seem oblivious of those materials in their own
archaic literature of which, if it had been at hand,
in the same distinct and authentic form, the Poets
of Greece would have made no sparing use. A
phrase or two recollective of the golden paradise, or
of the silvery patriarchal era, is all they can afford : —
they were intent upon the future : — the brightness
they thought of was that of an inheritance in re-
version ; not that of a paradise lost. These Seers —
or some of them — had been led up in spirit to the

200 The Spirit of the

summit of the Nebo of universal history ; tlie Socr
had thence caught a ghmpse of ridges illumined in
the remotest distance ; and the reflection rests now
upon the pages of our Bibles.

It is greatly this steadfast confidence in a bright
future for all nations that gives unity and coherence
to this series of Hebrew prophecy, and which blends
into a mass the various materials of which it consists.
It is this hope for the world that has welded into
one the succession of the Old Testament writers.
The Patriarch of the race received this very promise,
that in him should all nations hereafter be made
happy. David and the Psalmists take up this same
large assurance, and say — " All nations whom Thou
hast made shall come, and worship before Thee."
Isaiah rests often upon this theme, and kindles as he
expands it ; and one of the last of this company fore-
sees the setting up of a kingdom which should have
no end, and which should embrace " all people,
nations, and languages." It is true that Palestine
was always the Hebrew Prophet's foreground, and
the Holy City his resting-place ; but he looked out
beyond these near objects, and with the remoteness
of place he connected the remoteness of time, and
dwelt, with fervent aspirations, upon the promise of
an age when, " from the rising of the sun to the
going down of the same," the anthems of a universal
worship shall ascend from earth to heaven.

So far as the Israelitish people may be represented
by the series of their writers, then it may be affirmed

Hebrew Poetry. 201

that these obdurate Hebrews — this stubborn repel-
lant mass — this knot at the core among the nations,
were, in fact, the most resolutely hopeful of all
people, and beyond compare they were wont to look
a-head toward the future. The Israelite — if the
Prophet speaks in his name — was, notwithstanding
his nationality, and his hot patriotism, the one man
upon earth who entertained thoughts concerning a
remote mundane renovation, and who anticipated a
time of peace and truth and justice and good- will,
for all men. The aucrust fathers of the Roman State
were not more steadfast in hope for the republic, in
seasons of dismay, than were the Hebrew people — if
we are to gather their mood from their Prophets.
This people was elastic in temper, and resolved,
even when in the furnace of affliction, and when the
feet were bleeding on the flints in exile, still to re-
serve its inheritance in a remote futurity ; and this
futurity embraced a wide area. Whatever the Jew
of later times may have become, as the subject of
centuries of insult and outrage, his ancestors of the
prophetical era were well used to the hearing of
passages that breathed, not only justice and mercy,
but an unrestricted philanthropy.

The Prophets, never forgetful of the prerogatives
of the descendants of Abraham, and never relaxing
their grasp of the land which had been granted in
fee simple, and forever, to their race, give expression
to sentiments which are quite unparallelled in classic
literature. Broad hopes and generous wishes for

202 The Spirit of the

the world took a place also in the daily liturgies of
the temple- worship ; and thus, in whatever manner
passages of a different aspect might come to be re-
conciled with these expressions, these stood as a
permanent testimony, bearing witness on the behalf
of universal good-will ; and thus did they avail to
attemper the national mind. There may take place
a balancing of influences — a counteraction of mo-
tives, where there neither is, nor could be, a logical
adjustment of the apparent contrariety of the two
kinds of moral force. Intensely national were the
Hebrew people — concentration w^as the rule ; but
largeness of feeling co-existed therewith, and it did
so, not as a rare exception ; and it has embodied
itself in passages (as we have said) which have
come to be the text and stimulants of modern
philanthropy.

If at this very time such an event might be sup-
posed, as a final and formal abandonment of what-
ever it is in the Hebrew prophetical writings that is
predictive of the ultimate triumph of justice and
benevolence, throughout the world, and of a happy
issue of human affairs — if we were so resolved as to
cut off the entail of hope, consigned to all nations in
the Old Testament, we should quickly be brought
into a mood of despair, and should learn to look in
sullen apathy at those things which Hebrew Pro-
phets regarded with healthful hope. Any such
abnegation of good in the future would give a mor-
tal chill to useful enthusiasm ; — it would be as a

Hebrew Poetry. 203

poison shed upon patriotism — confirming it in its
selfishness^ and depriving it of its leaven of bene-
volence. Such an excision of the predictive phi-
lanthropy from our Bible would bring every self-
denying and arduous enterprise for the benefit of
others to a speedy end : it would be death, in a moral
sense, to the teacher of the ignorant, and to the
champion of the oppressed. When we shut off for-
ever, from our modern civilization, the genial glow
of the Hebrew predictive writings, we let in upon
the nations — Atheism in matters of religion — Des-
potism in politics — Sensuality, unbridled, in morals,
and a dark despair for the poor and the helpless all
the world over.

An expectation of the ultimate triumph of justice
and peace — an expectation unknown to classical an-
tiquity— has operated as a yeast, leavening the mass
of the modern social system, just so far as Bible-
teaching has prevailed among any people. This ex-
pectation has drawn its warrant from the prophetical
books of the Old Testament ; and from these much
rather than from the Christian Scriptures. It is a
fact deserving notice, that the narrow and unphi-
lanthropic, if not the misanthropic, mood — the sul-
lenness which modern Judaism has assumed— has
been contemporaneous with the rabbinical practice
of excluding the Prophets from the ordinary routine
of public worship in the synagogue ; while the
books of Moses and portions of the Psalms, almost
exclusively, have supplied the Sabbath lessons.

204 The Spirit of the

Whether or not the reasons usually alleged for this
restricted use of the Hebrew Scriptures by the
Jewish rabbis be the true reasons, it is certain
that the consequence, as affecting the temper of the
Jewish mind, must have been every way much to
its disadvantage. The modern Jewish nation —
the rabbis and the people alike — have known
very little of those incandescent passages which
we Christian Bible-readers listen to with never-
failing delight. Christian philanthropy, whether
wisely or unwisely developed in particular in-
stances, undertakes its labours for the benefit of
the wretched, or for the deliverance of the slave, in
assured prospect of a reign of righteousness which
shall bless the nations, when an Iron Sceptre shall
be wielded by Him " w^ho shall spare the poor and
needy, and shall save the souls of the needy ; and
shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence,
and in whose sight their blood shall be precious."

It is on this very ground (a ground which they
occupy alone) as prophets of good things for all
nations — good things far off in the distance of ages,
— that the claim of inspiration, in the fullest sense,
may with peculiar advantage be affirmed and ar-
gued. It is on this ground that the Old and New
Testament Scriptures are seen to stand toward each
other in their proper relationship, as constituents of
the one scheme or system which was ordered and
planned from the beginning of time, and which ex-
tends to its close. Unless we thus believe the Hebrew
Prophets to have been inspired of God, it will not be

Hebrew Poetry. 205

possible to show a reason for the avoidance of the
same buoyant and hopeful style, as well in Christ's
discourses and parables, as in the Apostolic epistles.
If the question be this — Why has not Christ— or,
why did not His ministers, predict a future golden
age for the world at large ? — we find no answer that
can easily be accepted, unless we take this — That
the function of predicting the triumph of reason and
of peace upon earth had been assigned to the pro-
phets of the olden time, who have well acquitted
themselves in this respect. How stands it in a com-
parison of the older and the later Scriptures, on this
very ground ?

Promises addressed to the individual believer
assuring to him his daily bread, and other things
that are needful for this life, do occur in the Gos-
pels, and also in the Epistles, and the Divine faith-
fulness is pledged to this extent — " I will never leave
thee — no, never forsake thee;" and the rule of Chris-
tian contentment is thus conditioned, — " Having
nourishment and shelter, let us therewith be con-
tent." Not only are the ancient promises of
earthly wealth, as the reward of individual piet}^,
not reiterated in the New Testament, but there is
an abstinence — most remarkable, as to any predic-
tions of secular welfare for the nations of the world,
and even as to the future universality of the Gospel :
what we actually find has, for the most part, a con-
trary meaning, and a sombre aspect. (The Apoca-
lypse demands a distinct rule of exposition.)

Throughout the ancient prophetical Scriptures

206 The Spirit of the

the rule is this : — The things of earth, religiously
considered, are spoken of, such as they appear when
seen from the level of earth, and under the daylight
of the present life : the prophets speak of things
" seen and temporal" — piously regarded. Through-
out the Christian Scriptures the things of earth —
the things " seen and temporal" — are again spoken
of, and again they are religiously regarded as
before ; but now it is as they appear when looked
at from the level of the thinos that are unseen and
eternal. From the one level the very same objects
wear an aspect of gladsomeness and exultation,
which, as they are seen from the other level, appear
under an aspect that is discomfiting and ominous.
But besides this difference of aspect only, it is objects
of a different class that appear to be in view, seve-
rally, by the prophets, and b}^ Christ and His mi-
nisters. The contrast, as exhibited in a few instances
among many, is very suggestive of reflection.

The Hebrew Prophet is — the man of hope he
looks on through the mists of long ages of turmoil
and confusion : — immediately in front he sees the
rise and the ruin of neighbouring kingdoms ; but he
sees, in the remoter distance, a bright noon for hu-
manity at large — "When the wolf and the lamb shall
feed together, and the lion eat straw like the ox —
when dust shall be the serpent's meat : and when
none shall hurt or destroy in the mountain of the
Lord." The Christian Seer — his eye turned off
from the course of this world's affairs — thinks only

Hebrew Poetry. 207

of the future of the Christian commonwealth, and
thus he forecasts this future — " For I know that
after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in
among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your
ownselves shall men arise, speaking perverse
things, to draw away disciples after them." The
ancient Seer, expectant of good — good for the wide
world — says, — " It shall come to pass in the last
days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be
established on the top of the mountains, and shall
be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall
flow unto it." But the Christian Prophet foretells
such things as these, and says — " Now the Spirit
speaketh expressly that in the latter times some
shall depart from the faith ; " and another affirms
that " in the last days perilous times shall come ; "
for in those latter days men generally, retaining a
form of piety, shall abandon themselves to the sway
of every evil passion — having the " conscience
seared, as with a hot iron."

The Hebrew Prophet, from his watch-tower upon
Zion, affirms that '* in that mountain the Lord of
Hosts should make unto all people a feast of fat
things," — and that there " He will destroy the
face of the covering cast over all people, and the
veil that is spread over all nations :" — the Lord —
the God of Israel — " shall swallow up death in vic-
tory, and wipe away tears from off' all faces : and
the rebuke of His people shall He take away from
off^ all the earth." It was many centuries later in

208 The Spirit of the

the world's life- time, and therefore it was so much
the nearer to the predicted break of day for all
nations, that the Christian Prophet foresaw a thick
gloom, out of the midst of which the " wicked one "
should arise, who should sit in the temple of God,
and there should blasphemously demand for him-
self the worship that is due to God, and actually re-
ceive it from the deluded dwellers upon earth — even
the multitude of the nations.

These contrasts, other instances of which may be
adduced, are not contradictions : they are not con-
trary affirmations, relating to the same objects, or
to objects seen from the same level ; but they bring
into view, in a manner that should fix attention, the
harmonious structure of the Scriptures— the Old
and the New Covenant. The latter is ruled by its
purpose to reveal and confirm the hope of immor-
tality, which must be individual immortality^ inas-
much as communities have no hereafter. The for-
mer, spiritual also in its intention, not less so than the
latter, is yet concerned with mundane welfares, in
relation to which nations and communities are re-
garded in mass ; and therefore these Prophets look
on to the very end of the secular period : — they
have in view the longevity of nations, and they fore-
tell the remote benefits in which all people shall be
partakers. It is the life everlasting, which Christ
and His ministers have in prospect, while, as to the
things of earth, they see only those changes which
shall bring into peril the welfare of immortal souls.

Hehrew Poetry. 209

Easily we may grant it— even if we fail to open
up the reason of the fact — that it must be always,
and only, with mundane objects, and with what
belongs to the now visible course of things — " the
things that are seen and temporal" — that poetry may
and should concern itself. So it is that, while the
ancient Prophets are poets, and, as such, kindle
emotion, and illumine the path on which they tread,
no quality of this sort can (truthfully) be alleged in
commendation of Evangelists or Apostles. The
encomium of these takes another, and a far higher
ground. Poetry became mute at the moment when
immortality was to be proclaimed : known to the
Patriarchs and Prophets, and pondered and desired
by them, and by the pious always, even from the
first, yet an authentic announcement of it had been
held in reserve to a later age ; but when that fulness
of time had come, and when the true light shone
out, then, in the blaze of it, the things of earth
assumed another aspect ; and even the perspective of
them underwent a change, when they were seen
from a higher level. In passing from the " fellowship
of the Prophets" to the " company of the Apostles,"
it is true that we tread the same solid earth, and we
take with us the same human nature, and, as to what
concerns the spiritual life, we breathe the same
atmosphere; but we leave behind us the flowery
plains of earthly good, and ascend to heights where
the awful realities of another life banish all thought

210 The Spirit of the

of whatever is decorative, or of those objects that
awaken the tastes and the imagination. Poetry,
abounding as it does in the Old Testament, finds no
place at all in the New. On this ground of com-
parison the difference between Isaiah, Hosea, Joel,
and Paul, Peter, John, or James, is absolute. So it
must appear in bringing into comparison some pas-
sages which, at a glance, might seem to be of the
same order.

As, for instance, there occur, in the Epistles of
Peter, James, and Jude, some passages which not
only take up the archaic phraseology, and are, in a
marked manner, of the Hebrew mintage, but which
are also of that denunciatory kind which gives them
an exceptional aspect, as related to the evangelic
strain, and brings them to be of a piece rather with
the stern manner of the ancient Seers, in protesting
against the wrong-doings of their contemporaries,
and in predicting the judgments of God upon guilty
nations. Nevertheless, while in these instances there
are some points of accordance, the points of contrast
are of a more important and noticeable kind.

In the first place, these Apostolic samples are sternly
and ruggedly prosaic : — they have no rhythm, and,
although figurative in terms, they are graced by no
decorations : — they demand the deepest regard, they
strike into the conscience, they awaken terror ; but
with the prediction of wrath they commingle no ele-
ment upon which the imagination might be inclined

Hebrew Poetry. 211

to rest : in a word, the Apostolic message, whether it
be of hope or of dread, is in no sense — poetry.
Turn to those well-remembered passages which
might recall the style of Amos, Joel, Nahum : — "For
if God spared not the angels that sinned" ....
" these (wicked men) are wells without water,
clouds that are carried with a tempest' ... " Go
to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries
that shall come upon you" .... " Ungodly men,
crept in among you, raging waves of the sea, foam-
ing out their own shame " . . .* Wanting in poetry,
but explicit in moral intention, are the Apostolic
denunciations ; and nearly combined are they always
with the Christian assurance of immortality : — this
is the Apostolic mark. So it is with Jude, who, in
the very breath which has given utterance to the
message of wrath, and when he has made his protest
for charity and mercy, commends his brethren to
the Divine regard in that signal doxology, — " Now
to Him that is able to keep you from falling" . . . . '
And, in like manner, James quickly releases himself
from his stern obligation as a Prophet of judgment,
and exhorts the Christian sufferer to be patient —
" for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh ;" and
thus also Peter, who enjoins his brethren, under any
extremity of suffering, to "hope unto the end for
the grace that is to be brought unto them at the
revelation of Jesus Christ ;" not thinking it strange,

* 2 Peter ii. 4. James v. Jude.

212 The Spirit of the

even though " a fiery trial" should be appointed for
them ; but rather rejoicing in the prospect of the
" glory" in which they are to have their part.

The parallel places in the prophecies of Joel, of
Amos, of Micah, and Nahum, are not only metrical
and rhythmical in structure, but they are rich in
various imagery: — magnificence, sublimity, and
beauty too, so recommend these protests for right-
eousness, and these predictions of national woe, that
we now read and rest upon these passages with a
relish of their excellence as works of genius ; and so
it is that the Hebrew Poet shares the regard of the
modern reader with the Hebrew Prophet. It is as
poetry that these prophecies were adapted to the
services of congregational worship ; and in this man-
ner were they consigned to the memories of the
people. And yet, when we have noted this contrast
between the Prophetic and the Apostolic Scriptures,
there remains to be noticed another contrast that is
more marked, and is full of meaning —

The brief prophecy of Habakkuk — one of those
that belong to the earliest era of the Hebrew pro-
phetic time — combines those qualities of style that
distinguish his peers and contemporaries ; and along
with majesty and splendour and vigour of expres-
sion, there is the constant protest for truth and
justice, and the uniform sublimity of a pure theo-
logy, and the scornful rebuke of the folly of the
idolater : — " Woe unto him that saith to the wood,

Hebrew Poetry. 213

Awake ; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach !
Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there
is no breath at all in the midst of it." Then follows
an anthem, unequalled in majesty and splendour of
language and imagery, and which, in its closing
verses, gives expression, in terms the most affecting,
to an intense spiritual feeling ; and on this ground
it so fully embodies these religious sentiments as to
satisfy Christian piety, even of the loftiest order.
Yet in this respect are these verses the most re-
markable that, while there is recognized in them
the characteristic Hebrew principle, which gives
prominence to earthly welfare, the Prophet, for
himself, renounces his part in this — if only he may
fully enjoy a consciousness of the Divine favour.
Yet this is not all; for he contents himself with
these spiritual enjoyments — apart from any thought
of the future life and of its hopes ; thus does he
renounce the present good ; and yet he stipulates
not for the good of the future ! for upon this pro-
phecy— bright as it is in its theistic import, there
comes down no ray of the light of the life eternal !
Witness these verses — ending the prophet's ministry
in the language of hope ; but it is a hope very -
ambiguously worded, if at all it takes any hold of
immortality : —

Although the fig-tree shall not blossom,
Neither fruit be in the vines ;
The labour of the olive shall fail,
And the fields shall yield no meat ;

214 The Spirit of the

The flock shall be cut off from the fold,

And no herd in the stalls :

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will joy in the God of my salvation,

The Lord God is my strength :

And He will make my feet like hinds'.

And He will make me to walk upon high places.*

* This is an ode to be commended to the care of the chief
einger, and to be accompanied by stringed instruments — Ne-
ginoth — and adapted (may we not conjecture ?) to the move-
ments of the sacred dance, in which the feet — well trained,
should give proof of the exultation of the soul — moving " like
hinds' feet," even upon the loftiest platform of the temple area.
Such should be the gladness of those who took up this ode: —
it should be like that of the Psalmist, who would praise God
with the psaltery and harp ; and praise Him, too, with the
timbrel and dance, as well as with stringed instruments and
organs, and with loud cymbals.

Hebrew Poetry.

Chapter XII.

CULMINATION OF THE HEBREW POETRY AND
PROPHECY IN ISAIAH.

WHA-TEYER there is of poetry in the roll of
the Prophets, whatever of truth and of purity,
and of elevation, as to moral principle, and theistic
doctrine, and especially whatever there is of catho-
licity, and of hopefulness for all nations, is pre-
eminently found in the book of the prophecies of
Isaiah, These prophecies may well be said to em-
brace, and to comprehend, and, in a sense, at once
to recapitulate, the revelations of all preceding ages,
and to foreshow the revelations that were yet to
come. The Moral Law is there in the fixedness of
its eternal axioms : the spiritual life is there ; and
the substance of the Gospel is there ; for the Re-
deemer of the world, and the most signal of all
events in the world's history, are there ; and with the
Saviour the brightness of the latest ages of the hu-
man family sheds a light upon this prophecy. Re-
velation culminates in the pages of this Prophet ;

216 The Spirit of the

for the Old and the New Covenants are therein
represented.

But how much more than a poet is this Prophet !
And yet as a poet he has won for himself the very
highest encomiums ; — in this sense they are the
highest, that they have been uttered by those who,
in so warmly commending the Hebrew bard, have
been incited by no i^eligious partiality or orthodox
prejudice ; but the contrary. In this instance it
would be easy to get released from the task of
framing eulogies duly expressive of the admiration
to which this poet is entitled ; for several German
scholars, of the foremost rank as Hebraists, have
already so exhausted this theme that it would be
difficult to do anything else than to repeat — sen-
tence by sentence, what they have said. Certainly
there has been no contrary verdict on this ground ;
— or none that is deserving of much regard.

If there were now a question concerning the rich-
ness and the compass, the wealth, the distinctiveness,
the power, and pliability of the Hebrew language, it
might well be determined by an appeal to the poetry
of Isaiah. With perfect ease, as if conscious of
commanding an inexhaustible fund, this Prophet (or
now let us call him Poet) moves forward on his
path : — terms the most fit and various are in his
store : — imagery, in all species, abounds for his use,
whatever be the theme, and whether it be terrible,
or sombre, or gay and bright. Or if rather the
question related to the culture of the Hebrew mind,

Hebrew Poetry. 217

in that remote age, and to its susceptibility, or to
the existence among the people, or many of them,
at that time, of a refined spiritual sensibility, these
compositions would be vouchers enough of the fact.
Let the reader put off for awhile, and let him quite
distance himself from, his Bible-reading associa-
tions : — let him forget that the book of the son of
Amoz is a constituent of the Canon of Scripture ;
and then, and as thus reading it afresh, not only
will the Poet rise in his view, and take rank as the
most sublime, the most rich, the most full-souled of
poets, but there will come before him, as if dimly
seen, the men of that age — more than a few such —
to whom these utterances of the religious life — these
words of remonstrance, and of comfort, and of hope,
would be reverently listened to, and treasured up,
and recited daily. What is it in fact that is clearly
implied in the very structure of these compositions ?
Why are they metrical throughout ? Why are they
elaborately artificial in their form ? It must be for
this reason, that the people of that time, and their
ecclesiastical rulers, received, with devout regard,
the Prophet's deliverance of his testimonj^ and that,
notwithstanding the sharpness of his rebukes, this
" burden of the Lord" took its place among the
recitatives and the choral services of public worship
— to which purposes they are manifestly adapted.

An experiment of this kind would produce its Jirst
effect, in thus opening to our view at once the pre-
eminence of the Prophet, as a poet, and the ad-

218 The Spirit of the

vanced intellectual and relio-ious condition of his
contemporaries. But then an effect speedily to fol-
low this first would be greatly to enhance the con-
viction that, in this instance, the Poet^ admirable as
he may be, and lofty as was his genius, is far less to
be thought of than the Prophet. Quickly we feel
that he himself thus thinks of his message, and is in
this manner conscious of his burden, and that, in
his own esteem, he is so absolutely subordinate — he
is so purely and passively instrumental, in the deli-
very of it to the people, that the message, and He
from whom it comes, throw into shade whatever is
human only, giving undivided prominence to what
is Divine. In this manner the reader's relimous

o

consciousness so coalesces with the Prophet's con-
sciousness of the same, that, as often as the pro-
phetic formula occurs — " Thus saith the Lord," the
solemn truthfulness of this averment commands our
assent.

Feelings of the same class, which give the modern
reader his sense of the beauty and sublimity of
Isaiah, as a poet, carry with them a deep convic-
tion, which no unsophisticated mind can resist, of
the seriousness and the truthful steady adherence of
the Prophet to his call, as the minister of God. If
there be anywhere in the compass of human writings
irresistible evidence of genuineness, and of honesty,
and of a man's confi^dence in himself, as the authentic
messenger of Heaven, it is here that such indubitable
marks of reality are conspicuously present. Truth

Hebrew Poetry. 219

is consistent, and coherent, and uniform. Truth,
heneath all diversities as to the mode of its expres-
sion, comes home to every conscience by the un-
varying fixedness of the principles on which it takes
its stand. And so it is that the utterances of this
prince of the prophets, dated as they are through
the years of a long life — not fewer than seventy —
and called forth by occasions widely dissimilar, are
nevertheless perfectly in unison as to the theology
on which they are based, and as to the ethical prin-
ciples which sustain the Prophet's denunciations and
rebukes ; and, moreover, as to that economy of
Grace, toward the humble and obedient, which
illumines the first page, and the last page with a
ray from the throne of God.

Otherwise thought of than as a message from Him
who is unchangeable in His attributes of love, this
consistency in announcing the terms of mercy, and
this sameness of the style in which the penitent are
invited to seek the divine favour, is wholly incon-
ceivable. It does not belong to human nature, with
its wayward feelings — it does not belong to human
nature, with its constant progression of temper and
temperament, shifting from early manhood to the
last months of a term of eighty or ninety years, thus
to utter the same things, in the same mood, indi-
cative equally of unbroken vigour and of unclouded
benignity. Men, however wise and good they may
be, will show themselves (as they are) the creatures
of their decades : — they will date themselves onward

220 The Spirit of the

in their style, from their third decade to their
eighth or ninth. But this Prophet exhibits no
such variations, because, in youth and in age
alike, he is delivering a message from Him who
abides the same throughout the lapse of years.

If, indeed, there were ground, which there is not,
for attributing these prophecies to two authors, with
an interval of centuries between them, then we might
be content to look only to the thirty-nine chapters
of the more ancient Isaiah, the interval between the
earliest of this portion and the latest being, by the
acknowledgment of modern expositors, fifty years.
If the Prophet assumed his office as a minister of
Jehovah at the earliest date at which he could do
so, then he had reached nearly the limit of human
life when he uttered the bright presages contained
in the thirty-fifth chapter. It was in the heat of
manhood that he thus denounces the hypocrisy of
the people — their chiefs and their priests : —

Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom.
Wash you, make you clean ;
Put away the evil of your doing^s.

Yet this same bold reprover is not a man who
was carried away by his own fiery temperament ;
for in the same breath he thus opens the path of
mercy to whoever may relent : —

Come now, and let us reason togethei-, saith the Lord ;
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ;
Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Hebrew Poetry. 221

It is the same Isaiah, now in extreme age, and

whose duty it had been, throughout these many

years, still to denounce the wickedness of the

wicked — as thus : (chapter xxxv.)

Woe to Ariel, to Ariel,

The city where David dwelt !

Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord !

It is the same ambassador from God — now hoary
and tremulous, yet not soured in temper — not sick-
ened by a life-long ministration among a gainsaying
people, but benign, as at thirty, and hopeful as -
always, who sees, in the age to come, " the wilder-
ness and the solitary place made glad, and the
desert — the wide world — blossoming as the rose,"
It is he who says — as at first he had said : —

Strengthen ye the weak hands,

And confirm the feeble knees.

Say to them of a fearful heart,

Be strong, fear not. _

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
And come to Zion with songs,
And everlasting joy upon their heads ;
And they shall obtain joy and gladness,
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

On every page there is the same protest for truth,
justice, and mercy, between man and man : there is
the same message of wrath for the oppressor and the
cruel, and the same righteous care for the widow,
the fatherless, the bondsman, the stranger. On
every page there are the same elements of what, at

222 The Spirit of the

this time, we acknowledge to be a true theology,
and which is so entire that, after ages of painful
cogitation on the part of the most profound and the
most exact minds — whether philosophers or divines,
whether ancient or modern — nothing that is pre-
ferable, nothing that is deeper, or more affecting,
nothing which we should do well to accept, and to
take to ourselves as of better quality, has been
educed and taught, or is, at this moment, extant and
patent, in books — classical, or books — recent. This
Prophet --if we take him as the chief of his order —
is still, after a two thousand seven hundred years,
our master in the school of the hig^hest reason.*

This consummation, and this faultless enounce-
ment of theistic principles, in an age so remote, and
among a people unacquainted with the methods of
abstract thought, is a fact which admits of explica-
tion on one ground only — namely, that of the direct
impartation of this theology from Heaven. So
strongly do those feel this who read the Hebrew
Scriptures ingenuously, that the affectation which
will be prating about the " sublime and fiery genius'^
of the Prophet becomes offensive and insufferable.
Human genius soars to no height like this ; and as
to human reason, to find a sure and a straight path
for itself on its own level is more than ever it has
yet done.

There is, however, another field on which, if
we follow this Prophet in his track, from the earliest
• See Note.

Hebrew Poetry. 223

of his public ministrations to the latest of them,
a conviction of the direct inspiration whence they
sprang becomes, if possible, still more firm. These
prophesyings — delivered to the people and princes
of Jerusalem, on divers occasions, throughout the
lapse of seventy or eighty years — contain (might we
here use such a phrase) a programme of the Divine
purposes toward the human family to the end of
time. And this sketch — this foreshowing of a re-
mote futurity, has for its object, or its theme, not
humanity in the abstract, not man immortal ; but
men in community ; and not a one people only, but
the commonwealth of nations. Whatever we in-
tend by the modern phrase — Catholicity, or by
the word — Cosmopolitan, whatever we of this age of
breadth are used to think of when we talk of " the
brotherhood of nations," and of the community of
races — all these ideas, substantially one, are em-
braced in that prescience of the future which came
to the surface so often during the prophetic ministra-
tions of Isaiah. Let it be noted that what this pre-
science has in view is a remote terrestrial universality
of truth, peace, justice, order, wealth, for all dwellers
beneath the sun. In a word, this Prophet foresees
the accomplishment of that one petition among
those commended by Christ to His disciples — " Thy
will be done on earth, even as it is done in heaven."
What we have to do with in this instance is not
just a line or a couplet, here or there, which may
have an ambiguous import, and may be startling on

224 The Spirit of the

account of its coincidence with remote events ; for
the passages now in view are recurrent — they are
ample, and — one might say — they are leisurely in
the development of their meaning : they open out
objects upon which a clear noon-day illumination is
steadily resting. The Seer so speaks as if indeed
he saw the things of which he speaks ; and he so
speaks of them after intervals of time — years
perhaps — as if the very same objects, permanent
and unchanging in themselves, were by himself
recognized afresh as long familiar to his eye. Was
it then a man of Judah like others — was it one who
paced the streets of Jerusalem, and pressed forward
among his countrymen upon the ascents of the
temple — was it one gifted only as others may have
been gifted, who thus, long before the dawn of his-
toric time (as to other nations) looked right a-head,
and afar over and beyond the bounds of thousands
of years, and who saw, in that remoteness, not a
hazy brightness — an undefined cloud, or a speck of
light upon the horizon ; but who gazed upon a fair
prospect — wide as the inhabited earth, and fair as
it is wide, and bright as it is wide, and of as long-
endurance as the terrestrial destiny of man shall
allow ? Assuredly the seeing a prospect like this is
no natural achievement of genius : — it is nothing
less than a prescience which He only may impart
who " knoweth the end from the beginning ; " and
in whose view thousands of ages are as the now-
passing moment.

Hebrew Poetry. 225

The predictions of Isaiah and the predictions of
Daniel are of wholly dissimilar character: — they
have a different intention, and they demand expo-
sition on different principles. Those of Daniel are
precisely defined, although not opened out in de-
tail;— they are distinctly dated in symbol, they
have a limitation also which, in respect of what
has the aspect of hope, seems to keep in view a
national rather than a cosmopolitan era of reno-^
vation ; and then, in exchange for the prospect of
good in reserve for all nations, there is in this
later-age prophecy a far more distinct doctrine of
immortality, and of the resurrection of the dead,
than it had hitherto been permitted to the Hebrew
prophets to announce.*

The predictions of Isaiah are less distinctly
marked — as to their chronology — than are those
of Daniel, because they embrace extensive and
unlimited eras of the future, and they are unre-
stricted as to place, because they comprehend all
dwellers upon earth. Although localized in respect
of the centre whence the universal renovation shall
take its rise, these predictions overpass all other
bounds ; —such as this is the prophet's style : —

In this mountain shall the Lord of Sabaoth make unto all

people,
A feast.

* Daniel xii. 2, S. The parallel passage in Isaiah xxvi. 19.
should be named as an exceptive instance as to that prophet.

Q

22() TJie Spirit of the

And He will destroy in this mountain
The face of the covering covering all people,
And the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death in victory.

Placed almost in front of this eighty years' course
of prophecy, as if it were the text of whatever is to
follow, and as if it were to serve as a caution, or as
a counteraction, of any inference that might be
drawn from the denunciations that are to occupy
so large a space — is, this foreshowing of a high
noon of truth and peace for all races and kindreds
of the one human family : —

And it shall come to pass in the last days,

The mountain of the house of Jehovah

Shall be established (constiiuted) in the top of the moun-
tains ;

And shall be exalted above the hills ;

And all nations shall flow unto it.

And man}^ peoples shall go and say,

Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah,

And to the house of the God of Jacob ;

And He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His
paths :

For from Zion shall go forth the Law,

And the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.

And He shall judge among the nations,

And shall rebuke {convict or convince) many people :

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

And their spears into pruning-hooks :

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation.

Neither shall they learn war any more.

These, and eight or ten other passages of similar
import, occurring at intervals in the same " roll of

Hebrew Poetry. 227

the book," if they be read on any other supposition
than that of their Divine origin (this understood
in the fullest sense) must be regarded as marvels
indeed of which we shall never be able to give
any solution ; and this perplexity has its two aspects
— the first is this— that a man of Judah, in that
age — let us attribute to him whatever eminence
we may, as to intelligence — should thus have
thought, and should thus have uttered himself,
concerning the religious condition of the surround-
ing nations of that time ; and then, that, thus
thinking, he should have conceived such an idea
as that which is conveyed in his anticipation of the
conversion of the world, in the last days, to truth
in reliofion. Certain it is that a consciousness of
the spiritual condition of the nations then neigh-
bouring upon Judaea was the guiding-thought of
the Prophet in these passages — as thus : —

Arise ! shine ! for thy light is come,
And the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee y
For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
And gross darkness the nations :
But Jehovah shall arise upon thee,
And His glory shall be seen upon thee.
And the nations shall vralk in thy light.
And kings in the brightness of thy rising.

The language of Isaiah, in thus speaking of the
surrounding nations, does not savour of the arro-
gance of a nation that is insulated by its profession
of a purer doctrine than that of others ; nor does it
betray the irritation or scorn of such a people,

228 The Spirit of the

maintaining its national existence, from year to
year, in a precarious conflict with its powerful
neighbours. This language is as calm and as
tranquil as it should be— grant it be an utterance
from the throne of the Eternal God. He who
counteth the nations but as " the small dust of
the balance" may be expected thus to speak of
their delusions : but not so, on any ordinary prin-
ciples of human nature, the bard of a haughty
theistic nation, contemning, and yet dreading, its
neighbours, right-hand and left-hand. Conceived
of on any such ordinary principles, and if the case
is to be judged of on grounds of analogous in-
stances, this simplicity, this dignity, this brevity,
are not to be accounted for ; what were the facts ?
— In looking eastward toward the military empires
of the great rivers-land, or southward to the mani-
fold and gorgeous idolatries of the people of the
Nile, with the profound symbolized doctrine of those
worships, the Israelitish bard — the man of glowing
imagination, supposing him to be nothing more,
would find his faith in a pure theism, and his con-
stancy in adhering to the worship of Jehovah,
severely tried. These neighbouring lands, where
imperial magnificence surrounded itself with the
pomps of a sensual polytheism, and thus gave an
air of sparkling joyousness to the cities, palaces,
temples — these lands would naturally be spoken of
in terms very unlike these phrases of modest truth-
fulness : the language which here meets us we of

Hebrew Poetry. 229

this time accept as quite proper to the subject, be-
cause we ourselves have come to think of all forms
of polytheistic superstition — ancient and modern, in
the same manner ; to our modern Christianized
vision nothing can seem more fitting than that the
debasing worships of ancient Egypt, or of Assyria,
or the foul superstitions of India, should be thus
metaphored — as a veil — a thick covering — a gross
darkness, spread over the people which still abide
under the shadow of paganism. But it was not so
to this man of Palestine, three thousand years ago.
The Prophet of Judah, in thus speaking of the
religious condition of Assyria, and of Egypt, and
of India, used a style which he could never have
imagined — which he would not have employed, if
the terms had not been given to him from above.
Those will the most readily feel this who are the
most accustomed to carry themselves back to re-
mote times, and to realize, in idea, the modes of
feeling of the men of countries remote, and of ages
now almost forgotten.

So to designate the religious delusions of the
nations of antiquity was not the native gift of the
son of Amoz : — it was the gift and office of the
Prophet of Jehovah ; and with a still firmer con-
fidence may we say that the prediction which fol-
lows could not be from man, but must have been
from God.

The prediction is not of the kind that breathes
the mood of national ambition ; it is not military,

230 TJie Spirit of the

but the very contrary ; it is not of the same sort
as the Islam fanaticism ; it is not in harmony with
a, fierce propagandism ; it was not prompted by
the temper of that later age, when the ^eal of the
Pharisee incited him to " compass sea and land for
making one proselyte." This prediction, by the
very fact of its employment of figurative language
of this material quality — by speaking of the fat
things, and the delicacies, and the old wines, pro-
per to a royal banquet, and in associating these
figures with those of the gross darkness, and the
veil of the covering, precluded any interpretation
of a lower species ; — for it is manifest that as
was the darkness — as was the covering veil — sym-
bolizing religious, moral, and spiritual ignorance
and error, so should the feast, and the refreshment,
be that of religious nourishment, and of moral re-
novation, and of spiritual enjoyment. In this in-
stance the apposition of metaphors furnishes a
sure guide to the interpretation. And then the
history of the nations, from the prophet's age to
this, is a continuous comment upon the prophecy.
And so does the course of events, at this very
moment, give indication of its ultimate entire ac-
complishment— adverse events and thick clouds of
the sky, notwithstanding.

In contradiction of the strenuous endeavours of
many at this time to withdraw men's thoughts from
the past, and especially so far as the past carries
a religious meaning, these Hebrew prophecies —

Hebrew Poetry. 231

those especially of Micah, and of Isaiah, and of the
Psalms — affirm and attest this vital principle, affect-
ing human destinies — namely, historic continuity.
It is on this ground, as much as upon any other,
that the religion of the Scriptures stands opposed to
atheistic doctrines of every sort. The Bible holds all
ages — past and future — in an indissoluble bond of
union, and of causal relationship, and of development,
and of progress, and therefore— of hope, animated by a
Divine assurance of universal blessings yet to come.
Moreover this same historic continuity, this in-
tegral vitality, stands connected with a law of geo-
graphical centralization. The life and hope of the
commonwealth of nations is not a vague hypothesis,
which may be realized anywhere, and may spring
up spontaneously, breaking forth at intervals from
new centres, or startling attention as from the
heart of barbarian wildernesses ; it is quite other-
wise. Even as to the light of civilization and of
philosophy, it has shown its constant dependence
upon this same law of historic continuity, and of
derivation. Much more is it — has it ever been so —
as to the light of a pure theology, and of an effec-
tive morality.

So did these Hebrew predictions, after a slumber
of five hundred years, wake into life among all
the nations bordering upon Palestine, when, by the
means of the Greek version of the entire body
of the Hebrew Scriptures, a true theology, earn-
estly sought after, and actually found, by the

232 Tlie Spirit of the

thoughtful in every city of the Roman empire,
was silently embraced, and devoutly regarded, by
thousands of the several races clustered around the
Mediterranean Sea, as well as in the remotest East.
And so at length were the Prophets of that Elder
Revelation honoured in the accomplishment of their
words, when the Apostolic preaching — like a sud-
den blaze from heaven — imparted the light of life
to millions of souls throughout those same countries
-—of Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Every onward movement of the western nations
— even those movements which humanity the most
condemns — has shown the same tendency to create
or to restore, a religious centralization, which, in its
degree, has been an accomplishment of these same
predictions. And at this time these shining words
of hope and of peace, accepted as they are, and
honoured by the one people among the nations
whose destiny and whose dispositions carry them
far abroad — East and West — are workino; out their
own fulfilment in a manner that is indicative at
once of the force that resides in the word of pro-
phecy, and of the Divine power which attends this
word, and which shall accomplish it — in every iota
of it — in " the last times."

Not yet indeed have the nations ceased to " learn
war;" on the contrary, the arts, bearing upon the
mechanical destruction of life, and the demolition of
defences, would seem to be making such advances as
must render the practice of war a day's work only

Hebrew Poetry. 233

in effecting the extinction of armies, or even the
extermination of races. So it may appear. Never-
theless each of those inventions which have had the
same apparent tendency have, in the end, availed
to shorten the duration of wars, and to diminish the
amount of slaughter while they last. Speculations
and calculations of this kind are, however, quite
beside our purpose. War, when it shall cease to
" the ends of the earth," will be excluded by the
concurrent operation of influences secular, and in-
fluences moral, or religious. Permanent peace will
be brought about in the course of the providential
overruling of many lower causes, and by the pro-
per operation of causes of a higher quality. This
ultimate blessedness shall at once " spring out of
the earth, and shall look down from heaven."

What concerns us just now is this — to note in
these predictions that which demonstrates the ab-
solute subordination of the poetic genius to the pro-
phetic function of the man. Isaiah — we are told —
was a man who should rank high among the men
of genius of all ages ; and as to his prescience, it
was that only which is a characteristic of the poetic
inspiration : he was a prophet just so far as he was
a poet. This hypothesis does not consist with the
facts in view. As often as he touches themes that
are the most awakening to poetic feeling, Isaiah —
and the same is true of his brethren — is brief, and
seems in haste to quit the ground on which he has
set foot for a moment. It is thus in the passage

234 The Spirit of the

just above cited, in which the attractive conception
of a silver age of peaceful rural life, to which all
nations shall joyfully return, presents itself; and
again, as in this passage : —

The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for theui,

And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.

It shall blossom abundantly,

And rejoice even with singing:

The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it,

The excellency of Carmel and Sharon ;

They shall see the glory of Jehovah,

And the excellency of our God.

The passing forward is immediate to themes of
another order : —

Strengthen ye the weak hands,
And confirm the feeble knees.
Say to them of a fearful heart,
Be strong — fear not. . . .

Near is the poet, in these instances, to those
primaeval conceptions of earthly good which, to
the Hebrew people, were fixed elementary ideas.
Easy — natural — pleasurable, would have been the
transition to the Paradisaical and the Patriarchal
morning times of the human family. No such
divergence is in any instance allowed ; nevertheless
the fact remains, whether we duly regard it or not,
that the great scheme of the Hebrew prophetic dis-
pensation exhibits, in this instance, as in others,
the universality of its intention ; or let us rather
say — its grasp of all mundane time in this way,

Hebrew Poetry. 235

that the same bright conditions which had attached
to the commencement of the human destinies on
earth, are foreseen and foreshown as the ultimate
conditions of the human family. As there was a
paradisaical morning, so shall there be a high noon
to all nations — a noon of earthy good, as the proper
accompaniment of the triumph and prevalence of
religious truth and love.

23G The Spirit of the

Chapter XIII.

THE LATER PROPHETS, AND THE DISAPPEARANCE
OF THE POETIC ELEMENT IN THE HEBREW
SCRIPTURES.

A CENTURY onward from the age of Micah
and Isaiah, to that of Jeremiah, brings to
view the greatness of the change that was to take
place in the modes of the one Revelation of the
Divine will and purposes. The same principles
always, but another style. Let it rather be said —
a progressive change was taking place in prepara-
tion for that last mode of this teaching from hea-
ven, when the awful realities of the human system,
in relation to the future life, were to throw into the
shade, as well the bright eras, as the dark times, of
this visible mundane economy. Poetry, therefore,
which is always a function of this visible economy,
gradually disappears from the inspired pages ;
w^hile the prophetic element assumes, continually,
a more definite character, and becomes also prosaic
in its tone and style. Nevertheless while, in the
prophets of the late age, Poetry is in course of
subsidence, there does not take place a corre-
sponding relinquishment of metrical forms. An
instance of this is presented in the closing portions

Hebrew Poetry. 237

of the prophecies of Jeremiah— namely, the La-
mentations, wherein the artificial metrical structure
prevails in a higher degree than in any other part
of the Hebrew Scriptures.*

This Prophet — a type of Him who was ''ac-
quainted with griefs"— gives evidence at once of
the sorrowfulness, the tender sensitiveness of his
temperament, and of his want of those loftier gifts
which distinguish Isaiah, and which, in the esteem
of Biblical critics, entitle him to a high place among
men of genius.

The difference between the two Prophets is best
seen in comparing those passages in the later pro-
phet which, 'as to subject and doctrine, are nearly
the counterparts of signal passages in the earlier
prophet. Such especially are those places in the
two in which the majesty of God is affirmed, while
the folly and vanity of idol -worship receives a con-
temptuous rebuke ; — such also are those which pre-
dict the future kingdom of peace, and the return
of the people from their captivity.f A richness of

* See Note.

t Compare passages in the two Prophets, such as the fol-
lowinor : —

Jeremiah. Isaiah.

xl. 12, to the end.
X. 1—16, and li. 15—19. <! xliv. 6, to the end.

rxl. 1-2, t
s xliv. 6,
*- xlvi.

xxiii. 5—8. ^ |- XXX. 19. 26.

XXIX. I I XXXV.

XXX. 10, 11. I j xlix. 7, to the end.
xxxi. 1—14. J L liv. throughout.

238 TJie Spirit of the

diction, a majestic flow, a compass and accumula-
tion of imagery, belong to the one, which do not
appear in the other ; but then this later prophet,
in some places, approaches that style of definite
prediction which was to be carried still further by
his successors.

If what already (Chap. IV.) we have said con-
cerning Palestine, as the fit birth-place and home
of Poetry be warrantable, as well as the contrary
averment concerning the levels of Mesopotamia,
then the fact that the Prophets of the Captivity,
Ezekiel and Daniel especially, are prophets not
poets, will seem to be, at least, in accordance with
a principle, even if it may not be adduced as a
proof of it. The captives of Judaea carried with
them the Hebrew lyre ; but, seated disconsolate by
the rivers of Babylon, they refused to attempt to
awaken its notes, and themselves lost the power to
do so. On the banks of the Chebar (great canal)
and on the banks of the mighty Hiddekel, visions
of awful magnificence were opened to the seer's
eye ; and he describes what he saw : but his de-
scription is strictly prosaic ; nor doe^ the sublimity
of the objects that are described at all enkindle the
imagination of the reader. The reader, to become
conscious of their sublimity, must carry himself
into the midst of the scene, and picture its stupen-
dous creations for himself. A passage in Isaiah
(chap, vi.) similar to that which opens the prophecy
of Ezekiel, produces, by its very brevity, an efffect

Hebrew Poetry. 239

on the imagination which the elaborate description
of the later prophet fails to produce.

Along with this subsidence, or disappearance
of poetry, there presents itself a more rigorous
style of rebuke, and an ethical tone, indicative of
the change that was coming upon the national cha-
racter. The Hebrew man of Palestine — the man of
Judah— the citizen of Jerusalem — was, in this late
age, represented by the Jew of the Captivity, and
this personage has more affinity with the Jew of
modern times, than with the Hebrew people of the
times of Isaiah. It is true that those of the later
prophets who exercised their ministry in Judaea—
these are Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi— retained the
archaic style, if they breathed less of its animation ;
but it is not so with Ezekiel, or with Daniel : these
lead us on toward a dispensation in which poetry
should have no part. Objects held forth in vision,
for a symbolic purpose, may be stupendous, or they
may be magnific, or splendid; but while con-
^ veying their import, and demanding explication as
emblems, they quite fail to stimulate the imaoina-
tion, or to satisfy the tastes. Not only is it true
that allegory is not poetry, for it contradicts, it
excludes poetry — it is prosaic emphatically : facul-
ties of another order are appealed to ; and when
these are in act the tastes, and the consciousness
of beauty and sublimity, are neutralized. This sort
of antagonism is felt especially in the perusal of
the Apocalypse, which, even when the scenery it

240 The Spirit of the

describes is constituted of objects that are in them-
selves the most proper for poetic treatment, yet
fails entirely to give pleasure on that ground.
These exhibitions of celestial splendours, or of in-
fernal terrors, carry with them another intention ;
and that this intention may be secured, they quell
or dissipate those emotions which poetry is always
aiming to excite.

An instance presents itself in the chapter (xxxvii.)
of Ezekiel in which the Prophet brings into view,
with vividness, the scene and circumstance sym-
bolically of a national resurrection. He brings
into view the valley of blanched skeletons — the
tremors in these heaps of bones — the clustering of
limbs — the coming on of muscle and skin to each —
and the sudden starting to their feet of an array of
warriors.* The painter here might be tempted to
try his art upon a large canvas, and might do
better in such an attempt than the poet could,
unless he availed himself of other materials, and
put quite out of view the emblematic significance
which Ezekiel puts forward, when he says — " These
bones are the whole house of Israel." The same
principle takes effect in the instance of the vision
(chap, viii.) of the chamber of idol-worship, and
the worshippers, and the cloud of incense : a fine

* Rohur, vis, fortitudo, maxhne belllca ; exercitus. Ge-
SENius. This seems the proper force of the Hebrew word.
The Greek says only, auvayayr) : which is less than the
meaning.

Hebrew Poetry. 241

subject for learned art, much rather so than for
])oetry.

No vein of poetry, not even a single incidental
recollection of the Hebrew imaginative soul, makes
its appearance in the book of Daniel. Plainly his-
torical, for the greater part— its prophetic portions-
its revelations, are of that order which, as we have
said, is the extreme antithesis of poetry. The
entire class of allusive conveyances of a meaning
differing from the obvious or literal meaning of the
terms employed, includes allegories, emblems, pro-
verbial phrases, and most varieties of wit; and
these, all, are distasteful to those in whom the
genuine poetic feeling is in force. True poetry
needs no interpreter ; for if its figures, its very
boldest metaphors, its most startling comparisons,
do not interpret themselves instantaneously, it
must be either because the poet, mistaking his
function, has wrapped himself in myths, or be-
cause the reader wants the poetic sense.

The seventy years' captivity— the demolition of
the Holy City — the breaking up of the Temple
se vice — the ravaging, and the laying waste of the
country, and its occupation by a heathen vagabond
population — all these events concurred in bringino-
to an end the Hebrew poetic consciousness : thence-
forward the Jewish people — the gathered survivors
of the long expatriation — became prosaic wholly,
historic only :— they became, as a nation, such as
should render them the fit recipients and teachers

242 The Spirit of the

of that next coming Revelation which, because it
was to demand a hearing from all people, and to
invite the submission of the reason, lays a founda-
tion in the rigid historic mood, which, though it
may admit symbols, rejects Poetry. A glance at
the onward progress of this transition, of which the
Jewish people were the immediate subjects, may
properly be had, at this place, and before we
look back upon the Prophetic Period — to take our
leave of it.

In following the course of the national religious
literature downwards, from the times of the last
of the Prophets, it is a wonder to find how rarely
— if indeed at all — a sense of the beauty of nature,
or any sentiment allied to poetic feeling, comes to
the surface in that literature. In truth it would be
difficult to find evidence of its existence, or of its sur-
vivance, in the Jewish temperament. The books de-
signated as Apocryphal, and which are unknown to
the Hebrew Canon, are, some of them, no doubt, of
a time not much more than a century later than
that of the closing of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Nevertheless they are of another order, in a lite-
rary sense ; and they indicate the supervention of
another mood of the national mind. In explanation
of the difforence (the fact of Inspiration is not now
before us) it would not suffice to say that the period
within which these Apocryphal books appeared was
a continuous era of social and political confusion,
and of extreme suffering, and therefore unfavour-

Hebrew Poetry. 243

able to the poetic mood, for the same might be
affirmed concerning those times in which the He-
brew poetry shone with its brightest lustre.

But another mind had at length come upon the
Jewish people, or upon very many of them ; the
miseries of the captivity had taken due effect upon
them, and so the apostolic word had had its exem-
plification— " No affliction seemeth for the present
joyous, but grievous ; yet afterwards it yieldeth the
peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are
exercised thereby." Idol-worship, in all its vanity
and its frightful gorgeousness, had been witnessed
in its home, in the broad places of Babylon ; and
this spectacle had thoroughly sickened the better-
taught men of Jerusalem of their own infatuation
towards polytheism: it was so that they now loathed
and contemned the sensual worships which themselves
and their fathers, with a fatal perversity, had hankered
after. Not only was idol-worship spurned, but the
national sufferings, and the demolition of their city,
and the cessation of their own worship, were at
length understood in this sense as a Divine chastise-
ment : — the punishment was accepted, the national
ruin was meekly submitted to, and thenceforward
a new religious life was inaugurated among them,
and for a length of time it was nobly maintained.

The national repentance, if not universal, had,
no doubt, been real in more than a few instances.
Evidence of this renovated religious feeling is found
in that book (Baruch) which, among the Apocryphal

2-14 The Spirit of the

writings, comes the nearest to a style that might
substantiate its claim to be included in the Canon.
A bright monument is this book of a people's mood
while enduring, in exile, the contempts and the op-
pressions of barbarian tyranny : — penitent — sub-
missive to the tyrant who was regarded as the
instrument of the Divine Justice; and while sub-
missive, yet hopeful.* The return of the afflicted
Jewish people to its duty and to its office, as witness
amono- the nations for truth in Religion, was a
preparation for that coming time when, with heroic
constancy, they contended for their national and
religious existence against the two neighbouring
monarchies — the Syrian especially. But this season
of doubtful conflict was a time of stern earnestness
among the people, and would not be favourable to

* The book of Baruch stands alone among the books of the
Apocrypha, and should be read — religiously, and read histo-
rically ; and in this sense especially the appended Epistle of
Jeremiah, which, genuine or not so, has a graphic distinctness
in its exposure of the folly of the Babylonian worships, ex-
ceeding what is found in the parallel passages in Isaiah. The
writer undoubtedly had see7i the things of which he speaks : he
so speaks as those among ourselves are wont to speak who, with
English religious feeling, walk about in the towns and cities of
southern Europe. With a homely contempt, and vivacious
satire, the writer of this Epistle says — what now might find a
place in a Protestant journal of a tour in Italy or Spain : — " For
as a scarecrow in a garden of cucumbers keepeth nothing, so
are their gods of wood, and laid over with silver and gold . . .
they light them candles, yea more than for themselves, whereof
they (these gods) cannot see one .... their faces are black
through the smoke that cometh out of the temple."

Hebrew Poetry. 245

a spontaneous development of the Poetic feeling ;
besides, the men of the captivity found, on their
return to their country, that they had sustained an
irretrievable loss — the loss of their lang^uaffe. In-
stead of it, a dialect had come into use which was
incapable of giving utterance to thought and feeling
of this order : it was itself of heterogeneous com-
position : — it had been the product, not of a nation's
mind, but of its calamities : — in all its deviations
from the ancient forms it bore testimony to the
facts of subjugation, expatriation, and of the influx
of corrupt populations ; besides that in itself it was
harsh, unmelodious, defective ; it was the vernacular
of the busy population of vast plains, and of crowded
cities.

During the same periods not only had the rich
and copious and metonymic Hebrew given way to
the rugged Aramaic (not more poetic as related to
Hebrew than the Dutch lano-uage is as related to
the English), but another inroad was rapidly taking
its course — as throughout western Asia, so not less
in Palestine than around it — namely, that of the
Greek language ; at first prevalent as an upper
class or governing tongue, and at length, in the
apostolic age, as the ordinary popular medium of
discourse. But then this importation of the lan-
guage of Greece by no means brought with it the
taste or the poetry of Greece, any more than, in
any genuine sense, it brought its philosophy. Greek,
as the language of literature, came in upon the

246 TJie Spirit of iIlc

Jewish mind, not to enlarge it, not to enrich it,
but as a sophistication. Evidence to this effect is
largely before us in the extant compositions of that
time — in the Apocryphal books, and in the pages of
Philo and Josephus. The Jewish mind of that time
had weaned itself from the Hebrew breast, and it
was imbibing, instead, a nutriment which, to itself,
could never be a " sincere milk," easily assimilated,
and promoting its growth. The Greek philosophy
did not make Jewish Kabbis philosophers, any more
than Homer and Sophocles had made them poets.
Thus it was that, between the Aramaic barbarism
which poetry and philosophy alike would resent,
and the Grecian high culture, which the Jewish
mind was not prepared to admit, poetry entirely
disappeared from the literature of the people ; and
as to philosophy, it lodged itself upon the upper
surface — like houseleek upon the tiles of a building,
into which it can strike no roots, and which lives
and grows where it lodges, fattened upon no other
soil than that supplied by its own decayed foliage.

The meditative Jewish mood — such as it exhibits
itself in the book of the " Wisdom of the Son of
Sirach" — not wanting in ethical value, or in epi-
grammatic force, is yet only a groping wisdom. The
sage sees not more than a glimmer of light upon
earth ; and he barely lifts his eyes aloft toward the
heavens ; — the light of immortality does not send
down one cheering beam upon those dim pages ;
and it must have been from other sources than from

Hebrew Poetry. 247

these quaint indeterminate compositions that the
strenuous martyrs of the time of Antiochus Epi-
phanes drew their courage in contending to the
death for the faith and hope of the nation.

In the course of not more years than those which
divide ourselves from the era of the Reformation,
the Jewish mind had quite fallen away from what
might be called its Poetic Mood. No writings of
that order — that we know — had been produced in
Judaea. The Rabbis only — and probably it was a
few only of these — were familiarly conversant with
the archaic national language. A cumbrous, cir-
cuitous, and often a sophisticative mode of com-
menting upon the Prophets, and of darkening their
meaning, had taken the place of what might have
been a nutritious popular instruction. In so far —
and there is reason to think it was very far — as the
Greek version had come to be used instead of the
Hebrew Scriptures, in the weekly service of the
Synagogue, such a substitution would have the
effect of removing, to a remote distance, that poetic
consciousness to which the Inspired Prophets had
been used to make their appeal.* The version of
the Seventy is bald, prosaic, and wanting in rhythm,
as well as majesty. It had, indeed, carried a sub-
stantial knowledge of truth far and wide among
the nations ; but it had so carried these elements
as if, while leaving behind the graces of the He-
brew Poetry, and failing to take up the graces of
* See Note.

248 The Spirit of the

the Greek Poetry, it would commend the grave
principles of Theistic doctrine to the Gentile world,
stripped of all attractions except those of a severe
reality.

Such was the preparation that had been made,
in Judaea itself, and throughout the surrounding
countries, for the advent of One whose ministry
was to be of another order — a fulfilment indeed of
all prophecy ; but an awakening of the nations to
a Revelation which must utter itself in terms the
most concise, and the freest from ambiguity — in terms
which, statute-like, shall not only easily find their
equivalents in all tongues — barbarian or cultured,
and not only maintain their intelligible quality to
the end of time, but, more than this — such as shall
reappear with luminous force in the courts of the
unseen world, w^hen and where all men are appointed
to render their final account. There can be no
Poetry in the Statute-Book of Universal and Eternal
Right ! The Hebrew Poetry had been the free
medium of the Divine communications during ages
while the future unseen destinies of the human
family, if not undetermined, were not to be pro-
claimed. Earth's own voices, earth's harmonies and
graces, were mute, and had long been mute, when
He should appear who is " from above," and whose
mission it was to institute a new life — the life
eternal — the life in attestation of which multitudes
were, ere long, to welcpme death on the rack — in
the amphitheatre, and in the fire.

Hebrew Poetry. 249

The extant memorials of the early Church — the
martyr-Church— exhibit few, if indeed there be any,
indications of the revival of that consciousness of
the sublime and beautiful in Nature which had
been so long in abeyance. The period of prepara-
tion for Christianity, and the subsequent martyr
ages, must be reckoned to include a space of nearly
seven hundred years. It was not until long after
the conclusion of the martyr time that this con-
sciousness reappears at all within the field of Chris-
tian literature. When therefore it is attempted to
show the derivation of our modern poetic feeling
from the Hebrew Scriptures, the attempt would be
hopeless to establish an " unbroken succession,"
as if the flow had been continuous. That river,
the streams whereof, making glad the city of God,
sparkled up from the Holy Hill, disappears at the
time when the prophetic dispensation comes to its
close ; and these waters of Siloam then found for
themselves an underground conduit alongside of
the lapse of many centuries ; nor do they come
again into day until near our modern times.

Assuredly the Rabbinical writers did not so
driiik of those waters as to receive thence a poetic
inspiration ! These grave, learned, laborious, and
whimsical doctors, had so used themselves to con-
verse with whatever is less important, and nugatory,
and frivolous, that they had become incapable of
apprehending whatever, in Nature, or in life, or in
Holy Scripture, is great —beautiful — sublime: in

250 The Spirit of the

all thiiifrs that which was factitious or arbitrary had
fixed the eye of the Rabbi, who had become blind
to the majesty of the creation. The Prophets were
men who lived abroad — breathing the air of the
hills and plains, of the forests and of the gardens of
Palestine ; but their commentators — the Talmudists
— were men of the cloister, the light of which was
dim, and its atmosphere dust-burdened and sultry.
Imagination of a sort the Rabbi might boast; but
it was prolific of monstrous chimeras, and chose
rather the prodigious than the true. Astute more
than wise, the Jewish masters of thought groped
along a path abounding in thorns, and scanty in
fruits.*

As to the Christian community — in the East and
the West alike — eager theological controversies came
in the place of sufferings. Heresy, instead of Pa-
ganism, showed itself, even more than imprison-
ments and tortures, to be out of accordance with
the spirit of Poetry. Christian men — orthodox and
heterodox alike — had passed through that vast in-
tellectual and moral revolution which had brought
with it the consciousness of Truth in Belief, as a
personal concernment — incalculably momentous.
With this feeling of individual relationship to God,
on terms to which an abstract scheme of theology
was to give its sanction, the dialectic Reason came to
be invoked, and was brought into play continually ;
and the style of this controversial reason is always
* See Note.

Hebrew Poetry. 251

strenuous, harsh, and unmelodious. The contro-
versial mood, full of disquietudes, and of evil sur-
misings, and of angry imputations, is the very
opposite of the discursive, imaginative, poetic tem-
per. No condition of the human mind shows a
front so repulsive to taste and feeling as does the
logical mood, with its formal egotism, and its in-
tolerance. This temper of earnest wrangling (albeit
for the right) is death to imaginative, as well as to
the moral, sensibility. For centuries it seemed as
if men, in contending for the Truth of God, had
quite ceased to see or to know that the world we
live in is beautiful, and that the universe is great.

There was a season in the growth of the Ascetic
Institute — dating its rise in the Decian persecution —
in the lapse of which there may be traced much of
the spirit of Romance, and something of the spirit
of Poetry. A conception of romance, if not of
poetry, one might believe to have inspired, even the
crabbed and dogmatic Jerome, when he put to-
gether, for popular use, the prodigious legends
concerning the ascetic heroes — St. Paul the Monk,
St. Hilarion, and St. Malchus, and others of the
sort. It is certain, as to Palladius, and the com-
pilers of the Lausiac Memoirs, that they had caught
a feeling of the sublime, if not of the beautiful, in
Nature ; and the terms in which they speak of the
horrors of the bladeless wilderness suggest the idea
that the complementary conception of w^hat is gay
and beautiful, from the neighbourhood of which the

252 The Spirit of the

heroic anchoret fled far, was not quite absent from
their thouofhts. These writers, in their encomiums
of what might be called— spirituality run savage,
betray their own consciousness, and that of their
heroes, of those decorations of the material world
upon which they dared not look : whatever w^as
fair, bright, gay, joyous, in creation w^as contraband
in the ascetic philosophy; nevertheless some of those
who signalized their zeal in denouncing these graces
of Nature gave evidence, obliquely, of the strength
of their own forbidden feeling towards them.

In many instances the Christian solitary was a
man of culture, who, in sincerity, had fled from the
abounding corruptions of cities, with their Christian-
ized paganism — and who, when he had well nestled
himself in his cavern, and had learned a lesson, not
extremely difficult, in a warm climate, how to exist
and be content in the destitution of the appliances
of artificial life, and had come to draw spiritual
nutriment from every misery, would return to his
early tastes, and would follow that leading of pious
meditation which finds its path from the worship of
God, the Creator, to the manifestation of the Divine
attributes in the creation. No wilderness in which
man may exist is absolutely bladeless : no solitude
can be wanting in the elements of sublimity, if it be
skirted by purple and jagged rocks, which outline
themselves sharply against a cloudless azure by day,
and against the curtain of stars by night. When
once the genuine relish of natural beauty has been

Hebrew Poetry. 253

engendered, the rule will be— or often it will be— the
fewer the objects on which it feeds, the more intense,
the more concentrated, will be the feeling they excite.
The shrivelled grass— the thorny shrub — the scanty
rush, will prove themselves to be fraught with all
poetry ; and then fertile devout meditation will
feast itself upon these crumbs of the beautiful —
even as the life-long tenant of a dungeon learns to
satisfy the social instincts of humanity in tending a
spider.

Far more of what, with our modern tastes, we
should admit to be true poetic feeling, here and
there makes its appearance upon the rugged sur-
face of the ancient asceticism, than we can find in
the factitious versification of some of the great
Church- writers of the same time — eastern or western.
Such spontaneous adornments of the ascetic life, if
compared with the laboured poetry — so called, of
Gregory Nazianzen or of Ambrose, might suggest a
comparison between the rich mosses, with a hundred
hues — that embossed the rocks around the hermit's
cavern — and the dazzle and the glare of the marbles
and jewellery of the basilicas of the imperial city.

Grotesque, more than poetic, are those romances
in the composition of which Jerome (as we have
said) beguiled his leisure at Bethlehem, and abused
the credulity of his contemporaries. But another
style meets us when we look into the correspon-
dence of the accomplished and spiritually volup-
tuous Basil— an ascetic indeed who, while main-

254 The Spirit of the

taining his repute as a saint — not falsely, but fac-
titiously— knew how, in his retreat on the banks
of the Iris, to surround himself with rural enjoy-
ments which might have been envied by the
younger Pliny, in his villa on the margin of the
lake of Como.*

It does not appear — or the evidence to that effect
is not at hand, showing — how far the Psalms of
David, rich as they are in poetic feeling, availed
to nourish a kindred feeling within the monastic
communities. Through the lapse of a thousand
years — dating back from the time of the revival
of literature in Italy — the Psalter had so been rolled
over the lips of monks, morning, noon, and night,
in inane repetitions, as must have deprived these
odes of almost all meaning — spiritual or intellec-
tual. Let the modern reader imamne what would

o

be the effect upon himself of repeating the hundred
and fifty Psalms, entire — round the year, fifty times
or more !

But the waking hour of the European mind came
on ; our modern consciousness toward Nature, as well
as Art, sprang into existence ; and along with this
renovation of the Tastes, as well as of the Reason
of the western nations, there came the diffusion,
and the restored influence of the Inspired writings.
Thenceforward this mighty influence, which was
at once a force and a guidance, took its way
alongside of the recovered classical literature ;
* See Note.

Hebrew Poetry. 2oo

and the two powers — the sacred and the profane
— went on commina-hnff their energies in those
various portions which have given nationality to
the literature, distinctively, of Italy, of England,
of France, and of Germany.*

* See Note.

256 lite Spirit of the

Chapter XIV.

THE MILLENNIUM OF THE HEBREW POETRY, AND
THE PRINCIPLE WHICH PERVADES IT.

THERE is presupposed in the phrase which has
been used as the title of this volume, an idea
of unity or continuity, as belonging to the Hebrew
Poetry. We speak of the Spirit of the Hebrew
Poetry, and in thus speaking a meaning is con-
veyed to this effect — that there is a oneness of in-
tention, or a constant principle, or a prominent
characteristic, which may be recognized through-
out, and which attaches, more or less decisively to
each writer, in a long series — connecting the whole,
and imparting to the mass a high decree of con-
sistency and of homogeneousness. The Hebrew
Poetry, from its earliest era to its last day, stands
in view as a One Poetry.

This averment in its behalf means somethino-

o

more than this — which might as well be affirmed of the
Poetry of Greece, or of that of Persia, or of Eome
— that it is the literature of one people or race, and

Hebrew Poetry. 257

of a people strongly marked with the peculiarities of
their national mood of mind, and of their habits, and
their religious notions and usages. More than this
must be intended to be affirmed when we so speak
of the literature of the Hebrews, and we must mean
what would best be made intelligible by the hypo-
thesis that, in the midst of these many and diverse
voices — each uttering itself after its own fashion,
and following each other through the lapse of more
than a thousand years — there is heard the mind and
feeling of One, who is unchangeable in disposition
and principle — the same yesterday, and to-day, and
in all time. This^ undoubtedly, is the hypothesis
on the ground of which we accept the books of the
Canonical Scriptures, as given by the Inspiration
of God — in a sense peculiar to themselves. But
just now let this hypothesis (unquestionably true as
it is) be set apart, or removed from our view. That
which remains, after this abeyance of the belief of
Inspiration has been effected, is a congeries of facts
of such a kind that they must compel an immediate
return to that belief, apart from w^hich these facts
can receive no solution whatever.

So familiar are the topics involved in this ar-
gument that the reader who is well used to his Bible
may believe that he fully apprehends them : and it
may be so ; and yet it is not so with many who,
following the daily routine of Scripture lessons in
the track of the misadjusted order (which in a chro-
nological sense is disorder) of the Old Testament

s

258 The Spirit of the

books, fail to perceive, or fail to recollect, that, in
passing from one Psalm to the next, or from one
Prophet to the next, they may have spanned a five
hundred, or even a thousand years ; and moreover
that they have made this leap in a retrograde direc-
tion:— as, for instance, when an ode later dated than
the Captivity, is followed by one which is earlier dated
than the Exodus. These anachronisms of our modern
Bibles take possession of our minds in a disad-
vantageous manner, and stand in the way of clear
and firmly held convictions concerning the historic
reality of the series of events. If the English lan-
guage, in a thousand years, had undergone as little
change as did the Hebrew language in that time,
and if we were to read, in constant mislocation,
passages of Cowper and of Chaucer, or of Milman
and Bede, it would demand a very frequent re-
ference to the dates of our literature to dispel the
chronological confusions that would beset us.

The degree of uniformity or homogeneousness in
the literature of a people, which might easily be
regarded as probable, on common principles, would
be of this kind — first, there is the same language
throughout, with diversities of dialect only ; and
there might be the same metrical or rhythmical
system ; then we should find the same figurative
material — related as this would be to the climate
and the country ; and we might also find the same
theology and ethics — or nearly the same — as well as
allusions to nearly the same political and social in-

Hebrew Poetry. 259

stitutions. Prevalent as these characteristics might
be, and enduring as might be their influence, it
is not to be imagined that a series of writers,
representing the national history through so long
a term as more than a thousand years, should
fail to exhibit great divei-sities on such grounds
as these, namely— (1) The individual disposition
and intellectual disparities of the writers (this must
be even if they were all nearly contemporaries
and fellow-citizens). (2) The varying position of
these writers, as belonging to, or as representino-
the several orders and interests in the common-
wealth. (3) The influence upon each writer of
those marked changes in the habits and disposi-
tions of a people from which no people, hitherto,
has been exempt — or not exempt if many centuries
of their history are to be included. In these senses
uniform, and in these senses also diverse, the lite-
rature— or say, the poetry — of a one people may
be accepted as the product of causes the opera-
tion of which is intelligible.

The Hebrew writers do in fact exhibit much di-
versity in the several respects above named: — indivi-
dually they differ — each has his manner: — dififerences
also are perceptible among them arising from their
social position, as of the sacerdotal class, or of other
classes : — differences also there are the distinctness
of which is sufficient, in several instances, to sup-
port an inference as to the place in the national
history to which each writer belongs. Yet in this

260 The Spirit of the

last-named respect the differences are far from being
such as, on ordinary principles, might seem likely to
arise from the greatness of those changes through
which the Hebrew race had passed in this lapse of
time. These changes embrace the most extreme
and peculiar conditions under which a people may
at all conserve its continuous identity ; for the for-
tunes of this people went the round of national
well-doing and of disaster. Not to go back to the
patriarchal age, although then this poetry had
had its commencement, the Hebrew lyre gave
evidence of a long and well-skilled practice at
the very moment when the race, in tumultuous
excitement, stood, ransomed and astounded, upon
the eastern margin of the Red Sea. The training
of the people who, with their Leader, there sang the
song of triumph unto Jehovah (Exodus xv.) had
been such a schooling in music, and in recitative
worship, as might be carried on in the house of
bondage, and while the tribes, in severest servitude,
were labouring under the sun in the brickfields of
Pharaoh. Yet it was then and there that this
peculiar function of the Israelitish race made its
bold essay of power. This lyre, attuned on the
banks of the Nile, did its office until the moment
of sadness came — a thousand years later, for leaving
it to sigh in the winds by the rivers of Babylon.
Frequent notes of this same lyre give proof that
the tent-life of the terrible wilderness had not put
it to silence ; and at the time when these wan-

Hebrew Poetry. 261

derings were to cease, strains burst anew from
its wires of surpassing majesty (Deut. xxxiii.) It
might seem as if rhythm, and music, and bold
imagery, so floated in the air far around the camp
of God, that even the false-hearted prophet, when
he looked down upon it from the " high places of
Baal," caught the same rhythm and the same fire.*
Throughout the precarious times of the Judges—
a three centuries or more — when everywhere within
the borders of Israel, often —

the highways were deserted,
And the travellers walked through by-ways :
The Tillages ceased — they ceased in Israel ;

— even through those dark years of almost national
extinction, the energies of sacred song did not de-
cline. The ruddy youth of Bethlehem found poetry
and music— one divine art— ready for his hand, and
for his voice, and for his soul ; and his Psalms are
vouchers for a fact so well deserving notice, that
neither the sweetness of these tones, nor their depth,
nor their grandeur, were in any manner affected, for
the worse, by the changeful fortunes of the man. It
is the same soul, graceful and tender, even when it
is the most impassioned, which utters itself, whether
the poet be the leader of a band of outlaws in the
rugged wilderness, or the anointed of the Lord, with
tens of thousands of warriors at his side.

* It belongs to another line of argument to note the fact
that Balaam's reluctant prophecy was—" The word put into
his mouth by God," (Numbers xxiii.)

2G2 The Spirit of the

The Israelitish monarchy, through another long
era — a five hundred years — underwent seasons of
fiery trial in its alternations of power and splendour,
and of decay and subjugation, and almost of ex-
tinction ; and these revolutions in the political and
social condition of the people were enough — were
more than enough — under ordinary conditions, to
bring about an absolute loss, or final disappearance
of the poetic feeling — the poetic habitude, and even
of the rhythmical art — the metrical practice, among
a people. The people of Greece lost the soul of
poetry within as short a time, and under con-
ditions much less severe.

But there was a vitality in the Hebrew Poetry
which preserved it from decay through these eleven
centuries of national fortunes and reverses. There
was a principle within it which resisted every in-
fluence that might have wrought upon it, either to
abate its tone, or to alter and vitiate its moral and
religious import. Not only did this poetry last
out its destined millennium, but, with a robust per-
sistence— with a fixed and resolute consistency —
it continued to vindicate the same moral axioms,
and to denounce, in the same terms of inexorable
rebuke, the vices of mankind at large, and the cor-
ruptions of the one people in particular. Amidst the
varying moods of a passionate people, this millennial
utterance does not vary by a shade from its pristine
theology, or its pristine ethics. Do we please to
call this theology " unphilosophic ? " — if it was so

Hebrew Poetry. 263

in its earliest forms, it continued to be such in
its latest forms — notwithstanding the tendency of
religious thought, always and everywhere, to so-
phisticate its notions, and to complicate its phrase-
ology, in the direction, on the one hand, toward
mj^sticism ; on the other hand, toward vague, fruit-
less, and negative abstractions. Or do we please
to say that this Hebrew morality was severe and
uncompromising ? If it was so at its birth in the
glooms of the wilderness of Sinai—such also was
it in that day of sadness when the triumphant
idolater carried " of the vessels of the house of
the Lord to Babylon, and put them in his temple
at Babylon." Or if we say — and this is far nearer
to the truth — that the Hebrew religious system
rested, peacefully, upon an assured belief of the
graciousness and clemency of Jehovah ; such it was
at the first, when the Eternal proclaimed Himself —
" the Lord — the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth;"
so was it in that later age when the terms of the
divine economy toward man were to be repeated in
form — " What now doth the Lord require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God."

This consistency — this exemption from the va-
riableness that attaches always, and everywhere
else, to whatever is human — is utterly inconceivable
until, for its explanation, we bring in the one truth
that, whoever might be the Prophet that challenges

264 The Spirit of the

the people to a hearing, the Speaker is ever the
same — the same in mind and in purpose through
a thousand generations.

That first principle of true Religion — the Per-
sonality of God (insufficient and unpleasing are all
phrases of this order!) — this principle always taught
and affirmed in the Hebrew Scriptures, is also in-
sensibly conveyed in that mode which— rather than,
and far better than, any formal affirmation — gives
us our consciousness of the individuality — the se-
parate independent personality of those around us.
Whence is it, in fact, that, in our every-day con-
verse with those who make up our homes and social
circles, we unconsciously acquire our conception of
the disposition, the moods, the tastes, the consti-
tutional faults and virtues, and the mental bulk of
each and all ? A knowledge of character — a know-
ledge so important to every one's own conduct — is
a slowly derived induction ; it is an accretion from
day to day, built up out of each person's casual
utterances and incidental discourse, as every one is
moved or provoked by the occurrences of the passing
hour. If we only hear what has been said on any
occasion, we know who has said it : — the utter-
ance is index of the person ; or if a single utterance
be not sufficient for this recognition, a few, taken
at hazard, will not fail to remove any doubt as to
the speaker. It is the same as to our feeling of the
individuality of the prominent persons of history.
If memoirs sufficient are extant — if there are

Hebrew Poetry. 265

records sufficient, of the sayings and the doings
of noted persons we come to know the person,
thenceforward, even with a distinctness that ap-
proaches the vivacity of actual acquaintance.

If, then, we accept it as an axiom of Biblical
science that a main purpose of the Old Testament
Scriptures was this — to ingrain upon the minds of
men this vivid conception of God — the one Living
and Ever-present Creator, Ruler, Father — then it
is seen that this purpose has been secured in that
one method in which alone it could be etfected —
namely, by the record of utterances, each related
to some occasion of the time, on the part of Him
who is thus to be made known. The Speaker —
unchanging in disposition and in His principles of
conduct — utters His mind by a direct conveyance of
it in the form — " Thus saith the Lord." Century
after century, through all the shiftings of a people's
weal, and of their correspondence with their neigh-
bours, God, their God, thus utters His mind. No-
thing approaching to this vivid revelation, this
bringing the conception of the Person home to
the consciousness of men, has elsewhere ever taken
place : it is the peculiarity of the Hebrew Scrip-
tures.

Why should the Hebrew testimony concerning
the true and living God — why should it have been
thrown into the poetic mould? — why should this
theology have been made to flow as a river through
the levels of time, reflecting, as it passes, the ob-

2GG The Spirit of the

jects on its banks ? One might speculate to little
purpose in attempting an answer to this question.
Meantime the fact is before us — the Hebrew Poetic
Prophecy is a revealing of God, carried on through
a millennium, in all which course of time, just as
the thunder of heaven is even-toned, and is always
like itself in awful grandeur, and is unlike other
sounds of earth, so did the voice of the Eternal
continuously peal over-head of the chosen people,
and thus did it take firm possession of the human
mind — which never, thenceforward, lost its con-
sciousness toward God, as a Mind — a Will — a
Heart, and a concentrated Resolve, in a right
knowledge of whom stands our well-being — present
and future.

If there be among those that actually read the
Old Testament Scriptures any who are wavering
in their belief of the proper inspiration of the pro-
phetic books, such persons might be advised to put
to themselves a question which, perhaps, hitherto
they have never propounded, or even thought of,
namely, this — Whether, in the habitual perusal of
these books, there has not formed itself in their
minds what might be called a consciousness of the
Divine Being as — A Person of History — a feeling
or cognition, much more sharply defined than an
abstraction can ever be ? And then this well-defined
historic conception is consistent with itself in all its
elements : — every particle of which this one Idea
is constituted is characteristic, and is in harmony
with the whole. If it be so —

Hebrew Foetry. 267

Then comes a second question, which may be
thus worded — Is it conceivable that an Idea of
this order — a conception so majestic, and so vivid
and real, and so truthfully historic, should, even if
once it had been formed, have floated itself on-
wards, unbroken, through the waywardness of so
many uncontrolled human minds ? Onwards, un-
broken, it has come, even from the remote age of
its first expression, down to the latest age of its last
utterance. Nothing that is incredible and incon-
ceivable can be more inconceivable than is a sup-
position of this kind. With a healthful confidence
in the sureness of the instincts of truth, a mind in
health returns to its belief that it is indeed the voice
of God which has given consistence and authority
to the millennium of the Hebrew Scriptures.

It is a trite theme with Biblical expositors to
insist upon that doctrinal and ethical consistency
which imparts its character of oneness to the Ca-
nonical writings. Argumentation on this ground
is perfectly valid ; yet what now we have in view
differs from that argument, as well in its substance,
as in the use that may be made of it. Difl^icult it is,
and must be, to give distinct expression to a con-
ception of this kind, involving as it does, the most
sacred elements, and in doing so to avoid appa-
rent improprieties ; so to write as shall off*end no
religious decorum, and yet so as shall be suflScient
for bringing into view, with distinctness, an occult
analogy. If, however, a writer's intention is well

2G8 The Spirit of the

understood, indulgence may well be granted him
on any single occasion when he bespeaks it.

If the Hebrew Poetry, regarded as a whole, be
a national literature, and if it carries upon its sur-
face, very distinctly, its nationality, and not less
distinctly the individuality of each writer in the
series — it carries wdth it also — and it does so with a
bright distinctness (let us speak with all reverence)
the Individuality of the Infinite, the Eternal, the
Just, the Good, and Wise, who is the Author
of this Hebrew literature in a higher sense.

The Bible reader — if his consciousness has not
already been damaged by his converse with petulant
and nugatory criticism — is here challenged to pursue
the suggestion that has been put before him. The
more he gives himself to this line of thought —
following it out in a new perusal of the prophetic
Scriptures, from first to last — the more convincing
will be the inference, and the more irresistible
the impression, that these Scriptures are every-
where marked with an Individuality which is not
that of the people, and which is not that of the
men — the prophets in series — but is that of Him
" who spake by the prophets."

An argument resting on this ground may easily
be put aside by those who may be inclined to
escape fi'om a foreseen inference ; for an appeal
is made to a sense — to a feeling — to a moral and
a literary taste which all men have not, and which
some who once had it have lost, and of which any

Hebrew Poetry. 269

one may choose to profess himself destitute. We
now address ourselves to those whose mental and
moral condition is of that kind which readily
coalesces with Truth, and not the less so when
it is found beneath the surface. We say — found
beneath the surface in this sense : — the indivi-
duality of each of the inspired writers presents
itself to view, on the surface: the theology and
the moral system of all — as one religion, is con-
spicuous on the surface of the Scriptures ; but
what we here venture to speak of in terms of re-
verence— namely, the Personal Character or Indi-
viduality of the Divine Being — is a fact — distinct
indeed, but occult, and needing therefore to be
ought for.

270 The Spirit of the

Chapter XV.

THE HEBREW LITERATURE, AND OTHER
LITERATURES.

MUCH might easily be written, pertinently
perhaps, and ingeniously, no doubt, and
learnedly too, with the intention of instituting a
comparison between the Hebrew Scriptures and
other national literatures, which must be those of
China, of India, in its two fields, and of Persia,
and of Greece. Comparative criticisms on this
ground may be instituted either with an intention
hostile to the claims of the Hebrew literature, or
with an intention favourable — not so much to those
claims, as to the assumed literary repute, and the
supposed genius and intelligence of the several
writers.

Comparisons of this kind, and it is the same
whether the intention of those who institute them
be hostile or apologetic, we hold to be founded
altogether upon an erroneous hypothesis ; and in
fact they never fail to exhaust, quickly, any small
substance of reason that there may be in them,
and to spend themselves in disquisitions that are
nugatory, impertinent, and pedantic. The reader
soon becomes sick of any such attenuated criticisms,

Hebrew Poetry. 271

in the course of which the writer swelters away to
no end — for he has set out on a path that leads to
nothing. If now putting out of view the Oriental
literatures, with which the mass of readers can have
none but a third-hand acquaintance, and which
must be fragmentary and insufficient for any pur-
poses of intelligent adjudication — and if we were
to bring into view that only ancient literature with
which educated persons are more or less familiar —
the literature of Greece— its Philosophy, its His-
tory, its Poetry — lyric, dramatic, and epic, then
might any proposed comparison with the Hebrew
books be peremptorily rejected, on this ground, that
the dissimilarities— the contrasts — the contrarieties,
are so great and striking as to throw absurdity
upon the attempt to establish any ground of ana-
logy— whether for purposes of encomium, or of
disparagement.

The Greek literature, in each of its species —
not less than its inimitable sculptures— is a product
of art ; it is an elaborate combination of the poet's,
or of the artist's individual genius and practised
skill, with the highly-cultured taste, and the large
requirements of the men of his time. But, as we
have said, again and again, the Hebrew writers
are never artists. Two or three books of the Canon
excepted, if indeed these should be excepted, then
it must be affirmed that everything within this circle
is unartistic in a literary sense, and unlaboured.
Certain metrical usages are complied with by the

272 The Spirit of the

poet ; and so he complies with the grammatical
usages of his language : but his course of thought
obeys an influence of another, and of a higher
order. It would not be enough to affirm — That
the manner of the Hebrew writers is that of
simple-hearted men, who naturally fall into an in-
artificial and fragmentary mode of expressing them-
selves ; for this affirmation does not satisfy the
requirements of the instance before us. Their
manner is not an artless innocence ; it is not the
rudeness of a pristine era ; for, from the first to
the last, it has the force and the firm purpose
proper to a deep intention. Moreover the constant
course of things in the development of a people's
mind is this — that a literature which is inartificial
in its dawn, goes through a process of elaboration
in its noon-tide ; nor ever fails, in its decline, to
become false in taste, and wanting in soul.

No process of this sort gives evidence of its
presence in the passage of the Hebrew Poetry from
age to age ; and yet its presence becomes manifest
enough at the very moment after the sealing of
the prophetic economy : thenceforward Jewish lite-
rature shows its grey hairs. Within the compass
of the Psalms there are odes which belong to the
extreme points of the national history — if we take
its commencement at the time of the Exodus, and
date its conclusion a century later than the return
of the remnant of the people to their City, and the
restoration of their worship. We here embrace
more than a thousand years ; yet, on the ground

TO

Hebrew Poetry. 27

of the natural progress of Poetry, from its earliest
to its latest style, this difference of date would not
be detected, and it is indicated only by references
to events in the people's history.

The Hebrew literature differs absolutely, and it
differs in a manner that sets at nought all attempted
comparisons between itself and that of Greece. It
does so, for instance, in the department of history ;
for even if we take up that of Greece, not as we
find it in Thucydides, but as it pleasantly flows on
as a devious river in the pages of Herodotus, we
should do no service to the Hebrew chroniclers by
attempting to show that, if they had written of As-
syria, and of Babylon, and of Egypt, discursively, we
might have found in our Bibles a match for the Clio
or the Melpomene. With these narrators of single
lines of events there was no ability of the same
order; there were no literary habits of the same
order. Even less tolerable would be an attempt
to match David or Isaiah with iEschylus, or So-
phocles, or even with Hesiod or Pindar. It is not
so much that we might not find in the Greek waiters
— Plato, for instance, or j9^schylus — the rudiments
of a theology — true and great, so far as it goes ;
but in no Greek writer, in none anterior to the
difiusion of the Gospel, are there to be found any
rudiments whatever — any mere fragments, however
small — of that Life of the soul toward God,
and of that Divine correspondence with man
which, in every Psalm, in every page of the Pro-

T

274 The Spirit of the

phets, shines — burns — rules, with force — overrules
Poetry — drives from its area the feeble resources
of human art, and brings down upon earth those
powers and those profound emotions which bespeak
the nearness of the Infinite and Eternal, when God
holds communion with those that seek to live in the
light of His favour.

There is, however, a ground — not indeed of com-
parison, but of intelligible contrast, which it is well
to pursue ; for it is here that the proper claims of
the Hebrew Scriptures come into a position where
there neither is, nor can be, any sort of rivalry.

Let it just now be granted (for a moment) that,
within the circle of the Greek literature— including
its history, its poetry, and its philosophy — there
might be found a sufficient theology, and a sufficient
system of morals — a belief toward God, and a prac-
tice of the virtues — personal and social — justice,
temperance, mercy, or benevolence ; and let those
who would risk such a paradox affirm that, on the
whole, the Greek theology and ethics are as com-
mendable, and as eligible, as are the theology and the
ethics of the Hebrews : yet is there this difference
— if there were no other — that the one religious
scheme has thrown itself into a form to which a di-
rect authentication, as from Heaven, could never be
made to apply ; while, on the contrary, the Hebrew
theology, and its ethical system, exist in a form
to which the voucher from above may be made to
attach ; and therefore that this scheme may meet

Hebrew Poetry. 275

the requirements of mankind — as an authenticated
Religion, which may be taken up and used as the
rule and warrant of the religious life. Briefly to
open up this contrast will be proper; and two or
three instances, selected from different quarters, will
be enough to show what it is that is intended.

The question is not — Which, in any two samples,
is the preferable one, on abstract grounds, as more
true, or of better tendency than the other? — but
this— To which of the two — when placed side by
side — it would be possible (or, if possible, useful)
to attach the seal of Heaven, as our warrant for
accepting it as the source of belief in religion ?
Nor does it at all concern us to inquire whether,
in Plato, the theology and the philosophy be his
own, or be that of his master — whether it is Socrates
who speaks, or Plato, for himself and his master : in
either case it is the same flow of human thought
throughout these Dialogues — deep — sincere — in-
genuous— a depth which has secured for them, and
must ever give them, an immortality among cul-
tured nations, to the world's end. And this is an
immortality which perhaps may brighten so much
the more, when, in the onward course of religious
opinion, Christianity — or let us better say, the Re-
ligion of Holy Scripture, at length accepted, "rejoiced
in by all men, shall draw all things that are the
most excellent into its wake — no one thencefor-
ward unwisely attempting to bring the two upon a
level, as if both alike were Revelations — both alike

276 The Spirit of the

inspired. The one is sterling, excellent, admirable,
weighty, and of inestimable value: — the other is
Divine — it is more than human : — God has sealed
it as His own, and the two stand before us distin-
guished, not only in this way, that the one bears on
it a stamp which the other has not; — nor only in
this way, that the doctrine of the one, as compared
with the doctrine of the other, is preferable, and is
more true, and is more conspicuously Divine — but
in this way, that the one body of religious thought
which actually carries the seal, presents itself under
conditions adapted to so peculiar a purpose and to so
special a service as that of receiving this m.ark from
Heaven, and of going forth into all the world — to
rule the human mind, and to make valid every
hope and every dread that can strengthen virtue.

Poor and narrow indeed is that jealousy, pre-
tended to be felt for the honour of our Christianity,
which prompts some to lay bare the ambiguous spe-
culations of the Ph^do — pointing the finger at its
tremulous places, and vaunting its dimness, and
ending with the triumphant interjection — " See
what was the darkness of heathenism ! " Nay, this
dimness was crepuscular ; it was not a shadow of
the eventide. This dimness, regarded in its bearing
upon the' progress of the human mind, bespoke the
morning at hand ; and why should we doubt it, or
why be backward to give utterance to our confidence,
that, to these illustrious minds — this Creed — "where-
fore we hold it to be true that the soul is immortal

Hebrew Poetry. 217

and imperishable" — was, to him who so spoke, a
presage of day ? The dying sage, who said, koXov
■yap TO aOXov /cot i) f AttJc,' /it£-yaXrj, shall he not find that,
within the Hades, on the threshold of which his
foot then calmly rested, there was, in due time, to
be opened, a door of hope ?

" To stay oneself," says this teacher, " with ab-
solute confidence, or to utter with assurance, as
certain, the things we have thus discoursed about,
would not become a wise man." Nevertheless the
argument on this side was of such strength that, as
he says, a man might well live, and practise every
virtue, on the faith of it. The reasoning of Socrates,
if translated into the terms of modern philosophy —
if put into its equivalents in French, German, or
English, would not carry conviction to many minds;
and the less so because reasons, drawn from the
instincts of the moral life, which with ourselves must
have the greatest force, are not, in this instance,
adduced. Nor is the faith of Socrates (Plato) in
any proper sense a theological faith. God is not
the reason of the immortality of man ; nor is He
the Granter of it ; nor is the favour of God spoken
of as the light of that life future.

But even if the argument of the Ph.i:do were
more complete than it is, in a theological sense, it
is, at the best, nothing better than the opening out
of an hypothesis: — the reasoner disposes of certain
objections ; he fortifies his position on this side, and
that side. Human thought is here evolving itself,

278 The Spirit of the

after its manner, on ground over which no road has
been laid down, and on which no sure light shines.
In what way, then, or to what purpose, might this,
or, indeed, the entire body of Plato's writings, re-
ceive a warranty from Heaven, and so come into
a place of authority, in matters of belief? To no
such purpose as this are they adapted. Looking
now to the Apology, and to the Ph.edo, as related
to the same great question of a future life, the
attractive quality of both is that modesty, that calm
philosophic balance of the mind, professing its choice
of a belief that is favourable to virtue, and en-
heartening especially to those who bear testimony
for wisdom and goodness among the enemies of
both ; the Martyr-teacher will yet do no more
than declare his own faith, and make profession
of a hope, the reality of which, or its futility, none
among the living knows, or can know : — it is known,
he says, to God alone.*

Taking the Platonic belief— just as it stands in
these Dialogues, and in the Apology, the substance
to which, in any way whatever, the seal of God
might come to be attached is — not, that belief itself ;
but only — the dialectic conditions under which it
may be entertained, as a probable hypothesis, by a
wise and good man. The voucher could reach this

* If the last words of the Apology may seem ambiguous, the
inference we are here concerned with will be the same : — the
doctrine of immortality, as professed by Socrates, was not
more than a choice among contrary hypotheses. See Note.

Hebrew Poetry. 279

extent only — that it is allowable so to believe con-
cerning the future of the human soul. If beyond
this we should say — the Socratic belief might have
received an explicit approval, this could only be by
appending to the Platonic text a supplementary
text — a page or paragraph, which, in fact, is not
there. What we have to do with is — Plato, as
the existing manuscripts have put him into our
hands.

Then there would be a further difficulty in
affixing the seal of Heaven to the Socratic, or the
Platonic creed — namely, this — that the belief of
the immortality and future blessedness of good men
is not in any way made to take its rise in a theo-
logy, or even in an ethical scheme. Although
Plato is not himself an atheist, his doctrine of im-
mortality is absolutely atheistical. How then shall
He in whom is the life of the future life authen-
ticate a creed in which the Divine Attributes find
no place, and are not once named ?

In search of a belief which might thus be made
available as a Religion — authenticated by God, we
must look elsewhere. The rareness and the brevity
of those passages in the Hebrew Scriptures which
relate to the future life we are all used to speak of,
and also to conjecture the probable reasons of this
reserve. Yet few as such passages may be, and
brief as they are — this characteristic attaches to
each of them — namely, that the language of each
is peremptory, and assured. Great is the difference

280 The Spirit of the

— on this ground — between a copious discursive
disquisition — with its probable conclusions — labo-
riously reached — and a ten words sharply uttered,
in the natural tone of one who is reporting things
of which he has a direct and infallible knowledge.
This sort of determinate averment — inviting no dis-
cussion, and supposing no question or contradiction
— possesses, let it be clearly understood, that logical
form which it should have, in adaptation to the pur-
pose of receiving the seal of God.

In turning from the recorded hope of Socrates,
to the recorded hope of David, the contrast we are
here concerned with is not that of quality ; nor is it
that of the quantity of illumination which is shed
upon the two respectively, but this — which arises
from a distinct affirmation, resting upon knowledge
in the one case, compared with the avowal of an
opinion, on grounds of probable reasoning, in the
other case. Where Socrates professes his hope of
a happy release from the pains and labours of life,
and an admittance into the society of the heroes
of past time, who, he says, are inhabitants of Hades
for ever, David thus gives the upshot of his nightly
meditations, and thus, as we might say, does he
open the roll of the book, in readiness for its re-
ceiving the seal of Heaven, by bringing in the
Lord — the First Party in this compact, even as
if visibly present for the purpose : —

I have set the Lord always before me ;

Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved :

Hebrew Poetry. 281

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth :

My flesh also shall rest in hope ;

For thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades,

Neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Thou wilt show me the path of life :

In thy presence is fulness of joy,

At thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.*

As is the difference between the first doubtful
streak of light in the eastern sky, and the blaze
of noon in the tropics, such is the difference in
quantity of illumination between the hopeful belief
of Socrates, and the firm belief of David. Equally
great also is the difference as to the quality of that
light in each instance — might one say — as to the
actinic force — the germinative energy of each.

Yet if we allege that the Platonic philosophy,
because it is hypothetic and indeterminate, could
not be given forth to the world as a Divine Reve-
lation (even if it were of much better religious
quality than it is) should we not be led to seek
for Avhat might serve such a purpose in those pro-
ducts of the Greek mind, the very characteristic
of which is a determinative and categorical decla-
ration of principles ? Shall we not find in Aristotle
that which Plato will not yield? With this pur-
pose in view, it is natural to turn to the Nicoma-
chean Ethics :— a book of sharply-cut definitions
and distinctions, within the circuit of which nearly
every term belonging to the glossary of common

* The Messianic meaning of this Psalm has no bearing upon
oiir arffument in this instance.

282 The. Spirit of the

discourse, as well as of philosophical discussion,
finds its due place, in and between its contraries,
and its cognates, and its synonyms. Exact, dis-
criminative, unquestionable, for the most part, are
these refined collocations of ethical terms. How
far such a book might be made to subserve the
purposes of a Treatise on Morals is not a question
that concerns us in this place : it might, in a sense,
serve this purpose, and so might a Lexicon, if cut
in pieces, and put up anew in logical order, instead
of the alphabetical order.

It is clear that what might be said of a treatise
like the Nicomachean Ethics, might be affirmed
also of Euclid's Elements of Geometry. Both pro-
fess to be demonstrative ; or otherwise to state the
case, Aristotle and Euclid, alike, so deal with the
matter in hand, at each step of their progress, as
to exhaust all supposable contrary affirmations. In
each instance any hypothetic contradiction is over-
thrown, or is driven off the field. On the ground
of formal logical demonstration no place is left for
authentication, as if it might be superadded to the
process of reasoning. If the reasoning, in an^^ single
instance, were faulty or fallacious, then it could gain
nothing by the seal which a higher authority might
give it : but if the reasoning be valid, and if we may
examine it, in every link, then a voucher for its
truth is quite superfluous : — nothing is added to
our faith in the relations of extension to be told,
from on high, that the three angles of a triangle

Hebrew Poetry. 283

are equal to two right angles — or to 180 degrees.
The definitions of this treatise— the Ethics— accord,
or they do not accord, with the notions we may
have entertained of the usages and proprieties of
the Greek language, in the class of terms which
it embraces. Rarely, or to a very limited extent
only, does Aristotle dip into the depths of the
moral consciousness : for, as he is wanting in a theo-
logy— if theology be more than a naked abstraction —
so he wants soul, nor could he ever be thought of as
the Prophet of great truths; or as one who was
" sent of Heaven." Whither else, then, on the
field of Greek literature, shall we turn in search of
any such embodiment of religious and moral prin-
ciples as might be fit for receiving an authentica-
tion, so that it might be accepted and trusted to by
men everywhere ? The Poets of the earlier era —
Hesiod and Homer — may be thought to give ex-
pression, in some undefined sense, to a religious and
moral system ; but this system, if thus it may be
spoken of, everywhere so commingles itself with,
and weaves itself into, the texture of a polytheistic
tissue, that no voucher for great truths could be
attached to the mass, so as not to complicate itself
with the fables that thicken around it, on every
page. Nor does an extrication of the true from the
fabulous become at all more easy when we reach
times of higher refinement, and of a more elaborate
art, as it is found in the tragedians — ^schylus,
Sophocles, or Euripides.

284 The Spirit of the

Much has been said and written of late in behalf
of what professes to be a benevolent and catholic
doctrine concerning the religious schooling of the
human family : — all tribes of earth, it is said, have
been alike cared for, and have been led forward in
company toward the true and the good; and among
those who have thus been providentially disciplined,
the Hebrew people is not forgotten. Yet to each and
to all alike an unauthenticated Revelation has been
granted. China has had its Bible — the Buddhist
millions have had their Bible — and so have the
people of Persia and of Greece ; and so of Pales-
tine : all men cared for alike ! (a good belief, in-
deed,) and all, not only cared for alike, but dealt
with in the same manner ; for among each people
there has been raised up a prophet, or a series
of prophets — men of soul and of fire, who, either
as philosophers or as poets, have quickened the
inert masses around them, and have left on record
their testimony on behalf of virtue.

Hold we then to this catholic modern doctrine
until we see what it involves. There is assumed in
this creed a providential interposition in human
affairs ; and there is supposed a beneficent purpose,
wdiich is the guiding reason of this interposition.
Then, if it be so, this peculiarity of the Hebrew lite-
rature, and of its body of poetry especially, is brought
into prominence; for it is this literature, and it is this
alone among the literatures that are extant, which,
from its earliest samples to its last, adheres to that

Hebrew Poetry. 285

form of peremptory affirmation which fits it to re-
ceive a supernatural attestation; and thus to become
an authoritative source of religious belief, beyond
the circuit of its birthplace : — that is, to men every-
where to the world's end. If the teaching of Buddha
was from Heaven, and if Homer, Hesiod, Plato,
Aristotle, were ministers of Heaven, and if Moses
also, and David, and Isaiah, were such, then were
these last-named teachers so overruled in the deli-
very of their teaching as to do it — not hypotheti-
cally — not ambiguously — not scientifically — not as
if uncertain — in ignorance ; and yet not as if certain
in the way of demonstration; but authoritatively, and
in a tone, and in terms, which imply, and suppose,
and are proper to, a continuously given superna-
tural attestation.

286 The Spirit of the

Chapter XVL

the hebrew poetry, and the divine legation
of the prophets.

GREAT, substantial, and of the highest value
are the achievements of modern criticism,
in its laborious explorations of the Hebrew Scrip-
tures ; nor can it be doubted that more will yet be
done on this field when the time shall come — and
it is sure to come, though we may wait long for it
— that the same learning (or more learning) and
the same industry, and the same liberty (or even
greater liberty) shall be employed on the same
path of philological and historical elucidation, wholly
free, which it is not yet, on the one hand, from the
sinister purposes of infidelity, and on the other hand,
from those groundless alarms which take their rise
in indeterminate convictions of the Divine Lega-
tion of the Prophets, and so, in a precarious reli-
gious belief.

It is not on the pathway of criticism, whether
philological or historical, that a determinate con-
viction to this effect will ever be attained. Indi-
vidual men will not, nor do they in fact, become
believers in this method ; religious communities —
that is to say, the masses of professedly Christian

Hebrew Poetry. 287

people — with their teachers, as a body, do not, in
the pursuit of studies of this order, rid themselves
of that wavering, anxious, unquiet, half- compro-
mising, tone and style which indicate a deep-seated
perplexity — a root of unbelief, ready always to shoot
up and put forth leaves on the surface.

But take the question of the Divine Legation of
the Hebrew Prophets to an upper, and this is its
proper, ground — namely, the ground of the greater
question, concerning the truth and reality of a
Spiritual System — even of the life of the soul to-
ward God, and there, and on that ground, a Faith
shall be attained in possession of which no peril can
be incurred on the side of even the freest criticism.

Did the Hebrew Prophets speak " as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost?" Did they so speak
as no men but they, and the Apostles, have ever
spoken or written ? We should seek a reply to this
question in the answer that must be given to an-
other question — Is there a life divine — is there a life
of the soul toward God ? Is there a communion of
the finite spirit with the Infinite, on terms of inti-
mate correspondence, in which the deepest and the
most powerful aifections of human nature are drawn
forth toward, and centred upon, the Perfections of
the Infinite Being ? If there be — and there is —
a life of the soul toward God — a life not mystical,
not vague and abstractive — then we find our reply
to the included question concerning the Hebrew
Prophetic Scriptures ; for it is in these, and it is no-

288 The Spirit of the

where else — no not to the extent of a lino — a frag-
ment— it is within this range that the Spiritual Life
is embodied, and is expanded, and is uttered in a
distinct and articulate manner. It is within the
compass of the Hebrew Poetic and Prophetic Scrip-
tures that all moods and occasions — all trials and
exercises — all griefs and perplexities — all triumphs
and all consolations — all joys, hopes, and exultations
— all motives of patience, and all animated expecta-
tions of the future, find their aliment, and their
warrant also. In a word, if there be a life of the
soul toward God, and if this life be real, as toward
God — then are the Hebrew writers true men of
God ; — then is it certain that they were instructed
and empowered — each of them in his time — to set
it forth, for the use of all men, to the end of the
world.

Thus have believed, and thus have felt, millions
of the human family — even " a great multitude
which no man can number," gathered from among
the nations, throughout the ages past.

But there is now, and there has long been, a
contradiction of the Divine origination and autho-
rity of the Old Testament Scriptures, which has
been identical, or nearly so, with a denial of that
life of the soul toward God of which these Scrip-
tures are the exposition. This is the natural course
of things ; for to those who themselves have no
experience or consciousness of the spiritual life, the
Hebrew Scriptures can be indeed only a dead letter

Hebrew Poetry. 289

— unintelligible, flat, vapid, and unattractive, and
therefore open to that hostile and disparaging cri-
ticism which has so much abounded of late. We
say the two denials have been nearly identical ;
and yet not absolutely so ; for a strenuous endea-
vour has been made of late to affirm a sort of spi-
rituality, while the claim of the Old Testament
Scriptures to Divine origination has been resent-
fully rejected. Those who make this endeavour
do not allow themselves to inquire whence it is that
they themselves have derived those notions (de-
fective indeed) of the spiritual life which they pro-
fess : — the derivation cannot have been from oriental
sources, which yield nothing, at the best, but a pan-
theistic mysticism : — nor can it have been from the
Greek classical literature, for in this literature no
element whatever — no, not a stray spark — not the
remotest indication of the affectionate communion
of the human soul with God — God, near at hand
and personal — is to be found, either in the poets,
or in the philosophers. Nor has this vague spiri-
tuality derived itself from the writings of the Evan-
gelists and Apostles, for in these the spiritual life —
the devotional life, is assumed, and it is vouched
for as real ; but it is not expanded or expounded.
Those, in fact, who profess a sort of spirituality,
and who, in doing so, reject the claims of the He-
brew Scriptures, have stolen what they profess : —
or they have snatched it up, not caring to know
whence it has come into their hands.

u

290 The Spirit of the

Happily, as to a thousand to one of devout Chris-
tian people, well assured as they are of the reality
of the spiritual life — conscious as they are of it, and
finding therein their solace — their peace— their anti-
cipation of its fulness in the future life — these reli-
gious persons have remained uninformed of the
exceptive pleadings of modern criticism ; and thus
they hear and read their Bibles in the tranquil con-
fidence of faith; — and it is a warrantahle confidence
in which they live, and in which they die — ignorant
of gainsaying : or it may be that some rumours of
these nugatory contradictions come, once and again,
to the knowledge of such persons, giving them a
momentary uneasiness : — a rude assault — repelled,
at the moment, is presently forgotten ! Well that it
should be so !

But an injury more serious — a damage less tran-
sient, is sustained — at this time — by many among
those who, partakers as they are of the spiritual
life, have been brought, by their education, and by
their social habitudes, within range of the modern
exceptive criticism ; — especially of that portion of
it which bears upon the Hebrew Scriptures ; and
which has a malignant intention. From this cog-
nizance of adverse criticism much trouble of mind
springs up ; and this is perhaps more often en-
hanced or deepened, than assuaged or dispersed, by
listening to the well-intentioned explanations, and
extenuations, and glozings, and evasions of Chris-
tian teachers. The disturbed mental condition —

Hebrew Poetry, 291

the damaged spiritual health of this large class of
religious persons is, at this time, the problem of
Christian Instructors. Authenticated and well-
informed instructors — themselves perplexed, and
themselves inwardly unquiet — do their best, ho-
nestly, for the help of their people ; but they do it
with little satisfaction to themselves or others.

It is not perhaps many, even of these well-in-
formed Christian teachers, who well perceive — if
they perceive at all — that the epidemic trouble is
altogether the consequence of modes of religious
thinking that are quite recent : too recent are
they to have been provided for in our schemes
of religious teaching. The remedy will come in
its time ; and the life of the soul toward God —
relieved from this temporary oppression, will regain
its healthful condition with renewed power.

Nevertheless, this renovation will not take place
apart from some severe and painful procedures in
demolishing cherished prepossessions. If we have
coveted, and have actually possessed ourselves of
the privileges and the triumphs of knowledge, it is
inevitable that we should endure the pains conse-
quent upon that acquisition : these pains are as in-
fallibly sure to come on, as if they were enacted by
statute. We must not fondly think it possible to
retain the comforts of ignorance (which are many
and real) while we are in the fruition of the better
blessings of knowledge. The present trouble of the
religious body may be interpreted as premonitive

292 The Spirit of the

of a renewed life which shall ere long be granted
to the Christian community, from on High.

It is not enough to say — the modern mind, for
we must say — the Northern modern mind, has
passed into a mood which, as yet, has not got itself
adjusted to a rightful acceptance of a Revelation
attested as such by supernatural interventions. In
the nature of things a Revelation, attested as from
God, by supernatural interventions, can never ad-
just itself to generalisations of any kind ; for a Reve-
lation which might be dealt with — either as to its
mode of reaching us, or as to the substance of the
matters so conveyed — as open to genernUzatioiis,
must cease to be what it declares itself to be — a
unique Revelation : — it must at once be, and not
be — an instance that has no parallel.

On this ground there is a lesson yet to be
learned by the thoughtful men of this present time :
— these, or the sons of these, shall look back and
wonder that this lesson was found to be so hard ;
and in truth we of this time might come to think
of it as less difficult if we duly considered the fact
that a problem, equally perplexing, was solved, and
that a lesson equally revolting was learned, so re-
cently as two centuries ago, or a little more, by
our intellectual ancestors — even by the great guild
of mind at the challenge (mainly) of Bacon.

This problem, upon the solution of which our
modern philosophy now broadly takes its rest, bears
more than a remote resemblance to the problem in

Hebrew Poetry. 293

the solution of which the Christian body, through-
out the world, shall at length rejoice, and shall take
its rest.

It had been believed "by them of old time" — it
had been held as a first truth, beyond the range
of doubt, that the material universe — the visible
Kosmos, must be, and is, in conformity with a
scheme of logical generalizations, and that pheno-
mena, of all kinds, should be interpretable on the
ground, and by the means of, those generalizations,
which did office in philosophy as its organon. But
the time came for the proclamation of a Novum
Organon, and at that proclamation old things
passed away, as a dream, and all things became
new. Fatal to the universe — according to logic —
were those words of doom — Homo natures, minister
et interpres.

Some real progress has been made of late in
winning the assent of the Christian community to
the parallel axiom, which puts the words " Holy
Scripture" in the place of the word "Nature" in
Bacon's aphorism. So far as this it is admitted, in
regard to the substance of truth conveyed in the
Inspired writings, that — The best theologian is the
best interpreter ; or, otherwise worded — The best
theology is that which is an undamaged product
of a free and genuine interpretation of the sacred
text. This now assented-to axiom stands opposed,
on the one hand, to all logic-made theologies ; and,
on the other hand, to that theology which pays

294 The Spirit of the

little or no regard to Scripture, and which — putting
contempt upon the Bible — takes at pleasure out of
it just so much, or as little of doctrine as may suit
every man's notions of what it is fitting to believe.

Thus far a conclusion has slowly grown upon the
Christian mind — among ourselves at least ; but the
axiom has a further application, which still awaits
the assent and approval of the same Christian mind.
The perplexities of the present time, regarding the
authority and the constitution of the Inspired Scrip-
tures, are the indications of an unsettled or unde-
termined belief on this ground. The assailants of
the proper inspiration of the Scriptures think them-
selves strong in their position, and reckon them-
selves sure of a triumph, not distant : — they believe
they shall so make good their array of Bible-faults
as shall compel their perplexed opponents to acknow-
ledge an overthrow, and so to leave the Bible to its
fate. This overweening and unwise confidence is
indeed a demonstration of the vanity and the pre-
sumption of those who entertain it, and of their
own want of (or loss of) those greater qualities
of mind which should have secured them against
so slender an infatuation.

But then, on the believing — or, as we say, on
the orthodox side, there are indications, not to be
mistaken, of indecisiveness, and of the anxieties
which attend a transition-period in matters of faith.
So it is that we find expressions of this kind abound-
ing on the pages of orthodox apologists — Ought

Hebrew Poetry. 295

we not to expect difficulties, even serious difficul-
ties, in Holy Scripture ? — As to most of the
objections urged by infidel writers, they are sus-
ceptible of a reasonable answer; — and as to such
as remain, at present, unsolved, we are to regard
them as left where they are for the trial of our
faith. And thus again — The Scriptures were not
given to teach us natural science ; and we ought
not to look into them for a philosophy which the
human mind is to work out for itself.

These, and such-like exculpatory and palliative
averments, are true and proper, so far as they go ;
but they do not avail, and never can avail (every
one feels it) to the extent that is just now required
for allaying the prevalent uneasiness. Not at all
do such explanations suffice for substantiating the
modern (Reformation era) notion of verbal inspira-
tion. How can that notion hold its ground in front
of the long catalogue of the results of genuine mo-
dern criticism ? This cannot be ; and the adherents
of a theory so inconsiderately framed await, in
alarm, the moment of an unconditional surrender.

Intermediate, or compromising theories, many
and various, have been propounded. Yet a question
has barely been considered of this sort — Whether
the need, at all, of a theory of inspiration is not
quite imaginary, taking its rise in a natural pre-
judice of which we should rid ourselves ? It is in-
evitable (nor blameworthy) that, if we think much
of God, and of His ways, we should run off into

296 The Spirit of the

theories — should assume much, in our purblind
way, concerning the attributes of God, and His
ways of governing the universe, and of dealing
with men at large, and especially of His providen-
tial treatment of those who love and fear and serve
Him. So it comes about, on frequent occasions,
that we give oblique utterance to these unwarranted
surmises, and acknowledge the breaking-up of some
theory when, in painful and distracting instances,
we speak of — a dark Providence — a mysterious
Providence ! The ways of God are not what we
had supposed they ought to be : — they run counter
to all our notions of what is wise and good ; we are
therefore perplexed and offended.

A similar perplexity and a similar offence come
in to trouble us when Biblical criticism puts in its
plea for a hearing. The ground of this perplexity,
or, let us say, the history of its rise, might thus be
rudely put into words — If I imagine myself pos-
sessed of all knowledge — natural^ historical, and
spiritual, and if I am sincere, and if my intentions
are in every sense wise and good, and if, being thus
qualified, and thus disposed, I sit down to write a
book — that book shall be faultless in every sense : —
not only shall it be true throughout, but it shall
be the best book that ever has been written, as
to its taste, its style, its literary execution : in a
word the book will be such as may defy criticism,
on every ground.

But the Bible is the Book of God; — or, according

Hebrew Poetry. 297

to the modern phrase — the Bible has God for its
Author. Most true indeed is this ; — but it is not
true in the sense in which the modern Church has
understood its own saying. If the Bible has God
for its Author, why is it not such a book as I would
have written, if I were qualified, as above stated ?
Clearly it is not such a book ; and we are staggered
in our faith.

In the day when the Church — the Christian
community — shall have come fully to know (and
they must acquire this knowledge by aid of cri-
ticism) what sort of book the Bible is, then will
they have come to know also, what sort of book
the Bible ought to be. It is, we may be sure, such
a book as shall, in the most complete and absolute
manner, accomplish and bring about, in the world
at large, and in the souls of men individually,
the purposes for which it was sent : but the accom-
plishment of those inscrutable purposes is wholly
irrespective of those points of perfection which, to
the human apprehension, seem of primary import-
ance. In this sense how true is it that " the things
which are highly esteemed among men" are in no
esteem with God : — it may be they are in His sight
deserving of reprobation. The Bible is not — as a
BOOK — the book we should have made it ; nor is it
the book we should now make it, if the Canon
were submitted to our revising wisdom. But it
is the book of Him who has thus commended it
to our acceptance : —

298 The Spirit of the

" For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven,
And returneth not thither,
But watereth the earth,
And niaketh it to bring forth and bud.
That it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater ;
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth :
It shall not return unto me void,
But it shall accomplish that which I please.
And it shall prosper whereto I sent it."

So indeed has it prospered in every age since its first
promulgation, and in every land to which, according
to the Divine purpose, it has been sent. Thus has
it prospered in quickening to life millions of souls
— in nourishing the Divine life within these souls.
So has it prospered in ruling the life, in strengthen-
ing the purposes, in giving heart to the courage
of martyrs ; and patience and contentment, and a
bright hope, to the individual spirits of that great
multitude which is gathering into the kingdom of
heaven. Well, therefore, may we spare ourselves
the labour of inquiring, according to our small
critical manner, whether the books of Scripture
are well adapted to subserve the purposes for
which they profess to be given — namely, the re-
ligious and moral instruction of the nations. These
purposes they have subserved — they are now sub-
serving— and they shall continue to subserve, to
the end of time ; and, in a time not remote, shall
they carry light and life, even to every land which
hitherto they have not visited.*

After so large, and so long-continued an induc-
* See Note.

Hebrew Poetry. 299

tion, demonstrative of the efficiency and of the
sufficiency of the Scriptures for imparting life to
the souls of men, and for nourishing that life, what
more do we need? Nothing, if only we will be
wise and ingenuous— as befits us— discarding an
hypothesis which, natural as it is, has no founda-
tion in reason ; but which, so long as it is adhered
to, gives abundant occasion to infidelity, and spreads
disquietude among ourselves. There is no need of
a new theory of inspiration, or of a new principle
of Biblical interpretation ; but this only is needed,
that every hypothesis and theory— better or worse

should be put out of view — -should be laid aside —

should be forgotten. The mode of that commingling
of the Divine and the human in Scripture, upon which
these theories profess to shed a hght, will never be
known to us, any more than the commingling of
the worlds of mind and of matter in the scheme
of animal life will become known to us : — both are
inscrutable. Yet we are well assured of the actuality
of both Mind and Matter in the animal system, and
in the human system especially. We know each—
distinctively and infallibly, when we regard each
as it is seen from its own ground ; but each becomes
a problem insoluble— a perplexity distracting, when
it is looked at from the ground of the other. In
the desperate endeavour to solve this problem, and
to be fairly rid of this perplexity, we first look in
upon mind, as seen from the ground of the ani-
mal structure, and we say— mind is — nothing but

300 The Spirit of the

a function of the nervous substance. Yet this easy
conclusion plunges us soon into perplexities that
are still more hopeless. If this will not do, then
we shift our ground, and looking out of the window
upon matter — upon the material universe entire,
we say — matter is a nihility — it is nothing but a
condition of thought ; or if there ive7'e a real world
beyond us, we could never know it. Thus far the
good bishop of Cloyne. But it will not do ; and at the
hearing of this paradox there ensues a riot on the
highways of the common world, and a doctrine so
whimsical is hooted off as intolerable. The lynch-
law of common sense is brought to bear upon it,
and then we are left where we were — mind and
matter — each resolutely holding its own as before —
philosophers notwithstanding. What is needed here
is not a new theory of the universe, but humility
enough to cease asking for one.

Very near to a strictly parallel instance, or real
analogy, comes the instance of the commingling of
the Divine and the human in Holy Scripture. It is
quite true of the human structure — in a sense, that it
is all mind ; and it is quite true of the same structure
— in a sense, that it is all material organization ; and
if it be an error to affirm that man is organization,
and nothing else, or to affirm, on the other side,
that he is mind, and nothing else — a greater error,
and an error crammed with confusion, would it be
to say of human nature — this part of it is mind.

Hebrew Poetry. 301

and that part is matter ; thus partitioning the mem-
bers, and dividing the substance.

Take the case, then, of Holy Scripture — assuming
that the analogy we here introduce has some ground
of reality. Three doctrines, as in the above in-
stance, stand before us : —

1. That the Inspired Scriptures are wholly Di-
vine, and nothing else. There are few at this time
who will roundly profess this doctrine, in unqua-
lified terms ; but there are many who greatly desire
to do so, and who would do it, if they dared : but in so
far as they do it, they stand confronted, and speech-
less, before the body of criticism, which shows its
store of instances in proof of the contrary. Infidelity
triumphs in its antagonism to this doctrine ; and
it makes the more noise on this ground because it
can triumph on no other ground. About this field
the eagles and the vultures are soaring, for here is
— " the carcase."

Or we may say (2) that the Scriptures (accounted
Inspired) are wholly human, and nothing more : —
or, to state this hypothesis in mitigated terms, that
these excellent writings are inspired just as all other
good and useful books are inspired. This doctrine,
the simplicity and facility of which tempt shallow
thinkers to adopt it, leaves unaccounted for the
great facts of Scripture ; namely, its theological,
its ethical, and its historical portions. To those
who think more coherently, the problem of the Bible,

302 The Spirit of the

considered apart from its supernatural origination,
is a problem that confounds all reasoning, and that
renders hopeless — indeed impossible — any induction
on the ground of history.

Or (3) it may be affirmed that, within the compass
of the Canonical Scriptures, there are certain por-
tions that are Divine, and other portions that are
merely human, and that it is the office of criticism
to segregate these intermingled elements. A diffi-
cult, as well as a perilous labour this must be !
Well we might ask — and yet despair of receiving
an answer to the question — Who is sufficient for
this work ? Not a pope — not an (Ecumenical Synod
— not a Royal Commission ; not this or that school
of learned interpreters : — nor yet the individual
Bible reader for himself. There must be a second
inspiration thus to elicit inspiration from its en-
tanoflements. This is a case of that kind in which
one of two claimants to a property is sure, in the
end, to lay his hand upon the whole ; because the
plea which is admitted to be valid in relation to
the smallest fragment, may be urged, with equal
reason, bit by bit, in relation to every separate
part. On the other side, the claimant who urges
an undefined plea will be compelled to surrender
his ground at each step, when he is pushed to
do so.

But if we reject each of these three suppositions,
and if we take instead of them our confidence in
the Scriptures — theories of inspiration put out of

Hebrew Poetry. 303

view — then shall we not surround ourselves with
perplexities ? Probably it will be so if we are
hypochondriacs in religion : it will be so if the
principle of religious faith has suffered paralysis
from contact with sophistry.

The man who is in the enjoyment of health of
body, and soundness of mind, well knows that he
has a body ; and he knows also that he has a soul;
and he knows that human nature is thus constituted
of two diverse elements, to deny the reality of either
of which is to plunge into an abyss of metaphysical
contradictions. Yet no man of sound mind at-
tempts to draw a line of demarcation between body
and soul, or to distinguish between mind and mat-
ter in the working of human nature ; nor will he
affirm of any one part or function of the one that
it has absolutely no dependence upon the other.
But, while unconscious of these distinctions, he well
knows that he is in possession of a nature which
is available for every purpose of thought and of
action. This knowledge is enough, for, from the
conscious possession of a sound mind and a healthy
body there arises a responsibility to think rightly,
and to act rightly in all the relations of life. This
compound human nature, blending, as it does, a
spiritual and an animal structure, carries with it
an authority which the man disregards at his
peril.

And so it is in regard to the authority of Holy
Scripture. If there be indeed a moral conscious-

304 The Spirit of the

ness — if there be a spiritual sense, we then feel and
know, with the certainty of an infallible perception,
that, in these writings — wholly unlike as they are
to any other writings — we are hearing the voice of
God: — while listening to these writers we are in com-
munication with the Father of spirits. When we
thus read, and while we thus listen, the soul in
health does not stay to put the futile and peevish
question. Is this text — is this passage, human or
Divine ? It is the patient who is " grievously tor-
mented with palsy" that puts this question to those
about him, and to himself, and gets no reply.

There are many questions which may be fit for
exercising the ingenuity of casuists, a proper reply
to which is this — that, the giving a reply at all
may well be postponed to a time when some in-
stance of the sort shall actually present itself. So as
to questions of this kind — What are we to do if a
revelation, credibly attested by miracles, propounds
for our belief, or for our practice, what must be
rejected? What should be done in such a case
shall be duly considered when the occurrence of an
instance of that kind has indeed been established.

Yet there is a class of instances to which more
or less of difficulty attaches from a cause ah'eady
referred to — namely, an assumption — gratuitous
and unwarranted — concerning the Divine attri-
butes, or concerning the modes of the Divine in-
tervention in human affairs. Instances of this sort
attach mainly to the Old Testament Scriptures.

Hebrew Poetry. 305

The feeling which prompts these assumptions is,
for the most part, a modem feeling ; it is a refine-
ment ; it is a sentimentalism ; it is valetudinary ;
it is fastidious. It is a feeling which receives its
correction, not merely from a larger knowledge of
national usages — ancient and modern : but from a
broader aspect of human nature. This breadth —
this freedom — this boldness, is indeed a charac-
teristic of the Scriptures — Old and New Testament
equally so. If the fastidious modern reader of the
Bible is himself unconscious of this freedom and
boldness, it is because, by frequency of perusal,
he has fallen into a sort of Biblical hypnotism, or
artificial slumber, under the influence of which the
actual meaning of words and phrases fails to rouse
attention. This dozing habit may be well in its
way, and it is well if it saves offence ; but no offence
will be taken by those who — profoundly conscious
of the awful voice of God in the Scriptures, and
immoveably firm in their belief to this extent — are
animated by the courage which is proper to a
fervent and enlightened piety ; and who, in the
daily perusal of the Prophetical books and the
Psalms, rejoice in, and fully relish, that fearless
dealing with human nature, and with its incidents,
which at once vouches for the historic reality of
the record, and is evidence of a power more than
human pervading the whole. Just as the material
world and the animal economy has each far more of
strenuous force in it than we moderns — if we had

X

306 The Spirit of the

been consulted, would have allowed it; so is the
Bible — bold — broad — strong, in a degree which
makes the reading of it a trial and a grievance
to our pale-faced sensibilities, and to our pampered
tastes. The remedy is to be found at once in a more
robust mental health, and a more thorough spiritual
health.

This more robust mental health, combined with
a deeper spiritual health, shall show itself in a
liberty of thought which indeed is — free thinking.
The attendant upon this free thinking will be a
free criticism ; and the two shall put to shame
as well, the spurious freedom of unbelief, as the
spurious criticism which feeds itself upon husks,
and has no appetite for nutritious food. When
we yield assent to the Scriptures, as an authen-
ticated Revelation, this assent and this consent
of the reason, and of the soul, bring with them an
exemption from disquietudes of every kind. There
are no alarms where the Almighty is present to
save and to bless.

Hebrew Foetry. 307

Chapter XVII.

CONTINUANCE OF THE HEBREW POETRY AND
PROPHECY TO THE WORLd's END.

THE history of nations furnishes so many in-
stances of the extinction of intelligence and
civilization, and so few — if indeed any — of its per-
manence in any one region, or as to any one race
or people, that the decay and gradual extinction of
the light of mind seems to be the rule, and its con-
tinuance anywhere, beyond the reach of a few
centuries, the exception ; — and hitherto this is not
an established exception.

This decay, and almost extinction, has had place
in the instance of each of the Oriental races. The
people of China, and of Thibet, and of India, and of
Ceylon, and of Persia, and of Mesopotamia, occu-
pied, in remote times, a position in philosophy, and
in the arts, and in social habits, and in populousness,
and in political power, and wealth, which is very
feebly, or is not at all, reflected in the condition of
the modern occupants of the same regions. The
same must be affirmed of Egypt, and Nubia, and
Abyssinia. The same also of the people of every

308 The Spirit of the

country upon which the Macedonian kingdoms
once so splendidly flourished. The same, more-
over, of the countries which were the birth-fields
of the Arabian race.

But it is believed, or it is customarily taken for
certain, that our modern European civilization rests
upon a basis as immoveable as that of the pyramids
of Gizeh. It is thought that the marvels of the me-
chanic arts, and the ready means which these arts af-
ford for the instantaneous interchange of knowledge,
and the consequent breadth of intelligence among the
masses of the people, are guarantee sufficient against
the prevalence of brute despotisms, as well as against
the insensible encroachments of those sordid, sen-
sual, and brutalizing tendencies which are inherent
in human nature. Gladly should we all think this:
nevertheless there are forebodings of another cast
which might easily find support in the actual course
of events at this very moment, and as well in the
new world, as in the old world. Might not then
the question of the permanence of our European
civilization be regarded as a problem that is in
suspense, between opposite probabilities ?

The prevailing belief on the bright side of this
problem rests, for the most part, no doubt, upon
grounds of secular calculation. It is imagined to
be inconceivable that our actual civilization, based
as it is on a broad political framework, and sus-
tained as it is by its philosophy, and its arts, and
aided as it is by its printing-press, and its railways,

Hehrew Poetry. 309

and its telegraphic wires, should ever fall out of
repair, so as to become lumber upon the field of
the European and the American populations.

Yet there is a faith in the world's future— a
bright faith also, albeit it is less sharply defined,
and is of more depth, subsisting among us ; and
this faith may easily be traced to its rise in the
Hebrew Scriptures. This subject has already been
brought forward in these pages (Chap. XI.) The
Hebrew Prophet, we have said, is the man of hope.
The Hebrew Prophets and the Psalmists are the
authors of hope in regard to this present mundane
economy; and it is they, rather than Christ and His
Apostles, that, looking on to the remoteness of the
existence of nations, see, in that distance — terrestrial
good; they see — truth — peace — love; and they
foretell a social system at rest. A last utterance of
the ancient prediction was heard overhead of Beth-
lehem when the coming in of the new dispensation
was announced by a '' multitude of the heavenly
host." But in the end — in the furthest distance —
the two economies shall coincide, and then there
shall be great joy to all nations — " Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will to-
ward men." In the ages intervening — it is " not
peace, but a sword."

The Hebrew Prophets (Poets) represent the mun-
dane religious economy ; and they vouch for its
ultimate realization in universal peace. Evange-
lists and Apostles represent the economy of the

310 The Spirit of the

unseen and the future ; and they vouch for that
immortality in Christ, for which the painful disci-
pline of the present life is the necessary preparation.
But this discipline, and this life hereafter, must
come to its bearing always upon the individual
human spirit ; for it takes no account of races —
of nations — of communities. (Gal. iii. 28 ; Coloss.
iii. 11; 1 Cor. xii. 13.)

Nevertheless the two economies are not at va-
riance ; for the two tend in the same direction, and
they shall, in the end, coalesce. They do so now^
inasmuch as the individual spiritual life has re-
ceived its exemplification, and its ample develop-
ment, within the compass of the poetical books —
the Prophets and the Psalms ; nor shall the indi-
vidual spiritual life ever seek to alienate itself from,
or become indifferent to, those liturgies, and those
litanies of the soul, in its communion with God.
Never shall those forms of praise — prayer — peni-
tence—exultation— those deep expressions of the
emotions of the quickened soul, cease to be — what
hitherto they have been — the genuine promptings
of love, fear, and hope, toward God. Futile have
been all endeavours — so often repeated in modern
times, to dissociate the two Revelations, or to take
up a Christianity, divorced from the Old Testa-
ment. In each instance the attempt has given
evidence of the absence of that spiritual conscious-
ness apart from which there remains nothing in
Christianity itself that is much to be cared for ; or

Hebrew Poetry. 311

which may not be found in Epictetus and Marcus
Aurelius, in nearly as acceptable a form.

So far as the two economies go abreast on
different paths, and so far as they have different
objects in front of them, they may seem to be
divergent ; but, in contradiction of this apparent
divergence, there occur, in each, what might be
termed — nodes of intersection, or points, where the
two are coincident. Such a point of junction may
be found in that signal Messianic prediction —
the seventy-second Psalm ; if this be taken in con-
nection with the second Psalm, and with the forty-
fifth, and with the hundred and tenth. These odes,
which are susceptible of none but the most vapid
interpretation, if their Messianic import be re-
jected, point in the same direction, but not in the
same manner. They agree in foreseeing a mun-
dane empire, administered from a centre — an em-
pire wielding irresistible material force, which shall
be coseval, for a period, with adverse forces; but
which shall trample upon all, and at length be re-
cognized by all. In the second Psalm, and in the
hundred and tenth, and, in part, in the forty-fifth,
the imagery has the aspect of vindictive force —
force, not softened, or only a little softened, by
intimations of clemency. Yet this martial energy
has, for its end, right and truth, and the establish-
ment of order. In these odes there occur no dis-
tinct points of accordance with the rules, the purer
precepts, or the moral intention of the Christian

312 The Spirit of the

dispensation. Right and power shall be in con-
junction, and the two which, hitherto, have so usually
been sundered, shall then — according to these pre-
dictions— walk the earth hand in hand, for the terror
and extermination of every wrongful tyranny. This
then is the world's future — according to the He-
brew Prophets ; and who are they that do not
exult in the prospect ?

The seventy-second Psalm allies itself with the
Psalms above mentioned, as in the fourth, the
ninth, and the fourteenth verses. Force, em-
ployed in the maintenance of right, and for the
deliverance of the oppressed, is still present: — the
minister of wrath is still at hand. As the Primus
Lictor, with the formidable fasces on his shoul-
der, stood at the elbow of the Roman magistrate,
prompt to inflict death — animadviertere — upon any
that should dare resist the power, so, in this pre-
diction, there are notices of contemporary wrong ;
but then there is deliverance at hand, and the
time that is indicated in this instance is some way
onward in the course of events— for, as to the ad-
verse powers, they have either ''learned wisdom,"
or they have fallen to rise no more.

The Sovereign Right has now become a genial
influence — which is gratefully accepted — even as
are " the showers of heaven that water the earth."
Everywhere shall this administration of justice and
mercy have come to be commended (ver. 15). All

Hebrew Poetry. 313

races, all nations, shall at last feel and acknowledge
the blessings of this rule —

All shall be blessed in Him :

All nations shall call Him blessed.

Not only from this realm of right shall violence
and wrong be excluded ; but the hitherto perplexing
problem of the equilibrium of orders shall at length
have found its solution ; for it is said of the upper
class that — " like Lebanon"^ — it shall be great and
fruitful ; and as to the lower class — even the dense
millions of cities — it also " shall flourish like grass
of the earth" — room enough shall be found for
it ; nor shall its greenness be grudged.

Upon all these images of mundane wealth we here
catch the mild effulgence of the Gospel. It is now
our Christianity — it is now that doctrine of love to
establish which the army of martyrs bled at the
first (and often since) and to maintain which the
preachers of truth, through long centuries, have
prophesied in sackcloth : — it is this " everlasting-
Gospel " that at length — like a sun, rising in a
stormy morning — has climbed the heavens, has
hushed the winds, has scattered the thick clouds
of the sky, and thenceforward it rules the azure
in the burning brightness of an endless noon.

The Hebrew Scriptures — every way secure of their
immortality in a literary sense — are secure of it
also as they are the expansion, and the authentic
expression, of the spiritual life — a liturgy of the

314 The Spirit of the

communion of souls with God : — secure moreover,
as they are the foreshadowing of the Gospel, and
of the coming of the Saviour of the world ; yet this
is not all, for, embedded in these writings — confided
to the Hebrew Poetry — are those hopes of a mun-
dane future — peaceful and benign — which the best
men in every age have clung to, and which they
have used, as the ground and reason of their
sacrifices, while they have believed that, not for
themselves, but for the men of a distant time,
they have spent life, and have laid it down.

Efi'ective philanthropy has always taken its spring
from the ground of a religious faith in a bright
future, of that sort for which the Hebrew Scriptures
are our sole authority. And as to this eficctive,
laborious, self-sacrificing benevolence, it combines
whatever is peculiar to the Old, with whatever is
peculiar to the New Testament — taking from the
one source its expectation of mundane national
welfare, and from the other source drawing those
powerful motives which prevail over all motives,
inasmuch as they draw their force from a belief
of the life eternal.

Thus it is that the controversy of the present
time, between those who hold fast their confidence
in the historic revelation contained in the Scrip-
tures, and those who reject it, and who would rid
themselves of their own misgivings on this behalf,
is brought to an issue on this ground. There is a
question concerning the human destinies — The hu-

Hebrew Poetry, 315

man family has it had a known commencement?
and has it a known middle period of development
and progress ? and has it in prospect a known —
a predicted — ultimate era of good? Is there in
front of the nations an avairavaiq — is there a (xajS-
(5aTiafxog — is there a time of refreshment, a season
of rest — a year of release — a redemption, an end
of the reign of evil, and a beginning of the king-
dom of God, on earth ? If not, then the thick
veil of barbaric ignorance, violence, sensuality,
and cruelty, shall be drawn anew over the na-
tions, and the world must return to its night of
horrors.

The positions affirmed in these pages in behalf
of the Hebrew Scriptures (those of them especially
that are poetic in their style and structure) are
briefly these seven : —

That the poetry of these writings everywhere
appears as a means to a higher end ; or otherwise
stated — that the poet, whatever may be his quality
or his genius, is always the Prophet of God, more
than he is the poet.

That whatever may be the individual charac-
teristics of each of these writers, as a poet, they
teach always the same theology, and they insist
always upon the same moral principles.

That although, for the most part, they boldly
denounce the errors and immoralities of their con-
temporaries, they employed a medium, as to the
structure of their writings, which implies a reve-

316 The Spirit of the

rential acceptance, and use of them, on the part
of the people, and of their rulers.

That amidst, and notwithstanding, all diversities
of temper and style in the men, and all changes
in the national condition, there prevails, from the
first in the series to the last, an occult consistency
which is expressive of what we have ventured to
speak of as — the Historic Personality of God.

That within the compass of the Hebrew Poetic
Scriptures there exists — (and in these writings
alone) — a Liturgy, and a Litany, of the spiritual life
— the life of the soul toward God ; this Liturgy
being inclusive of the forms of congregational
worship.

That the Hebrew Poets and Prophets — besides
the special predictions which they utter, relating
to the destinies of surrounding nations, and besides
the preparation which they make for the advent
of Him who should be the Saviour of the world —
give a testimony which is the ground, and which
is the only warrant, of the hopeful anticipation we
entertain of the issue of events in times that are yet
future.

That it is thus, vrhile predicting a bright age
to come, that they bring into combination those
higher motives and purer principles which the Gos-
pel furnishes, and in the universal prevalence of
which that bright prospect shall be realized.

Hebrew Poetry. 317

NOTES.

Note to page 38.

MANY pages would be required for giving even a
very scanty sample of those secular variations of
the religious mind, which are indicated by the style and
the feeling of commentators, on selected passages of Scrip-
ture. To collect such a sample, if sufficient to answer any
valuable purpose, would indeed be a heavy task ; and, to
present it in a useful manner — a task from which I must
shrink. Instead of attempting this, I must be content to
direct the attention of any reader who may have leisure
and opportunity to act upon the suggestion, to the class
of facts which should be kept in view on this ground.

The varying style and feeling of commentators upon
Scripture may be regarded, for example, as it is exhibited
in the instance — first, of the Church writers of the Greek,
and then of the Latin Churches — then in those of the
African Church, and in these compared with the Rabbi-
nical commentators. These variations would bring to view
the changes that are taking place, from one age to another,
in consequence of insensible mutations of the human
mind; and also, as indicative of the effect of what, to
borrow a phrase from geology, might be called — the ca-
tastrophes of religious history. Such revolutions, namely,
as that of the Lutheran Reformation; or such as the
sudden rise and spread of Methodism in England ; or as
that of the German Rationalism in the last century. Any

318 The Spirit of the

reader to whom the patristic volumes are accessible may,
if he so please, turn to the places indicated below, as
samples only of what is here intended. Let then the
sample be the manner in which Christian commentators
have met the difficulty which presents itself in that im-
precatory Psalm, the 136th — " Happy shall he be," &c.
Origen brings this passage forwards as an instance,
among several others, proving the necessity of that rule
of spiritual interpretation which understands the Old
Testament histories always, and only, in a symbolical
sense: — If not (vol. i. p. 41. Benedictine) what shall we
say to the polygamy of the patriarchs, and to other similar
instances, or to that of the vindictive utterances of that
Psalm, which would seem to recommend or sanction the in-
dulgence of vindictive passions — " Filia Babylonis misera :
beatus qui retribuet tibi, &c. ? " In like manner does he
argue with Celsus (vol. i. p. 710) — he says: — The "little
ones" of Babylon — the " babes," are those new-born
urchins of evil in our own hearts, which good men will
be prompt to destroy : — this offspring of Babylon — con-
fusion— the heads of which, while young, must be dashed
against the stones ! The same ingenious mode of exposi-
tion— clearing a difficulty at a leap — is enlarged upon in
another place (vol. ii. p. 348): — The baby concupiscences
meet their fate when their little brains are dashed out
against the rock — " Petra autem est Christus." The same
occurs in several different places :— it is, in this Father's
view, the undoubted meaning of the Psalm: (so again,
vol. II. p. 433; and vol. iii. p. 313.) In nearly the same
strain writes St. Augustine (Exposition of this Psalm);
yet with a difference marking the feeling of the Church
toward its late enemies — persecutors and heretics: — In
any case the " Rock" upon which either infant carnal

Hebrew Poetry. 319

suggestions or Babylonish errors are to meet their end, is,
Christ. In a sounder style St. Chrysostom (Exposi-
tion of this Psalm) contends with the apparent difficulty
fairly, and he alleges what may be accepted as a sufficient
explanation in clearing it up; he says — TroXXa yap ot
7rpo(j>riTai ovk o'lKoOev (pOiyyovrai, aXXtt to. Irepwv irdOri
^iriyovjiisvoi, ical ug fieaov (pepovTsg: but, he adds. If in-
stead of the passionate utterances of the captives at Ba-
bylon— whose language of exasperation the Psalmist only
reports — you would know what is his own inner mind, you
have it in those words (Ps. vii.) — " If I have rewarded
evil, &c." In a passage which has frequently been quoted
of late, in which St. Jerome confesses the anguish of his
soul, so often endured in the parched wilderness, arising
from the inroads of worldly and luxurious recollections
(Epist. ad Eustochium) he gives, like Origen, the sym-
bolic interpretation to the vindictive passage in this Psalm;
and so this strange conceit continued to be in favour with
the ascetics to a late age. The babes of Babylon are,
this Father says, "the ever new-born desires of the flesh —
and the rock upon which they are to be dashed is Christ."
And thus also Cassian (p. 144) : — "Exurgentes primum co-
gitationes carnales illico repellendas esse . . . et dum adhuc
parvuli sunt, allidere filios Babylonis ad petram." So it
will be everywhere and always, where and when Biblical
exposition takes its course, unchecked hy criticism. Easy
would it be to furnish illustrations of this fact drawn from
sources not so remote as the patristic times, or the middle
ages. The properly religious and spiritual use of Holy
Scripture needs a near-at-hand counteractive or corrective
criticism, apart from which the most dangerous species of
perversion or even of sacrilege does not fail to be fallen
into. The religious Bible-reader may well invite criticism

320 The Spirit of the

to do its office ; but it must be religious criticism ; not that
of those who appear to be wholly destitute of faith and
piety.

Note to page 76.

fVhi/ did not Herodotus describe to us the Al-Kuds — the
Holy City, which he visited? The supposition that the
Cadytus of Herodotus was Jerusalem has been generally
admitted as probable ; but it has recently been called in
question, as by others, so by Dr. Rawlinson (Herodotus,
vol. II. p. 246). A discussion of this question, in relation
to which no direct evidence can be adduced on either
side, would be out of place in these notes. I wish only
to state that I am aware of a contrary opinion, especially
of that of so competent a writer as Dr. Rawlinson, who
thinks that it was Gaza, not Jerusalem, which Herodotus
intends.

Note to page 97.

The comparative copiousness of languages — the He-
brew especially.

A language which would deserve to be called scanty
or poor in its vocabulary, especially in the class of words
denoting the objects of nature, will give evidence of this
poverty in translations from itself into a more copious
language : it will do so in one of these two modes, namely,
either the translation would itself be as bald and poor as
the original ; or, if itself rich and copious, it will be found
to have employed many more words than are found in the
original : — that is to say, where in the original the same
word occurs, five times or more, on similar occasions,
because the writer had no better choice, the translator
into a copious language, who has a better choice, is able

Hebrew Poetry. 321

easily to Improve upon his author, and to give to his
version an opulence which he did not find in his original.
Tried on this principle, it will not appear that the Hebrew
language, as compared with the Latin, or with the Greek,
or with the English, or with other modern languages, gives
any indication of this deficiency of words. In this note
I can attempt nothing more than, as mentioned in the
text, to indicate one method among others, in which an
inquiry of this kind might be pursued.

Take as an instance the 65th Psalm, which is a rich de-
scriptive ode. It will be recollected that, in ascertaining
the number of words occurring in any one composition, or,
as we say, the glossary of that single composition, the He-
brew affixes and siffixes give rise to a difiiculty, which
however is not insurmountable ; yet it is suflficient to be
adduced in explanation of what might seem an erroneous
reckoning, to some small extent. In the Hebrew text
of this Psalm there occur — including affixed preposi-
tions, and suffixed pronouns — 137 words : but the absolute
words — particles put out of view — are 118. In the Latin
of the Vulgate, rejecting particles corresponding to those
rejected in reckoning the Hebrew, about ninety words are
employed, as equivalents for the 118 of the original. If
we now turn to the Greek of the Septuagint, reckoned in
a similar manner, there occur eighty-two words, which
stand as the representatives of the Hebrew, as above said.
Consequently, several of these Greek words must have
done service for two, three, or more distinctive Hebrew
words: — as we find three English words (mentioned in
the text, p. 96) representing eight or ten in the Hebrew.
Whether the Greek translators might not have given a
better choice of words, in this instance, is not now the
question ; probably they might ; but at least the per-

322 The Spirit of the

sumption is, that the Hebrew, as compared with the
Greek language, in the class of descriptive words, does
not fall far short of the Greek as to its copiousness.

The authorized English version of this Psalm employs,
as does the Hebrew, 137 words, from which number,
throwing off, as above, particles, expletives, and the like,
the words substantive (i. e. nouns substantive, nouns ad-
jective, and verbs) may be reckoned as ninety ; this num-
ber standing for the 118 of the original. We should not
therefore be warranted in affirming that the Hebrew
language is poor, as compared with our own : an in-
ference of another kind is warrantable — namely, this, that
this language, if we were in possession of a complete Copia
Verhorum — an absolute Hebrew Lexicon — as we are of
the Greek and Latin, would well stand comparison with
either of them, at least in respect of those classes of words
of which poets have occasion to avail themselves. The
Hebrew would no doubt appear to be deficient in abstract
philosophic terms, in those technical phrases which indi-
cate artificial modes of life, and the practice of the arts ;
and in the entire class, so large as it is, of words modified
— extended — contracted, or intensified, by the prefixed
prepositions.

Any one who may be so inclined, might, with little
labour, carry out the above-suggested mode of comparison,
in the instance of the several European versions of the
Psalms. Instead of the 65th Psalm, take the 50th, which
has 252 words in the Hebrew — reckoned at 140 ; or the
91st, which has 170 — reckoned at 97; or the 38th chapter
of Job, including 402 words — its absolute glossary, say —
205.

Hebrew Poetry. 323

Note to page 141.

The book of Ecclesiastes may seem to be an exception
to what is liere affirmed ; and it is so, in so far as the great
controversy concerning the wisdom that is earthly, and
the wisdom that is heavenly, is argued, as if on even
ground, between the advocates of each. The problem is
stated, and it is discussed, for some time, as if it were
undeterminable. " There is a vanity which is done upon
the earth; that there be just men, unto whom it happeneth
according to the work of the wicked; again, there be
wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of
the righteous : I said that this also is vanity." This appa-
rent misdirection of events, as men must judge of them,
is a vanity — it is a confusion — it is a whirl, which makes
meditation giddy. Nevertheless, evenly balanced as this
argument may seem, it is not left in an undetermined
state at the last: — the disputants are not allowed, both of
them, to boast a judgment in his favour. Most decisively
is the disputation brought to its close on the side of piety
in the last sentences: — "Let us hear the conclusion of the
whole matter." It is the same in that other remarkable
instance — the 73rd Psalm, in which the perplexed and
discomforted writer confesses, with mingled grief and
shame, the prevalence, too long, of his wrankling medi-
tations. But he had already recovered his footing; and
thus he prefixes his conclusion : — " Truly (notwithstanding
any appearance to the contrary) truly God is good to Israel,
even to such as are of a clean heart." If in this instance
there may have been a debated question, it is a question
already answered ; and the answer has been assented to.
In Ezekiel this same argument — it is mainly the same —
is determined in another manner (chap, xxxiii.) and the

324 The Spirit of the

grounds of doubt are different. There is here a peremp-
tory affirmation of the rectitude of the Divine government,
if its ^nal adjudications are taken into the account. Of
the same import is the expostulation which occupies the
eighteenth chapter ; and in this course of reasoning — this
Theodic^ea — the awards of a future judgment are un-
doubtedly understood ; and so in a similar passage — Ma-
lachi iii. 13-18.

Note to page 171.

Asks a sacrifice of the hody and of the soul. " If ye be
reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye. ... If
any suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed" (on that
account). As to those " that suffer according to the will
of God, let them commit the keeping of their souls, as to a
faithful Creator, in well doing." Thus speaks St. Peter ;
and thus the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in re-
counting the martyrdoms of earlier times, says of the
martyrs that they " died in faith^'' in faith of " a better
resurrection." And so Christ, in preparing His people for
the fiery trial that was in prospect, says — '^ Fear not them
that kill the body, but after that have nothing more that
they can do." It was on this ground that the martyrdoms of
the early centuries, and those of later times as well, were
nobly endured. And it was thus that " the hope set be-
fore us in the Gospel" was at the first confirmed: — thus
was it sent forward to all times ensuing ; and thus again
must it be, if ever again Christian men and women, as
such, shall be called to bear testimony, on the rack and in
the flames — to their hope in Christ. But no such value
as this, which it actually bears, could have attached to
Christian martyrdom, if it did not stand out as an exceptive

Hebrew Poetry. 325

instance, broadly distinguishable from all other Instances
of suffering, inflicted by others. In respect of such suf-
ferings, or such occasions of mortal antagonism between
man and man — or between nations, the powerful instincts
of human nature take their course, needing to be ruled
always, and curbed, and repressed, by those Christian
principles which forbid revenge, and forbid especially the
harbouring of resentments, or the cherishing, as a sweet
morsel, some vindictive purpose. Christianity deals in a
special manner with the case of suffering ybr the truth — for
the word of Christ ; but it deals universally, by its law of
love, and of self-denial, with those impulses that are pro-
perly natural, and apart from which neither the life of
individuals, nor the existence of communities, could be
secured. The Christian man will not attempt to exscind
the irascible emotions ; but he will strive to master them,
in like manner as he governs the animal appetites.

As to the presence and operation of these vindictive
emotions during the pras-Christian ages, a freer scope was
then allowed them, and men who were virtuous and wise
spoke and acted in a manner which we of this time have
learned greatly to modify : we have so learned this better
lesson — partly in consequence of the broad Chrlstianiza-
tion that has had place throughout the European nations ;
and partly also by a not reprehensible confounding of the
martyr-doctrine of Christ with the universal Christian
principle of self-restraint and moderation.

A confusion of this sort, natural as it is, and especially
so in the case of highly sensitive Christian persons, has
taken effect in rendering the martial tone of some of the
Psalms, and the vindictive language of others of them, a
sore trial to peace-loving, gentle-hearted modern Bible
readers. The trial is the more severe, because those

326 The Spirit of the

modes of evading the difl&culty which the patristic ex-
positors had recourse to, would not, at this time, seem to
us tolerable.

Few indeed among us would accept, as good and true,
the symbolic expositions of Origen, or those of Augustine,
of which a sample has been given in a preceding note. If
a caution were needed against fanciful interpretations of
this order, we might adduce this last-named Father's ex-
position of the 149th Psalm. It fills several pages, and
no doubt it exhibits much ingenuity, as well as a right
Christian feeling: — " Jam, fratres, videtis sanctos armatos:

adtendite strages; adtendite gloriosa praelia Quid

fecerunt isti habentes in manibus frameas bis acutas ? Ad
faciendam vindictam in gentibus. . . . Quomodo, inquies,
pagani occiduntur ? Quomodo, nisi cum Christiani fiunt ?
Qugero paganum? non invenio, Christianus est! Ergo
mortuus est paganus. . . . Unde ipse Saulus occisus est
persecutor, et Paulus erectus est praedicator? Quasro
Saulum persecutorem, et non invenio ; occisus est."
Much is there to the same purpose in this, and in the
parallel places; but this method could not now be ac-
cepted. Let it be granted that, in such instances, there
is indeed a spiritual meaning — a meaning hidden and in-
tended : but no doubt there was a primary meaning ; and
it is this primary meaning which the modern expositor
should hold himself bound to place in its true historic
light. He will then be at liberty to adduce, at his best
discretion, the ulterior meaning of the passage.

Note to page 187.

Sicilian cattle-keepers. I have already affirmed my be-
lief (Chapter XV.) that comparisons attempted between

Hebrew Poetry. 327

the Hebrew poets, and those of Greece, can scarcely in
any case be valid or available in a critical sense ; for be-
sides other grounds of difference, which are many and
obvious, there is this one, which should at once preclude
any such endeavours to ascertain the relative merits of
the two literatures : — in the one an artistic excellence is
aimed at, and the poet did his best to secure an award of
admiration from his contemporaries; the Hebrew poets
give proof of a lofty indifference to everything resembling
literary fame. The reference to Theocritus has this
meaning, that this poet's literal, graphic, unideal, exhi-
bitions of rude Sicilian life, throughout which a sense of
the beauty of Nature, and of the sweetness of country life,
barely appears, would place him in a position of disad-
vantage by the side of the Canticle of Solomon, the charm
of which is the vividness of this feeling toward Nature ;
and beside this, there is the warmth, the softness, the deli-
cacy, the fondness of those feelings — properly conjugal,
which come up in each strophe. Moreover, the erotic idyls
of Theocritus — like those of his imitator — are damaged
by a putrid stain from which — let it be noted — the He-
brew poetry — universally — as well as this Canticle, is
absolutely and wholly free.

Note to page 189.

.... a passage cited from the book of Ecclesiastes.
Neither in these pages, nor in any other of my writings,
have I professed myself competent to enter upon dis-
cussions relating to the date or authorship of the sepa-
rate books included in the Canon. Disclaiming any
such qualifications, I am shielded from blame, as to-
ward the Canon, in offering an opinion of that casual

328 The Spirit of the

sort which any attentive reader of the Scriptures may
well think himself at liberty to propound. The date and
authorship, and consequently the strict canoniclty of the
book of Ecclesiastes, I leave to be discussed amono- those
whose professional learning fits them to engage in an
argument of that sort. At a first glance the passage
cited — " I gat me men-singers and women-singers, and
the delights of the sons of men — musical instruments, and
that of all sorts," suggests the idea of a time much later
in Jewish life than the age of Solomon. It is not that
the practice of music — vocal and instrumental — had not
reached a stage of great advancement in that age ; for we
must believe that it had ; but there does not appear evi-
dence in support of the opinion that music had been secu-
larized at so early a time ; or that concerts had come to
hold a place in the routine of the amusements of the
harem. If a passage in Ezekiel (xxxiii. 32) might be
understood as implying a practice of music, not sacred or
liturgical, this evidence touches upon a time as late as the
Captivity.

Note to page 222.

Isaiah .... our master in the school of the highest
reason.

This is a broad affirmation which is likely to be rejected
and resented. But whoever does so reject and resent
what is here affirmed in behalf of the Hebrew prophet,
should be prepared, not merely with a naked contradiction
of the averment, but with a list of names from among
which we might easily find another and a better teacher,
in the school of divine philosophy. The production of any
such list may be a more difficult task than those imagine

Hehrew Poetry. 329

who would be prompt to profess that it might be accom-
plished in a moment.

There is a preliminary work to be done on this ground ;
for among the names that will instantly occur to every one
who is conversant with the history of philosophy many
must be excluded from any such catalogue on a ground
of exception that is quite valid; as thus — when we are
in search of those who might fairly dispute with the He-
brew prophet his place at the head of theistic thought, we
must not name, as if they were his rivals, any of those who,
in fact, have sat at his feet, and who have achieved what-
ever they may have achieved by building upon the He-
brew foundation. In abstract philosophy the advantage
is incalculably great of starting in a right direction ; whe-
ther or no the best path over the ground be afterwards
followed. This ground of exception will at once reduce
our liberty of choice to a very few names. The long
series of theologians — philosophical or biblical — who have
received their early training within the pale of either
Jewish or Christian institutions, have set out — capital in
hand: as well intellectually, as morally, they have been
provided with the materials and the terms of theistic spe-
culation; and not only so, for every habitude of mental
labour has been acquired and matured under, and amidst,
Bible influences. Those primary elements of religious
speculation which include the idea and the belief of the
Personality of God, and of His moral government, and of
the emotional relationship of the human spirit to God —
the Father of spirits, and the Hearer of prayer — all these
elements are, in the most exclusive sense — Hebrew ele-
ments: it is in these writings that ih^y Jirst occur; and it
is within these writings that they have received an ex-
pression and an expansion beyond which no advance has

330 The Spirit of the

since been made, anywhere, within the range of litera-
ture— ancient or modern. Moreover, these primary ele-
ments of theology and of piety are of such force in them-
selves, and they so hold their sway over the human in-
tellect and feelings, when once they have been admitted,
that to disengage the mind from their grasp is exceedingly
difficult — it is a wrenching effort to which very few have
been equal, even among the most resolute and robust of
modern sophists.

Those therefore who might be named as our masters in
theology, or a philosophy which might supplant theology,
must be such as have either lived and taught far remote
from any glimmer of Biblical light, or they must be those,
if indeed there be any such, who, living within the circle
of that light, have freed themselves entirely from its in-
fluence. How difficult it has been to do so is shown by
the extravagance — by that style of paradox — by the hy-
perbolic endlessness in speculation, which have marked
the course of modern atheistic philosophy in Germany,
France, and England. It has not been otherwise than
as by a convulsive out-leap from the ground of Biblical
belief, that men like Feuerbach, or Hegel, or Auguste
Compte, or Holyoake, or Geo. Combe, have landed
themselves upon the howling wilderness of baseless ab-
stractions— or " free thought."

The atheistic thinkers of classical antiquity are com-
paratively mild in mood ; they are for the most part
free from acrimony : they stop short of nihilism, and
they retain some ground of confidence in the founda-
tions of knowledge. The ancient Pyrrhonists stand in
a light of great advantage, as to temper and style, when
placed by the side of the modern professors of atheism.
In fact, this comparison suggests the need of another terra

Hebrew Poetry. 331

which modern languages do not supply ; for the word
atheist has acquired an ill sense from the malign mood
of those who would declare themselves at one with the
non-theists, or with the universal sceptics, of antiquity.
Whence has come this opprobrious or sinister meaning of
the word ? It may be said it has come from the contu-
melious style, and the ill-temper of their opponents,
namely — Christian theists. In part it may be so ; but
not wholly, nor chiefly, for the opprobrium has been
earned by those to whose names it has come to be at-
tached : a savour of virulence has become the characte-
ristic of writers of this class ; and if we ask why it should
be so, the reason is not far to seek — modern non-theists
have not been able to distance themselves far enough
from the true theology — the Biblical theology, to relieve
themselves from an uneasy consciousness of its presence.
So it has been that the simple negation of belief has taken
to itself the temper of a growling hatred. The classic
fathers of the same philosophy were tormented in no
such manner as this ; and therefore they conserved their
philosophic equanimity. It was not until the time when
the easy-tempered atheism of antiquity came into conflict
with Christianity, as in Porphyry (if we may accept the
evidence of his opponents) that it acquired its animus —
its sharp arrogance, and its resentful dogmatism.

When it is aflirmed, as it has been affirmed once and
again in these pages, that the HebrcAV theology is the
only theology which might be propounded to mankind
as — a religion, an appeal in support of this averment
may be made, on the one hand, to the unvarying issue
of all philosophical speculation which opposes itself to the
Biblical theism : this issue has been Pantheism, or avowed
Atheism; or, on the other hand, we might appeal to the many

332 The Spirit of the

attempts that have been made to establish, or to demonstrate
a theism of abstractions, on the side of Biblical belief, or
in supposed confirmation of it. A sufficient instance of
what may be looked for on this ground is the noted De-
monstration of the Being and the Attributes of God. We
need not cite the acknowledgments of several strong-
minded Christian theists who have avowed their dissa-
tisfaction with Clarke's line of abstract reasoning. It
is enough to say that, although reasonings of this order
may help the belief of a few believers — much as sea-
breezes and sea-bathing enhance the health of those who
are in health — this Demonstration avails little or nothing
with any but the few whose minds are so constituted as
to find rest on metaphysic ground. Certain it is that a
Religion for mankind never has been set a going upon the
stilts of metaphysical logic : who then shall be enthusiast
enough, in future, to attempt an enterprise of this order ?
There never has been — there never will be, a religion —
no, nor a theology — of abstractions. There will be no
other religious theism than that of which the Hebrew
Scriptures are the source. Thus it is therefore — taking
a distinguished individual of a class as its representative,
that even now in this nineteenth century we claim for
Isaiah the position due to him as our master in the
school of the highest reason.

Note to page 237.

Metrical structure of the Lamentations. In part the
highly artificial structure of these poems is conspicuous
even in the English version (or indeed in any other ver-
sion). Each verse has two, three, or four members, or
sentences, in apposition ; which together constitute the

Hebrew Poetry. 333

one meaning, or sense, of the verse, irrespectively, often,
of the meaning of the preceding, or of the next following
verse. Where, as in several places, the meaning is con-
tinuous, from triplet to triplet, yet there presents itself a
break, or change, more or less manifest. Thus far the
metrical structure gives evidence of itself in a translation ;
but not so the acrostic or alliterative rule, which of course
can be seen only in the Hebrew. Throughout the poetical
books, generally, the modern division of chapters is arbi-
trary or accidental, and it is often disregardful of the sense
and connection of passages ; but in the Lamentations this
division into five portions, or independent poems, rests
upon the alphabetic structure of each portion ; unless it
might be said that the third chapter, with its sixty-six
verses, would better have been divided into three. The
first chapter, with its twenty-two verses, corresponding
to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, each letter taking
its turn to stand first in the verse. So the second chapter.
The third has its three alphabetic series — sixty-six in all.
The fourth, twenty-two ; the fifth, twenty-two. As well
the regularity of this structure, as the few instances of
departure from it, convey a meaning which may be noted ;
but the probable reasons, in each instance, whether arising
from the requirements of the alphabetic rule ; or from the
higher requirements of the subject-matter, could not be set
forth otherwise than in adducing the Hebrew text, and in
following a track of probable conjecture as to what might
have been the choice of words, or the no-choice, in each
instance in which a departure from the exact metrical rule
occurs. In the instance of the 119th Psalm — the struc-
ture of which is quite diiferent — the want of a sufficient
choice of words, suitable for the initial word of eight verses,
is indicated by the recurrence of the same word, two, three,

334 The Spirit of the

or four times, in each compartment, or strophe. An ac-
complished Hebraist, whose ready recollection of the copia
vcrhorum of the language might enable him to do so, would
not, perhaps, find it very difficult to trace what we may
allowably call the verbal reasons, or even the glossary ne-
cessities, which had been followed, or yielded to, in several
of these instances ; and this, as well where the metrical
rule has been adhered to, as where a deviation from it has
been admitted.

Leaving unattempted any such critical analysis of the
metrical Hebrew poems as is here imagined, we may very
safely assume, as probable, a reason why a structure so
artificial as that of the Lamentations, or of the 119th, and
other Psalms, should have been employed in the consti-
tution of the Canon of Scripture. Generally, the reasons
which supply our answer to the questions — Why should
the Inspired writings adopt the poetic style, and why, to so
large an extent as they do ? and why should they in this
manner submit the thought to the arbitrary sway of metri-
cal rules ? — apply in full force to any minor question, re-
lating to cases in which certain rules of structure, which are
in an extreme degree artificial, are complied with by the
inspired writers. The obvious advantages of the poetic
style, and of a metrical structure, are — the adaptation of
both to the tastes and culture of the people ; and especially
the adaptation of the latter to the purpose of storing these
compositions in the memory, from infancy upward. Thus
it was that the minds of this — indeed favoured, though
afflicted — people, were richly furnished with religious and
moral sentiments ; and thus was meditative thought nou-
rished, and suggested, and directed, and was made con-
ducive to the momentous purposes of the individual, and
of the domestic spiritual life. Too little do we now take

Hebrew Poetry. 335

account, in our Biblical readings and criticisms, of this
deep-going purpose of the Hebrew poetic Scriptures,
which, through centuries of national weal and woe, have
nourished millions and millions of souls — "unto life
eternal." Thus it was that those who, in the lapse of
ages, should be " more in number than the stars of hea-
ven," were trained for their gathering, one by one, into
the " bosom of Abraham."

As to the Lamentations, and the highly artificial struc-
ture which distinguishes them, as being the most artificial
portions of the entire Hebrew Canon, a peculiar, and a
very deep historic meaning is suggested by this very pecu-
liarity. Through long — long tracts of time, this one im-
mortal people has been left, as if forsaken of God, to weep
in exile. The man who found a grave in any strange
land, but a home in none, took up this word — " Thy tes-
timonies have been my songs in the house of my pil-
grimage." In the scatterings and wanderings of families,
and in lonely journeyings — in deserts and in cities, where
no synagogue-service could be enjoyed, the metrical Scrip-
tures— infixed as they were in the memory, by the very
means of these artificial devices of versets, and of alpha-
betic order, and of alliteration — became food to the soul.
Thus was the religious constancy of the people, and its
brave endurance of injury and insult, sustained and ani-
mated. Thus was it that, seated in some dismal lurking
place of a suburb, disconsolate where all around him was
life, the Jew uttered his disregarded plaint : —

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ?

Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow,

which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of His

fierce anger.

336 The Spirit of the

The purpose which has been kept in sight in these
pages may here again be adverted to. The one inference
that is derivable from the fact of the artificial, or arbitrary-
metrical structure of the Hebrew poetic Scriptures is,
as I think, this — that the high intention of the Inspired
writings is secured — over the conditions and the require-
ments, and the necessities, of language : — this high in-
tention is secured beneath these conditions and require-
ments and necessities ; and it is secured in and among
them. Where these requirements seem most to rule the
course of thought, and where most the tyranny of the
medium appears to triumph over the sovereign purpose —
that purpose nevertheless comes off undamaged and entire.
In witnessing what we might regard as a conflict between
the medium, and the mind, of Scripture, the mind saves
itself, and the medium prevails, only in appearance.

Note to page 247.

The Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures. A large
subject, abounding in facts that invite, and that would
repay, learned industry, is the diffusion of the Septuagint
translation during the prje- Apostolic era, and its actual
influence in preparing a people, gathered from among the
heathen, for the promulgation of the Gospel. The facts
belonging to this subject would need to be collected at
the cost of some labour, from the earliest of the Christian
writers — especially the apologists, such as Tatian, Athena-
goras, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. Much, of course,
from Philo and Josephus. More than a little also might
be gleaned from the writings of Plutarch, Seneca, Athe-
naeus, Horace, Juvenal, Lucian ; and much from the two
treasures of antiquity — the " Evangelic Demonstration," and

Hebrew Poetry. 337

the " Preparation," of Eusebius. Among those instances
of providential interposition which favoured the spread and
triumph of Christianity, none are more signal, or more
worthy of regard, than is this of the early and wide dif-
fusion of the Old Testament Scriptures by the means of
the Alexandrian version. Whatever may be its faults, or
failures — and on this ground more is often alleged than
could be proved — undoubtedly it truthfully conveys the
theologic purport of the Hebrew Scriptures ; and in so
doing, at the first, that is to say, from about b. c. 140 to,
and beyond, the Apostolic age, it had " made ready a
people for the Lord" in almost every city wherein the
Greek language was spoken. Wherever the Apostles
came " preaching the word," they found among the fre-
quenters of the Sabbath services in the Jewish Synagogue
not only listeners, as they might also among remoter bar-
barians, but learners, who already were well conversant
with the phraseology of a true theology, and of a pure
devotional service. In most cities there were a few of
the philosophic class (this may fairly be assumed) who
were used to drop in to the synagogue and listen to the
reading of Moses and the Prophets. No doubt, among
the "honourable women" of those places there were many
— very many — Sabbath worshippers who had found, in
the Jewish Synagogue, that liturgy of the soul which
woman's nature more quickly discerns, and more truly
appreciates, than does man's nature, or than his pride
will allow him to accept, or care for. Thus it was that by
means of the Greek Scriptures, road-ways had been made
for the conveyance of the Gospel — north, south, east, and
west ; and thus that word had been fulfilled — " Prepare
ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight."

It was, we say, the truth in theology that had thus

338 The Spirit of tJie

been carried forth throughout the Greek-speakhig world :
it could not be the poetry of the prophets ; it was
their theism and their ethics. To Greek minds of the
cultured class, the strange idioms, and the allusive phrases
which abound in the version of the Seventy, must have
had the effect of quite dispelling or offending those tastes
which, otherwise, the Hebrew poetry might have awakened.
Readers of Greek poetry could not but distaste the Psalm-
ists and the Prophets — if thought of as poets. Such
readers accepted them only in their higher character as
teachers of piety.

Note to page 250.

Tlte Rabbinical mood. The Rabbis of a later age ap-
pear to have followed in the track of their masters — the
Scribes of the Apostolic age ; and, serviceable as these
Jewish versionists and commentators no doubt are — for
they were ministers in the providential scheme which has
secured the safe transmission of the Inspired writings to
later times — it was not their function to concern them-
selves with the soul and spirit — with the fire — of the
national literature ; but only with the letter. Thus writes
a competent critic : — " Nihil nisi traditiones Scriba3 docu-
erunt, quid sc. hie aut ille Doctor, aut Synedrium quon-
dam docuerit aut determinarit ; quid Hillel, Shammai,
Baba ben Buta, Rabban Simeon, aut Gamaliel, aut alii
eruditi, asseverint, aut negarint ; aut qui hanc aut illamve
qutestionem proposuerint, aut qui hoc aut illud determina-
rint. . . . Doctrina omnis Scribarum circa externa maxime
versabatur, vulgares scilicet communesque ritus ac crerimo-
nias, ut in Codice Thalmudico ubique apparet. . . . Vix
quidquam prater carnalia Thalmud continet, ut legenti
patebit." Lightfoot, vol. i. p. 504.

Hebrew Poetry. 339

Note to page 254.

Basil's description of his delicious retreat, on the banks
of the Iris, I have had occasion to adduce at length in
another place. The passage has also been cited more than
once or twice by modern writers, and I need not repeat
the quotation here, where, in fact, it could bear upon the
subject of this volume only in an indirect manner. It is
enough here to point out the characteristic difference, dis-
tinguishing the ascetic tastes and style of the Eastern,
and of the Western monachism : a poetic feeling, a mild-
ness, a sense of the beautiful, may be traced in the one,
contrasted with the rigour and murkiness that belong to
the other. It is true that abstemiousness was carried to
a greater extent by the Greek ascetics; but severity in
modes of living was the boast of the monks of the West.
Fasting was comparatively easy in the sultry East, and
in Egypt — appetite was terribly clamorous in Gaul. So
says Sulpitius Severus : — " Nam edacitas in Grgecis, gula
est, in Gallis, natura." Dialoo-. i.

Note to page 255.

The iiifluence of the Inspired writings upon national
literatures.

It cannot be said that the Hebrew poetry has given a
poetry to any modern literature. Its influence has been
rather to give poetry — to give depth, force, animation,
feeling, to the prose, and to the political and common life
of those modern nations among whom the Scriptures — the
Old Testament especially — have been the most freely dif-
fused. Hitherto no attempt to idealize, or to heroize, or
to transmute into the dramatic form, the persons, or the

340 The Spirit of the

events, or the conceptions of the Bible, has been anything
better than a failure : the instances that mig-ht be named
as exceptions, might better be named as examples con-
firmatory of this broad assertion. What are Racine's
Esther or Athalia? What is EQopstock's Messiah? What
Is Milton's Paradise Regained ? What are these ill-
judged enterprises better than Mrs. Hannah More's Sa-
cred Dramas ? — vapid, wearisome, ineffective, either for
edification, or for entertainment ! Paradise Lost is not an
exceptive instance; for it is a mere germ — an almost
nothing — in this great poem that is properly Biblical:
it is a realization of conceptions that have had quite
another source, or other sources ; modern, much rather
than ancient, and in which Moses and the Prophets make
much less appearance than do Dante, Michael Angelo,
and some of the German and middle-age painters. In
a Christian sense. It must be acknowledged that the
paganized orthodoxy (is it orthodoxy ?) of Paradise Lost
offends, much more than it satisfies, Christian belief.
Whatever in Milton is purely terrestrial and human,
reaches at once the sublime ; but whatever is celestial,
whatever is transacted on an upper stage, barely saves
itself from the bathos : or if among the supernals the
true sublime is attained, it is in hell, not in heaven, that
this success has been achieved.

There is room for a parallel affirmation in regard to the
poetry of ancient Greece, which has not given a poetry
to any modern literature ; but instead of this, it has been
Greece, in its history, in its philosophy, in its politics, that
has given a poetry — a depth, a force, an animation, to the
prose — to the public life of (free) modern nations. A re-
petition, or an attempt to put forth in modern guise the
classical poetry, barely reaches the faint evanescent colours

Hebrew Poetry. 341

of the reflected arch in a double rainbow : such repe-
titions are exercises for school-boys. Yet is it true that
modem public life, in free communities, has breathed
a spirit which has drawn the power and fire of poetry
from classic prose. It is neither Homer's heroes, nor those
of ^schylus, that have made the great men of modern
states what they were ; but it is the real men of the best
times of Athens : it has been this influence, mainly, that
has thrown a poetic glow upon selfish ambition. So far
then as what is here affirmed may be true, we shall look
for the " mighty influence " of the Scriptures, when it
has displayed itself in national literatures, not in the poetry
directly, but in the prose, and in the life of each people ;
and so it will be that the Bible-reading nations of modern
Europe have displayed, in the most decisive manner, that
richness as well as quaintness — that soul-force, that in-
tensity of the social affections — that moral energy of the
irascible emotions, which declare their source to have
been the Hebrew Scriptures. The England and the
Scotland of the seventeenth century were rich in men
of force, whose behaviour and language, whose courage,
and humanity too, breathed a Bible inspiration, raised
above vulgarity or barbarism by the training of Bible
history and poetry.

Note to page 278.

The Apology of Socrates. The closing words of the
Apology, as reported by Plato, may be open to a question,
as to the precise meaning which they carry — or which
they carried in the mind of the master, or of his disciple :
they are these (often cited) — 'AXXa yap tjS»j ainkvai ifxoi

342 The Spirit of the •

^EV ClTToOaVOVIJlivW, VfUV 0£ piWffO/UEVOlC' OTTOrtpOl Ce l]f.l(i)V

cp^ovrai km a/meivov Trpayjua, aSrjXov Travrt i] no Oeio.
There might be room to ask — In thus speaking was
Socrates thinking of the life and the world he was leav-
ing, or of the world — the hidden future, the Hades —
upon which he was about to enter? If of the former,
then his meaning would be — God only knows whether
it be not a better thing to die, as I am about to die,
under an unmerited sentence — to die, an innocent man,
than to live — as you, my inequitable judges, will live,
condemned now by your own consciences, and soon to
be followed by the execrations of the Athenian people.
But even if the philosopher, as we may well suppose,
had his eye fixed upon the future — the unseen world,
there are still two senses between which a choice might
be made ; for he might intend to say — God only knows
whether the happiness which I have in prospect is not
such as greatly to outweigh all those pleasures of the
present life which you, my judges, may yet live to en-
joy. Or, on this second supposition, the other sense may
be this — God only knows to which of us — whether to me,
or to you — the happier lot shall be assigned, when, at
length, 1/ou and I together shall come to meet our dues,
severally. In Hades, according to the award of inexorable
and impartial justice. This last meaning of the words
may find support in some passages of the Phaedo; but
perhaps it draws its chief support in our minds, from our
own Christian beliefs. The version of the phrase which
Cicero gives (Tusc. Quest, i. 44) does not determine the
sense — " Utrum autem sit melius." Lactantius (Instit.
VII. 2) in repeating this passage from Cicero, adduces it
in illustration of his argument, touching the uncertainty
of all philosophical speculations — " Quare necesse est

Hebrew Poetry. 343

oranes philosopliias sectas, alienas esse a verltate; quia
homines errant, qui eas constituerunt ; nee ullum funda-
mentum, aut firmitatem possunt habere qua3 nullis divi-
narum vocum fulciuntur oraculis."

Whatever the meaning of the martyr-philosopher in
this instance, or in other instances, might be, it is certain
that he, and his profound disciple, laboured to their best,
in the mine of thought; or, changing the figure — that,
with sincere purpose, they toiled along that rugged thorny
path that leadeth upward from the sordid and sensual
levels of the world, toward a world of light, truth, good-
ness, upon which upward, rugged, thorny path, none shall
walk and lose his way — none, if indeed the modesty and
the sincerity of Socrates be in them, for it is these qua-
lities that give the soul its aptitude to receive guidance
from above, where it may be had. Socrates, and Plato
too, in professing their consciousness of the need of a
heavenly leading on this path, approached very near to
an expression of David's better confidence : —

Thou wilt not leave (abandon, ovk kyKaraXti-^sii) my soul in

Hades ;
Thou wilt show me the path of life :
In Thy presence is fulness of joy ;
At Thy right hand are pleasm-es for evermore.

Note to page 298.

The mission of the Scriptures. A subject too large, as
well as too deep, to find room for itself in a note ; but it
is a subject which might well engage the meditations of
those who will, and who can, calmly think of the course
of things at this moment. There is a stage of intellec-
tual and literary sophistication, commingling fastidious

344 The Spirit of the

tastes and the sardonic frivolity of luxurious modes
of life, which will never consist with the feelings, the
tastes, the moral habitudes, that belong to a devout
reading, study, relish, and home-use of the Bible. Who-
ever has had near acquaintance with leisurely cultured
life, in this, its advanced stage of refinement, and who-
ever has felt the potent influence of such an atmosphere
upon himself for a length of time, and has learned to
relish the ironies, the mockeries, the spiritualisms of
the region, with its soft intellectuality, and its epicu-
reanism, will think that a thousand leagues of interval
are not too many to intervene between such a region
and a home where there is feeling and truth, and within
which the Scriptures — Prophets and Apostles — might
be listened to, and where those ministers of God might
make their appeal to the deeper principles of human
nature. Is it that the canonical writings have been
proved untrue? Is it that Revelation has lately been
tried, and found wanting ? It is not so ; but those who
spend life in the precincts of well-bred affectations find
that they have come into a mood which renders the
Bible, in its wonted place — on the table, at home — an
unwelcome object. There is felt to be a sacrilege, even,
in opening the book while the fancy is revelling in what-
ever is frivolously intellectual and artistically sensuous.
To produce this effect, there need be nothing gross or
licentious in the converse of our intimates, whose con-
verse, nevertheless, does not consist, never will consist,
with Bible-reading habitudes: the two influences are
irreconcilably repellant, the one of the other.

In every highly-cultured community there is an upper
stage, or privileged enclosure, within which this soj)histi-
cation bears sway, and is always in progress ; but so long

Hebrew Poetry. 345

as its circuit is limited, and so long as it includes none
but either the wealthy, and the parasites of wealth, and
a few intruders, the masses of the people may retain the
native force of their feelings — their genuineness, their
serious beliefs, and their consciousness of the strenuous
realities of life. Among such a people the Bible may
retain, and may exert its proper Influence. But there
Is a tendency, which, from day to day. Is enlarging the
circle of upper-class sophistication, and which therefore,
In the same proportion, is driving in the boundaries of
the more robust national moral consciousness. Narrowed
continually It Is, moreover, by all those well-Intended
devices of recent Invention, the purpose of which is to
bring the luxuries of art. In all lines, and the fine
things of literature, within reach of the middle, and of
the labouring classes.

Should we then step forward, and, in gloomy mood,
attempt to arrest this course of things? This may not
be ; nor would any endeavours of this sort avail for the
purpose intended. Nevertheless the issue is inevitable;
or it is so unless, within the upper classes, and especially
within and among the ministers of religion, a decisive re-
novation of religious convictions should take place. Let
this be, and then the Scriptures will retain their place
of power; but if not, then our institutions, however
stable they may seem, will crumble into dust, wrought
upon daily, as they are, by the dry-rot of sophisticated in-
tellectuality, and epicurean tastes. This Is the course of
things in England; and such has long been the actual
condition of our nearest continental neighbours.

At this moment the spread of infidelity, especially In
the educated classes. Is spoken of with alarm. Yet the
unbelief of educated Englishmen is not a product of

346 The Spirit of the

reason : it is not the ascertained upshot of an argument :
it is not the result of a controversy which may have been
unskilfully managed on the side of belief. This infidelity,
or this pantheism, or this atheism, which walks the streets
with a noiseless camel-tread — breathing in the ear from
behind — this rife infidelity, is the natural out-speak of
intellectual and literary sophistication, and of that relish
for frivolous pleasures, the operation of which is to render
the tastes factitious, and to lull the moral consciousness,
and to falsify the social aiFections ; and which so perverts
the reasoning faculty that evidence produces an effect in
an inverse ratio to its actual force.

Meantime the Scriptures are fulfilling their mission.
Among ourselves, and abroad, the Bible goes on its way,
and it prospers to the end xvhereto He that thus sends it,
sent it. The Scriptures take effect upon men — singly,
and in communities — among whom what is real in hu-
man nature, what is strong, and great, still subsist : the
Scriptures come where they come, as the dew ; or as the
rain from heaven ; or they come as the tempest: — the word
is gentle, and germinating ; or it is a force irresistible ;
and it does its office, here or there, as the need may be,
where human nature, as to its moral elements, is still in a
culturable state, and is still reclaimable : as to those, and
at this time they are many, who, in respect of the moral
elements of human nature, have passed beyond this range
by the deadly influence of luxurious refinements — the
message from Heaven leaves them where they are, and
ffoes forward. It is thus that individual men, and that
communities, may lose their part in God's Revelation. At
this time, and among ourselves, so false and fatal a con-
dition is that of a class only ; but i^ is the class which,
by its culture, and its intelligence, possesses the means

Hebrew Poetry. 347

and the opportunity to speak for itself; and it is thus
that an estimate of its numbers, and of its mental and
moral importance — greatly exaggerated, is made by itself,
on the one side ; and by those who speak of it in tones
of vivid alarm, on the other side.

THE END.

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The spint of the Hebrew poetry

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