he built there an altar to the Lord, our thoughts are led on by a natural transition to our own experience, to ask what record we have left, or could leave in the past, to prove that the same divine presence was with us in our journey through life.

The story of Hagar is one of great poetical interest. We pursue the destitute mother and her helpless child into the solitude of the wilderness, and behold a picture which has become proverbial for the utter desolation which it represents. Compelled by a stern necessity, with the ultimate good of which she was wholly unacquainted, the mother goes forth as she believes, unfriended and alone, to trust herself and the treasure of her affections to the mercy of the elements, and the shelter of the pathless wilds, unconscious that her peculiar situation is made the especial care of the Father of the fatherless, and the Protector of the forlorn.

And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.

And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot; for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice and wept.

And God heard the voice of the lad: and the angel of God called to Hazar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.

that we see and feel the poetry even of the historical parts of the Bible. The separate accounts of the creation and the deluge, handed down to us in language the most intelligible and unadorned, present to the imagination pictures of sublimity so awful and impressive, that it seems not improbable we may in some measure have derived our ideas of sublimity and power, from impressions made by our first reading of the Bible. Beside which, we find descriptions of the desert, and the wilderness, the wells of water, and the goodly pastures, of the intercourse of angels with the children of men, and of the visitations of the Supreme Intelligence, if not personally, in the different manifestations of his power and his love—as a voice, and an impulse-all conveyed to us in language as simple as if a shepherd spoke of his flocks upon the mountain-as sublime as if an angel wrote the record of the world.

Nor is the poetry of the Bible by any means confined to those passages in which the power of the Almighty is exhibited as operating upon the infant world. The same influence extending over the passions and affections of human nature, is described with the most touching pathos, and the most in

Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for pressive truth. That moving and controll

I will make him a great nation.

And in the following chapter, where Abraham, faithful, even to the resigning his dearest treasure, goes forth with his son, prepared to render him up if the Lord should require it at his hand;

And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said, My father and he said, Here am I, my son: and he said,

Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

ing influence, so frequently spoken of as the word of the Lord coming with irresistible power upon the instruments of his will, is nowhere set before us in a stronger light, than in the character of Balaam, when he declared that if Balak would give him his house full of silver and gold, he could not go beyond the word of the Lord his God to do less or more. Not even when he stood upon the high place amidst the seven altars with the burning sacrifice, and all the princes of Moab around him, and knew that the express object of his calling was to curse the people whom the most high had blessed; yet here, before the multitudes assembled to hear the confirmation of their hopes, he was compelled to acknowledge how those hopes were defeated, saying,

- Balak, the king of Moab, hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse me Jacob, and come, defy me Israel.

How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed 1 or

how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied?
For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the

hills 1 behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.

Who can count the dust of Jacob. and the number of the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!

And Balak said unto Balaam, What hast thou done unto me? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast blessed them altogether.

And he answered and said, Must I not take heed to speak that which the Lord hath put into my mouth?

Although Balaam knew that by obeying the word of the Lord he was sacrificing the favour of his master, who had promised to promote him to honour, yet again, when brought to the top of another mountain with the vain hope of escaping from the power of Omnipotence-when seven altars were again built, and seven bullocks and seven rams sacrificed, the people of Moab were again told, that the Lord

hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he

from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering.

So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands.

And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.

And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and behold his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.

And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! Thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back.

And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.

The character of Samson displays in a

seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with powerful manner that combination of strength him, and the shout of a king is among them.

Disappointed and defeated, Balak now very naturally exclaims, Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all. Yet still willing to try for the third and last time, the power of man against his Maker, he leads Balaam to the top of Mount Peor, where the same ceremonial gives the sanction of truth, and the majesty of power, to the words of the prophet; and here it is that he pours forth for the last time, a blessing, still richer and more unlimited than before, beginning with the beautiful and poetic language,

How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy taberna.

cles, O Israel!

As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters.

and weakness, which too frequently produces the most fatal and irrevocable ruin. It is a character well worthy of our greatest poet, yet one, to the interest of which, his genius could add nothing, and (what is saying much) could expatiate upon without taking anything away. We first behold Samson as the man before whom the Phi

listines trembled, after rending the lion, and scattering thousands with a single arm, stooping to the dalliance of a false and worthless woman-three times deceivedwantonly and wickedly deceived, yet trusting her at last with the secret of his strength. Next, betrayed into the hands of his enemies, we find him,

"Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves." And lastly, as if this punishment were not To those who are best acquainted with the poetry of the human heart, the sad his- sufficient, he is led forth and placed between the pillars in the public hall of entertaintory of Jephthah and his daughter affords ment, to make sport at the festival of his particular interest, told as it is in language enemies, rejoicing in his weakness and his never yet exceeded for simplicity and gen-bonds; where the indignation of his unconuine beauty, by any of the numerous writers who have given us, both in prose and verse, imaginary details of this melancholy story.

tremendous act of retributive vengeance, querable soul finally nerves him for that by which the death of Samson is commemorated.

The story of Ruth is familiar in its touching pathos, to every feeling heart; as well as intrinsically beautiful to every poetic mind. What for instance can exceed the

description of the separation of the sisters, when their mother entreats them to leave her.

And they lifted up their voice and wept again: and

scious of the high honour which awaited him, that when Samuel emphatically asks, "Is not the desire of the people on thee, and on thy father's house?" he answers with

Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto perfect humility and simplicity of heart,

her.

And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister-in-law.

Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest thou so to me?

And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy peo- Yet, ple shall be my people, and thy God my God:

Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.

it was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart.

We have no reason to suppose an ambiIn speaking of poetry as it relates to the tious heart, but rather a heart enlarged with passions, and to the minor impulses, and a conception of the favour of the Almighty, finer sensibilities of human nature, as well and filled with the spirit of prophecy, and as to the scenes and circumstances most with all heavenward aspirations; so that calculated for their developement, we have under a sense of the responsibility of sendno hesitation in pointing out the life and ing forth as a king, an edict among his character of Saul, as one, abounding per-people, he built an altar unto the Lord, and haps more than any other in the Scriptures, asked counsel of God before he went down with poetical interest. The book of Job is after the Philistines. Thus far we find him one of poetry itself, yet the character of the obedient as a man, and faithful as a sovesublime sufferer does not afford the variety exhibited in that of Saul. Prostrate in the reign; for his heart was yet uncorrupted by dust of the earth, and still holding commuthe temptations which surround a throne: nion with the Deity, we behold him as an but the power of leading and governing isolated being, struck out from the common others, soon produced its natural and frelot, and set apart for a particular dispensa-quent consequence-a disposition to be tion, whose severity was sufficient to fill a more human heart with bitterness. But the experience of Saul is that of a more ordinary man, with whom we can fully sympa thize, as we go along with him through those great national and social changes, by

which men of common mould are often

guided by his own inclination, and to resist
all higher authority. Thus, when com-
manded to go and smite the Amalekites,
infant and suckling, ox and sheep, can:el
and utterly to slay both men and women,
and ass, he spared Agag and the best of
the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fat-
lings, and of the lambs, and all that was
good, and would not utterly destroy them;
thereby transgressing the great paramount
law, no less necessary for the right gov-
ernment of an infant mind, than for an
infant world-the law of obedience.

placed before the world in a point of view
so striking and important, as to entitle them
to the name of great. We recognize in the
king of Israel the same motives and feelings
by which men in all ages have been influ-
enced; yet while we speak of him as a less
extraordinary character than Job, it is only
so far as the features of his character are
more intelligible and familiar to our obser-
vation and experience; for every thing and he cried unto the Lord all night.
recorded of him in his eventful history,
bespeaks a mind imbued at the same time
with power and sensibility, and a soul capa- about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.

ble of the extremes both of good and evil.

We behold him first a simple youth-a choice young man, and a goodly, so uncon

Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saal to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel;

And when Samuel rose up early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came up to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone

And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord.

And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of

the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which strel chosen to come and charm away, with

I hear?

And Saul said, They have brought them from the

Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.

Then Samuel said unto Sanl, Stay, and I will tell thee

what the Lord hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.

And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own

sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel,

and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel?

And the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners of the Amalekites, and fight

against them until they be consumed.

Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord ?

After this reproof from Samuel, Saul again endeavours to justify himself by proving that the reservation he had made was solely for the purpose of sacrificing to the Lord, when the prophet emphatically asks,

Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

To Samuel, who seems hitherto to have stood in the capacity of an intercessor between him and the Divine Majesty, Saul now humbles himself, and entreats that he will pardon his sin, and turn again with him, that he may worship the Lord. And when still rejected, he humbles himself yet more, and prays (Oh! how naturally!) that at least the prophet will honor him before the people, that the world may not witness his degradation. And now Samuel yields, but we are told soon after that he came no more to see Saul until the day of his death; nevertheless he mourned for him, and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.

And the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.

the melody of his harp, the evil spirit from the mind of his predecessor in authority; and that Saul should arise relieved and refreshed by the music of the instrument of his future torment. For it is not long before envy enters into his heart, adding its envenomed Stings to the anguish he is already enduring. He hears the song of the dancing women as they meet him with tabrets and with joy, answering one another, and saying, that Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands, and he asks, What can David have more but the kingdom? Yet after this he promises him his daughter in marriage, but quickly repenting him of the purposed honour, bestows her upon another. Again, hoping she may be a snare to him, he offers him his second daughter; and then we are told that he saw and knew that the Lord was with David, and that his daughter loved him. And Saul was yet the more afraid of David; and he became his enemy continually: yet once more at the earnest intercession of Jonathan, Saul consents to receive David again into his presence.

And Jonathan called David, and Jonathan shewed him

all those things. And Jonathan brought David to Saul,
and he was in his presence as in times past.
fought with the Philistines, and slew them with a great

And there was war again: and David went out and

slaughter; and they fled from him

And the evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his javelin in his hand: and David played with his hand.

And Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with the javelin; but he slipped away out of Saul's presence, and he smote the javelin into the wall: and David fled, and escaped that night.

The struggle was now passea. The early tendency of the soul of the king to seek, and to do good, was finally subdued, and he went forth to pursue the chosen of the Lord, as an open and avowed enemy; yet, enHow descriptive is this passage of this vouring to justify himself by proving that gradual falling away from Divine favour, David had first risen up against him, he apwhich sometimes darkens and weighs down peals to his servants, and fully conscious the soul, filling it with gloomy thoughts, and that his cause would not stand the test of sad forebodings, long before the melancholy impartial examination, he appeals to their change is perceptible in the outward charac-interest, and to their compassion, rather than ter. And how strikingly does it illustrate to their judgment. the hidden, and to us mysterious workings of the great plan ol' Providence, that the future king of Israel, already secretly appointed every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all

by Divine commission, should be the min

Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give

captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds;
That all of you have conspired against me, and there