straightway all along upon the earth," there can scarcely be a stronger description of total abandonment of soul under a deep sense of the overwhelming might of Omnipotence; as well as of a melancholy presage of the entire uprooting of all that he had trusted and gloried in. Yet scarcely trusted in, for | he had greatly feared the thing which was about to come upon him, and which the awful voice of the prophet risen from the dead had solemnly confirmed. The doom of the king of Israel was now sealed. And when the Philistines arose and fought against Israel, and "followed hard after Saul and his sons, and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchishua, Saul's sons;" And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers; Then said Saul unto his armour-bearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armour-beurer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. Through the whole of this history, we trace the same strong and natural developement of feeling, which all our most talented authors aspire to in their descriptions, and upon which they chiefly depend for the poetical interest of what they describe. But while in the character of Saul are forcibly portrayed the fatal workings of the passions of envy, jealousy, and remorse, accompanied with many of those delicate shades, which denote the latest yearnings after good, and the earliest tendency to evil, the character of David is scarcely less poetical in its strength, and beauty, and consistency, varied by a few instances of natural weakness, producing their own atonement in the humiliation, the abasement, the agony of mind, and the final welcome back to Divine love, by which they are succeeded. The attachment between David and Jonathan is perhaps the most beautiful and perfect instance of true friendship which we have on record. As a shepherd, and a prince, their first covenant is made. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped off the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle. And we see the same covenant binding them together through all the changes of their after life; for Jonathan, who loved the simple minstrel boy that charmed away the evil spirit from his father, ka cw not the envy of Saul when that minstrel became a man of war, and multitudes were gathered beneath his banner. And David, persecuted as he was by the father of his friend, never once betrayed towards him or his, the bitterness of an injured spirit, but followed him even to his death, with the reverence due to the Lord's anointed. It is then that he pours forth, both for Saul and Jonatan, that beautiful and affecting lamentation, which no language can exceed in poetry and pathos. The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of woman. How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished! There is an instance of maternal affection recorded in the 21st chapter of the same book, which in speaking of the strength of human passions ought not to be passed over without notice. It is where David was commanded to destroy the remnant of the house of Saul, and seven sons of the late king were delivered up into his hand, but he spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, because of the Lord's oath that was between David and Jonathan. But the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Bar. zillai, the Meholathite; And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest, until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. Of all the instances, imaginary or real, handed down to us by fable or history, we have not one of a more intense and devoted love than this. A solitary woman seated upon a rock, watching the wasting bodies of her two dead sons, day after day-night after night-with no shelter but the open canopy of heaven-no repose but the sackcloth spread upon the rock, an emblem of her own abasement-no hope but to see the last-the very last of all she loved-no consolation but her constancy-no support but the magnitude of her own incommunicable grief. It was the beginning of harvest, and the feet of a busy multitude might come and go beneath that solitary rock-the shout of gladness-the acclamation of the joyous reapers might be heard from the valleys below; but there she sat in her loneliness upon the dismal watch tower of death, faithful to her silent and sacred trust, suffering neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. of ordinary discussion, in a sphere more exclusively appropriated to considerations of infinitely greater importance. Some further progress may however be justifiable in the course we hope we have hitherto pursued without profaning what is pure, or violating what is sacred; and we consequently pause at that passage in the book of Kings, in which the prophet Elijah is described as escaping from his enemies into the solitude of the wilderness, where, casting himself upon the ground, he exclaims, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers." Such were the human feelings contending for the empire of his mind, that he was almost weary of the service of his Divine Master, accompanied as it was with disappointment, hatred, and persecution. How simple, and yet how admirably adapted to his peculiar state, are the means here adopted to bring him again to a sense of the superintending care and love of his heavenly Father. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there, and behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, What dost thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a The whole life of the prophet Elijah, especially his last appearance upon earth, is remarkable for an interest whose least recommendation is that of being highly poetical; for deeply as this subject has occupied the heart of the writer, it must be confessed that in pursuing it through the Holy Scriptures, and tracing its connexion with the revelation of those sacred truths upon which depend our hopes of eternity, the consideration of poetry loses much of its importance by comparison, and the task of the writer becomes like that of one who culls with adventurous hand, the flowers that grow around the fountain of life. This view of the subject would of itself be sufficient to prevent any near approach to the doctrinal parts of the Scriptures, whose strictly spiritual import, though still couched Where, through the wide range of modern in language both figurative and poetical in literature can we find a passage to be comthe extreme, places them above the reach | pared with this, for the conciseness and sim great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the enAnd, behold, there came a voice tering in of the cave. unto him, and said, What dost thou here, Elijah ? Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swal lowed them. Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the moun. tain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. The Lord shall reign for ever and ever. When Moses pours forth before the peo Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the ords of my mouth. plicity with which ideas the most sublime and elevated are conveyed into the mind? The prophet had been looking, (perhaps impatiently) for some striking exhibition of Almighty power amongst the children of men, forgetful of the secret springs of action, and action itself being alike under the control of Omnipotence; when his faith and his confidence are reanimated by witnessing one of those tremendous and awful convulsions of the elements, by which forests are uprooted, and rocks overthrown, accompa-ple his last public testimony to the mercy, nied with the internal conviction that the the might, and the vengeance of the Alimmediate presence of the Lord was not mighty, it is in the same powerful strain of there. Again, an earthquake shakes the poetical fervour. world; but the Lord is not in the earthquake; after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord is not in the fire. No; though such are the open manifestations of his power, by which he makes the nations tremble, yet the prophet was convinced that the war of the elements might exist, and the destruction of the earth ensue, without that sensible presence of the Almighty, for the want of which his soul was fainting. At last, after the fire, there came a still small voice, and Elijah felt that the Lord was near, that he was not forsaken, and that, independent of the outward symbols of illimitable power, the Creator of the world is able to carry on his operations in the mind of man, by the desire of the heart, the silent thought, or the secret impulse directed towards the accomplishment of his inscrutable designs. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is not he thy father that hath brought thee? Hath he not made thee, and established thee? Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee, thy elders, and they will tell thee. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howl. ing wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, bear. eth them on her wings: So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him. To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent him. self for his servants, when he seeth that their power lu gone, and there is none shut up, or left. And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted? A great proportion of the Holy Scriptures make haste. is not only poetical, but real poetry. Under this head the song of Moses, and the children of Israel, is the first instance that occurs. In this song, the passage of the children of Israel through the Red Sea, the overthrow of Pharaoh's host, and the wonderful dealing of the Lord with his chosen people, are commemorated in language highly figurative and sublime. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him. Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thy excellency hast thou overthrown them that rose up against thee: thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. And again, the last blessing of Moses is delivered in language full of poetry. And he said, The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Pa. ran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law unto them. And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills. There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms, and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them. Israel then shall dwell in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine, also his heavens shall drop down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places. These two examples are, however, inferior to the song of Deborah and Barak, for the high tone of metaphorical ornament, characterizing the whole of that incomparable specimen of poetical imagery, which immediately strikes us with the idea of its having been the archetype of some of the finest passages in Ossian, as well as the original from which many of our own notions of the beauty and melody of language are derived. Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel. And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; even Issachar, and also Barak: he was sent on foot into the valley. For the divisions of Reuben there were great thoughts of heart. Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds, to hear the The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming why tarry the wheels of his chariots ? Her wise ladies answered her, yea, she returned an swer to herself: Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two? to Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers colours of needle-work, of divers colours of needle-work on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil? So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. Were it possible to take away the poetry from these passages, and leave their sense entire, we should then see how much they owe in intellectual beauty, to that peculiar style of language, which adorns the whole of the Scriptures. It would, however, be a vain attempt to remove one, and leave the other untouched; because their sense as well as their poetry consists in allusion, and association. We are not merely told of that, which it is the direct object of the inspired minstrels to describe, but our thoughts are extended beyond to an infinity of relative ideas, which neither crowd upon nor neutralize each other, but all flow natuturally and easily into the same stream of enjoyment, mingling with and accelerating its uniform and uninterrupted course. We now conclude this minute examination of the Scriptures, not only because it is unnecessary for our purpose to pursue it bleatings of the flocks? For the divisions of Reuben further, but because we should soon arrive there were great searchings of heart. Gilead abode beyond Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the sea-shore, and abode in his breaches. Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field. The kings came and fought; then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo: they took no gain of money. at those portions of the sacred record, which consist entirely of poetry, the most genuine We have already seen and sublime. enough to convince us that the same principle which is associated with our highest intellectual enjoyments, is diffused-copiously diffused throughout the written revelation of eternal truth, a revelation whose wonderful adaptation to every variety of human nature, feeling, and condition, carries along with it the clearest evidence of its divine authority. Coeval with the infancy of time, it still remains, and widens in the circle of its intelligence. Simple as the language of a child, it charms the most fastidious taste. Mournful as the voice of grief, it reaches to the highest pitch of exultation. Intelligible to the unlearned peasant, it supplies the critic and the sage with food for earnest thought. Silent and secret as the reproofs of conscience, it echoes beneath the vaulted dome of the cathedral and shakes the trembling multitude. The last companion of the dying and the destitute, it seals the bridal vow, and crowns the majesty of kings. Closed in the heedless grasp of the luxurious and the slothful, it unfolds its awful record over the yawning grave. Sweet, and gentle, and consoling to the pure in heart, it thunders and threatens against the unawakened mind. Bright and joyous as the morning star to the benighted traveller, it rolls like the waters of the deluge over the path of him who wilfully mistakes his way. And, finally, adapting itself to every shade of human character, and to every grade of moral feeling, it instructs the ignorant, woos the gentle, consoles the afflicted, encourages the desponding, rouses the negligent, threatens the rebellious, strikes home to the reprobate, and condemns the guilty. It may be observed, that all this might have been effected without the instrumentality of the principle of poetry; and so unquestionably it might, had the Creator of the human heart seen meet to adapt it to different means of instruction; but as that heart is constituted, the delicate touches of feeling to be found in every part of the Holy Scriptures accord peculiarly with its sensibilities; the graceful ornaments which adorn the language of the Bible correspond to the impressions it has received, the ideas which have consequently been formed of the principles of taste and beauty; and by no other medium that we are capable of conceiving, could the human heart have been more forcibly assured of the truths to which belong eternal life. Had the Bible been without its poetical character, we should have wanted the voice of an angel to recommend it to the acceptance of mankind. Prone as we are to neglect this banquet upon which the most exalted mind may freely and fully feast, we should then have regarded it with tenfold disdain. But such is the unlimited goodness of him who knew from the beginning what was in the heart of man, that not only the wide creation is so designed as to accord with our views of what is magnificent and beautiful, and thus to remind us of his glory; but even the record of his imme diate dealing with his rational and responsible creatures, is so filled with the true melody of language, as to harmonize with all our most tender, refined, and elevated thoughts. With our established ideas of beauty, and grace, and pathos, and sublimity, either concentrated in the minutest point, or extended to the widest range, we can derive from the Scriptures a fund of gratification not to be found in any other memorial of past or present time. From the worm that grovels in the dust beneath our feet, to the track of the leviathan in the foaming deep-from the moth that corrupts the secret treasure, to the eagle that soars above his eyry in the clouds-from the wild ass of the desert, to the lamb within the shepherd's fold—from the consuming locust, to the cattle upon a thousand hills-from the rose of Sharon to the cedar of Lebanonfrom the crystal stream gushing forth out of the flinty rock, to the wide waters of the deluge-from the barren waste to the fruitful vineyard, and the land flowing with milk and honey-from the lonely path of the wanderer, to the gathering of a mighty multitude-from the tear that falls in secret, to the din of battle, and the shout of a triumphant host-from the solitary in the wilderness, to the satrap on his throne-from the mourner clad in sackcloth, to the prince in purple robes-from the gnawings of the worm that dieth not, to the seraphic visions of the blest-from the still small voice, to the thunders of Omnipotence-from the depths of hell, to the regions of eternal glory, there is no degree of beauty or deformity, no tendency to good or evil, no shade of darkness or gleam of light, which does not come within the cognizance of the Holy Scriptures; and therefore there is no impression or conception of the mind that may not find a corresponding picture, no thirst for excellence that may not meet with its full supply, and no condition of humanity necessarily excluded from the unlimited scope of adaptation and of sympathy comprehended in the language and the spirit of the Bible. How gracious then-how wonderful, and harmonious, is that majestic plan by which one ethereal principle, like an electric chain of light and life, extends through the very |