Prospice.

"Then shall the earth yield her increase."-Psalm lxvii. 6.

BROTHERS, take heart! The spring of earth draws near,
And soon shall brighter days for men appear;
Earth's long and dreary winter almost past,
The fragrant vernal breezes breathe at last.
Long, long, the bitter frost has held its reign
Till holy men could scarce their hope sustain
Through all these dark and weary centuries,
That tyranny from earth should ever cease.
Through Egypt's darkness, Babylonia's shame,
And Roman iron bondage, no light came ;

Priest followed priest, with changing creed and rite,
Each gleam of freedom crushed by warlike might;
Some poet, like a snowdrop, now and then
Has kept alive some gleam of hope in men ;
O weary days of crime and selfish wrong,

O darksome, cruel winter, stern and long.

Brothers, take heart! The world has not grown old,
Scarce has her tearful infancy been told,

A bright and jocund youth the future hides,
A long and vigorous manhood yet abides.
The barren past, we but the winter see,
There is a glorious summer yet to be.
With God a thousand years are as one day,
And Earth shall unknown glory yet display.

Take heart, my brothers! Christ is coming now,

The true dear Christ, a crown upon his brow.
No more the Christ of priestly pride and greed,
Of rack, and dungeon, and sectarian creed;

The phantom Christ, who speaks with loving words,
Yet blesseth ill-got gold and bleeding swords,
Who spurns each earnest seeker after light,
And darkens men in false religious night;
While rites unmeaning anxious souls decoy
Away from righteousness, and peace, and joy.

Jesus, the Christ of God, of Nazareth,
Shall springtide waken by his gentle breath;
Then shall the rule of mind and love begin,
And crush the reign of falsehood, hate, and sin;
Truth, like a summer sun, shall flood its light,
And love, like summer warmth, diffuse its might.
Then shall rich foliage all the glebe adorn,
And flowers of beauty now unknown be born,
Freedom and holiness shall hand in hand

Walk through the length and breadth of every land;
Wise education, as a maiden pure,

Shall from the paths of vice the young secure;
Science shall wondrous powers to men convey,
And bring together nations far away;
A lofty beauty shall the arts employ
To gladden mankind with celestial joy;
Plenty and peace shall weary toil decrease,
The mournful wail of penury shall cease,
And cruel war, with all her hateful train
Of crime and woe, shall be for ever slain;
One gun alone remain to mark the grave
Where lies the last unwept-for warrior brave.
The bonds of hate and fear are molten down;
The bond of love is all the nations own.

He comes! For ages shall His reign endure,
Ever with growing truth and peace secure ;
Until the winter past as nought appears
Compared with myriads of long happy years;
Then shall earth's summer in its glory beam
Beyond the prophet's hope, the poet's dream.
Nor shall those blessed ages pass away
Till earth a glorious harvest shall display;
And when its fruits are in the garner stored
There shall be precious treasure for the Lord.

J. HUNT COOKE.

Remarks upon a Difficult Passage of Scripture.

THE

HE passage is the third verse of the 110th Psalm, and in the authorised version is translated thus-"Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth." This is confessedly an obscure translation, and several other renderings of the Hebrew original have been proposed. After some meditation upon the matter, we suggest the following:

Decked in their sacred ornaments,

Thy people shall be right willing for war
When Thou shalt marshal Thine army,

And brighter than the early morning

Shall be the dewy freshness of Thy youthful troops.

We will now attempt to justify our translation by penning a few illustrative remarks. The words translated in our version "beauties of holiness," and which we have rendered "sacred ornaments," mean literally garments and ornaments worn by the Jewish priests; and in a wider sense anything connected with the sanctuary and worship of God. For example, in Psalm xxix. 2, we read, "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness," or as the margin translates, "In His glorious sanctuary." The same phrase occurs in Psalm xcvi. 9. The Priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ is one of the chief topics of this 110th Psalm; and as the subjects of Christ spiritually resembles Him, they are here represented as being decked in priestly attire, like Himself. The phrase, "right willing for war," is one word in the original, being also of the plural number; and if the word willingnesses had been good English, it would have exactly answered to the Hebrew word-"the abstract being put for the concrete," as logicians say; that is, the noun for the adjective. In the same sense the word is used in Psalm liv. 6-"I will freely sacrifice unto thee." In Psalm lxviii. 9, we have the words-"Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain," and the word "plentiful" is, in the Hebrew, the same as the one we are now remarking upon-"rain of willingnesses," meaning free and abundant rain. Of course the exact meaning of the word "willing," wherever it occurs, depends upon the nature of the context, and that in the 110th Psalm the word refers to "war," we shall now try to prove. "When Thou shalt marshal Thine army," is our proposed translation of the phrase, which the English version renders, "In the day of Thy power;" and as the word "power" is, so to speak, the key-note of the passage, we must pen a few explanatory remarks upon it. We do not deny that the word in the Hebrew, which is kayeel, often means power in its literal sense but what we want to prove is, that it also means military

power-that is, a host, an army. It certainly means so, Exodus xiv. 28-" And the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh." The word "host" in the Hebrew is kayeel, and evidently means a military force-that is, an army. So also in Deuteronomy iii. 18, we read, "Ye shall pass over armed before your brethren, the children of Israel, all that are meet for the war." The words which we have placed in italics are rendered in the margin of our Bibles, "sons of power,"-that is, men of war, soldiers. In accordance with these passages, Gesenius, in his valuable Hebrew Lexicon, translates the words, "the day of Thy power," thus -"At the time of drawing out thy forces." We think, therefore, that we have good reasons for rendering the word as we have in the beginning of our paper

When Thou shalt marshal Thine army.

It is worth noticing that, when our present English version was made, in the reign of James the First, the word "power" was one of the usual terms by which to express an army. Shakespeare, who wrote about that time, certainly uses it to convey that sense in the following lines:—

Never such a power,

For any foreign preparation,

Was levied in the body of a land.

And though the word has become obsolete in that sense, yet the similar words, "force" and "forces," as applied to the army and navy, are still in common use. We reach now the fourth line of our translation, "And brighter than the early morning," upon which we offer a few words of explanation. The careful reader will notice that this is our translation of the words, " From the womb of the morning,' given in the authorised version. Every student of the Hebrew language is aware that the preposition meen, which generally signifies from, sometimes is used in the sense of more than, like the Latin word, pro, as the following passages prove:-Judges ii. 19, "They corrupted themselves more than their fathers "-literally, "from their fathers." Jeremiah v. 3, "They have made their faces harder than a rock"-literally, "from a rock." Hence it is sometimes used to express the comparative degree. It is so in Job xi. 17, "More (clear) than the noon-day rises thy life." So also Psalm 1xii. 10, "To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity." In accordance with these passages we translate the words in the 110th Psalm, concerning which we are now speaking. We come now to the last line of our translation

The dewy freshness of Thy youthful troops.

The Hebrew word which our English translators have rendered by the term "youth," also means youth, in a collective sense-that is, young men; at least, it is so translated by Gesenius, a very great authority in such matters. Being fully aware of the fact that " Hebrew roots

are disagreeable food to many persons, we refrain from further critical remarks in defence of our translation. We do not claim the merit of originality in the matter, the substance of it being found in an excellent sermon upon the text in the third volume of Mr. McLaren's Dis

courses.

Taking for granted that we have given a tolerably correct translation of the passage, we may ask our readers to afford a few minutes to a consideration of the spiritual truths which it is intended to convey. The Psalm of which the verse forms a part is emphatically a Messianic one-that is, describes prophetically the person, word, and triumphs of the Lord Jesus Christ. The remark is an ancient one among the Fathers of the Church, that the 109th Psalm prophetically refers to "the sufferings of Christ," and this 110th Psalm to "the glory that shall follow." Martin Luther, in his vigorous words, calls it "the true high main Psalm of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ." And it is also worthy of note, that references to it in the New Testament are more frequent than in the case of any other Psalm. While the Psalm, as a whole, refers to the Lord Jesus, the third verse of it, in language more or less figurative, describes the spiritual character and duties of all the true members of Christ's Church, and at which we should like briefly to glance.

It teaches us, first, that all true Christians are priests. They are symbolically represented as "decked in their sacred ornaments" that is, in priestly attire. That all true Christians are priests is the plain assertion of the sacred Scriptures. How distinctly, for example, St. Peter speaks upon the matter, when addressing the first Christians (1 Epistle, ii. 9):-"Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light." There is much that is mysterious in some portions of the imagery found in the Book of the Revelation; but we are sure the priesthood of Christ is pictured there in the well-known words of St. John-" I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle." Surely, no one can doubt the participation of all believers in the priesthood of Christ, after reading the following words, also from the first chapter of the Revelation :-"Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." How unscriptural, therefore, the notion that only those in "holy orders" may call themselves priests! "This honour have all the saints." Mr. Maclaren puts the fact well in the following words:-" The conquering King whom this Psalm hymns is a priest for ever;' and He is followed by an army of priests. The soldiers are gathered in the day of the muster, with high courage and willing devotion; but they are clad not in mail, but in priestly robes, like those who wait before the altar, rather than like those who