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THE 
 
 LITERARY ATTRACTIONS 
 
 THE BIBLE; 
 
 A PLEA FOR THE WORD OF GOD, CONSIDERED 
 AS A CLASSIC. 
 
 LE ROY J. HALSEY, D.D. 
 
 Thy testimonies are wonderful. 
 
 Psalmist. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 2TEW YORK: 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER 
 
 1859. 
 
Emti*kd according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New iTork. 
 
 , TINHON, steheotyhbu. b. csaiqhead, printsk. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The toi3ics presented in the several chapters of this 
 vohune, though apparently disconnected, have all been 
 ^selected and discussed with one great end constantly in 
 view ; and that is to make them bear, as an unbroken 
 and cumulative argument, on the superhuman and con- 
 sequently Divine character of the Bible. This is the 
 thought that underlies the whole arrangement and gives 
 it unitv. Tliis main desio^n, thouojh runnino^ throu2:h a 
 wide range of iUustration, will be found constantly re- 
 curring, especially at the end of the chapters, and most 
 of all in the last chapter, which was first in the order of 
 conception and led to the composition of all the rest. 
 
 In contemplating the adorable person of Immanuel, 
 there is a human as well as a Divine side to the picture. 
 So also is it with the book of God. It has a human iU'd 
 a Divine side. There is a highei', and there is a lower 
 point of view. It is the aim of the present work to oc- 
 cupy only this lower place, and from it to contemplate 
 the human side exclusively. But it has been with an 
 impression ever present to the writer's mind and grow- 
 ing to the end, that it is impossible to look long even 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 upon the human, without seeing the bright beams of 
 the Divine, streaming through from the other side. Like 
 the manhood in Immanuel's person, humanity here ap- 
 pears in a mood so original, and so far above the usual 
 style of man, that it seems itself a demonstration of 
 Divinity. 
 
 Of course nothing new can now be offered or 
 attempted on such a theme. But it is hoped that 
 the easy argument, if the w^riter niay venture to call 
 it such, which runs through these chapters, will at least 
 arrest the attention of some who might be repelled by 
 more difficult, and formal discussions of the evidence for 
 the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. Perhaps the 
 best evidence, after all, is to let the Bible speak for itself. 
 It is a great point gained, when we can get what is in 
 the Bible fairly- before the minds of men. But there is 
 more in it than many tliink ; much more than any casual 
 reader is ever aware of. And how is the Bible to speak 
 for itself to tliose who will not patiently read it? Other 
 books must speak for it, and tell what it contains. 
 
 The object of these pages is to tell, at least in paj't, 
 what it contains ; to gain tlie eye of those, who, under 
 an impression that there is nothing in the Bible but re- 
 ligion, really do not know how much there is in it ; to 
 bring out to their view some of its many treasures ; and 
 to present them in such a way that they shall desire to 
 see more; and so be attracted to the book itself. And 
 if, from this lower point of view, and from this human 
 side, the i-eader should receive any favorable impi-ession 
 of its truth, wliat inight he not expect to find, should 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 he but ascend to the higher and holier ground? 'What 
 but the himiuous strokes of God's own linger 1 
 
 " On every line. 
 Marked with the seals of high Divinity 
 On every leaf bedewed with drops 
 Of love Divine, and with the eternal heraldry 
 And signature of God Almighty stamped 
 From first to last." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BIBLE AS A CLASSICAL BOOK. 
 
 Introductory— The Bible as a Classic— The Bible adapted to Childhood— The Bible in 
 the School and College— The Bible in our English version— The Bible in the four 
 great Classic Tongues— The Bible as related to the State and its Schools— The Bible 
 the Palladium of American Institutions — The Bible and the Church of Rome — Con- 
 cluding remarks 18-67 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 POETRY AND THE BARDS OB THE BIBLE. 
 
 Nature and Uses of Poetry in the Bible — Difference between Hebrew Prose and Poetry 
 — Style of Hebrew Poetry, Parallelism — Spirit of Hebrew Poetry— Departments of 
 Hebrew Poetry— Influence of Hebrew Poetry— "Writers of Poetry in the Bible— The 
 Seven Greater Bards — The Argument from Poetry— Concluding Remarks, . 6S-117 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Elements and Characteristics oi' Eloquence — Illustrations of Eloquence — Earliest 
 Example of Eloquence in the Old Testament— Judah as an Orator — Aaron as an 
 Orator— Other Examples from the Old Testament— Eloquence of Hushai, the 
 
 Archite, 118-162 
 
 Is 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Examples of Perverted Eloquence — Herod and TertuUus — Speech of Gamaliel — TheElo* 
 quent Apollos— Stephen's Address to the Council — Preaching of John the Baptist- 
 Peter as an Orator— Speech of James before the Synod— The Recorder or Town- 
 clerk of Ephesus— The Eloquence of Paul— Paul on Mars Hill— Discourses of our 
 Lord— Conclusion, 153-201 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TTPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 Interest of the Subject — General View — Classification — Picture of Eve — Sarah and 
 Rebekah — Character of Deborah— Character of Esther and Ruth — Jezebel and Atha- 
 liah— Herodias and her dancing Daughter — Abigail, Hannah, and Martha — Thp Ma- 
 rys—Concluding Remarks, 202-259 
 
 CHAPTER vr. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE TOUNQ MEN OP THE BIBLB. 
 
 Range and Limits of the Theme— The First of Young Men— The First Two Brothers- 
 Character of Joseph — The Youth of Moses— Sketch of David and Jonathan— Sketch 
 of Samuel and Saul — Saul and Samuel at Endor— Character of Absalom— The Young 
 Man as Sovereign— The Young Men of the Captivity — Young Men of the New Tes- 
 tament, 260-323 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 UCIENCE AND THE SAGES OF THE BIBLS. 
 
 Relations and Bearings of the Subject— The Moral Science of the Bible— The Bible on 
 Physical Science— First Scientific Characteristic— Second Characteristic— Third 
 Characteristic— AdditionallUustrations— Thy Sages of the Bible . . . 824-S70 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 O&tQINAL CONCEPTIOXS ; OR, OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IK THE BIBLB. 
 
 The Divine Existence— The Providence of God— The Personal Character of Christ— 
 The Idea of Special Divine Influence — The Church of God— The Common Brother- 
 hood of Man— The Day of Sacred Rest— The Millennium— The Resurrection of the 
 Dead— The Last Judgment — The Heavenly "World— The Scheme of Redemption-^ 
 Recapitulation and Coaclusion, 371-441 
 
ATTRACTIONS OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 GENER.IL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BIBLE AS A 
 
 CLASSICAL BOOK. 
 
 Inti-oductory — The Bible as a Classic — The Bible adapted to Childhood— The Bible in 
 the School and College — The Bible in our English version — The Bible in the four 
 great Classic Tongues — The Bible as related to the State and its Schools — The Bible 
 the Palladium of American Institutions — The Bible and the Church of Rome — Con- 
 cluding remarks. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 In the following pages, addressed mainly, though not excla- 
 sively, to our educated youth, it is proposed to present an outline 
 of what may be called the Incidental xittractions of the Bible ; 
 or, in other words, to set forth its claims both as a classic, and 
 as a book of general education. As a book of religion, around 
 which cluster all our hopes of immortality, the Bible has merits 
 of the very highest order ; and these, with every serious mind, 
 will be, as they ever ought to be, its greatest attractions. But, 
 aside from the religion which it reveals to us, and the good 
 news of salvation which it brings us, the Bible has other attrac- 
 tions. 
 
 18 
 
14 GENERAL CHARACTEKISTI08 
 
 It is the book of our learning, not less than our religion ; the 
 basis of our civilization, not less than our salvation. It is the 
 charter of our rights and liberties, as truly as it is the oracle 
 of our faith, the manual of our devotions, and the anchor of 
 our hopes. It has moulded into shape, and it has quickened 
 into life, the whole body of our secular learning, as well as our 
 tJHology. It has breathed its own vital spirit into all our 
 science, literature, legislation, philosophy, social and political 
 institutions. It has led the van of ancient and of modern civiliza- 
 tion in its march around the globe. It has been the great 
 well-spring of liviag water, out of which have issued all the 
 glad streams of intellectual and moral health, that are now 
 found flowing in every civilized land beneath the sun. Thus 
 far, it has been the great educator and civilizer of man ; and it 
 is, doubtless, destined to be his greatest educator in all time to 
 come, his most effective civilizer in every dark abode of heathen- 
 ism throughout the world. 
 
 But, whilst it is chiefly as a book of religion, and especially 
 of religious education, that the Bible has spread civilization 
 among the nations ; still it is true, that regarded simply as a 
 book of learning, of taste and genius, of history and eloquence, 
 it has exerted an influence which cannot be too highly esti- 
 mated. As such, it has claims which commend themselves to 
 every cultivated understanding. Independently of all its higher 
 glories — the knowledge which it gives us of the way to 
 heaven, and the hope with which it inspires us of a blessed 
 immortality — there are attractions which may be felt and 
 appreciated even by the irreligious and the worldly-minded. 
 And these, it is our purpose to group together in one distinct 
 and connected view. 
 
 Our object will be to speak of the book of God, as a pro- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 15 
 
 duction of inspired genius and classic taste ; to illustrate the 
 sublimity of its thoughts, the beauty of its diction, the wide 
 compass of its history, the vast variety of its biography, and 
 the infinite range of its imagination ; to reveal something of its 
 immeasurable wealth, as a field of knowledge, a mine of wis* 
 dom, a model of eloquence, a master-piece of poesy, a fountain 
 of influence, a text-book of instruction ; and thus to render ^, 
 Bo far as we shall be able, attractive to all, especially to the 
 young. In other words, we propose to walk around about 
 Jerusalem, to mark well her bulwarks, to admire her beauty, to 
 gaze upon the outer glories of her temple. 
 
 As ancient Israel was the glory of all the earth, Jerusalem 
 the glory of Israel, and her temple the glory of Jerusalem, even 
 so is the Bible now to Christianity, and to the world. It is the 
 most glorious, outward, and visible heritage, which has come 
 down from the past. It stands to the Christian and to the 
 Church, as the temple did to the Jew. It is the throne of 
 power. It is the symbol of all greatness. It is the shrine of 
 all good. It is the centre of universal attraction. It is the 
 radiating point of all blessed influences. It contains all the 
 holy records. Within it are found the patterns of things in the 
 heavens — the Ark, the Testimony, the Mercy-Seat, the Manna 
 and the Budding Kod, the Cherubim shadowing with wings, 
 and the Shekinah. 
 
 Biit it is not to gaze upon any of these glories of the inner 
 sanctuary that we are now come. It is to stand before the 
 beautiful gate of this mount of vision ; to look around upon 
 all the wonderful adornments of this hill of the Lord, 
 the gold, the silver, the marble and the precious stones, with 
 that kind of enthusiasm which the traveller feels upon the 
 Athenian Acropohs, or the Roman Capitoline. The Bible 
 
16 GKNERAL CHAEACTEKISTICS 
 
 is our mount of vision, and its outstanding beauties now attract 
 our view. 
 
 It is thought that these characteristics of the Bible may be 
 illustrated by a comparison with other books, by a reference to 
 passing events, by a description of ancient scenes in our current 
 phraseology ; that they may be presented in a somewhat mo- 
 dern popular dress, which, while it shall not offend the taste of 
 tWe scholar on the one hand, nor the piety of the Christian on 
 the other, may attract the attention of our educated youth ; 
 and thus become the means of leading them to a better acquain- 
 tance with this Divine book. At all events, such is our hope. 
 For in these days of fiction, when the world is so easily turned 
 upside down by every new writer of tales ; when history phi- 
 losophy, and even theology, stoop to the writing of a two-volum- 
 ed novel as their best achievement ; when there are so many 
 books, leading our youth away from the Bible, and creating a 
 distaste for its sacred, truth-loving pages — whatever may be 
 said, be it ever so little, to create a better taste, and lead them 
 back to this book of books, will be so much gained for the 
 cause of sound learning amongst us. 
 
 There are many persons who will read a page or chapter, 
 attracted by the sight of some well-known historical name, or 
 some familiar line of poetry, who v/ould otherwise pass it by 
 unread. In like manner, may we not hope, that some of our young 
 friends, allured by a chance illustration from history, or allusion 
 to current events, or comparison of the sacred and profane 
 writers, or favorite quotation from the poets, or, it may be, mere 
 suggestion that there is more science in this venerable book 
 than they had ever given it credit for, will be led thus to peruse 
 it for themselves ; to peruse it with growing interest, until, 
 advancing from the less to the greater, and from the outer to 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 1^ 
 
 the inner sanctuaiy, they find for themselves that other attrac- 
 tion, which is its chief glory — even a Saviour who is God over 
 all blessed forever. Such, at least, is our desire. 
 
 In every generation, prejudice has put the same question re- 
 specting this book, which was asked respecting the Master him- 
 self at the beginning : " Can there any good thing come out of 
 Nazareth ?" And to every sincere, though prejudiced Nathaniel, 
 we cannot do better than to answer in the words of Nathaniel's 
 friend : " Come and see." If you will come and see, if you 
 will read and examine the book for yourselves, our office shall 
 be to act as an humble guide, who, having gone over the 
 ground before, would tell what scenes of beauty and sublim- 
 ity, and more than earthly glory, we have found in this rich 
 land. We will act the part of Philip, and show to you what 
 others have shown to ns. 
 
 Still further, it shall be our aim to avoid everything of a con- 
 troversial and sectarian character. AYe wish to speak as a 
 friend of the Bible ; and as such, to address all to whom the 
 Bible is addressed. Nothing gives us a more heart-felt pleasure, 
 than to come out, as often as we can, from the inclosures of 
 denominational peculiarities, and stand in the wide, open field 
 of our common Christianity. In exhibiting the attractions of 
 the book of God, we rejoice that it is our privilege to speak in 
 such a way, that all the friends of evangelical truth may feel at 
 home with us, saying : This, too, is our book, this is our heri- 
 tage forever, the lamp of our feet, the guide of our youth. We 
 may all look upon the Bible as we look upon the broad domain 
 of nature, or upon the blue heavens above. It is common pro- 
 perty. It is all ours. It all belongs to each of us, because 
 our Father made it. We breathe a common air ; we gaze upon 
 the same loveliness ; the same landscape smiles in beauty at our 
 
18 GEN-ERAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 feet ; the same heavens encompass us ; in the Bible, as in the 
 book of nature, we are all at home, for God, our Father, is over 
 all, and in all. When we read other books, there is a limit to 
 our view — a narrow boundary, a low circumscribed horizon, 
 which we must not pass. But when we open the Bible, it is 
 with a feeling that a world is all before us, the skies are all 
 bright and the land is all free. 
 
 " No pent up Utica contracts our powers, 
 But the whole boundless continent is ours." 
 
 It is With this enlarged spirit of HberaUtj, and of Christian 
 brotherhood, fostered by the book which we advocate, that we 
 now undertake to adress as many of our fellow-Christians and 
 fellow-citizens — the parents, teachers, and youth of this genera- 
 tion — as may do us the favor to read these pages. 
 
 II. ^THE BIBLE AS A CLASSIC. 
 
 It is greatly to be desired that our children and youth should 
 grow up v/ith the conviction firmly fixed in their minds, that 
 the Bible is a classic of the very highest authority in all mat- 
 ters of education, taste, and genius ; that it holds the same 
 place of preeminence in the republic of letters which it holds 
 in the Church of God. It is exceedingly important, that the 
 public mind should be made to understand what the most emi- 
 nent scholars of all ages and all lands have always understood 
 and confessed — that there is no book in the world which can 
 stand before the Bible as a classic. Such an impression, early 
 implanted and generally received, would do much to save our 
 young people from the evils of that flimsy, superficial literature, 
 which, in the form of the wild, extravagant romance, the love* 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 10 
 
 sick novel, and the run-mad poem, is coming in upon us like a 
 flood. Jt would do much to rescue the rising generation from 
 that deluge of fiction, which now threatens to overlay the learn- 
 ing of this boasted nineteenth century with a deeper detritus 
 of trash than that of all the geological epochs. 
 
 Now, the Bible, regarded as a model of classical taste, is the 
 great antidote and corrective for this evil. We must teach our 
 youth to look upon it, not only as a book for-the Sabbath and 
 the Sanctuary, but as a book for the family, the school, and the 
 college. We must set it before them as worthy of the most 
 honored place, alike in the cottages of the poor, the palaces of 
 the rich, and the hbraries of the learned. We must not let 
 them forget, that it is, at once, the most ancient, the most sub- 
 lime, the most wonderful of all the classics. We do not discard 
 Homer and Virgil from the classics because they contain a reli- 
 gion, even an absurd, fabulous religion ; why, then, should we 
 underrate, or disparage the classical claims of the Bible, because 
 it contains a religion, and that, the only true religion ? Does 
 the Bible cease to be a classic, because, in addition to the 
 inspiratioQ of human genius, it has the higher inspiration of 
 God ? Does its learning cease to be learning, its eloquence to 
 be eloquent, because it is sanctified and animated by the breath 
 of Divinity ? No ; the Bible is as truly a classic as Homer or 
 Virgil, Xenophon or Cicero, Milton or Addison. It fills a place 
 in ancient and modern literature, which no Greek or Roman 
 author ever filled, or can fill. It has done, for the literature of 
 all civilized nations, what no Greek or Roman book could ever 
 have done. 
 
 As a Hebrew book, for more than fifteen centuries, it com- 
 prised almost the entire literature and learning of a whole nation. 
 As a Hebrew book, it exerted an influence which no other book. 
 
20 GKNERAL CHARACTEEISTIC8 
 
 not even the Koran of Mohammed, has ever attained over any 
 people. And, notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of states and 
 empires, the removal and extinction of nations, it has never lost 
 its original supremacy. It acquired the same place of power 
 over the conquering, classical Greeks and Romans, which it had 
 held so long over the Jews. It then did, successively, for the 
 conquering barbarians of Northern Europe, what it had done 
 for the Greeks and Romans. A classic to the Hebrews, it be- 
 came a classic in the languages of Demosthenes and Cicero ; 
 and it has become classical in the vernacular tongue of every 
 European nation. And that w^hich it has done for these, it is 
 now doing in every pagan nation on earth to which the Pro- 
 testant missionary has been sent. 
 
 It is not too much, then, to claim for the Bible, that, as a 
 classic, it stands without a rival at the head of all human litera- 
 ture. It is not too much to say, that it has eventually con- 
 trolled and impregnated, with its own immortal spirit, the 
 literature of every people, into whose vernacular it has been 
 translated. And at this moment, there is not, perhaps, in the 
 whole world of letters, a more important and effective work 
 going forward, than that work of translation, which, under the 
 silent but sublime labors of the missionary, is making the Bible 
 a classic book in every human tongue. There has been no such 
 transmigration from land to land, and from language to lan- 
 guage, of the Koran, or the Shaster, or any other book claiming 
 to be a Divine revelation. The Bible, therefore, whether we 
 read it in its original tongues, in its manifold ancient and 
 modern versions, or in our own admirable English translation, 
 bears upon its face the very aspect of majesty, of high classical 
 antiquity, of inherent undisputed superiority. Translate it, 
 however badly, dilute it, however much with paraphrases ; still 
 
OF THE BIULE. 21 
 
 it is almost impossible to hide the native beauty of its imagery, 
 or the original lustre of its thoughts. They will still break out, 
 like sunshine through the clouds, or spring-buds from the cells 
 in which winter had bound them. 
 
 There is a richness of conception, a universality in its spirit, 
 a range and amplitude of thought, a power of illustration, a 
 truthfulness to nature, an insight into character, a familiarity 
 with the unseen and eternal, a fund of information, a variety of 
 incident, and a consciousness of authority in all its utterances, 
 which give to all the words and images of the Bible, the charm 
 of originality, the impress of genius, and the force of an endless 
 life. No book ever did speak, or can speak to the heart of the 
 individual man, and to the great heart of the world, as the 
 Bible has done. It alone has a voice which can reach all the 
 depths of the human spirit, and awake the slumbering intellect 
 from the stupor of ages. It alone, of religious books, has a 
 largeness of view which makes it congenial to humanity every- 
 where ; classical and indigenous on every soil, in every *ra, 
 beneath the stars of every firmament. It is as much at home 
 with man amid the splendid capitals of Europe, the snows of 
 Greenland, the islands of the South Seas, and the wild woods 
 of America, as it was in the streets of Jerusalem, or the hill 
 country of Judea. You feel, at once, on reading it, and you 
 can never cease to feel while you read, that, if it is anything, 
 it is everything ; it bears its own credentials j it carries a self- 
 evidencing power, not only of religious truth, but of classic 
 beauty. It is true to nature and true to man ; it describes to 
 the life, the world within, and the world without. It speaks of 
 that which we know already, so truly, and with such graphic 
 power, as to impress us with the conviction of the truth of every- 
 thing else which it tells us, about things which we did not know 
 
22 GENERAL CHAKACTERISTICS 
 
 Moreover, everything in it, and about it, is on a scale of 
 magnificence and grandeur. Everything bears the stamp of a 
 more than regal, more than mortal greatness. Everything is 
 in accordance with the character of its infinite author ; every- 
 thing is represented as it stands related to him ; so that what 
 is insignificant in itself becomes great from its connection with 
 the Deity. And no mind can come fully under its influence, for 
 any length of time, without partaking somewhat of its own 
 intellectual and moral greatness. Does a man seek for great 
 thoughts, fitted to enlarge the intellect ? Here are thoughts as 
 vast as the universe of matter or mind. Does he crave burning 
 words ? Here are words that glow with the fires of immortal- 
 ity. Does he love poetry, and ask for images of beauty ? Here 
 are angelic harmonies, and forms radiant with all the tints of 
 earth and heaven. Does he love to read the records of the 
 great ? Here are the most wonderful characters in history — 
 characters that lived a thousand years — characters, " without 
 beginning of days or end of years." 
 
 Now, let any child read this book in the nursery and in the 
 school, and then read it on through life ; let the poor laborer 
 study it nightly after his daily toil ; let the humblest cottager in 
 the land make it the companion of his thoughts from the cradle 
 to the grave ; let the young man make it the guide of his 
 youth, and the old man the companion of his declining years ; 
 and it is as if he had been associated with the most ex- 
 alted scenes and characters in the universe ; it is as if you had 
 taken him out from his humble dwelling, and sent him to school 
 to patriarchs, prophets, and apostles ; it is, as if you had given 
 him converse and familiar fellowship with kings and nobles of 
 the earth, and with the angels of God ; it is as if he had been 
 caught up to that third heaven of unutterable things, where, in 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 23 
 
 the yisions of God, he might learn the true dimensions of man 
 Let any man of ordinary intelligence be thoroughly initiated 
 into the great things of this book, and it shall be the best pos- 
 sible guaranty, that his estimate of all other things will be cor- 
 rect ; to borrow the phraseology of Chalmers, he can never more 
 forget the relative proportion of two magnitudes — the littleness 
 of time, the greatness of eternity. 
 
 The constant reading of this book cannot fail to form a true 
 taste, because it cannot fail to inspire a love of truth and 
 beauty — a real heart-felt appreciation of the sublime and beau- 
 tiful both in nature and art. And this taste, if early formed, 
 becomes an effectual safe-guard against all false, meretricious writ- 
 ings. If you educate your child so as to give him an early fond- 
 ness for such models of poetic art as the Iliad or Paradise Lost, 
 there is not much danger that he will acquire a relish for trash 
 and bombast. Even so it is with a mind, early imbued with 
 admiration for the Bible as a model of classic beauty. In cor- 
 recting the judgment and elevating the taste, a constant study 
 of the Bible has much of the same effect on the mind, as that 
 which would be produced by an observation of the works of 
 nature and art in all lands. It is, as if one had become a uni- 
 yersal traveller — had seen man in all his moods, nature in all 
 her aspects, grandeur in its most stately steppings, and beauty 
 in her loveliest charms. Yes, of all books, the Bible is the truest 
 Cosmos. And of all students, the Bible student is the most 
 thorough cosmopolite. Its variety is endless. Its scenes and 
 characters are diversified and infinite, like the universe. 
 
 In illustration of this boundless variety of subjects contained 
 in the Bible, the following words of Mrs. Ellis, at once compre- 
 hensive and glowing with the poetry of real life, may be cited : 
 " From the woi m that grovels in the dust beneath our feet, to 
 
24 GENEEA.L CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 the Leviathan in the foaming deep ; from the moth that corrupts 
 the secret treasure, to the eagle that soars above his eyrie in 
 the clouds ; from the ass in 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 Leb- 
 anon ; from the crystal stream gushing forth out of the flinty 
 rock, to the wide waters of the deluge ; 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 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 
 voice of conscience, 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 cog- 
 nizance of the Holy Scriptures ; and therefore, there is no ex- 
 pression or conception of the mind that may not find a corres- 
 ponding 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 adaption and sympathy 
 comprehended in the language and spirit of the Bible." 
 
 Are we not then authorized in saying of the Bible, that be- 
 sides all its other uses, it is entitled to the place of preeminence 
 amongst books, as being the great treasure-house of thought 
 and the great model of classic beauty — the most wonderful 
 and perfect work of taste and genius which has ever appeared 
 amongst men ? Call it what you will, a Divine revelation, or 
 a human production — an inspiration from God, or an inspira- 
 tion of genius ; still it must be admitted to be the most remark- 
 able book in the world, and to exhibit the most remarkable 
 
OF THE BIBLE. ^5 
 
 achievement, that has ever been made by man, or for man, in 
 bis advance towards perfection. On this point, however, we find 
 an ample solution. We hold it to be the greatest of classics, 
 because it is inspired of God — the most perfect work of the 
 human mind, because a mind more than human is everywhere at 
 work in it. " Thy testimonies are wonderful." 
 
 III. ^THE BIBLE ADAPTED TO CHILDHOOD. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, and it should be to all parents an in- 
 structive fact, that there is a sort of development and progress 
 in the Sacred Scriptures, corresponding to the development and 
 progress of human life. The world has had its periods of infancy, 
 childhood, and youth, prior to full maturity. Every individual 
 of our race has the same corresponding periods. And, answer- 
 ing to these, the Bible history may be said to have its several 
 periods of infancy, childhood, and youth. The New Testament, 
 with its sublime Gospel history, its profound doctrinal Epistles, 
 and its mysterious prophetic Apocalypse, is but the finishing of 
 that intellectual and moral manhood, which is supposed to have 
 had its early education in the preparatory school of the Old 
 Testament, 
 
 The composition of the different books of Scripture extended 
 through fifteen centuries. The Bible, in the order of its forma- 
 tion, seems to be exactly adapted to life in the order of its ad- 
 vancement. And if so, it would appear reasonable, that every 
 individual should follow that order in the study of it, which its 
 great author adopted in giving it to the world. In order then, 
 that a man may be able fully to understand and appreciate the 
 New Testament, he must have read the Old ; and not only 
 
 2 
 
26 GENERAL CHARACTEKISTICS 
 
 have read it, but, what is the all important and instructive fact, 
 he must have read it in his youth — known it like Timothy from 
 his very childhood. If he has failed to read it at that period 
 of life, for which God seems to have expressly designed it, he 
 has lost an advantage which it is almost impossible ever to re- 
 gain. He has lost, indeed, what no subsequent reading or 
 knowledge of it can ever give him — the impressions of childhood, 
 all those peculiarly vivid and ineffaceable impressions which the 
 Bible never fails to make upon every child who reads it aright. 
 And there is scarcely anything which we receive in childhood, 
 which a man might not better afford to lose. With no remem- 
 brances of the Bible, coming up fresh from the fountains of his 
 childhood, in all his subsequent reading, he finds himself in the 
 condition of an old man with an uncultivated memory, sitting 
 down to the task of learning a new language. If we would 
 acquire the knowledge of new languages with facility, we must 
 do it in early life ; we must, at least, lay a foundation for it, 
 by studying the grammar in childhood and youth. In an im- 
 portant sense, the Old Testament history is the grammar, by 
 which we must learn the language of the whole Bible. There 
 are some books which we are all accustomed to read in our 
 childhood, if we ever read them at all. They have not much 
 attraction for us, unless we read them as children ; and then, 
 they never lose their charm. We can read them with fresh 
 interest even down to old age ; just because, having first read 
 them at the proper season, we live over again in each perusal 
 all the impressions of our childhood and youth. 
 
 Even so it is with the Bible, especially with those narrative 
 portiims of the Old Testament, which no child can read with- 
 out wonder and delight, and which none that reads can ever 
 forget. Every return to them in subsequent Ufe, will be like 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 27 
 
 going back to the home of our childhood after years of absence, 
 to renew our youthful sports and pleasures in that quiet valley, 
 or on that river's bauk, or beneath that humble roof, where 
 first we saw the light. Indeed, we have no hesitation in say- 
 ing, that the best possible preparation for a full understanding 
 and appreciation of the Scriptures, in the years of our maturity, 
 is, that like Timothy we should have known them from our 
 childhood. 
 
 Have you never observed with what difficulty an old man, 
 unacquainted with the Bible in his youth, is induced to read the 
 Old Testament regularly through ? Have you ever seen the 
 experiment of a first reading, made by one who has long 
 cherished skeptical opinions ? Take a man of strong common 
 sense, well-educated as to other books, but ignorant of the 
 Bible, and induce him, if you can, to read it for the first time. 
 Suppose him unacquainted even with the New Testament ; and 
 now, at your request, he sits down to the task of reading the 
 Old Testament regularly from the beginning. What is the re- 
 sult ? In all probability, before he reaches the end of Genesis, 
 he will close the book in utter incredulity and disgust. He 
 cannot understand it. He sees no beauty in it. He abandons 
 the task in despair. No ; that will not do for him. With him 
 you must try a different method. He has been too long min- 
 gling as an actor, in the daily affairs of our present busy 
 world, to be placed back so far, and so suddenly, into that 
 wonderful world of the past. Had he been a boy of twelve or 
 sixteen years, he would have read on, allured and absorbed by 
 those stupendous scenes which have so repelled and disgusted 
 him as a man. The very things which so offend him as a 
 rationalist and an infidel, would have charmed him most as a 
 child. 
 
28 
 
 GENERAL CH A.RACTERISTIC8 
 
 But with him now you must reverse the process, if you would 
 attract him by the Bible. You must give him the New Testa 
 ment first ; and, with that, let him work his way back to the 
 simple faith of childhood. Let him first read the New Testa- 
 tament, which is maiuly addressed to the logical reason and 
 the moral sense of man, at his maturity ; and then, converted 
 and become as it were a little child again, and keeping ever in 
 his hand the New Testament as a lamp to his feet, he will, 
 perhaps, have faith enough in history, and confidence enough 
 in God, to thread his way through all the wonders of the Old — 
 to see beauty, glory, and divinity in all that ancient, oriental, 
 Bible history, which recounts the youth of nature, the childhood 
 of the world, and the infancy of all created things. Still, there 
 may be some things, even then, hard to be understood, which 
 will be to him a stumbling-block as long as he lives ; and that 
 for no other cause- than this — that his parents neglected the 
 ordinance of God, which, old as the days of Moses, required 
 tliera to teach all these things to their child, while he was a 
 child. 
 
 As an illustration of the truth of these remarks, you may 
 observe, that when our foreign missionaries carry the gospel to 
 the adult population of heathen lands, it is the New Testament 
 which they first translate, and put into the hands of the people. 
 And then, by degrees, as they become somewhat acquainted 
 with the New Testament Scriptures, portions of the Old are 
 translated. But as soon as schools are established, and the 
 native children and youth collected for instruction, the whole 
 Bible from the beginning, with all its wonderful events, is set 
 before them in that same order of nature by which God has 
 adapted it to the opening minds of every land and of every 
 generation. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 29 
 
 It is true that the young mind is interested in reading the 
 New Testament as well as the Old ; for this has its wonderful 
 things as well as that. Indeed, there is in the New Testament, 
 taken separately, the same gradual advancement from the sim- 
 ple to the profound, which marks the Scriptures throughout as 
 a whole — first, the wonderful personal biography of Jesus, then 
 the wider history of the Apostles, next the profound epistles, 
 and then the sublime prophesies of the Apocalypse ; each pre- 
 paring the way for its successor, and each adapted to maturer 
 years and a larger knowledge in the reader. You -will find, 
 however, that the mind of a child will be mostly attracted by 
 precisely those parts of the New Testament — the biographical 
 and historical, which contain the *' signs and wonders," and in 
 which it resembles the Old ; such, for example, as the appari- 
 tion of angels, voices from heaven, the mighty works of Jesus, 
 the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of the 
 Son of God. 
 
 Now, if there be truth in these remarks, you see at once, 
 what an important place the Scriptures, both of the Old Testa- 
 ment and the New, hold in the education of our children. As 
 a book of education, no part of the Bible has become, or ever 
 can become obsolete. The whole Bible, from first to last, is 
 inspired of God and wisely arranged, so as to meet the wants 
 of the human mind, in its aspirations after knowledge and 
 happiness, in every stage of its development from infancy to 
 old age. And this is more than can be claimed for any other 
 book in the world. 
 
 We believe the study of the Bible, with all its wonderful 
 history and biography — its kings and statesmen, its women and 
 children, its heroes and sages, its bards and prophets, its patri- 
 archs and apostles, its orators and jurists — to be just as needful 
 
30 GENERAL CHAKAOTERISTICS 
 
 now, in the education of our youth, as it ever was in any former 
 period. We believe the Bible to be a complete and perfect 
 text-book of instruction. We hold it to be, not only the best 
 book which has ever existed, but for all purposes of education, the 
 best which could have been made out of such materials as this 
 world's history has thus far aJ3forded. We have no idea, that 
 any man or set of men, however wise and learned, could now 
 frame, out of all the existing materials in the world outside of 
 the Bible, any book which could be compared with this, in its 
 admirable adaptation, as a book of education, to the youth of 
 all generations and all lands, and which, at the same time, 
 should be none the less adapted to all other periods of human 
 life. No such collectanea could be formed out of all that 
 remains of the classical learning of Greece and Eome. The 
 literature of all modern times, excepting that which has been 
 modelled after the Bible, could not furnish such a compend of 
 universal instruction. This, indeed, is one among the many 
 wondrous characteristics of the Bible — its vast combination of 
 different elements, its amazing comprehensiveness, adapting it 
 to each class and each individual in particular, and to all 
 alike. 
 
 We grant you, there are portions of it which no child can 
 understand ; which no man, no philosopher, can fully under- 
 stand. There are many things in it which we see, as through 
 a glass, darkly ; which we must be content to know only in 
 part ; just as there are many barren rocks, and trackless desert 
 wastes, and vast ice-fields on the earth's surface, whose utility 
 we cannot perceive, and which a modern philosopher would 
 probably have left out, had he been consulted in the making of 
 a world. There is just as little reason to think, that human 
 philosophy would have made the world as it is, or have governed 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 31 
 
 it as it is governed, as that it would hare made just such a 
 Bible as God has given us. In either case, his ways are not as 
 our ways. But is it any impeachment of the Divine wisdom, or 
 proof that the world was not made by God, that we find in it a 
 Scylla and Charybdis, a Cape Hatteras, a frozen ocean, or a 
 Sahara desert ? No more is it an argument against the Divine 
 origin or excellence of the Scriptures, that they contain whole 
 chapters of genealogy, and ceremonial laws, and unknown pro- 
 phecies, which we may not be able to bring within the compass 
 of our views of utility. If there are things in the Bible hard 
 to be understood, deep things of God which have not yet given 
 up their secrets to any human explorer ; things that, from the 
 first, were intended for the reading of future ages ; let us not 
 forget that the same is true of universal nature ; " there are 
 more things in heaven and earth than are known to our phi- 
 losophy." Let us bear in mind that a time is coming, when we 
 shall see, eye to eye, and face to face ; shall know even as we are 
 known. A future day shall bring to light what is now hidden 
 from our vision ; and if not the day of this life, at any rate tho 
 night of death. For both, in material and in spiritual things, 
 it stands true, that " darkness shows us worlds of light we 
 never saw by day." We may rest assured that a Bible without 
 mysteries, and a world without wonders, would be no improve- 
 ment of either, as it regards the great purpose for which they 
 were intended. Our modern rationalist would strike out all 
 that is miraculous in the Bible. He would reject, as fabulous, 
 all the accounts of a world created out of nothing, the origin 
 and unity of our race, the temptation and fall of Adam, the 
 longevity of the" patriarchs, the Ark and Deluge of Xoah, the 
 tower of Babel, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the 
 plagues of Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, the pillar of 
 
33 GENEEAL OHARACTERTSltwS 
 
 cloud and fire, the trumpets of Sinai, the waters of the smitten 
 rock, the burning bush, the manna of the wilderness, the cross- 
 ing of Jordan, the falling of the walls of Jericho, the stopping 
 of the sun, the vision of angels, the fire from heaven, the raising 
 of the dead, the fiery furnace, and the den of lions at Babylon, 
 the fish of Jonah, the translation of Enoch, the ascension of 
 Elijah, the transfiguration and all the stupendous miracles of 
 Christ. But, without these, what would the Bible be, more 
 than any other book, to childhood and youth ? Did God make 
 the Bible, any more than he did this wondrous world before us, 
 only for the accommodation of a few rationalists and infidel 
 philosophers I If all the infidels, who have ever lived, 
 had believed in it, their whole number would be but as a 
 drop in the bucket, compared with the millions upon millions, 
 who have believed in it as it is, without their aid, and despite 
 their opposition. In fact, it is by these very things, that the 
 Bible is so admirably adapted to the young. It is by the 
 attraction of these Divine wonders, that it has gained and held 
 its mastery over the children and the adult population of every 
 civilized country in the world. Truly, " Thy testimonies are 
 wonderful." 
 
 IV. — THE BIBLE IN THE SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 
 
 From all that has been said in favor of the Bible, as a classic, 
 and as a book adapted to childhood and youth, it follows as a legi- 
 timate inference of great practical importance, that it ought, in- 
 variably, to form a part of the regular course "of instruction in 
 all our schools and colleges. In every system of classical, col- 
 legiate education, it ought to be studied in its original tongues, 
 
OF THE BIBLE. J^3 
 
 jtist as our youth study the Greek and Latin authors. We sec 
 no reason why, as models of beauty, or as exercises of mental 
 culture, the language and literature of Rome or of Athens 
 should be preferred to that of Jerusalem. On the single ground 
 of taste and genius, we believe that Moses and the Prophets, 
 in their venerable Hebrew, are fully equal to Homer and Virgil, 
 Herodotus and Livy. And, accordingly, an acquaintance with 
 them in the original, ought to be regarded as an essential part 
 of a liberal, accomplished, collegiate education. 
 
 But the Bible has much wider claims than these. Few com- 
 paratively, can ever study it in its original tongues. Every 
 man, every child at school, may study it in English. And it is 
 chiefly as an English classic, the best and most important in 
 our language, that we advocate its claims. No school ought to 
 be found without the Bible. No course of education ought to 
 be considered complete without it. No individual ought to be 
 regarded as adequately educated without a knowledge of it. 
 If there is any one book which deserves to be held as indispen- 
 sable in every school, and in every course of education, it is the 
 Bible. As an English classic, and a text-book of daily instruc- 
 tion, it ought to hold the same foremost place in all our schools, 
 which we know a part of it did hold as a Hebrew classic, and 
 that by Divine commandment, in all the schools of the Jews* 
 for thousands of years ; and which, indeed it does still hold 
 amongst the remnants of the chosen people throughout the 
 world. 
 
 It is in no spirit of dogmatism, that we set up this claim for 
 the Bible as a book of education at school. Argument could 
 be given, if any argument were needed, except the bare state- 
 ment of the case. Does it require any argument to show that 
 the book, which has caused all our learning, as well as our reli- 
 
 2* 
 
34 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 gion, to differ from that of the Mohammedans, the ancient Pa- 
 gans, and the modern heathen nations, ought to be read in our 
 schools ; that the book which tells us all we know, with cer- 
 tainty, about God and a future state, and gives us the highest 
 sanctions we have, for our morality, our laws, our institutions 
 of marriage, the family and the state, ought to be read and 
 studied at school ? Surely, if argument is to be brought, it 
 would require much argument to show that such a book ought 
 not to be studied there. If ancient history ought to be studied 
 at school, then ought the Bible to be studied, as containing the 
 most ancient, most important, and most interesting history in 
 the world. If the lives of illustrious men ought to be read, 
 then ought this book to be read, with its biography of ilhistri- 
 ous names, extending from Adam to Jesus Christ. If our youth 
 may read at school the great masters of eloquence and poesy, 
 then may they read the Bible there, as containing the sublimest 
 strains of the one, and the most finished specimens of the other, 
 which our race has ever produced. If the elements of all mo- 
 ral and mental science, the principles of virtue and political wis- 
 dom, may be taught at school, then may the Bible be taught, 
 for it is the fountain whence all these have flowed. If religion 
 itself ought to be taught at school, as a legitimate part, and by 
 far the most important part of all education, then ought the 
 Bible to be taught, as being the book of our common Christi- 
 anity, the only true and Divine revelation in the world. 
 
 But, independently of this last consideration, our plea for the 
 Bible as a school-book still stands good. You tell us you do 
 not receive the Bible as the book of your religion ; or, you do 
 not wish your child to learn Christianity at school ; or, that 
 this is a part of instruction which you reserve for yourself. 
 V\"ell, be it so. Aud what then ? Our claim for the Bible as 
 
OF tup: bible. 35 
 
 a school book is still untouched. If you deny the inspiration 
 of God, you cannot deny the inspirations of genius which 
 breathe forth on every page. If you choose to ignore all its 
 evidences as a Divine revelation, you cannot ignore its history, 
 and biography, and morality, and learning, its eloquence and 
 poetry, without, at the same time forfeiting your own claim to 
 be a man of taste, capable of appreciating the sublime and 
 beautiful. If unwilling to have the religion of the Bible taught 
 at school, what objection can you have to its learning and mo- 
 rality ? You cannot wish to exclude from our schools the most 
 effective and beneficial history, biography, literature, and phi- 
 losophy, which the world has ever produced. 
 
 If it could be proved, by an absolute demonstration, that the 
 religion of the Bible is a cunningly devised fable, so that Christ- 
 ianity should henceforth take its place with the mythology of 
 Greece and Rome as an exploded system, still it would remain 
 true as a historical fact, and, indeed the most remarkable fact 
 on that assumption in the world's history, that this book has 
 been more widely known and received by the nations of the 
 the earth, has exerted a more beneficial and enduring influence 
 upon them than any other book, whether of facts or of mytho- 
 logies. And, therefore, both for what it contains in itself, and 
 for what it has done in the world, even as a book of mythology, 
 it would be entitled to take rank, in our schools and colleges, 
 above Homer or Hesiod, Virgil or Ovid. True or false, then, in- 
 spired or uninspired, Divine or human, the Bible deserves to bG 
 studied at school, so long as anything is studied ; so long as 
 men have any interest in knowing, and in causing their children 
 to know, what has been said and done in this world of ours in 
 past ages. Atid we must be permitted here to say, that the 
 child in this Christian land, who is permitted to go through 
 
36 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 all the elegant, fashionable schools of learning, and complete his 
 education without even a reading of the Bible, is chargeable 
 with a degree of ignorance, which, if the book were only human, 
 would be a disgrace to him ; and which, if it be Divine, is both 
 a disgrace and an incalculable injury. 
 
 V. THE BIBLE IN OUR ENGLISH VERSION. 
 
 To all these general considerations in favor of the Bible as 
 the basis of education, there is one more to be added which 
 ought to have special weight with every individual who claims 
 the English as his mother tongue, or loves to read that tongue 
 in its noblest utterances of thought and feeling. It is the cir- 
 cumstance, that we possess a translation of it, which, simply 
 as an English book, is as classical to our language as it is faith- 
 ful and true to the original. This grand old English Bible, now 
 crowned with the honors of nearly two hundred and fifty years, 
 opened evening and morning to kindle the devotions of the mil- 
 lions that speak our tongue, has come down to us with every 
 quality and attribute that could make any book a " well of Eng- 
 lish undefiled." Two centuries and a half of profound biblical 
 study, and of advancing criticism in every walk of science and 
 literature, while revealing some minor inaccuracies as to the let- 
 ter, have brought to light no essential defect or error as to the 
 spirit and tenor of this wonderful version ; on the contrary, 
 they have but served to exalt it the more in the eyes of the 
 scholar, the more to enshrine it in the reverential and admiring 
 affections of the people. 
 
 It is a matter of the very highest importance to Enghsh 
 literature, and it ought to be a cause of profound gratitude to 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 37 
 
 God, that this glorious old version was made precisely when it 
 was, and by just those men who took it in hand. The forty- 
 seven aged, pious, and profoundly learned men, who, after years 
 of united labor, under the direction, but not dictation of King 
 James, published this version in 1611, only completed a work 
 which had been going on for centuries. There had been five 
 preceding translations into English, all of which had prepared 
 the way for this more accurate version under the royal author- 
 ity. The work of translation had, in fact, been commenced by 
 John Wickliffe, the morning star of the Reformation, two hun- 
 dred and fifty years before ; and, in spite of all opposition, both 
 in England and on the continent, it had gone steadily onward 
 through the successive versions of Tyndale, Coverdale, the 
 Geneva Bible, and that of the Bishops, until it reached its 
 memorable consummation in the present translation. The learn- 
 ed John Selden, who was a contemporary of these translators, 
 remarks, that " the English translation of the Bible is the best 
 translation in the world, and gives the sense of the original 
 best." That early opinion has been confirmed by the almost 
 unanimous judgment of posterity ; and, in that judgment, the 
 great body of the church, wherever the English tongue is spokeu, 
 has rested without desiring any further change. 
 
 Now, the glory of this translation, as an English classic, lies 
 in the fact, that having grown with the growth and strengthened 
 with the strength of our mother tongue, it reached its completion 
 precisely at the time when the language itself had attained its 
 noontide of excellence and vigor. The perfection of the one 
 was co-existent with the full maturity of the other ; precisely as 
 it had been with the Greek tongue and the old Septuagint. 
 When our translation was made, the age of Addison, with its 
 polish and graceful diction, had not come. But precisely that 
 
38 GENERAL CHAKACTERISTICS 
 
 age of masculine strength, of graphic diction, of sublime thought, 
 of terse idiomatic expression, had come, which best prepared our 
 language to give utterance to the revelations of God. No 
 period before could have done it so well ; and certainly none 
 since. It is enough to say that it was the age of Lord Bacon 
 and of Shakspeare. The father of the inductive philosophy, 
 and the greatest name in the annals of dramatic literature, were 
 the contemporaries of these translators of the Bible ; and they 
 were soon followed by Milton, Locke, and Sir Isaac Newton. 
 If there are any five names in human history, capable of stamp- 
 ing the seal of immortality upon a nation's literature, they are 
 the five great classic names just mentioned. But it was in the 
 very midst of these and others like them, some going before, and 
 some coming after — it was in the very words, and idioms, and 
 images of power and beauty, wherewith they clothed their own 
 immortal thoughts, that our present translation of the Bible 
 first stood forth complete before the world — at once a product 
 and a monument of the scholarship of that remarkable age. 
 
 It was certainly a most signal illustration of the gracious, 
 over-ruling Providence of God, that the time should be so auspi- 
 cious, and the hands so competent for the accomplishment of so 
 great a work. We behold here a fitness of things precisely 
 akin to that which existed when the Greek language was per- 
 mitted to attain its greatest perfection at home, in the hands of 
 Athenian sages, poets, and orators, and its widest dominion 
 abroad, through the conquests of Alexander the Great, before 
 it became a recipient of the Word of God in the Septuagint 
 translation. Of all times in the history of the Greek tongue 
 that was the best for such a translation. But, speaking after 
 the manner of men, we scarcely can say which was the greater 
 gainer, the Bible or the English language, in having our trans- 
 
/s 
 
 OF THE BIBLE. 39 
 
 lation made when it was. Certainly it was for both, the fittest 
 time that could be chosen in the history of our language. It 
 was undoubtedly an admirable thing for the religion of the Bible, 
 that this robust Anglo-Saxon speech, with all its borrowed 
 Wealth from other tongues, should be suffered first to reach its 
 full maturity of strength and beauty under the guiding hands of 
 such masters as Spenser and Shakspeare, Ben Jonson and Sir 
 Philip Sidney ; and then, before it had lost one jot or tittle of 
 its glory, should be so incorporated and enshrined in the living 
 Word of God, that while the speech lives the book must live, 
 because the book is itself the noblest utterance of the speech. 
 On the other hand, how fortunate for the language itself, and 
 for all English literature, that it should have such a canoniza- 
 tion in the Bible and such a book in which to be canonized ; 
 that the noble, majestic dialect in which Shakspeare and Bacon 
 uttered their thoughts, and which Milton, Locke, and Xewton 
 soon after learned at school, has been perpetuated and immor. 
 talized by being fast-anchored to the oracles of God ! The 
 benefit has thus been mutual ; and it is immense. By means 
 of this inimitable translation, the terse and mighty diction ol 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been transmitted to 
 posterity, and is at this hour the familiar household dialect of 
 the Anglo-Saxon race. But for the English Bible, who can tell 
 us how much of this diction would not now be hopelessly obso- 
 lete ? By means of this book — the only book read and revered 
 by all men — our English language has had the rare good for- 
 tune to daguerreotype itself at the highest perfection, and to 
 transmit the likeness to all generations. For whilst it has be en, 
 and still is, endlessly diversified and enriched by contributions 
 from without, as for example in the word which we have just 
 nsod — a word derived from recent art — still the grand outlines, 
 
40 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 the old idioms, the ground-forms, remain unchanged and in^ 
 violate. By this book they are placed beyond the possibility 
 of deterioration or desuetude. While the language is constantly 
 gaining, it can never lose anything of its original classic power 
 so long as this Bible of its palmiest days is read by the people ; 
 because this book is the connecting link between the present 
 and the past, the spoken and the written language. 
 
 It is the nature and the imperfection of all spoken languages 
 to be perpetually changing. The new is ever crowding out the 
 old, unless there be some influence to counteract it. The words 
 of one century become obsolete in another. Mere change is no 
 improvement, unless while we gain the new we can also retain 
 the old. But this, the English Bible has enabled our language 
 to do in a remarkable degree — to hold fast the old while grasp- 
 ing the new treasure. Like Marshall Ney to the French army, 
 it has been the rear-guard of the grand army of Anglo-Saxon 
 progress. Without retarding its march, it has covered the rear 
 ^vith glory, and prevented loss or damage there. This book, 
 universally read as it is, and must be, by a Protestant people, 
 renders it impossible that words thus enshrined in the daily 
 thoughts of the people should ever grow obsolete. In fact, 
 very few have ever become obsolete ; and even these are in 
 portions seldom read. With these rare exceptions, the Scrip- 
 tures of this authorized version, now, after the lapse of two 
 centuries and a half, are as intelligible to the people as they 
 were at the beginning. And so this version has done for our 
 language, what no other influence under heaven could have 
 ^cxie — it has been an ark of safety which has borne it across 
 the wide abyss of centuries, and is still bearing it gloriously 
 adown the current of ages. As long as this translation stands 
 in its integrity, to be read in the closets and around the family 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 41 
 
 altars of the English race, just so long must the words in which 
 Shakspeare and Milton sang, in which Bacon, Locke, and New- 
 ton expounded the laws of the universe, live as the familiar 
 spoken words of the people. 
 
 Now, in these days of fast progress, there may be some per- 
 sons so fond of novelty, so disposed to ignore or disparage all 
 the greatness of the past, that they can see no advantage in 
 having our classic English perpetuated from generation to gen- 
 eration. But we are not of that number, and trust the reader 
 of these pages is not. There are some things in the world which 
 we love all the better because they are ancient. Of these, reli- 
 gion is one. Literature is another. Like old and tried friends 
 they are not to be cast aside for strangers and upstarts. We 
 would have our children grow up familiar with the massive old 
 dialect of Milton, rather than run the risk of getting something 
 worse by the fancied improvements of the last novel-writer or 
 the morning newspaper. Would it not be a glorious thing even 
 for young Italy, if the descendants of the ancient Eomans had 
 never ceased to speak the dialect of Cicero and Caesar ? Would 
 not modern Greece be a more glorious land to-day, if her gene- 
 rations had preserved inviolate the mother tongue of Plato and 
 Demosthenes ; if there had been some great sacred book of the 
 people to bind the spoken to the written language ? In our 
 estimation, among the manifold advantages flowing from this 
 time-honored, universally-read English Bible, it is far from being 
 the least, that it has stood as an impregnable bulwark for the 
 classic purity of the English tongue, resisting all the encroach- 
 ments of needless innovation and holding it to its ancient land- 
 marks, without hindering its growth or improvement. A similiar 
 influence has been exerted upon the German language by the 
 noble Bible of Luther. 
 
42 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 Doubtless the greatest of all advantages, is the influence 
 which it has everywhere and unceasingly exerted in favor of 
 the high interests of the Protestant religion. This influence 
 has been incalculable ; and it is increasing every day, with the 
 growing age of the book and the ever-widening sphere of its 
 circulation. Dr. Newman, the Papist, though intending it for a 
 difi'erent purpose, has paid a just tribute to the power and ex- 
 cellence of our version in the following profound and beautiful 
 words : " Who shall say, that the uncommon beauty and mar- 
 vellous English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the strong- 
 holds of heresy in this country ? It lives in the ear like a music 
 that can never be forgotten — like the sound of church-bells 
 which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felici- 
 ties often seem to be almost things rather than words. It is 
 part of the national mind, and the anchor of the national seri- 
 ousness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent 
 traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The 
 power of all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its 
 words. It is the representative of his best moments ; and all 
 that there has been about him of soft and gentle, of pure, and 
 penitent, and good, speaks to him forever out of his English 
 Bible. It is his sacred thing which doubt has never dimmed, 
 and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of the 
 land, there is not a Protestant with one spark of religiousness 
 about him, whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon 
 Bible." 
 
 No doubt something might be gained, in the way of correct- 
 ing small inaccuracies, by a new version of the Scriptures. 
 But infinitely more would be lost by destroying that prestige of 
 a long and glorious past which the English Bible now enjoys — hj 
 breaking that peculiar charm both to the ear and the heart 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 43 
 
 which the countless millions of its readers have all felt Tc 
 break up all these hallowed associations, to unsettle the public 
 confidence in that " old family Bible which lies on the stand/' 
 to substitute some new and modernized Bible in its stead, cut 
 and fashioned according to the latest style of criticism — all this, 
 if it could be done, as we think it never can, and hope it never 
 may, would be an unmitigated calamity to the church and 
 the world. It would be to lose all that is precious and impres- 
 sive in the fact, that the sacred book of the people is the great 
 standard classic of the people's literature. It would be to in- 
 cur all that is evil in cutting a nation's literature loose from its 
 ancient moorings, and sending it adrift upon the ocean of end- 
 less change. 
 
 On this point we respond most heartily to the remarks of an 
 eloquent speaker. Dr. Storrs, at a late anniversary of the Amer- 
 ican Bible Society. " This old version," said he, "is hallowed 
 with such memories as scarcely belong to another human work. 
 It stretches back one of its far-reaching roots to the very cell 
 of Bede. It strikes down another beneath the burnt ashes of 
 Wickliffe. It sends another under the funeral pile of Tyndale. 
 It twists another around the stake where Cranmer was burned. 
 Give up this version for a trim and varnished new one ? Nay 
 verily ! Those broad contorted arms have wrestled with the 
 fierce winds of opinion for two hundred years ! The sweet 
 birds of heaven have loved to come and sing among them ; and 
 they sing there still ! Their leaves are leaves of life and heal- 
 ing ! There is not a text pendent upon those boughs but has 
 the stuff of religions and literatures in it ! They have given of 
 their ribbed strength to every enterprise for human welfare ! 
 Give up this version ? It is our American inheritance ! It came 
 over in the Mayflower ! It was brought by Oglethorpe to 
 
44: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 Georgia I It has spread across our land I It has been the joy 
 of generations to sit under its shadow ! It will stand while the 
 hills stand ! We will not give up this oak of the Ages, for any 
 modern tulip tree at present 1" 
 
 VI. THE BIBLE IN THE FOUR GREAT CLASSIC TONGUES. 
 
 It is interesting to trace the history of the Word of God in 
 its connection with the leading languages of civilized man. 
 First, we find it, or the earlier part of it, in its native Hebrew, 
 which was for ages the advanced guard of all human civilization. 
 Next, we have it — the Old Testament nearly three centuries 
 before the advent of Christ, and the New immediately after — 
 in the Greek tongue, which was, for long ages more, the all-con- 
 trolling language of classical antiquity. Then, again, from the 
 days of Jerome, we find it in the imperial world-conquering 
 Latin, which held the mastery in Europe down to the sixteenth 
 century. And now, since the Reformation, which left it in the 
 vernacular of all the great civilized nations of Protestant 
 Europe, we have it above all others, in this unparalleled English, 
 which, to say the least, is the leading language of modern 
 Christendom ; which is doing more than all others put together 
 to spread the true gospel of God, and with it civilization, 
 among the tribes and peoples of the heathen world. 
 
 There have been four great languages, which have succes- 
 sively held the foremost place in transmitting and diffusing civi- 
 lization over the globe — Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English. 
 And it is one of the grandest facts in the history of literature, 
 that the Word of God has held the place of supremacy in each 
 of them, as its sacred canonical book. Assuredly, no other reli- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 45 
 
 gious book — no book whatever — has ever had such a history. 
 If there were no other argument for the book, this fact would 
 be enough — that at the head of these four languages, it has led 
 the march of civilization around the globe. 
 
 Of two of these great Bible-transmitting languages, the 
 second and third, we have seen a vivid portraiture by Coleridge, 
 in the following terms : '' Greek, the shrine of the genius of the 
 old world ; as universal as our race, as individual as ourselves ; 
 of infinite flexibility, of indefatigable strength, with the com- 
 plication and the distinctness of nature herself ; to which 
 nothing was vulgar, from which nothing was excluded ; speak- 
 ing to the oar like Italian, speaking to the mind like English ; 
 with words lil^e pictures ; with words like the gossamer film of 
 the summer ; at once the variety and picturesqueness of Ho- 
 mer, the gloom and the intensity of ^schylus ; not compressed 
 to the closest by Thucydides, not fathomed to the bottom by 
 Plato, not sounding with all its thunders, nor lit up with all its 
 ardors, even under the Promethean touch of Demosthenes ! 
 And Latin, the voice of empire and of war, of law and of 
 the state ; inferior to its half-parent and rival in the embody- 
 ing of passion and in the distinguishing of thought, but equal 
 to it in sustaining the measured march of history, and superior 
 to it in the indignant declamation of moral satire ; stamped 
 with the mark of an imperial and despotizing republic ; rigid 
 in its construction, parsimonious in its synonyms ; reluctantly 
 yielding to the flowery yoke of Horace, although opening glimp- 
 ses of Greek-like splendor in the occasional inspirations of 
 Lucretius ; proved, indeed, to the uttermost by Cicero, and by 
 him found wanting ; yet majestic in its barrenness, instinct with 
 the spirit of nations, and not with the passions of individuals ; 
 breathing the maxims of the world, and not the tenets of the 
 
4:6 GENERAL CHARACTEKI8TICS 
 
 Bchools ; one and uniform in its air and spirit, whether touched 
 by the stern and haughty Sallust, by the open and discursive 
 Livy, by the reserved and thoughtful Tacitus." 
 
 If we might adopt a similar style in order to complete the 
 picture of the four great languages, which have in turn become 
 the depositaries and disseminators of the Word of God, we 
 should describe the first of all, the stately and giant-built He- 
 brew, as the most simple, the most symmetrical, and the most 
 ancient of written tongues ; with letters like blocks of granite, 
 with words like king's palaces, with sentences like cities walled 
 up to heaven ; though robed in the beauties of holiness, yet 
 rugged as the mountains about Jerusalem ; unchangeable in its 
 idiom, unyielding in its structure, unvarying and solemn in its 
 tone, from generation to generation the language of truth and 
 judgment, of adoration and obedience ; spoken first in the gar- 
 den of Eden, or by the builders of Babel, proclaimed from hea- 
 ven at Sinai, and written on tables of stone by the finger of 
 Jehovah ; forever preserving its awful dignity, whether sung 
 by the Seraphim above, or by the choirs of the temple, whether 
 carried to the highest heaven of sublimity by Isaiah, or brought 
 down to play amongst the roses of Sharon and the lilies of the 
 valley by Solomon ; yet destitute alike of the elasticity of the 
 Greek and the martial spirit of the Latin, unfitted to skirmish 
 with the one, or charge with the other, but ever marching with 
 the slow and measured tread of an ancient army of elephants. 
 
 If such be the Hebrew, the tongue of primeval revelation, 
 and Greek, the tongue of unaided genius, and Latin, the 
 tongue of conquest and empire — what shall we say of this last 
 and mightiest stronghold of the Bible — this English of the old 
 world and the new, of all the sciences, and all the arts, and all 
 the encyclopedias — this English, not of the manuscript and 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 47 
 
 cloister, but of the printing press, the telegraph, the steam-car, 
 spreading the light of liberty and salvation around the globe — 
 this English of commerce, of education, of colonization, of the 
 Missionary, the Sunday School and Bible Society — this univer- 
 sal Anglo-American speech, whose dominion is wider and 
 mightier than any king or conqueror could ever boast I Strong 
 in the deep foundations of those old Saxon elements, which 
 underlie it as the mountain granite underlies the surface of the 
 earth ; rich in the accumulated deposits and formations de- 
 rived from the influx and commingling of other languages ; 
 quickened into life and beauty by the constant culture of more 
 than a thousand years ; breathing everywhere tlie energy and 
 lofty spirit of the hardiest, most heroic race on the face of the 
 earth ; combining, all in one, the original grandeur of the He- 
 brew, the gracefulness of the Greek, and the martial might of 
 the Roman tongue ; with matchless ease incorporating into it- 
 self images of beauty and subhmity from every monument of 
 ancient art, from every production of modern genius, from every 
 discovery of science in the earih, the air, the seas and skies — • 
 now in prose, and now in poetry, adjusting itself to the imper- 
 sonation and the utterance of every passion and every concep- 
 tion of man — now bursting forth in stern and awful rebuke from 
 the lips of Cromwell and the men of the Commonwealth, and 
 now singing Hosannas to the pomp and circumstance of royalty 
 in the writers of the Restoration — now, in the thunder-tones of 
 reformers and martyrs, denouncing the wrath of God agiiinst 
 an ungodly world, and now, in strains as sweet as angels use, 
 whispering the gospel of peace to the hearers of Leighton and 
 Flavel, Wesley and Whitfield, Cecil and Newton — now soaring 
 on adventurous wing with the bard of Paradise Lost to the very 
 throne of Deity, and now with the Pilgrim of Bunyan treading 
 
48 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 the narrow, weary way to the celestial city — now revealing to 
 the bard of Avon all the depths of human passion, or painting 
 with colors dipped in heaven every stone, and tree, and shrub, 
 and llower, of this lower world — now like some broad and glori- 
 ous river, flowing grandly through the pages of Addison and John- 
 son, Hume and Gibbon, Burke and Macaulay, and now rushing 
 on with resistless might through those of Chatham and Fox, and 
 Junius — now rising with grace and grandeur to the high themes 
 of Taylor and Tillotson, Baxter and Owen, Howe and Edwards, 
 Chalmers and Eobert Hall, and now sparkling in all the 
 exuberant wit of South and Swift, Sterne and Sidney Smith — 
 now flaming out in the eflfective satire of Butler or Defoe, of 
 Pope or Byron, and now breathing soft music through the mel- 
 lifluous verse of Dryden, Thomson, and Goldsmith^now touch- 
 ing the finest chords of human sympathy and brotherhood in 
 the peculiar dialect of Robert Burns, and now glowing more 
 beautiful than the tints upon a maiden's cheek in all the wonder- 
 ful creations of Walter Scott — now condescending wdth Cowper 
 and Wordsworth to hold familiar converse with the lowliest 
 living thing, and now transcending both the majesty of Cicero 
 and the fire of Demosthenes in Sheridan and Erskine, Grat- 
 tan and Canning, Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster — all, 
 and in all from first to last, this grand old English is the lead- 
 ing language of Christendom, and is destined, ere long, as it 
 makes the circuit of the earth, with our Anglo-American race 
 and our Protestant Bible, to become the classic tongue of 
 every heathen nation precisely as the Greek and Latin did 
 to the nations of Europe. This is its manifest destiny. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 4S 
 
 Til. THE BIBLE AS RELATED TO THE STATE AND ITS SCHOOLS. 
 
 In order to give to this prelimiuary discussion a practical 
 bearing, it will not be out of place to notice here an important 
 subject, which, in many parts of our country, has of late deeply 
 interested the public mind ; we mean the connection of the 
 Bible with the common or public schools. 
 
 We are clear in the conviction, that as the Bible ought to 
 be made the basis of all education in childhood and youth, so 
 the Bible, in some form or other, ought to be used in all schools, 
 whether private or public. If it is right and proper to make 
 the Bible a book of education for any children, or in any school 
 whatever, it would be hard to show why children should be 
 deprived of its benefits by the mere circumstance of being 
 taught in a public school. There is, in fact, no logic by which 
 such a difference can be maintained. Still further, if any Bible 
 is to be used in such a school, this inimitable English Bible is 
 entitled to that distinction. It is of this our distinguished 
 American orator, Fisher Ames, said : '' Should not the Bible 
 regain the place it once held as a school-book ? Its morals 
 are pure, its examples captivating and noble ; and in no other 
 book is there so good English, so pjire and so elegant." Of 
 this, the learned Adam Clark said : " Our translators have not 
 only made a standard translation, but they have made their 
 translation the standard of our language." As such, no school, 
 no process or system of education, can be complete without 
 it. 
 
 It is manifest that the use of the Bible, as a book of educa- 
 tion in these schools, is the thing which has caused such an 
 array of opposition against the common school system in cer- 
 
 3 
 
50 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 tain quarters. But no institution amongst us can be clearer to 
 the hearts of the American people, more deeply enshrined in 
 the precious memories of their forefathers, and more congenial 
 to all their patriotic hopes for the future, than the common 
 school — the school supported bj the common fund of the peo- 
 ple, and open, in common, to all the children of the people. If 
 we have an institution in America, which is essentially and in- 
 tensely American, in its spirit and design, in all its tendencies 
 and results, combining beautifully the three great elements of re- 
 publicanism — liberty, equality, fraternity — that institution is the 
 common school. If there is any one eflQcieut source of influence in 
 our country which is naturally calculated to heal those anti- 
 pathies and animosities, that separate the rich and the poor, to 
 act as a check upon those sectarian jealousies that divide us as 
 Christians, and to break down those distinctions of language 
 and nationality that arise from the different European races 
 composing our population, so as to bind us all together in the 
 bonds of a common brotherhood, it is that influence, of early, 
 universal, and ceaseless operation, which goes out from the com- 
 mon school. We cannot but think that the saddest day which 
 could dawn on this fair land, and these glorious institutions of 
 our fathers, would be that in which our common school educa- 
 tion should cease, and leave the children of America to grow np 
 under the unchecked influence of all those antagonisms of wealth 
 and poverty, of religious sects, of political parties, and of differ- 
 ent races, which now distinguish and curse the nations of Eu- 
 rope. As it is, these bitter waters are, in a manner, healed 
 with us at the fountain-head, by casting the salt of a common 
 education, a common patriotism, and a common Christianity 
 into our common schools. And that healing salt is the Bible. 
 It is the cotnmon school that constitutes the hope and conserv- 
 
OF THE BIBT.E. 51 
 
 ator of our country. And it is the Bible that makes the com- 
 mon school so hopeful and conservatory. 
 
 Now, it seems to us, that we have already pointed out the 
 true ground on which the Bible is to be defended as a text-book 
 of education in every school supported by the state. That 
 ground is, that the Bible has other highly iuiportant claims be- 
 sides those of religion ; claims, too, which fall fully within the 
 province of legislation which rightfully belongs to the state, as 
 a state. The Bible has lessons for the state, and lessons for 
 society, as truly as it has them for the church, and for the in- 
 dividual. Society and the state, as such, can no more set aside 
 those lessons, than can the church and the individual. It is not 
 that the state undertakes to teach religion, when it provides a 
 common education for its children, and, as the best of all guar- 
 anties for ihe education which it needs, introduces the Bible 
 into its common schools. Not at all. But it is that the state 
 has a mission to perform for all its citizens, and a work of edu- 
 cation to do for all its children, which it is bound to attend to, 
 Avhich it can, in no wise, refuse or delegate to another, without 
 repudiating the high obligation laid upon it by the God of na- 
 tions. This high obligation is, to secure for all its children such 
 an education, both intellectual and moral, as shall make them 
 good citizens. Now, intelligence and morality, as all agree, are 
 essential to good citizenship. So that if the state undertakes 
 to teach any thing, it must teach morality. But there is no 
 substantial morality without the sanctions of religion. God 
 and a future state are as truly the basis of all moral as of all 
 religious duties. In teaching morality, therefore, the state must 
 teach religion, so far forth as religion is needful to morality. 
 Hence, the Bible has claims to be taught in schools supported 
 by the state ; just because this book, which contains our rcli- 
 
62 GENERAL CHARACTEKISTICS 
 
 gion, at the same time contains all the sanctions, which give force 
 to moral duties. And the state can no more teach morality 
 aua make good citizens without the Bible, than the church can 
 make Christians without it. 
 
 The book of God is as truly a revelation of morality for the 
 state, as it is a revelation of religion for the church. Short and 
 simple, then, is the chain of reasoning which binds, with all the 
 force of an unanswerable logic, the Bible to the state school. 
 These are its links ; good citizenship is the highest interest of 
 the state ; but there is no good citizenship without a right edu- 
 cation ; there is no right education without morality ; there is 
 no sound morality without religion ; and there is no true religion 
 without the Bible. So, that if the state provides any school at 
 all for its children (and if it does not, it is worse than infidel), 
 and seeks to inculcate that morality, which is as needful as 
 intelligence, to make good citizens, it cannot consfstently exclude 
 the Bible from its schools, any more than it can divorce morality 
 from religion. Clearly, if it is essential to the welfare and to 
 the very existence of the state, that its children should have the 
 right moral training, and if they cannot obtain such training 
 without religion and the Bible, the state is, in duty bound, to 
 take the book along with its religion for the sake of its moral- 
 ity. But why should any state wish to put asunder two things 
 which God hath thus joined together in indissoluble ties ? It 
 cannot be done. Religion and morality go together in the Bible, 
 and they must ever stand in eternal wedlock. We are willing 
 to concede that the great object of the state, in introducing the 
 Bible as a text-book in the common or public school, is not to 
 teach religion, but only morality and intelligence. This is 
 enough for the state. We are willing, nay, we greatly prefer, 
 to leave religion to be taught by its own appropriate officers, 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 53 
 
 in its Divinel^/i appointed schools — the family and the church. 
 We agree that the state, as such, has no mission to teach reli- 
 gion, except so far as it is essential to all good citizenship, by- 
 being the basis of morality, virtue, and good government. To 
 the church and to the famiW, to the ministers of the one and 
 the parents of the other, belongs the great work of teaching the 
 religion of the Bible, as an institution of God, designed to pre- 
 pare men for immortality. The state has nothing to do with 
 the spiritual and immortal interests of man, regarded as a 
 candidate for eternity. But it has much to do, aye, everything 
 to do with his moral, social and political interests, regarded as 
 a citizen, an inhabitant of this world. 
 
 AVhen the state, therefore, provides an education for its 
 children, and places the Bible in their hands as a school-book, 
 it is not to prepare them for eternity. It is simply and exclu- 
 sively to prepare them, as citizens, for the duties of this world ; 
 those duties, too, which no free state, like ours, founded on 
 popular intelligence and virtue, can neglect without infinite 
 peril to its own existence. Here, then, on this plain, palpable 
 distinction, we rest our plea for the Bible, iu the state or public 
 school. Aside from its bearings on our immortal destinies, all 
 experience and history have proved this to be the best book, to 
 secure our temporal interests, to fortify our virtue against all 
 temptation, to foster our love of liberty and social order, to 
 expand our patriotism, to inspire us with a heroic moral courage, 
 to ennoble our sense of honor and personal dignity, to enlarge 
 our intelHgence, and to form, within us, all those habits of 
 industry, economy, sobriety, enterprise, and integrity, which go 
 to make up individual moral character, the wealth of nations, 
 and the bliss of human life. Let the state, if you please, have 
 nothing to do with the child as an immortal being, and with 
 the Bible as a religious system ; our argument for the common 
 
54: GENEEAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 school, as ca state institution, and for the Bible, as its book of 
 instruction, still stands in all its force ; because, as citizens, we 
 can no more dispense with its influence for this world, than we 
 can, as Christians, do without its hopes for the next. 
 
 VIII. THE BIBLE THE PALLADIUM OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 If all this is true of the state in general, with what special 
 force does it apply to our own government, where all sove- 
 reignty is in the hands of the people, and everything depends 
 on popular virtue and intelligence ? In such a government as 
 this, it is impossible to place too high an estimate upon popular 
 education in the common school. There can be no work more 
 important, no interest more precious, no object more worthy of 
 the fostering care of the state, than the education of its children. 
 If legislation is competent to anything, and fit for anything on 
 earth, it is to conserve this interest, and do this work. What- 
 ever else may be done, or left undone, and be the cost of this 
 what it may, no state can neglect it without peril and ultimate 
 ruin. Our people must be educated. The children must have 
 schools. Education is vital to our existence. Our social and 
 political salvation depends on it. Any policy, which overlooks 
 or neglects this, is suicidal to the state's own existence. 
 
 But we are persuaded, that the American people are fully 
 awake to tlie importance of this great work. If there is any- 
 thing, for which they are willing to pay out of their common 
 funds, around which they love to rally as a common standard, 
 and which, as a common heritage bequeathed by their fathers, 
 they are ready to defend to the last, with united hearts and 
 hands, it is education in the common school. 
 
 We are persuaded, that the common school, m a manner the 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 5^ 
 
 germ and nucleus of our free institutions, so early adopted, so 
 universally received, so beneficial in all its results, so congenial 
 to our fundamental laws, and so identified with all the feelings, 
 and habits, of the common people, is the last thing on earth 
 which they would ever consent to surrender. And if any per- 
 sons in our land, misled by their European education and pre- 
 judiceS; and moved by the direction of a foreign hierarchy, have 
 ever imagined, that our admirable common school system, with 
 all its prestige of a glorious origin and a blessed success, could 
 be broken down and supplanted, we have only to say, that they 
 have mistaken the spirit of the times and of the country in 
 which they live. Attempt to break down our common schools ! 
 And who shall attempt it ? No man, endowed with the heart 
 of a patriot, or the wisdom of a statesman, can ever regard 
 such an attempt but with abhorrence and execration. When- 
 ever, wherever, and by whomsoever made, it must and will be 
 covered with a signal and ignominious defeat, as it has been 
 already. Ten thousand voices shall be lifted with indignation 
 against it. 
 
 Tlie American people love a free education, as they love the 
 laud that gave them birth, and will stand by the common school. 
 They will look upon opposition to this cherished institution of 
 their country, from whatever quarter, as sacrilegious and trai- 
 torous to the best interests of the country. Whatever deeds 
 of darkness, and heaven-daring oppression, may be perpetrated 
 in the Old World, the fires of civil and religious liberty are not 
 to be extinguished, nor the progress of civilization arrested, nor 
 the sun-dial of the world reversed, nor the common schools of 
 America sacrificed, at the dictation of any foreign despot, or 
 the interference of any old or new order of Jesuits. No I the 
 sovereign people know their rights, and their mterests, and dare 
 
56 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 maintain them. It was amongst the first lessons of their child- 
 hood, learned at the common school, and from the Bible ; and 
 it will be one of the last which they can ever forget. The com- 
 mon school system must and will stand so long as our people 
 remain worthy of their common ancestry. Sooner may you stop 
 the tranquil but resistless flow of our mighty rivers, or dethrone 
 our monarch mountains from their seats, than break down the 
 common school system of America. By all the lessons of their 
 past history, our countrymen have been taught to look upon 
 their common school system as the great fountain of their 
 national glory, and the most important safeguard of their liber- 
 ties. And even so, what the common school is to the country, 
 the Bible is to the common school — its peculiar glory, its con- 
 servator, its heaven-derived Palladium. But wiser and more 
 cautious than the ancient Trojans, an enlightened people will 
 take care, that no enemy at home or abroad, no domestic traitor 
 or wily foreign foe, shall steal away their Palladium. They 
 will keep the schoolmaster at work in the land ; and they will 
 keep the Bible at work in the school. And they will thus, upon 
 the broad basis of popular intelligence and virtue, build a monu- 
 ment of national glory, which shall stand to the latest posterity ; 
 a monument whose apex shall reach the skies, and whose inscrip- 
 tions all nations shall read and admire — on one side, ''Let there 
 be light," and on the other, "Esto Perpetua." 
 
 Yes, in the American common school system, now adopted 
 and in successful operation in almost every State of our Union, 
 from ocean to ocean, we rejoice, as in a great national institu- 
 tion — one of the earliest, as it is the most hopeful of all our 
 institutions. We cling to it as the richest legacy of our fathers, 
 the most sacred and inalienable birthright of our children. 
 We rejoice, in its past success, its present favor with our people, 
 
OF THE BIBLE. '57 
 
 and its promise of future good. We glory in its republicanism, 
 its nationality, its catholicity, its entire exemption from a nar- 
 row partisan and sectarian character. We love it, because it 
 is thoroughly and intensely American. It is free like the air 
 we breathe, large like the rirers, lakes and mountains where we 
 dwell, radiant with light and bountiful with blessed influences, 
 like the all-surrounding skies that bend in beauty over our land. 
 It suits our country. It suits the genius of our people. They 
 love it, and are willing to pay for its support. There is no tax 
 which they pay so willingly as that for education ; and they 
 would not only submit, but seek to be taxed, even lo a ten-fold 
 degree, rather than give up the common school. 
 
 Most heartily, then, do we rejoice in the decision and unani- 
 mity with which our people, both native and adopted, have 
 risen up in resistance against the recent outrageous attempts, 
 which have been made, in several of our leading States and 
 cities, to divide and segregate to sectaria'n purposes, the com- 
 mon school fund of the country. We cannot too highly ap- 
 plaud the noble sentiments of the Legislature of New York, 
 in their refusal to lift so much as a finger against their common 
 school system, by fractiouizing its funds for the benefit of the 
 Church of Rome or any other church. Truly and nobly do 
 they say : " From its inception down to the present day, in 
 every sta^e of its progress, amid the storm and tempests that 
 have attended the mutations of political parties ; amid the ran- 
 cor of theological controversy, and the heat of religious ex- 
 citements, our common school system has moved quietly and 
 majestically along from the smallest beginnings to its present 
 magnificent proportions, under the guidance of our pure and 
 patriotic statesmen, without participating in, or ministering to, 
 the peculiarities of any party or sect ; its blessings falling upgn 
 
 8* 
 
58 GENERAL CHAItACTEKTSTICS 
 
 the children and the youth of the whole state, like the dew of 
 heaven, upon the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the 
 Catholic and the Protestant, upon every shade of religious and 
 political opinion alike, without prejudice and without partial- 
 ity/' 
 
 IX. THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH OF ROME. 
 
 Now it cannot be concealed, that all this opposition to the 
 Bible in our schools, and to the common school system itself, on 
 account of the Bible, springs from certain peculiar dogmas of 
 the Roman Catholic Church ; which dogmas we hold to be as un- 
 scriptural as they are unreasonable and unpatriotic. We do not 
 intend to discuss them now. But is it not clear to the plainest un- 
 derstanding, that the Church of Rome must feel herself to be in 
 antagonism with the word of God, and condemned by the word 
 God, when she fears to give that word to the people, and with 
 the most persistent determination, seeks to exclude our glorious 
 old common version from the common schools of the country ; 
 nay, to exclude any and every version of it, even from her own 
 children ? If she is not afraid of the light, why does she strive 
 to keep the popular mind in darkness ? If she is not afraid that 
 the " sincere milk of the word " will nourish her children and 
 ours, to thoughts of religious liberty incompatible with her 
 claims, why does she withhold that milk from the lambs of the 
 flock ? If she feels confident of her infallibility and power, and 
 ill that consciousness has so little to fear from Protestantism, 
 why is she in such dread of a free and open Bible ? Why not 
 let the Bible take its way, as hitherto, in this free land ? If 
 she is right, will not a free and open Bible advance her claims 
 the more the people understand it ? If she is wrong, had she 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 69 
 
 not better let the Bible put her right ? If she is afraid that 
 the people will find Protcstanism in our good old English Bible, 
 or even in her Douay Bible, can't she make a Bible, or at least 
 a translation of it, wliich she is not afraid to give to the peo- 
 ple and to her own children ? Half a loaf is better than no 
 bread. The most imperfect translation is better than no Bible ; 
 even as Romanism itself is better than no religion. 
 
 If we could see the Church of Rome circulating any sort of 
 a Bible among the masses of the people, we should hail it as the 
 dawn of a better day. But does not the Church of Rome hold 
 the Bible to be the revealed word of God ? She does ; and 
 claims to be the very channel through which it has come down 
 to us. Why then should a revelation from God be locked up 
 from the people, imbedded forever like a fossil in the rocks ? 
 Admit that the Bible was early given to the Church of Rome 
 as she claims, is it her grand mission to fossilize it under the 
 mountains of her traditions on the plea of safe-keeping ? The 
 pyramids of Egypt might have kept it, in a mummy case, 
 just as well. She might as well contend that God has author 
 ized her to bury the sun, as to hide his word in the way she 
 has done it. Her steadfast unwillingness to let the people have 
 the Bible in their schools, is a demonstration as strong as Holy 
 Writ, that she is in direct antagonism to the will of God, and 
 to the whole letter and spirit of his word. 
 
 But this is not all. The determined opposition to the use of 
 the Bible in the common schools of the country, is not more un 
 scriptural than it is unpatriotic and unreasonable. For what is 
 the object of all this opposition ? The grand end in view, be 
 it observed, is to conserve and promote the peculiar interests of 
 this very peculiar church. To save this ancient church from the 
 damage or tlie danger of being brought face to face with the 
 
60 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 light of God's word in the presence of her children and of all 
 men, so great a price must be paid, so great a sacrifice must be 
 made, as the breaking up of the whole system of a united or com- 
 mon Christian education. Does not the highest interest of the 
 whole country demand such an education ? Yes. And does not 
 every statesman in America feel, that the public weal requires that 
 our children should be brought thus together into one grand uni- 
 versal system of education ? Yes. How unreasonable and unpa- 
 triotic, then, that one particular class of Christians, merely for 
 the sake of promoting their own denominational views, should so 
 far sink their country's well-being as to demand the exclusion of a 
 book, without which there can be no adequate Christian educa- 
 tion, or else the surrender of a system without which there can be 
 no united and general education at all ! Would any Protestant 
 sect thus venture to array its own peculiar ecclesiastical inter- 
 ests in direct antagonism with those of the nation whose protec- 
 tion it enjoys, and whose welfare it is bound to seek ? 
 
 What is the Church of Rome, more than any other church, 
 that she should claim the children of the state as her own ; and 
 not only so, but demand a separate provision out of the public 
 funds for her intensely sectarian and exclusive schools ? Would 
 not such a demand from any Protestant body be resisted as un- 
 reasonable and unpatriotic ? Is there no patriotism in Ameri- 
 can Romanism, no spirit of compromise, no statesmanship, no 
 self-sacrifice on the altar of our common country ? Is the 
 spirit of Lord Baltimore gone from its councils ? Is the illus- 
 trious name of Carroll no longer a watchword for enlarged 
 liberality among its members? Have American Romanists 
 ceased to be patriots by becoming churchmen ? Have they 
 sunk the citizen forever in the ecclesiastic ? Have they adopted 
 the maxim, " Millions for the church, but not a cent for the 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 61 
 
 country ?-' Is Rome everything, America nothing, in their 
 policy ? Have they no common interests with their Protestant 
 fellow-citizens — no broad ground of humanity and religion, 
 where they can stand together to teach morality and good citi- 
 zenship on the basis of the revelation of God ? Why should 
 this extraordinary, and as it seems to us, infatuated devotion to 
 one peculiar form of worship, be made to override every other 
 interest of the country, and every great object which prompts 
 the state to give intelligence and virtue to its children in pub- 
 lic Christian schools ! Can it be possible, that even here, in 
 free, happy America, every lesson of morality, every sentiment 
 of brotherhood, every bond of patriotism, nay, every great 
 fundamental truth of our common Christianity, must be sacri- 
 ficed upon the altar of a fierce fanatical zeal for church propa- 
 gandism ? Is the state nothing, the country nothing, its educa- 
 tional institutions nothing ? Is the church the only institution 
 in the land whose welfare is to be consulted, whose right and 
 title to the child can stand ? And has it come to this, that 
 churchmen have no duties to discharge, no interests to subserve, 
 but ecclesiastical duties and interests ? 
 
 We would not willingly misrepresent the objects and aims of 
 the Church of Rome ; nor would we oppose them with any 
 other weapons than those of truth and reason. But her oppo- 
 sition to the Bible, as the basis of education in this Christian 
 land, and to the common public school system, we hold to be 
 unreasonable, unpatriotic, and anti-American. There is no 
 catholicity in her conduct. For what is she doing ? What is 
 it but to draw an eternal barrier between the children of Pro- 
 testant and Catholic, spiked and defended, from the cradle to 
 the grave, by an exclusive ecclesiastical education ? What is 
 ii, but to pour the waters of sectarianism iuto all the fountains 
 
§$ gp:ne^AL characteristics 
 
 of life, and thus destroy all hope of an enlarged public spirit 
 and patriotism ? It is a fearful responsibility which the Church 
 of Rome has taken, in thus putting herself in antagonism, first 
 with the word of God, and then with the progress of the age, 
 and then with the great educational interest of our country. If 
 this be the temper of the Church of Rome in America — this, 
 the type of her patriotism — this, the character of her influence 
 — this, the end and object of her existence — all men must see 
 that she is utterly out of harmony with the progress of the age, 
 and the spirit of our institutions. As such, she is evidently 
 destined to one of two things — either to lose her influence more 
 and more, or to amend her ways and let the word of God pre- 
 vail. 
 
 But, perhaps you are ready to say, we have forgotten our 
 profession of liberality, and entered the field of controversy. 
 'Tis not so, however. We think it no illiberality to oppose 
 illiberality : and that narrow churchism, which wages war 
 against the Bible and the common school system of our coun- 
 try, it is the duty of all good men to repudiate and denounce. 
 
 These remarks, upon one of the most vital questions of our 
 times, which has already engaged public attention, and will 
 probably engage it still more hereafter, cannot be deemed inap- 
 propriate in our present argument for the Bible. If there is 
 any subject which we have deeply at heart, and on which 
 we would desire to speak out, in a voice to be heard 
 throughout the length and breadth of our land, it is our 
 country's welfare, as connected with the common school and 
 the Bible. We believe that our country's welfare, in all time 
 to come, is bound up in this question. We hold the Bible to 
 be the great light of education, as it is the light of the world ; 
 and education to be the life of our countrv. To exclude the 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 63 
 
 Bible from education, is to exclude the soul from the body, to 
 shut out the sun-light from the world. It is to exclude the word of 
 God from the works of God ; the intelligence and perfection of 
 God from the rational and moral creatures of God. We hold, that 
 as the world now stands, destitute of any other Divine revelation, 
 the Bible is essential to the education of man ; that it is utter- 
 ly impossible for the human race, anywhere, to produce a noble 
 development of genius or character — a really great man — with- 
 out the Bible. However we may explain, or account for the 
 great characters of classical antiquity, it is manifest, that the 
 stamen of humanity in our times is not sufficient of itself — 
 enough of its original force, given at the creation, does not re- 
 main to produce a great nation, or even a single great man, with- 
 out the Bible. It is manifest to every thoughtful student of the 
 past, and close observer of the present, that if the Bible could 
 be obliterated from Christendom, or even suppressed everywhere, 
 as it now is in Papal countries, the human race would speed- 
 ily go back into tliat barbarism from which the Bible has re- 
 claimed it, and now alone saves it. Humanity, as the world 
 now is, must be brought into individual contact with God, be- 
 fore it is capable of receiving anything good, or doing anything 
 great. And without the Bible, no such contact or intercourse be- 
 tween God and man is now possible. 
 
 We stand no, then, for the schools of the country, and for 
 the Bible in the schools, just as we should do if we had no con- 
 nection with any church. We love Zion, and we expect to 
 labor for Zion's welfare. But we love the country also. We 
 have no interests and aims, as Christians, incompatible with the 
 country's common weal. The state is ordained of God as well 
 as the church. The duties, which bind us to the state as citi- 
 zens and as patriots, are sacred, and form an important part 
 
64 GENERAL CHAEACTERISTICS 
 
 of our re.igion. We love and advocate the clmrcli schools of 
 every grade, from the parochial to the theological seminarv. 
 We are friendly, also, to schools supported by private enter- 
 prise. Let all do what they can. There is room enough and 
 work enough for all. 
 
 But we cannot lose sight of the fact, that, with all these in 
 the field, there will still remain millions of children, whom no 
 private, no denominational, and none but a state, or municipal 
 free school, can ever reach. Whilst, therefore, as Christians, 
 we establish, and, with all the resources within our power, sus- 
 tain our own denominational institutions, we have no desire or 
 intention to segregate ourselves or our churches from the com- 
 mon interests of our fellow-citizens, and the common schools of 
 our country. No ; Protestants have a state to cherish as well 
 as a church ; we are citizens and patriots, not less than Christ- 
 ians. With our fellow-Christians of all evangelical orders, we 
 take a wider range, we repudiate that narrow churchism, which 
 walls itself round with a fortress of fanaticism, and wages an 
 implacable war against every interest but its own ; we stand, 
 where we have ever stood — and where our fathers stood — by 
 the country and its institutions — its common school and its 
 
 BIBLE. 
 
 X. CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 And now, as we shall be able to travel with you over the pages 
 of this wonderful book, sketching its deversified scenes and 
 characters, noting its chief points of beauty and sublimity, un- 
 folding its historical, biographical, literary and scientific attrac- 
 tions, we trust you will bear in mind one thing : and that is, we 
 must not expect to understand everything, nor to find everything 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 65' 
 
 beautiful and sublime, any more than we do in the world of 
 nature. The world is worth seeing, and worth travelling over, 
 although it may not be all attractive, or equally instructive. 
 And so it is with the Bible. Let us ponder the striking and 
 appropriate remarks of McCheyne : 
 
 " He would be a sorry student of this world who should forever 
 confine his gaze to the fruitful fields and well-watered gardens 
 of this cultivated earth. He could have no true idea of what 
 the world was, unless he had stood upon the rocks of our moun- 
 tains, and seen the bleak muirs and mosses of our barren land ; 
 unless he had paced the quarter-deck, when the vessel was out of 
 sight of land, and seen the waste of waters without any shore 
 upon the horizon. 
 
 " Just so, he would be a sorry student of the Bible who 
 would not know all that God has inspired ; who would not ex- 
 amine into the most barren chapters, to collect the good for 
 which they were intended ; who would not strive to understand 
 all the bloody battles which are chronicled, that he might find 
 bread out of the eater and honey out of the lion." 
 
 We must also bear in mind another thing, if we would 
 rightly appreciate the Bible ; and that is the remarkable man- 
 ner in which its utterances contain the undeveloped elements of 
 all subsequent progress, even as the nut contains the kernel, or 
 the seed the germ of life. This is one of the clearest marks of 
 its Divine inspiration. There is everywhere a wisdom, wider 
 and deeper than the words seem at first to convey — a wisdom 
 often profound in exact proportion to the simplicity of the 
 words This is strikingly illustrated in all the New Testament 
 writers ; but especially in the words of Clirist, of whom in this, 
 as in all other respects, it was most true, that " never man 
 spake like this man." Says the learned Neander : " Jesus 
 
66 GENERAL CHARAGTEEISTICS 
 
 would not have been Son of God and Son of Man, had not his, 
 words, like his work?, with all their adaption to the circum- 
 stances of the times, contained some things that are inexplicable 
 — had they not borne concealed within them the germ of an 
 infinite development, reserved for future ages to unfold. It is 
 this feature — and all the evangelists concur in their representa 
 tions of it — which distinguishes Christ from all other teach- 
 ers of men. Advance as they may, they can never reach 
 him." 
 
 Indeed this profound, and far-reaching wisdom, which antici- 
 pates all subsequent advancement, and reveals a mind in har- 
 mony with truth and nature, is the truest test by which we can 
 measure the greatness of our fellovv-mcn. Lord Bacon could 
 confidently appeal to the future and calmly commend his writ- 
 ings to the judgment of posterity. John Milton could do the 
 same, not fearing that the world would suffer his immortal verse 
 to die. The sententious wisdom of Shakspeare, not less than his 
 dramatic genius, has made his utterances now for centuries the 
 familiar household words of all who speak the English tongue 
 The same wisdom may be seen in Burke, in Dr. Johnson, in our 
 own Franklin and Webster, indeed in all great thinkers. Liv- 
 ing not alone for one age or generation, they are often in 
 advance of their times, and are enabled so to speak and write 
 that their words become the chosen vehicles of thought for all 
 other men. But, in this respect, how do all the great master, 
 minds of ancient and modern times fall into the background 
 compared with Christ and the sacred writers ! From Socrates 
 and Plato to the present hour, many memorable sayings have 
 been uttered, many eloquent passages recorded, which can never 
 die. But where shall we find words so pregnant with meaning, 
 and so incorporated into the thoughts of other men, as those 
 
OF THB BIBLE. GT 
 
 brief words of the Frayer, the Parables, the Conversations, and 
 the public Discourses, of Jesus Christ ? 
 
 Amongst all the memc/able things spoken by Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, none is, perhaps, more remarkable than the follow- 
 ing tribute to the gospel of Christ, given in a conversation with 
 General Bertrand at St. Helena: "The gospel possesses a 
 secret virtue of indescribable efficacy, a warmth which influences 
 the understanding and softens the heart ; in meditating upon it 
 you feel as you do in contemplating the heavens. The gospel 
 is more than a book ; it is a living thing, active, powerful, 
 overcoming every obstacle in its way. See, upon this table, 
 this book of books (and here the Emperor touched it reve- 
 rently) ; I never cease reading it, and always with new delight. 
 Christ never hesitates, never varies in his instructions, and the 
 least of his assertions is stamped with a sincerity and a depth, 
 which captivate the ignorant and the learned if they give it 
 their attention." 
 
 If such words of praise from the world's most wonderful man 
 be deemed worthy of attention, how much more the words them- 
 selves whose divine attractions he seemed to feel I 
 
68 POETRY AND THE BAUDS 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 POETRY AND THE BARDS OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Nature and Uses of Poetry in the Bible — DiCference between Hebrew Prose and Poetry 
 — Stj'le of Hebrew Poetry, Parallelism — Spirit of Hebrew Poetry— Departments of 
 Hebrew Poetry— Influence of Hebrew Poetry— "Writers of Poetry in the Bible— Tho 
 Seven Greater Bards — The Argument from Poetry— Concluding Remarks. 
 
 I, THE NATURE AND USES OF POETRY IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 To a mind capable of appreciating the sublime and the 
 beautiful, one of the highest literary attractions which the Bible 
 presents, is its poetry. And as all educated persons are pre- 
 sumed to have a taste sufficiently cultivated to admire what is 
 grand or beautiful, both in nature and in art, we could not 
 easily find a theme, in the whole circle of sacred literature, 
 whose announcement ought to be more popular and inviting 
 than this — The Poetry and the Bards of the Bible. 
 
 Poetry is the highest style of human speech ; just as speech 
 is the noblest vehicle of thought and feeling. Poetry is the 
 language of human nature when it has found the sublime and 
 beautiful — and not only found, but felt it, and sought to em- 
 body and express in numbers, those swelling conceptions which 
 are too big for common words. It is the language of the soul, 
 by which it seeks to rise above itself, to hold sympathetic and 
 congenial brotherhood with all that is true and great, all that 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 69 
 
 IS lovely and good in the universe around. It is the utterance 
 of mortal man, when he feels the most immortal — when stand- 
 iDf>' with his feet upon fields of living green, his eyes upon the 
 blue fields of ether, he seeks to tell to his companions, on the 
 earth and in the heavens, what he sees and what he feels — 
 what worlds of joy, what visions of hope. It is the royal 
 speech of high-born genius, striving to make known to others, 
 in " thoughts that breathe and words that burn," its own dis- 
 covery and appreciation of the infinite, the eternal, the Divine. 
 Hence poetry, in its highest style, is ever the language of the 
 emotions and of the imagination — the sublime utterance of the 
 heart's truest best emotions, when quickened into life by the 
 imagination, and borne away on winged words, to find a con- 
 genial home and resting-place with whatsoever is most grand 
 and beautiful in the universe. 
 
 " As imagination bodies forth 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 Turns theni to shapes, and gives to airy nothing, 
 A local habitation and a name." 
 
 So sings the bard of Avon ; and no one ever illustrated more 
 strikingly than himself, the great truth of which he sings. If 
 then, the plastic pen of poesy, thus wielded by the creative 
 power of imagination, can do so much, even for " airy nothing," 
 what, think you, might it not do for the grand realities of life — 
 the substantial, unfading, eternal verities of nature, man and 
 God? 
 
 Is it any wonder that when the Almighty had purposed 
 to make a revelation to his children of things which they 
 did not and could not know without it, of things relating to 
 himself and to the eternal interests of the soul, such as truth 
 
td POETEir ANl) THS BARD8 
 
 and virtue, life and death, heaven and hell, bliss and woe — and 
 when it was determined that this revelation should be delivered 
 by human tongues, recorded in a book and handed down for 
 the reading of all generations to the end of time-^is it any 
 wonder, that holy men of old, speaking as they were moved by 
 t]]e Divine spirit, should speak on such themes in the sublimest 
 language known to man — even the impassioned, universal, 
 imperishable language of poesy ? Indeed it would have been 
 strange, had it been otherwise — strange if the book of God, had 
 not been clothed in the brilliant burning words and images of 
 heaven-born poetry : for if human language in any form is of 
 Divine origin, who can doubt that the art of poetry, at the 
 fountain-head, is Divine ? Accordingly we find this most an- 
 cient of all books full of poetry ; nay more, we find its very 
 prose, where there are no poetic forms or numbers, often im- 
 pregnated with a glowing poetic spirit, and adorned with the 
 drapery of beautiful poetic images. 
 
 If you will examine the Bible by any just criterion as to the 
 nature of prose and poetry, you will soon find that the Old 
 Testament naturally falls under two grand divisions, in regard 
 to its style. The first, embracing all the historical books, and 
 extending from Genesis to the close of Esther, is written in 
 narrative prose, with occasional odes and minor poems, ranging 
 from a verse to a chapter in length, interwoven with the his- 
 tory, like jewels of precious stone in a coronal of gold. The 
 second, reaching from Job to Malachi, and embracing all the 
 writings of Job, David, Solomon and the prophets, is genuine 
 poetry, both in its spirit and its style, with occasional pieces of 
 historical prose, ranging from a verse to a few chapters to 
 length, and interspersed through the whole, like the walks and 
 borders in a garden of flowers— being thrown in for explana- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 71 
 
 tion, as these are for convenience. Thus we have about as much 
 narrative prose sprinkled over the poetical department, as there 
 is of poetry in the historical departmint. And yon will had, upon 
 examination and comparison, that the division of poetry com- 
 prises more than one third of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
 
 As for the New Testament, it is for the most part historical 
 and epistolary. Accordingly it is all written in a prosaic style, 
 with the single exception of the Apocalypse, which being a 
 prophetic and somewhat allegorical book, has all the sentiment 
 and imagery of poetry, without the form of rhythm. The 
 narrative and epistolary parts of the New Testament, however, 
 like the prose division of the Old, are interspersed, though 
 somewhat more sparsely, with occasional odes, and short poetic 
 sentences — '' disjecta membra poetae 1" 
 
 Now, lest any one should doubt the propriety of calling so 
 large a portion of the Bible poetry, let us take a single passage 
 from the prophetical books, as an illustration. Perhaps you 
 have often read the fourth chapter of Jeremiah, without any 
 thought that you were reading poetry. But tell us, what poet 
 ever gave a more fearful and vivid picture of utter desolation, 
 than the prophet has given of the land of Judah in the follow- 
 ing words, taken just as they stand in our English version : 
 
 *• I beheld the earth, and lo ! it was without form and void! 
 
 And the heaven?, and they had no light ! 
 I beheld the mountains, and lo ! they trembled I 
 
 And all the hills moved lightly ! 
 I beheld, and lo ! there was no man ! 
 
 And all the birds of the heavens were fled ! 
 I beheld, and lo ! the fruitful place was a wilderness ! 
 
 And all the cities thereof were broken down 
 At the presence of the Lord 
 And by his fierce anger." 
 
72 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 This is only a small part of the description, but if this is not 
 poetry of the highest order, then where will you find poetry, 
 and what will you say constitutes a title to the name of poetry? 
 You will accordingly find the prophetical books mostly poeti- 
 cal : and even in the historical books, you will find many 
 occasional pieces of true poetry. Do you ask for some examples 
 of these scattered members of the poem — these rare jewels of 
 the coronal ? In the New Testament, the most noted examples 
 are the joyful odes of Elizabeth, Mary, and Zacharias on the 
 occasion of our Saviour's approaching advent, the song of the 
 angels at his birth, and that sublime strain of the. Baptist from 
 the wilderness, which seemed to eclio, as from the long silent 
 harps of the ancient prophets. In the Old Testament, you will 
 find such examples, as David's dirge over Jonathan and Saul, 
 and his lament for Absalom, Deborah's martial hymn of victory, 
 Hannah's beautiful song of thanksgiving for Samuel, the ode 
 of deliverance and triumph at the Red Sea, the farewell address 
 of Moses to Israel on the borders of the promised land. You 
 will find the elements of poetry in such brief phrases as this— 
 " Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands," 
 or this — " Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord ;" or 
 still earlier in such as this—" Let there be light, and there was 
 light." This last, which was pronounced by Longinus, the 
 celebrated critic of Greece, to be one of the finest specimens 
 of the sublime, we may safely claim as the most ancient line of 
 poetry in the world : and certainly we do not know of any 
 modern line, more pregnant with thought or beauty. Well 
 might the patriarch of Uz, long afterwards, respond to this first 
 1 ivine utterance of poesy, as with a kindred spirit, saying — 
 
 " Then the morningstars sang together, 
 And all the sons of God shouted for joy." 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 73 
 
 If you ask, then, why poetry is employed in the Bible, we 
 answer, because it is the natural and congenial language of the 
 grand and glorious truths which it is the purpose of the Bible 
 to reveal to us. We answer furthermore, it is in order to make 
 the book the more attractive. The word of God is clothed in 
 beauty, for the same reason that his works are beautiful. Just 
 as the sky is blue, and the foliage green, and " the light, sweet 
 to the eye," so does the Bible possess a universal and perpetual 
 title to our admiration, by the attractiveness of its Divine 
 poesy. 
 
 II. DIFFEREXCE BETWEEN THE PROSE AND POETRY OF THE 
 
 BIBLE. 
 
 But you may be ready to say, we see no distinction, at least, 
 no marked distinction, between the poetry of the Bible and its 
 prose — it seems to be all alike, all written in the same un- 
 measured prosaic form. You must, however, bear in mind, that 
 it is solely through the medium of a prose translation, we now 
 become acquainted with the poetry of the Bible. Even the few 
 scholars who have read it in the original, had first learned to 
 read it in a prose translation. Our English translators were 
 great scholars, but they were not poets ; and they made no 
 attempt to preserve anything of the poetic rhythm of the original 
 Hebrew. They would probably have failed, had the attempt 
 been made. They might have marred the beauty of the Hebrew 
 muse, and done damage to the exact meaning of the sacred 
 word, in trying to transfer it to a poetic English version. Bnt 
 had they, with all their learning and piety, possessed the poetic 
 genius of Milton or Cowper, or even the nice poetic taste of 
 Herder and Bishop Lowth, our present translation of Job, David 
 
 4 
 
74: POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 Solomon, and the prophets, would doubtless have retained much 
 more of the original spirit and style of poetry. 
 
 Even as it is, notwithstanding the change from an ancient to 
 a modern dress, and from an oriental to a western tongue, it is 
 remarkable, that so much of the original fire of the Hebrew 
 muse should still shine forth everywhere in our admirable prose 
 translation. There is no stronger proof of the indestructible 
 character of the poetry of the Bible, and of its inherent sublim- 
 ity and beauty, than this fact, that through all the disadvan- 
 tages and disguises of a literal prose translation, many passages 
 of the poetical books, and nearly all the Psalms, still retain the 
 spirit, and rhythm, and very music of the bard. Think of read- 
 ing any other book of poetry under these circumstances ; think 
 of reading Homer and Virgil, Milton and Shakspeare reduced 
 down to a plain prose translation in another tongue. Could 
 any other authors in the world, have stood such a disrobing as 
 this — such a transmigration to foreign lands, and investiture in 
 foreign costumes, and have come off half so well as the bards 
 of the Bible have ? Their poems have been translated from a 
 southern to a northern clime, from an eastern to a western 
 world, have lived through all the winters of thirty or forty cen- 
 turies, and though still incased within the uncongenial frame- 
 work of a rigid prose version, are still poems, unsurpassed in 
 power or pathos by any others in the world. 
 
 Why is this ? The reason is plain enough. It is because the 
 living power of Bible poetry was in the thought more than in 
 the outward form ; in the substance of nature more than in the 
 shadow of art ; in the kernel of truth and not in the shell of 
 mere words. It could pass through the crucible of a prose 
 translation, and a strange tongue, undimmed of its fustre, be 
 cause there was a soul in it — a living spirit of truth and beauty 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 75 
 
 in all its words and symbols — the very breath of heaven and 
 inspiration of the Almighty. In all the bards of the Bible, 
 from Moses to David, and from David to John, there was ge- 
 nius, the loftiest flight of sanctified human genius ; but then it 
 must never be forgotten, that in them all there was something 
 more than genius — there was the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 
 Now that every one may see how marked is the distinction, 
 between the poetry of the Bible and its prose, even in our Eng- 
 lish version, let us select an example from the book of Job, 
 which has often been referred to, and which exhibits one of 
 these sudden and striking transitions. The introductory part of 
 the book, contained in its first and second chapters, is written 
 in a plain narrative style and closes with the second verse of 
 the third chapter, in the following words — " So they sat down 
 with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and 
 none spake a word unto him : for they saw that his grief war 
 great. After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day. 
 And Job spake and said :" 
 
 " Let the day perish wherein I was born 
 And the night in which it was said, ' there is a man child conceived. 
 Let that day be darkness : 
 Let not God regard it from above, 
 Neither let the light shine upon it. 
 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it: 
 Let a cloud dwell upon it ; 
 Let the blackness of the day terrify it. 
 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; 
 Let it not be joined unto the days of the year; 
 Let it not come into the number of the monthg. 
 Lo! let that night be solitary ; 
 Let no joyful voice come therein. 
 Let them curse it, that curse the day, 
 "Who are ready to raise up their mourning. 
 
76 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark ; 
 
 Let it look for light, but have none ; 
 
 Neither let it see the dawning of the day. 
 
 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, 
 
 Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes." 
 
 In this passage, down to the point at which Job begins tc 
 speak, the language flows on in simple narrative, as it has done 
 from the opening sentence of the book, never rising above the 
 common prose level ; and no one could ever mistake it for 
 poetry. But when Job speaks, how changed is the style iu 
 which he pours out the bitter anguish of his soul ! Who could 
 ever mistake that remarkable curse for mere prose ? Who, 
 that has a heart, does not feel that there is something in the 
 tone, and sentiment, and imagery and rhythm of these burning 
 words, far above any ordinary prose writing ? If you will ex- 
 amine Herder's translation of the passage, the contrast wil 
 appear still more striking than it does in our version. This, 
 then, is enough to illustrate what kind of poetry the Bible con- 
 tains, and to show how it rises and swells, with great thoughts 
 and great emotions, above the ordinary level of historical nar- 
 rative on the one hand, whilst on the other, there is a play of 
 the imagination in its metaphors, and a stately correspondence 
 and harmony in its sentences, placing it on a different ground 
 altogether from even the most impassioned and eloquent decla- 
 matory prose. It is as far removed from anything that can 
 rightfully be called oratory, as it is from simple narrative. 
 
 Who, for instance, can read a passage like this from the 
 Psalms, without feeling that it is poetry ? — 
 
 " He bowed the heavens also, and came down : 
 And darkness was under his feet. 
 And he rode upon a cherub and did fly : 
 Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. 
 
OF TUE BIBLE. 77 
 
 He made darkness his secret place : 
 
 His pavilion round about him were dark waters 
 
 And thick clouds of the skies. 
 
 At the brightness that was before him his thick ciouas passed, 
 
 Hailstones and coals of fire. 
 
 The Lord also thundered in the heavens, 
 
 And the Highest gave his voice 
 
 Hailstones and coals of fire. 
 
 Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them ; 
 
 And he shot out lightnings and discomfited them. 
 
 Then the channels of the waters were seen, 
 
 The foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, 
 
 Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils." 
 
 Or this : 
 
 ""Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? 
 Or whither shall I flee from tliy presence ? 
 If I ascend up into heaven — Thou art there : 
 If T make my bed in hell — behold Thou art there. 
 If I take tlie wings of the morning, 
 And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: 
 Even there shall thy hand lead me. 
 And thy right hand shall hold me. 
 If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, 
 Even the night shall be light about me. 
 Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee : 
 But the night shineth as the day : 
 The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee." 
 
 Bat perhaps yon are ready to say, " How can there be poetry 
 witliout verse ? and how can this be poetry without so much 
 as the sound of poetry ?" You will say, there are no lofty 
 liexameters here, like Homer's, and Y;ra:irs ; no majestic, measur- 
 ed, tread of the blank verse, like Milton's ; no smooth-sounding 
 rhyme, like Pope's ; no musical jingle of the feet, like the danc- 
 
78 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 ing couplets of Barns and Byron, Moore and Scott. True, 
 indeed ; but as for all that, is there no poetry in Shakspeare ? 
 The objection lies against him in many passages, almost as 
 strongly as it does against the bards of the Bible. You will 
 not always find the regular hexameter and exactly measured 
 blank verse, the tripping rhymes, the nimble feet, and jingling 
 bells of modern poetry in Shakspeare, any more than in the 
 Bible. It is no unusual thing to find him sacrificing the sound 
 for the sake of the sense. But you will find in him, what is 
 much more essential to the existence of true poetry — you will 
 find originality and concentration of thought, the inexhaustible 
 imagery of creative genius, the bright winged words of an elo- 
 quent tongue, and a scul fired with enthusiasm in view of the 
 beauty and grandeur of universal nature. 
 
 And all this you will find in the bards of the Bible. You 
 will find every essential element of genuine poetry. The only 
 element which they appear to lack, is the sound : and to a 
 rightly cultivated ear they do not even lack that. To say there 
 is no poetry in the Bible, because there is no rhyme, no verse 
 nicely measured by six leet of spondees and dactyls, no alter- 
 nate movement of long and sliort syllables, is as absurd as to 
 say there is no music in the roar of Niagara or the ocean, be- 
 cause their waves do not always keep the same time. It is to 
 deny that a man has a soul within him, because he does not hap- 
 pen to be dressed in the fashion of the day. 
 
 Yes, notwithstandmg the absence of everything like our 
 modern versification, there is still in all the Hebrew poetry, as 
 appears even in our prose translation, a regular rhythm of word 
 with word, a studied harmony of thought with thought, a 
 measured movement from line to line, which indicates that it 
 might be, as we know much of it was, set to the music of the 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 79 
 
 instrument and the voice. And this harmony or rhythm, in 
 thought and word, is the first and main criterion by which the 
 poetry of the Bible may be easily distinguished from its prose 
 both in English and in Hebrew. 
 
 III. THE STYLE OF HEBREW POETRY PARAILELISM. 
 
 This brings us to speak of the style, or outward form of 
 Hebrew poetry ; and of its most peculiar and remarkable char- 
 acteristic, which is the parallelism. Parallelism is the harmony 
 or ryhthm, produced by the correspondence of two or more 
 clauses, or members of a passage with each other. It is a cor- 
 responding of two lines, or three, or even four, sometimes by 
 way of resemblance and sometimes of contrast, in which word 
 harmonizes with word, thought with thought, and sentence 
 with sentence ; the one being the complement, or counterpart, 
 or antithesis of the other. Verb answers verb, and noun ans- 
 wers noun — thought replies to thought and feeling to feeling, 
 as the echo to the voice or as deep calling unto deep. This 
 unique, and in many respects admirable, arrangement admits of 
 manifold varieties, and in one form or other, runs through all 
 the poetry of the Bible. The parallelism, however, lies more in 
 the sense than in the sound. In this respect it differs from our 
 English rhyme, which consists more in the sound than the sense. 
 AVith us two lines or more of verse are made to correspond, 
 simply by being cut of equal length, and coupled at the end by 
 syllables which sound alike, almost regardless of the sense. 
 But the Hebrew parallelism is a harmony of much higher order. 
 It is the rhyme of reason. It is the harmony of thought. It 
 iS not the shallow music of symphonious letters ; but the deeper, 
 
80 POETliY AND THE BAUDS 
 
 grander music of symphonious words and sentences and ideas 
 It is not the mere tying of two lines together by a syllable at 
 the end, which may have as little concord, as two of Samson's 
 foxes, when tied together by the tails with a fire-brand between ; 
 but it is the rhyming of whole propositions, the intertwining 
 and intermarrying of idea with idea in indissoluble, harmo- 
 nious, happy bans. As a vehicle of poetry, the parallelism 
 of the Bible, is to our modern rhymes, and indeed to the spon- 
 dees and dactyls of the Greeks and Eomans, what the deep- 
 toned thunder of the organ would be to the whistle of an octave 
 flute. 
 
 Now the several orders of parallelism, embracing as they do 
 almost every sort of correspondence, comparison, contrast, and 
 antithesis, as well as every degree of length from two words to 
 a dozen, are so interchanged in the composition of Hebrew poe- 
 try as to give it an infinite life and variety — relieving it at 
 once from the stiff elephantine tread of our blank verse and 
 from the dull monotony of our rhyme. To use the illustrations 
 of Herder, parallelism may be likened to two strings of pearl, 
 not twisted into a garland, but simply hung up, the one over 
 against the other. In lyric poetry it is like the waves of the sea, 
 wave following upon wave, till all the heart swells with emotion. 
 " In didactic poetry one precept confirms the other as if the 
 father were giving instructions to his son, and the mother re- 
 peating it." 
 
 In order to see with what pliability and life the parallel- 
 ism may be adapted to every variety of subjects from grave to 
 gay, let us take a few examples of an entirely opposite charac- 
 ter. Let us select first a few couplets from the nineteenth 
 Psalm, marking the exact correspondence of the alternate 
 lines. 
 
OF THE BIBLE, 81 
 
 "The heavens declare the glory of God; 
 
 And the firmament showeth his handy work. 
 Day unto day uttereth speech, 
 
 And night unto night showeth knowledge." 
 " The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; 
 
 The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. 
 The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; 
 
 The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. 
 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: 
 The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 
 
 Was there ever a more perfect adaptation of the music of words 
 to the subject-matter of thought than this ? How slow, solemn, 
 majestic is the movement in these lines, befitting the dignity 
 and sacredness of the theme ! The sublime conceptions of the in- 
 spired bard, marching ever onward in heavy parallel columns, 
 seem but to beat in unison with those revolving seasons and or- 
 dinances of heaven, which they essay to celebrate in words of 
 human poesy. We might almost fancy that the " silent music 
 of the spheres " had at last found utterance in the deep rhythm 
 and harmony of these parallelisms. 
 
 But let us now turn to that joyous description of the advent 
 of Spring, in the second chapter of Solomon's Song, to see what 
 this same parallelism can do with a gay and cheerful theme. 
 Let us observe, with what gladsome voice, with what quick and 
 nimble steps, and with what ardent love of the fceautiful, it can 
 move through the gayest scenes of nature. Let us see how 
 easily, in these same double columns, it can pour forth the pas- 
 sions of a loving heart, responsive to everything that breathes 
 of love in the natural world : 
 
 '* My beloved spake, and said unto me. 
 
 Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away 
 4* 
 
82 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 For, lo ! the winter is past, 
 
 The rain is over and gone ; 
 The flowers appear on the earth ; 
 
 The time of the singing of birds is come, 
 And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land ; 
 
 The fig tree putteth forth her green figs. 
 And the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. 
 
 Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. 
 my dove ! that art in the clefts of the rock, 
 
 In the secret places of the stairs, 
 Let me see thy countenance, 
 
 Let me hear thy voice ; 
 For sweet is thy voice, 
 
 And thy countenance is comely." 
 
 One of the most beautiful forms of this parallel poetry, is that 
 which is called the " Keiterative," in which the sense is contin- 
 ued through several lines, gaining strength as it advances, un- 
 til some great truth stands forth in all its proportions. The 
 first verse of the first Psalm is a familiar example of this ; and 
 a still more striking one is that memorable sentence of the 
 wise man, which no young person should ever read without 
 pondering well the fifth commandment — 
 
 " The eye that mocketh at his father, 
 And despiseth to obey his mother. 
 The ravens of the valley shall pick it out, 
 And the young eagles shall eat it." 
 
 Another and still more remarkable form of this poetry is that 
 which has been called the " Introverted," in which the thought 
 works inward and outward in parallel lines, the sense reaching 
 its climax, not at the end of a sentence as in the " Reiterative," 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 83 
 
 but in the middle. Take a short example from the Fifty-first 
 Psalm, instanced by Dr. Kitto. 
 
 " Have mercy upon me, O God, 
 
 According to thy loving kindness, 
 According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies 
 Blot out my transgressions." 
 
 Take a longer example from the hundred and thirty-fifth 
 Psalm as given by the same — 
 
 *' The idols of the heathen are silver and gold 
 The work of men's hands ; 
 They have mouths, but they speak not ; 
 They have eyes, but they see not ; 
 They have ears, but they hear not ; 
 Neither is there any breath in their mouths ; 
 They that make them are hke unto them ; 
 So is every one that trusteth in them." 
 
 This admirable and diversified parallelism, or thought-rhythm, 
 as it is called by the more recent writers, is the most peculiar 
 and indestructible characteristic of Hebrew verse ; and, as is 
 well remarked by Dr. Kitto, " this is a quality which is not 
 lost in translation — is indeed scarcely affected by it, and is man- 
 ifested in a book, designed to be translated into all the Ian. 
 guages of the earth. While the metrical arrangements of the 
 Greeks and Latins, as depending solely on the language, are 
 quite lost by translation into another tongue, the rhythmical 
 structure of the Hebrew poem is unimpared by translation, the 
 most literal rendering of the words preserving but the beauty of 
 their poetic arrangement." 
 
84 POETEY AND THE BAKDS 
 
 IV. THE SPIRIT OF HEBREW POETRY. 
 
 Passing now from the style to the subject-matter of Hebrew 
 poetry, we may notice another of its distinguishing characteris- 
 tics ; and that is its sacreduess. ParalleKsm does not more strongly 
 mark the diction, than an awful unapproachable spirit of holi- 
 ness, the thought and sentiment of all the bards of the Bible on all 
 subjects and on all occasions. This unbending sanctity of purpose 
 ]iervades all their writings, great and small ; they seem to stand 
 always, as in the very presence of Jehovah — the high priests of 
 his temple, the interpreters of his oracles, the minstrels of his 
 glory, the worshippers before his mercy-seat. They seem never 
 to speak but with an inspiration coming down from the eternal 
 throne, and a genius, whose lips have been touched with a live 
 coal from heaven's own altars. Tiie muse of the Bible, in all 
 her strains and in all her flights, has no other purpose, save 
 that of serving God — radoring God. Of him she sings — towards 
 him she aspires — in him she delights : 
 
 " Him first, him last, him midst, and without end." 
 
 She sees and adores God in everything. To her all nature 
 is vocal with God, from the burning seraphim of Heaven, down 
 to the hyssop on the wall and the lily of the valley. He is 
 alike the burden of her simplest and her loftiest song. Her 
 soul was panting after God — the living God, when, with the 
 mother of Samuel and the mother of Jesus, she poured forth 
 her humble but grateful anthems of praise ; and in search of 
 that God, upbox'ne on the wings of imagination, she soared to 
 the highest heavens, with Job and David and Isaiah. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 85 
 
 " She passed the flaming bounds of space and time, 
 The azure throne, the sapphire blaze, 
 "Where angels tremble as they gaze." 
 
 Says Gilfillan, "she has uo atheistic music, like Lucretius, to 
 be played off on the dry bones of a dead and Godless universe." 
 Kor has she any talents angel-bright, like the scliool of Byron 
 and Moore, to prostitute to the low business of filling the world 
 with siren songs of sensuality — the base cravings of a morl)id 
 imagination, and the maniac ravings of unbridled passion. Nor 
 has she any pent-up fires of genius to burn out for naught, like 
 Shelley, E:itting solitary and hopeless on the dismal, wretched, 
 shores of that gulf of chaos and old night into which infidelity 
 and skepticism would like to sink the world. Ah no ! with 
 her all is life — all is beauty — all is hope — all is radiant with 
 glory — all is pregnant with immortality — all is vocal with 
 praise, for God is ever with her, and " God is all in all." 
 
 " It is hardly too much to say," says the author just referred 
 to, " that the poetic genius of the Hebrew race was kindled at 
 the fires of Sinai." Nay, that is hardly enough to say. We 
 may give to Hebrew poesy an earlier origin than Sinai's fires. 
 We may trace her nativity back to the garden of Eden. She 
 is the eldest daughter of human literature. Her genealogy 
 ascends to Divine inspiration. To the language of man, she 
 holds a relation akin to that which Eve held to Adam. Should 
 we impersonate and describe her, as a historical character, her 
 heraldry might be thus recorded : Born amid the bright 
 visions of a new-created world, when the morning stars sang 
 together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy : trained up 
 from infancy in the knowledge of all the wonders of creation, 
 of providence, of prophecy and of miracle ; fed, now on angel's 
 food in the wilderness, and now on the milk and honey of the 
 
8i& POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 promised land ; indoctrinated into the sublime mysteries of 
 that law which God's own finger wrote — she received a nurture 
 and a discipline, such as formed no part of the education of any 
 other national poetic muse. During all her early years, she 
 played familiar with the giants of the earth, and the angels of 
 God. The rainbow of Noah, the Leviathan and Behemoth of 
 Job, the fiery and cloudy pillars of the Exodus, the thunders and 
 lightnings of Sinai, the waters of the Deluge, the Red Sea 
 and the Jordan, the swords of Joshua, and Gideon, the timbrels 
 of Miriam and Deborah, the sun over Gibeon and the moon in 
 the valley of Ajalon — all formed material for her young thoughts. 
 These were her daily meditations, her companions and instruct- 
 ors, until she reached her full orbed maturity of strength and 
 beauty, and sat down upon the throne of David and Solomon, to 
 reign forever as the crowned and unrivalled queen of song. 
 And from that ancient hill of Zion — the highest mount of can- 
 nonized bards — that throne of genius and of inspiration " fast by 
 the oracle of God," she touched her harp — "the harp, the 
 monarch minstrel swept," and sounded forth to heaven and earth 
 a strain of power and beauty which has been reverberating 
 around the globe till David's harp grows mightier than his 
 throne — a strain of glory which the dwellers in the vales and 
 on the mountain-tops of all nations have heard with rapture, or 
 are yet to hear. 
 
 Hebrew poetry is not only the oldest in the world, but from 
 first to last it has been the handmaid of religion. Holiness 
 to the Lord has been impressed on every line of it, and its 
 whole subject-matter impregnated with the hallowed spirit of 
 truth and virtue. " This poetry " says Dr. Kitto, " is one of 
 the many utterances of that which was unique in itself, and 
 peculiar to ancient Israel. And just as all the noblest powers 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 87 
 
 and contests of this chosen people, were cliiefly directed to the 
 one object of striving for the true God and the true religion, in 
 like manner, their poetry also had no other way of becoming 
 great and unique, than in this sole tendency to the sublime, nor 
 to develop all its powers except in this movement after God. 
 Ancient Hebrew poetry remained, as to its main essence an in- 
 terpreter of those high thoughts and sublime conceptions which 
 never in antiquity excercised such an influence anywhere else." 
 On this point, Gilfillan, in his "Bards of the Bible," makes 
 the following appropriate remarks — "The Hebrew poet was 
 nothing if not sacred. To him the poetical and the religious 
 were almost the same. Song was the form instinctively assumed 
 by all the higher moods of his worship. He was not surprised 
 into religious emotion and poetry by the influence of circum- 
 stances, nor stung into it by the pressure of remorse. He was 
 not religious only when the organ was playing, nor most so, 
 like Burns and Byron, on a sunshiny day. Religion was with 
 him a habitual feeling, and from the joy or the agony of that 
 feeling poetry broke out irrepressibly. To him, the question, 
 " Arc you in a religious mood to-day V had been as absurd as 
 'Are you alive to-day V for all his moods, whether high as hea- 
 ven, or low as hell, whether wretched as the penitence of David, 
 or triumphant as tlie rapture of Isaiah, were tinged with the 
 religious element. From God he sank, or up to God he soared. 
 The grand theocracy around ruled all the soul, and all the song 
 of the Bard. Wherever he stood, under the silent starry 
 canopy, or in the congregation of the faithful, musing in solitary 
 spots, or smiting with rebounding hand the loud cymbal, his 
 feeling was — ' How dreadful is this place ! this is none other 
 but the house of God, and this the very gate of heaven I' 
 Hence the sacred song of the Hebrews stands alone : and hence 
 
'S8 POETEY AND THE BAEDS 
 
 we may draw the deduction, that its equal we shall never see 
 again, till again religion enshrine the earth as it once enshrined 
 the Holy Land." 
 
 V. DEPARTMENTS OF HEBREW POETRY. 
 
 But from these two chief characteristics of the Poetry of the 
 Bible — the one relating to its style or diction and the other to 
 its spirit and subject-matter, let us now pass on, to speak of its 
 several forms or departments. All poetry may be comprised 
 under four grand divisions, leaving out of view for the present 
 many subdivisions. And each of these four divisions, though 
 in very unequal proportions, is represented in the Bible. 
 
 The first, which is also the earliest in the order of time, is 
 the Lyric : that is, poetry to be sung or played, for the most 
 part expressive of the emotions and passions, and adapted to 
 the music of instrument or voice. This includes the varied 
 forms of ballad, ode, hymn and chorus. Anacreon and Sappho 
 among the Greeks, Horace among the Latins, and Burns in 
 modern times, excelled in this department. 
 
 The second class is the Dramatic : that is, poetry represent- 
 ing human life in all its phases, and accommodated to action — • 
 poetry not to be sung or played, but to be acted out as a pic- 
 ture of real life. In this department we have Sophocles and 
 Euripides in Greek : but Shakspeare is the most distinguished 
 example in the annals of literature. 
 
 The third kind is the Didactic or Proverbial : that is, poetry 
 of a sententious and preceptive cast, addressed to the feelings 
 chiefly through the judgment, and intended to convey instruc- 
 tion to the mind: as,- for example, in Young's " Night Thoughts." 
 This class includes all descriptive poetry, not comprised in the 
 
OF THE BIBLE. ^ 
 
 other divisions : such as Cowper's " Task " and Thomson's 
 " Seasons." 
 
 The fourth division is the Epic or Heroic poem, which nar- 
 rates or recites, in elevated style, a continuous series of events 
 or actions, true or fictitious, historical or imaginary, in such a 
 manner as to teach some great moral, or celebrate some august 
 personage: as, for instance, the "Iliad" of Homer, the 
 "^neid" of Virgil, the "Jerusalem Delivered" of Tasso, the 
 '* Divina Commedia " of Dante and the " Paradise Lost " of Milton. 
 
 Now, the bards of the Bible have surpassed all others, in at 
 least two of these departments — the Lyric and the Didactic : 
 the Lyric as represented in the book of Psalms, and the Didactic 
 as represented in the book of Proverbs. And in descriptive 
 didactic poetry, we might regard Job, Isaiah, and the prophets 
 generally, as standing at the head of the list, if they did not fall 
 more naturally under other departments. It must be conceded, 
 that there is nothing in ancient or modern literature, which, for 
 proverbial, sententious wisdom, and deep insight into human 
 character, can be put in comparison with the poetry of Solomon. 
 And as for description, where will you find any description of 
 the works of God or man — any portraying of the scenery of the 
 heavens and the earth, which can equal the bold, life-like pic- 
 tures of Ezekiel, Isaiah and Job. At the distance of twenty or 
 thirty centuries, these still sliine through the night of past ages, 
 as stars of the first magnitude. Upon a canvas, whose back- 
 ground envelops in a cloud of oblivion all contemporaneous 
 products of uninspired genius, these grand delineations of the 
 patriarch of Uz still stand out in all their original briglitness 
 and beauty, as if they had been painted with the pencil of the 
 sunlight, from " colors dipped in heaven." 
 
 But it is in the department of Lyric poetry, that the Hebrew 
 
90 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 muse attains her highest triumphs, and stands to this day with- 
 out a rival in the history of literature. Whether we regard the 
 Psalms as national ballads, designed to inspire the Jewish peo- 
 ple with patriotic enthusiasm, and the love of glory, or view 
 them as religious odes adapted to raise the devotions of the 
 nation in holy gratitude to the God of their fathers — in either 
 case they stand confessedly unequalled, unapproached by the 
 odes or ballads of any other age or nation. In the chaste and 
 simple grandeur of their diction and imagery, in the mingled 
 sublimity and pathos of their sentiment, in the stern and imma- 
 culate purity of their moral tone, in the deep, abiding impres- 
 sion which they made upon the whole Israelitish mind through 
 centuries of prosperity and adversity, and in the untold 
 influence which they have exercised over every nation of the 
 civilized world down to the present day, they never had any 
 fair competitor, much less any equal. 
 
 In the other two departments of poetry — the Dramatic and 
 the Epic — it is aclinowledged, that the bards of the Bible have 
 not given us the same finished models. The composition of the 
 Drama and the Epic, requiring more art and invention than 
 the others, was uncongenial to the truth-loving spirit of Hebrew 
 poesy. In these, the muses of Greece and Rome and all the 
 great modern nations attained their highest flight and sung their 
 noblest, sweetest song. But the muse of the Bible, being at 
 once the early expounder of nature, when she appeared " unin- 
 debted to the tricks of art," and the inspired oracle of God to 
 teach man wisdom, chose the ballad and the proverb, as her 
 most appropriate vehicles : and accordingly we find no great 
 Epic, like Milton's, nor finished Dramas, like Shakspeare's. 
 
 The fictitious history or novel, which constitutes the basis of 
 the great Epic, and the stage, with all its cumbrous artistic 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 91 
 
 machinerv, constitating the basis of the Drama, were things 
 unknown among the Jews, until they were borrowed from the 
 Romans, and introduced by that half pagan, Herod the Great. 
 The muse of Hebrew poesy was always too truthful and holy to 
 introduce anything like the stage, or anything nearer the novel 
 than a simple parable or allegory 
 
 Still there is one important consideration, in reference to this 
 point, which must not be overlooked. Though the Bible con- 
 tains no great epic, like the " Iliad," and no great drama, like 
 " King Lear " or " Hamlet," still it contains much noble poetry 
 of an Epic and Dramatic character. It is full of the germs — 
 the seed-thoughts of great epics and dramas. It gives us short 
 epics, which recite a true history and delineate a real hero. It 
 sets before us sublime dramas, written for no stage but the 
 stage of real life, and arranged for the scenery of no theatre, 
 but the grand theatre of heaven and earth and hell. 
 
 For example, it is generally agreed amongst Bible critics, 
 that the " Canticles," or " Song of Solomon," whilst it has all 
 the elements of a lyric and pastoral poem, is also a drama, com- 
 plete even to the chorus, in all its parts, and intended to 
 represent vividly the relation between Christ and his beauteous 
 Bride the Church, under the imagery of a recently married 
 husband and wife. As to the poetical character of the book 
 of Job, there has been a diversity of opinions among eminent 
 judges. It is said that Daniel Webster regarded it as an 
 epic — the most magnificient to be found in human literature. 
 But the most commonly received opinion, amongBiblical scholars, 
 is, that it is more of a drama than an epic. Whilst it is in 
 many respects a didactic descriptive poem, and whilst it con- 
 tains many of the essential elements of an epic poem, it seems 
 to be more accurately described as a historical drama — the 
 
92 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 oldest and the sublimest ever written, embracing a panoram? 
 of universal nature, material and spiritual, animate and inani- 
 mate, ranging from arch-angel fallen to the Deity, and contain- 
 ing a grand dialogue between Satan, Man and God, whose 
 scenes are laid alternately in heaven and earth, whose denoue- 
 ment is the vindication of the patriarch by the intervention of 
 Jehovah, and whose great moral design is to " assert eternal 
 Providence, and justify the ways of God to men." 
 
 Be this as it may ; Miriam's song at the Red Sea, and Debo- 
 rah's war-song, contain as in a nutshell the elements of epic 
 poems, recounting real and heroic deeds. Moses' Farewell to 
 Israel is another and longer epic, and might be expanded even 
 now into a grand national epic, far more wonderful and glorious 
 than the ^aeii of Virgil. Many of the Psalms, in imitation of 
 this address, are little epic poems, celebrating the mighty acts 
 of Jehovah, wlien he led his people through the waters and the 
 wilderness. And what shall we say of the later prophecies of 
 Isaiah, running from the fortieth chapter to the end of the book 
 in one unbrokenand exalted strain? What shall we call this, 
 but one grand prophetic epic, whose suffering but conquering hero 
 is the Messiah of Israel, whose story is the ever onward progress 
 of Christianity, and whose sublime moral climax is the millen- 
 nial glory of a world, redeemed, purified, and prepared for God ? 
 
 ^ VI. THE INFLUENCE OF HEBREW POETRY. 
 
 If, however, we would do full justice to the Poetry of the 
 Bible, we must measure it, not merely by what it has done 
 directly itself, but by what it has enabled others to do ; we 
 must take into consideration not only its own finished produc- 
 tions, but also the materials it has furnished, and the vast 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 93 
 
 influence it has thus exerted upon the productions of the 
 world's genius, whose fires, for two thousand years, have been 
 kindled at its altars. The Bible, as we have seen, not only 
 contains the highest models of lyric and didactic poetry, and 
 also no mean spechnens both of dramatic and epic poetry; but, 
 what is most important to observe, it has furnished the mate- 
 rial, of fact, of sentiment and of doctrine, out of which the 
 greatest epic poems of modern times have been framed. Their 
 seed thoughts, their characters, their imagery, their illustrations, 
 their grand moral, their religious basis, their whole conception, 
 have been borrowed from, or suggested by the Bible. In what- 
 ever the moderns have differed from, or excelled the ancients 
 in poetry, it is the Bible that has helped them to the distinc- 
 tion and enabled them -to achieve the victory. If you 
 could take out of the literature of modern nations, all 
 that the Bible has put into it, there would not be a shred 
 of glory left, on which to claim preeminence over clas- 
 sical antiquity. And the same is true of our science, our 
 religion, and civilization, as well as our poetry. If then Dante, 
 and Tasso, and Milton have written grander epics than Moses, 
 David, and Isaiah, it is by the help of the materials which the 
 Bible has put into their hands, that they have thus been able 
 to surpass the Bible, whilst they surpass the ancient classical 
 authors. Thus fostered by the Bible, they may virtually be 
 claimed as bards of the Bible. Who would ever have heard of 
 "Paradise Lost" or " Paradise Regained," had there been no 
 Bible ? Where else could Milton's muse have found such food 
 for thought, and such themes for inspiration ? And what are 
 these poems, after all, but a reproduction, and a Hberal para- 
 phrase, and a new translation of the Bible, couched ia 
 harmonious immortal numbers ? 
 
94: POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 Some critics have entertained the opinion, that there can 
 never be another great epic poem written : never shall another 
 Homer or another Milton sing, because all original themes are 
 exhausted, and all heroic materials used up. We are inclined to 
 think otherwise. Far down the course of time, it may be, in 
 the golden age of millennial glory, when the knowledge of the 
 Lord shall fill the world, and all nations walk in the light of 
 his countenance, when the mysteries of the past shall have been 
 solved, and all the ways of providence fully vindicated, then 
 shall the last grand epic of Redemption be sung in sweeter and 
 sublimer strains than any that have yet been heard. But mark 
 it now, and write it as a memorial for the future ; whenever 
 that day of glory shall dawn upon the earth — whenever that 
 loftier Milton shall arise, and that diviner minstrel than he of 
 Chios, shall tune his harp for the last great effort of poetic genius, 
 it will be this Bible which shall inspire his muse, and furnish 
 both the material and the moral of his song. 
 
 It has been said that, " Homer gave a mythology to antiquity^ 
 and the fine arts to all the modern nations," so that, for nearly 
 three thousand years, the world has only been borrowing from 
 his pages, as the great storehouse of genius. In like manner 
 the Bible has given to the world a religion, and along with that 
 religion, an inexhaustible treasury of historic fact, of poetic 
 imagery, and of sublime conception, which the great masters of 
 all ages have been expanding and reproducing, with endless 
 variety, in every walk of art and literature. Says an eminent 
 scholar, in " Kitto's Cyclopaedia :" " Of all intellectual, literary, 
 and moral treasures, the Bible is incomparably the richest. 
 Even for those forms of poetry in which it is defective, it pre- 
 sents the richest materials. Moses, has not, as some have 
 dreamed, left us an epic poem : but he has supplied the mate- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 95 
 
 rials, out of which the " Paradise Lost " was created. Milton's 
 sternly sublime drama of " Samson Agonistes," is constructed 
 from a few materials found in a chapter or two, which relate 
 to the least cultivated period of the Hebrew Republic. Indeed 
 most of the great poets, even of modern days, from Tasso down 
 to Byron ; all the great musicians and nearly all the great paint- 
 ers, have drawn their best and highest inspirations from the 
 Bible. This is a fact, as creditable to religion as it is impor- 
 tant to literature, of which he who is fully aware will not 
 easily be turned aside from faith to infidelity, by the shallow 
 sarcasms of a Voltaire, or the low ribaldry of a Paine. That 
 book, which has led civilization, and formed the noblest minds 
 of our race, is not destined to be disowned for a few real or 
 apparent chronological inaccuracies ; or because it presents states 
 of society and modes of thought, the very existence of which, 
 however half-witted unbelief may object, is the best pledge of 
 its reality and truth." 
 
 Dr. Spring, in his " Obligations of the World to the Bible," 
 has some admirable remarks on the same point : " There is 
 not a finer character, nor a finer description in all the works 
 of Walter Scott, than that of Rebekah in Ivanhoe. And who 
 does not see, that it owes its excellence to the Bible ? Shak- 
 speare, Byron and Southey are not a little indebted for some 
 of their best scenes and inspirations to the same source." And 
 then he goes on to point out the parallels, between Macbeth and 
 Ahab, Lady Macbeth and Jezebel, Jeremiah's Lamentations 
 over Jerusalem and Byron's apostrophe to Rome as the Niobe of 
 nations, his ode to Napoleon, and Isaiah's ode on the fall of the 
 King of Babylon ; and other parallels, showing how greatly 
 even profane and sometimes unbelieving writers are indebted to 
 the book of God. 
 
96 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 VII. — THE WRITERS OF HEBREW POETRY. 
 
 But it is time for us to pass to another topic. From these 
 several departments of Hebrew poesy — lyric, didactic, drama- 
 tic, and epic — containing either finished poems, or the materials 
 for great poems of each class, let us turn now to take a brief 
 survey of its several authors — the bards themselves. Thus 
 shall we have at one view the whole field of Bible poetry, in its 
 style, sentiment, influence, subjects, forms and authors. 
 
 The whole number of persons mentioned in the Bible, as 
 having- written or spoken in poetry of their own composition, and 
 therefore entitled to the name of bard, is about thirty. Of these 
 the great majority are the authors of short odes, or occasion- 
 al pieces, minor poems and prophecies. The distinguished bards 
 of the Bible however, that give character to its poetry and tower 
 above all their compeers, by the length and dignity of their 
 productions, are the seven following : Moses, Job, David, Solo- 
 man, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. For although Moses 
 did not write much poetry — indeed not so much as some of the 
 minor prophets, yet, as he stood for many generations, almost 
 the only bard of Israel, he deserves a place amongst the distin- 
 guished seven. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed, that those whom we here 
 rank as the less distinguished, are at all inferior in poetic ge- 
 nius to the others. So far from it are they, that we find not un- 
 frequently in these little poems, or fragments of poems, passages 
 of sublimity, power and pathos, equal to anything in the Bible 
 Such for , example, are some of the Psalms of Asaj^h, such are 
 many parts of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Nahum and Micah. Such 
 
OK THE BIBLE. 97 
 
 especially are the war-song of Deborah and the awfully sublime 
 prayer or ode of Habakkuk. 
 
 Let us pause a moment to consider these two, as specimens 
 from the minor poets. In Deborah, the martial spirit of the 
 Hebrew race seems to have found its second grand utterance in 
 song ; that of Moses at the Eed Sea being the first. Never 
 did the female heart in any land or in any age, burn with 
 brighter and fiercer fires of patriotic enthusiasm and religious 
 devotion. She was the very incarnation of the heroic spirit- 
 The famous Marseilles Hymn of Liberty sounds dull and tame, 
 placed beside the trumpet-tongued notes of her song. With an 
 epic and a tragic power, w^hich in its condensation almost defies 
 comparison, she sets the battle in array before us, as though we 
 heard the tramping of its mighty hosts, and mingled in all its 
 din and fury. In recounting this triumph of Jehovah over the 
 enemies of her country, she summons all creation, not only to 
 share in the shouts of victory, but to rush into the thickest of 
 the fight, as if the " curse of Meroz " should rest upon every 
 soul that refused to take part in the conflict. 
 
 As the poem opens, we seem to hear the very w^atchword and 
 battle-cry of the advancing array, in the apostrophic words : — 
 
 " Arouse thee ! arouse thee ! Deborah ! 
 Awake ! awake ! give a song of triumph ! 
 Arise, Barak ! and lead thy captivity captive, 
 Thou son of Abinoam !" 
 
 And then suddenly, princes and people, governors and nobles, 
 horses and mighty ones, tribe after tribe in successive onsets, 
 rush to the high places of the field, " to the help of the Lord, 
 the help of the Lord against the mighty." Inanimate nature 
 seems to participate in the contest. " The stars in their courses 
 
 5 
 
98 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 figlit from heaven against Sisera." " The river Kishon, that, 
 ancient river, Kishon sweeps them away," as it bears down the 
 invaders of Israel in carnage to the sea : whilst above the 
 din and conflict of the conquering and the flying hosts, we seem 
 to hear the voice of the heroic prophet-bard, who had herself 
 been the chief human agent in raising all this storm, crying—" 
 my soul I thou hast trodden down strength !" 
 
 What is Campbell's '' Hohenlinden," or Scott's "Flodden 
 Field " or any battle scene, of equal length, in Homer and Vir- 
 gil, compared with this impassioned dramatic description ? And 
 yet perhaps there are many readers and admirers of fine poetry, 
 who have not discovered that there is any sublime poetry in 
 the Bible. Now if you will study carefully the fifth chapter of 
 the Book of Judges, with the aid of all the translations you 
 can find, you may come to the conclusion, that there is not, in 
 the works of literature, so far as you have explored them, a 
 single martial ode equal to Deborah's. 
 
 In the book of Habakkuk we have another ode equally 
 sublime, but of an entirely different character. It is a prayer, 
 and at the same time a descriptive ode of very peculiar charac- 
 ter. It represents Jehovah as seen in history. It describes 
 the God of providence, as a conquering hero, ever marching 
 onward, with invincible power, through the whole cycle of 
 Jewish history, from the promulgation of the law at Mount 
 Sinai, to the prophet's own times. Consequently its materials 
 of facts and imagery are derived, not from any particular event 
 or date, but from the events of some thousand years. The 
 historic bard looks out from his lonely watch-tower — he lifts 
 his heart to heaven in holy midnight meditations — he casts his 
 thoughts back into the shadowy distance of the past — he 
 groups together the prominent signs and wonders of a thousand 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 99 
 
 years — with quiTeriDg fingers he sweeps every chord known to 
 the diapason of David's harp, and prepares for his last grand 
 anthem to Jehovah's glory. Imagine, if you can, a staff and a 
 scale, and an anthem, whose key-note should be the deep heaving 
 voice of the sea, whose tenor the unceasing roar of the thunder, 
 whose bass the rumbling earthquake, whose harmonious move- 
 ment the music of the spheres, while the whirlwind and the 
 cataract, the volcano and the waterspout swell the mighty 
 chorus — and you have the only adequate musical expression for 
 the prophet's words and emotions in the following inspired and 
 awe-inspiring ode, which we give in our common version, 
 except in a few lines taken from Herder's translation : 
 
 God came from Teman, 
 
 And the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. 
 
 His glory covered the heavens, 
 
 And the earth was full of his praise. 
 
 His brightness was like the sun, 
 
 And from his hand the rays shot forth ; 
 
 And there was the hiding of his power. 
 
 Before him went the pestilence, 
 
 And burning coals went forth at his feet. 
 
 He stood, and measured the earth ; 
 
 He beheld, and drove asunder the nations ; 
 
 And the everlasting mountains were scattered ; 
 
 The perpetual hills did bow ; 
 
 His ways are everlasting. 
 
 I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction ; 
 
 The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. 
 
 "Was the Lord displeased against the rivers ? 
 
 Was thine anger against the rivers ? 
 
 Was thy wrath against the sea ? 
 
 That thou didst ride upon thy horses, 
 
 And thv chariots of salvation? 
 
IOC POETRY AND THE BAKD8 
 
 Thou (Irewest forth thy bow 
 Multiplying seven-fold thine arrows. Selah. 
 Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. 
 The mountains saw thee, and they trembled ; 
 The overflowing of the waters passed by ; 
 The deep uttered his voice, 
 And lifted up his hands on high. 
 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation ; 
 At the light of thine arrows they went, 
 And at tlie shining of thy glittering spear. 
 Thou didst march through the land in indignation. 
 Thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. 
 Thou Aventcst forth for the salvation of thy people, 
 Even for salvation with thine anointed. 
 Thou didst smite the top from the house of the wicked, 
 And lay bare the foundation even to the rock. Selah. 
 Thou piercedst the head of the lea,der of their ranks. 
 They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me; 
 Their rejoicing was to devour the poor secretly. 
 Thou didst walk through the sea with thy horses, 
 Through the heap of great waters." 
 
 What is Gray's " Elegy," or Pope's " Universal Hymn,'^ or 
 Coleridge's sunrise hymn in the vale of Chamouny, sublime as it 
 is, compared with this ? Each sentence here is a picture to be 
 studied. Each line is a new door for the imagination, opening 
 into the third heavens of sublimity. You may search the 
 annals of literature, ancient and modern, and if you can find 
 anything in the same compass, equal to the splendid imagery 
 and majestic movement of this divine ode, we will acknowledge; 
 for the first time, that the Bible is not the highest standard of 
 taste and genius, and of the divine art of poesy. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 101 
 
 VIII. THE SEVEN GREATER BARDS Or" THE BIBLE 
 
 But if the superioity of the Bible can be maintained with 
 regard to these, its minor bards, what shall we say of those 
 immortal seven who have been called the "giant angels of 
 Hebrew song ?" We cannot speak of all of them now, nor of any 
 of them at much length. Of three out of the seven, however, 
 we must give a brief and passing sketch for the completeness of 
 our subject. These are Moses, Job, and David. The other 
 four, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, will come before 
 ns, hereafter, in other relations. 
 
 To Moses belongs the authorship of three magnificent 
 poems — and these almost the earliest products of the poetic 
 muse. His fame, as the first of historians, is entwined with 
 the graceful garlands of virgin poesy. The first is that " Psalm 
 of Moses, the man of God," on the frailty of human life, and 
 the care of Diviue providence — the 90 ch in the collection — which 
 stands, between the two great divisions of the book, as its 
 central and most ancient column. "This" says Dr. J. A. 
 Alexander, " may be regarded as the heart or centre of the 
 whole collection, and indeed, as the model upon which, even 
 David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, formed that glorious body 
 of psalmodic literature or hymnology, which, with its later but 
 inspired and authoritative imitations, constitutes the present 
 Book of Psalms." The second is that sublime song of deliver- 
 ance and triumph, which was sung at the Red Sea, when Israel 
 saw the Egyptians " sink like lead in the mighty waters " — 
 when Miriam and all the women of Israel, sounding loud their 
 timbrels over Egyjit's dark sea, responded in the lofty chorus 
 which the men had raised : 
 
102 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 " Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath tnumphed gloriously, 
 The horse and his rider hath he thrown into tlic sea." 
 
 The third and longest poem of Moses is his valedictory song*, 
 delivered to the chosen people a little before his death, and 
 recorded at the close of the book of Deuteronomy. It openg 
 with the following impassioned, and beautiful invocation : 
 
 "Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak: 
 And hear, earth, the words of my mouth. 
 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, 
 My speech shall distill as the dew. 
 As the small rain upon the tender herb. 
 And as the showers upon the grass," 
 
 And then, after recounting the glories of Israel, and the 
 wonderful works of Jehovah, the manifold blessing of allegiance, 
 and the fearful consequences of apostasy, he closes with au 
 apostrophe in perfect keeping v/ith the introduction : 
 
 " Rejoice, ye nations with his people: 
 For he will avenge the blood of his servants, 
 And will render vengeance to his adversaries, 
 And will be merciful to his land and to his people." 
 
 But besides these productions of his own muse, Moses has 
 also recorded for us, what may be regarded as one of the most 
 remarkable of all the curiosities of literature. It is the song of 
 Lamech to his wives, Adah and Zillah, in the fourth chapter of 
 Genesis. This is the only piece of antediluvian poetry in exist- 
 ence, being beyond all comparison the oldest in the world, 
 unless we regard the prophecy of Enoch in the epistle of Jude 
 as also poetic. It is worthy of notice, that the two pieces 
 belong to the very same epoch. For Enoch, the author of the 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 103 
 
 prophecy, was the seventh from Adam through the line of Seth, 
 while Lamech, the author of the song, was also the seventh 
 from Adam through the line of Cain. One of Lamech's sons, 
 we are told, was the " father of such as handle the harp and 
 organ :" and thus, most appropriately, we find the first mention 
 of instrumental music, in immediate connection with the first 
 notice of poetry in the world. The song of Lamech seems to 
 be a fragment, taken by Moses probably from a longer poem, 
 which had been handed down to his times by tradition : just 
 as the prophecy of Enoch must have come down from the same 
 a^e to the far more remote days of St, Jude. 
 
 Herder, in his " Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," calls it the song 
 of the sword, and thinks it was composed and sung by Lamech, 
 on the invention of that weapon. He deems it descriptive, not 
 of what Lamech had done, but of what he might do, to his foes, 
 with this newly invented and formidable weapon. He trans- 
 lates it thus : 
 
 "Ye wives of Lamech, hear, my voice 
 
 And hearken to my speech. 
 
 I slew a man who wounded me, 
 
 A youth, who smote me with a blow ; 
 
 If Cain shall be seven times avenged, 
 
 Then Lamech seventy times seven," 
 
 If this be the correct view, it would really seem that Lamech's 
 song was no empty boast, but was almost prophetic of what the 
 sword has done in the world. Herder regards it as the most 
 ancient of poems, proving to him that lyric poetry and music 
 arose in the same age, and indeed in the same family, and as 
 mother and daughter they have been joined togetiicr ever since. 
 But Job ! what shall we say of Job — the Leviathan of 
 Hebrew song — the patriarch of the age of poesy — the most 
 
104 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 venerable and hoary of all the bards of the Bible, compared 
 with whom Milton, in his old age and blindness, was but as a 
 boy of yesterday ! As he rises up to our imagination from the 
 depths of antiquity, we think of a stately and solitary palm tree 
 on the border of some vast desert, or of some lone tower of 
 strength and beauty standing in the midst of mouldering ruins, 
 or of mount Sinai towering in stern grandeur above the wilder- 
 ness. Dr. Kitto says " the book of Job, belongs to no class • 
 it is a class by itself ; there is none like it in ancient or modern 
 literature." It is impossible that anything in literature should 
 be more sublime than the book of Job ; because it is impossibie 
 to find a sublimer theme than God iu nature, and the book of 
 Job is alike true to God and true to nature in her sublimest 
 moods. 
 
 We will, however, pass over all its grand and glowing 
 descriptions of the mighty works of God, as seen in heaven and 
 earth, sea and sky ; and present you with a single passage of 
 a dilTcrent kind — a passage which we regard as a perfect model 
 of the beautiful — a passage blending at once the beauties of 
 classic diction, of poetic imagery, and of moral sentiment, which 
 are the highest elements of beauty in a poem. It is the por- 
 traiture of the Patriarch's own character in the days of his 
 prosperity, when he had the testimony of the Almighty that 
 there was '* none like him in the earth," " a perfect man and 
 an upright, one who feared God and eschewed evil." It is re- 
 markable to find such a delineation of character — abounding in 
 the most delicate and exquisite touches of pathos and beauty — 
 in a poet, whose muse is accustomed to soar on eagle's wings, 
 above the clouds, to gaze on dazzling grandeur with an eagle's 
 eye, and to claim the highest heaven of sublimity as her native 
 home. You will observe, too, how the poetry shines out through 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 105 
 
 the veil of a prose translation, for we give it in the words ot 
 our common version : 
 
 '* Oh that I were as in months past, 
 As in the days when God preserved me ; 
 When his candle shined upon my head, 
 And by his light I walked through darkness ; 
 As I was in the days of my youth, 
 Wlien the secret of God was upon my tabernacle: 
 When the Almighty was yet with me. 
 When my children were about me ; 
 When I washed my steps with butter. 
 And the rock poured me out rivers of oil. 
 
 " When I went out to the gate through th% city, 
 When I prepared ray seat in the street ; 
 The young men saw me and hid themselvea, 
 And the aged arose and stood up. 
 The princes refrained from talking. 
 And laid their hand upon their mouth ; 
 The nobles held their peace 
 
 And their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth. 
 When the ear heard me, then it blessed me ; 
 And when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me. 
 
 " Because I delivered the poor that cried — 
 The fatherless that had none to help him. 
 The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon mc; 
 And I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy, 
 I put on righteousness and it clothed me ; 
 My judgment was as a robe and a diadem. 
 I was eyes to the blind. 
 And feet was I to the lame. 
 I was a father to the poor. 
 
 And the cause which I knew not I searched oat. 
 And I brake the jaws of the wicked, 
 And plucked the spoil out of his teeth. 
 
106 POETKT AND THE BARBS 
 
 " Then I said I shall die in my nest, 
 And I shall multiply my days as the sand. 
 My root was spread out by the waters, 
 And the dew lay all night upon my branch. 
 My glory was fresh within me. 
 And my bow was renewed in my hand. 
 Unto me men gave ear and waited, 
 And kept silence at my counsel. 
 After my words they spake not again ; 
 And my speech dropped upon them ; 
 And they waited for me as for the rain. 
 They opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain. 
 If I laughed on them, they believed it not. 
 And the^iglit of my countenance they cast not down. 
 I chose out their way and sat chief. 
 And dwelt as a king in the army, * 
 
 As one that comforteth the mourners." 
 
 Now the pecaliar excellence of this poetry is, that, though it is 
 soft and plaintive as a lute, its music, lying deeper than the mere 
 words, never wearies the ear, its sweetness never cloys the taste. 
 You may read it a hundred times, and you will find more to 
 admire on the hundreth than on the first perusal. But we cannot 
 linger longer on this magnificent poet. We must turn from Job; 
 and we do it by quoting a passage from the lectures of Dr. Turner 
 in the Biblical Repository — " In no other composition extant 
 is there so much of the true sublime, and of magnificent sim- 
 plicity, as reign through the latter part of the book of Job. A 
 jalge competent to determine the comparative merits of the 
 literature of various countries, has given his decided opinion in 
 favor of this work. ' It is a piece of writing,' says the accom- 
 plished Frederic Schlegel, ' which, considered merely as such, is 
 without doubt one of the most characteristic and sublime, 
 which has come down to us from the ancient world.' " 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 107 
 
 Let US now come to David, tlis " monanh minstrel " — the last 
 in our present order, though not the least of the Hebrew bards. 
 In him the lyric poetry of the Bible, and we may well say, of 
 the ancient world, reached its zenith. There is a power of 
 expression, a tenderness of feeling, a devotion of the spirit, a 
 depth and compass of experience, a soul-stirring divinity, in all 
 the strains of the sweet psalmist of Israel, which nothing else 
 has ever equalled, and beyond which nothing will ever be able 
 to go. For thirty centuries the people and church of God in 
 many lands have been singing the lyrics of David, feeling that he 
 is their greatest, because he is their divinely inspired minstrel. 
 
 David's lamentation for Jonathan, sometimes called the 
 " Song of the Bow " from its repeated allusions to that impor- 
 tant weapon of ancient warfare, is one of the most touching 
 and beautiful things to be found in elegiac poetry. We may 
 quote it from our common version in another place : but let 
 us recite a few lines of it now from the somewhat liberal trans- 
 lation of Herder, in order to show you how easy a thing it is 
 by a few verbal changes, not affecting the sense at all, to adapt 
 this prose-like poetry of the Bible to our modern ears. Surely 
 no one can deny, that we have here the pathos, the imagery, 
 and the very sound of poetry. 
 
 " Beautiful Roe, thou pride and glory of Israel ! 
 Thus then art thou wounded upon thy high places I 
 Fallen, fallen are the heroes ! 
 How are the heroes fallen!" 
 
 " Ye mountains of Gilboa, on you henceforth, 
 Let no more rain or dew descend forever. 
 No more on you, ye mountains blighted with a curse ! 
 For there the shield of heroes was struck down, 
 The shield of Saul, as of one unconsecrated with oil 
 
108 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 " Daughters of Israel, weep ye for Saul, 
 No more will he clothe you m garments of purple. 
 Nor deck your apparel with ornaments of gold. 
 Ah ! how are the heroes flillen in the midst of the battle, 
 Jonathan, thou lovely Roe, slain on thy high places." 
 
 But let US take the Psalms as illustrations of David's muse. 
 ^\^e need not quote them. They are familiar to all. They are 
 among the first lessons of our infancy. They are treasured up 
 ill our hearts as the most precious and sacred mementoes of our 
 early childhood and youth, and they will be the last parts of 
 the Bible, which the aged can ever forget. All the pious dead 
 of every past generation have sung them with rapture : all the 
 virtuous among the living love them : and even the vicious and 
 ungodly cannot fail to admire them. 
 
 Have you ever considered what an impression the psalmody 
 of David and his co-minstrels has made upon the world ? 
 Have you ever calculated the extent of that impression upon 
 your own heart and character ? After all your reading of 
 Shakspeare and Shelley, Moore and Scott, Burns and Byron, 
 or even Milton and Cowper, we venture to say there is no poetry 
 in the world, which can, this day, strike so many chords of 
 feeling, call up so many vivid impressions, and revive so many 
 tender associations in your hearts, as this poetry of the Psalms. 
 Whether you read it in the " old family Bible that lay on the 
 stand," or in that dimly printed little Bible which was the gift 
 of a dear friend now gone, the first book you ever owned ; 
 v/hether you hear it sounding out, in trumpet tones from the 
 pulpit, or coming up softly to the ear of memory, in that calm 
 loving voice, which you first heard at a mother's knee, it has a 
 charm and a power in it which no other bard can claim. 
 
 You may read, as you have often read, these wonderful 
 
OF THE BIBLE. l09 
 
 Psalins of life — the glowing eighteenth or the glorious nine- 
 teenth, the beautiful twenty-tliird or the grandly descriptive 
 twenty-ninth, the proverbial thirty-seventh or the prophetic 
 forty-fifth, the cousolitory forty-sixth or the penitential fifty- 
 first, the grateful hundred-and-third or the devout hundred- 
 and-sixteenth, the profound hundred-and-nineteenth or the 
 rapturous hundred-and-thirty-sixth, the plaintive hundred-and- 
 thirty-seventh or the sublime hundred-and-thirty-ninth, but still 
 wherever you read, it is the same divinely inspired and heart- 
 searching voice : and there is no other voice of poesy in the 
 world v/hich can touch your heart so deeply. 
 
 IX. THE ARGUMENT FROil POETRY. 
 
 All educated persons, are, to some extent, acquainted with 
 the different arguments, or departments of evidence in favor of 
 the truth and Divine inspiration of the Scriptures : such as the 
 internal and external evidences : the arguments from prophecy, 
 from miracles, from history, from moral purity ; and so on. 
 But has your attention ever been called to the poetic argu- 
 ment ? There is an argument, we think ; a very strong and 
 important one, forming a branch of the general internal evi- 
 dence of the Bible, to be derived from its poetry ; especially 
 this poetry of the Psalms, of which David is the principal 
 writer. 
 
 Let those who claim to be philosophers, competent to explain 
 and account for the phenomena of history, tell us, if they can, 
 aside from Divine inspiration, what strange power is this which 
 the sweet Psalmist of Israel has been wielding so long over the 
 heart of man ? What sceptre is this, which he, whose visible 
 
110 POETEY AND THE BARDS 
 
 throne has been in the dust so long, is still swaying over that 
 vast multitude of educated, refined minds in every land and 
 nation, that make up the church of God ? What magic spell 
 of song is this, with which the monarch minstrel has bound in 
 willing homage, and stiil binds, with ever increasing admiration, 
 the elite of the whole civilized world, both in the church and out 
 of it ? How happens it, that David, more than any other poet 
 of antiquity, in or out of Israel, should write the devotional 
 ballads of all modern Christendom ? 
 
 Why is it, tliat we find in these ancient lyrics of the Hebrew 
 muse, a point and power of truth, an insight into human 
 character, a deep sympathy with all man's wants and woes, an 
 experience and a personality, by which they come home to the 
 heart of the individual alike in joy and sorrow as if they were 
 written but yesterday to suit his case : whilst at the same time 
 there is in them a reach and compass, a universality and com- 
 prehensiveness, which makes them suit the case of the king or 
 the servant, the philosopher or the child, with equal and perfect 
 fitness : so that they are still adapted to the whole world as 
 well as they were to Jerusalem, and express the devotions of 
 man in the middle of the nineteenth century as suitably as they 
 did in the times of David ? Nay, further ; why is it that 
 these " Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," have expressed 
 all our own moral sentiments, and religious experiences, and 
 longings of desire after God, immeasurably better than we can 
 express them ourselves : so that in every possible condition of 
 prosperity or adversity, joy or sorrow, health or sickness, living 
 and dying, we turn away from all other compositions, and pour 
 out our hearts to God in these words, as the most congenial 
 food and aliment of our souls ? 
 
 How is it, that this shepherd boy, taken from the folds of 
 
OF THE BIBLE. Ill 
 
 Jesse's flock, on the hills of Judea, has souuded out from that 
 so called rude, unlettered age, and from that insignificant cor- 
 ner of the earth, such notes of human sympathy and Divine 
 consolation, that all civilized men have heard them, and felt 
 them, and can nevermore let them die ? Tell us, ye that reject 
 inspiration, but cannot reject the facts of history, why David 
 has done, what no bard of antiquity out of Israel, ever did — 
 what no bard of Assyria, Egypt, Chaldea or Persia, no bard 
 of classic Greece and Home, ever did ? Why have all, or near- 
 ly all, the devotional ballads *of these great contemporaneous na- 
 tions perished, whilst the Psalms of Israel remain ? Why has 
 the world made such a distinction as to keep these for daily use, 
 and let all others die ? Or if any of them do remain, who 
 reads them or sings them or cares for them now ? Who adopts 
 them as his matin or his vesper hymn around the altar of do- 
 mestic devotion, or as his requiem for the dead or his anthem of 
 public praise in the temple of worship ? Who now is fired 
 with religious enthusiam, or raised on the wings of holy rap- 
 ture, or sunk in the deep waters of penitential sorrow and con- 
 trition, by any song of Greece, or lay of ancient Rome ? But 
 David is at every fireside, in every temple, in the very hearts' 
 devotions of every civilized man — his voice heard alike in 
 the cradle songs of our infancy and in the last farewells of 
 our departing old age — his words bring still a " rod and a 
 staff," with which the humble and the great walk through the 
 dark "valley and shadow of death." So that David has a 
 firmer hold upon the world now, in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, than he had twenty centuries ago. 
 
 Allow us then to press the question, for there is an argument 
 in it : why have these Jewish ballads become the ballads of all 
 Christendom ? why have these lyric odes, which were more pecu* 
 
112 POETRY AND THE BARDS 
 
 liarly and intensely national than any songs that any other nation 
 ever had — indeed so intensely, exclusively and thoroughly Jewish, 
 that none but a Jew could have written them, and no mortal 
 could ever mistake one of them for a song of Greece or Rome, 
 Egypt or Babylon — why have these deep-dyed national ballads of 
 Israel become the religious ballads of the world ? Why do they 
 alone, of all the songs of antiquity, possess this individuahty and 
 comprehensiveness, this combination of the national and local 
 with the universal, this ephemsral aspect and yet indestructible 
 character ? Can infidelity answer tiiese questions satisfactorily ? 
 Now, to all these questions there is but one answer possible. 
 These Psalms were written by the inspiration of the Almighty. 
 This poetry contains Divine, eternal truth. There is a genius 
 here greater than that of human poesy. There is an inspira- 
 tion in these songs higher than that of the muses. There is 
 an intellect at work here, mightier far than David's. This is 
 the secret of their power ; this is the life-giving element of 
 their duration. The poetry of these Psalms, like all other poe- 
 try of the Bible, has achieved a success in implanting itself in 
 the heart of man, which no other poetry has achieved, just be- 
 cause it has spoken to him always in a voice of infallible 
 truth and virtue as well as of beauty and sublimity. The 
 classic muse of Greece and Rome, spoke to man in a voice 
 of sublimity and beauty, and often gave vent to the outgushing 
 emotions of the soul in a voice of surprising and surpassing elo- 
 quence ; but she lacked wisdom, she lacked purity, she lacked 
 truth. She had no knowledge of Divine, eternal things ; and 
 being weighed in the balances she was found wanting, and her 
 sceptre passed away. But the Hebrew muse, by her knowledge 
 of Divine, eternal truth, not only spoke a language of superior 
 beauty and sublimity, but made an appeal to the understanding, 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 113 
 
 the heart, the conscience and the taste of the world, which 
 shall never lose its power. And whence did the Hebrew muso 
 derive that knowledge of Divine, eternal thing-s, which gives 
 her song its lasting universal charm ? Ave ! that is the point 
 which demands the final answer. And there is bat one. She 
 received it from heaven ; it was the gift of God. She aione, 
 of all the minstrels, was able to sing with unerring wisdom and 
 purity, while she sung in beauty and sublimity, because all her 
 bards *' spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Here then we find a solution, and the only satisfactory solu- 
 tion of all our questions, as to the superiority and enduring in- 
 fluence of Hebrew poetry — its subject-matter was eternal re- 
 vealed truth, and its inspiration the breath of God. And there- 
 fore, every time you open this sacred book, and feel the power 
 of these venerable psalms, stealing into the very chambers of 
 your soul, you have a witness within — a demonstration strong 
 as a miracle — that this is the Word of God. For assuredly 
 nothing but the miracle of a Divine inspiration, could have given 
 to a shepherd boy of Israel, such power to touch your heart, 
 and to touch the great heart of the world, at this distance of 
 three thousand years. 
 
 X. COXCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 But it is time to draw these observations to a close. It 
 seems to us, that every intelligent person must admit, even from 
 the brief survey we have now taken, the existence of true poe- 
 try in the Bible ; and not only this, but the higher point, which 
 we have been seeking to establish, viz. — that the Bible, contain- 
 ing the most perfect models of sublimity and beauty in several 
 
114 POETEV AND THE BAEDS 
 
 departments of poetry, is itself the best standard, in literature, 
 of true poetic taste and genius. And it seems to us that no 
 one, possessing a cultivated taste and a true sense of the sub- 
 lime and beautiful, can ever underrate the bards of the Bible. 
 Nor is it without a purpose that God has made so much use of 
 poeti'y in his word. A sense of the sublime and beautiful, is 
 deeply implanted in human nature. Of this, poetry is the most 
 fitting exponent and interpreter. And through this medium 
 God has appealed, not only to the hearts of the educated and 
 refined — -men of taste and genius — but especially to the young, 
 in whose breasts the fires of enthusiasm always burn most 
 brightly. In this way, in ten thousand instances, he has gained 
 a favorable hearing for that religion which the Bible reveals, 
 and for that great salvation which the Gospel brings, as glad 
 tidings to the sinful. The world has done homage to the 
 blind old bard of Chios, but how different had been the result, 
 had the Iliad contained a true religion and a true gospel for 
 man ! 
 
 Poetry and music have, in all ages, been regarded as the 
 vehicles of religious instruction, and the handmaids of religious 
 devotion : and they have done good or evil just in proportion 
 as the religion they have helped has been true or false. No 
 well-read student of history can look with indifference upon the 
 influence which poetry has thus exerted over the character and 
 destiny of mankind. In our new Western world and in this 
 money-loving utilitarian age, it is kept somewhat in the back- 
 ground, even as religion itself is, but it can never altogether 
 lose its hold, so long as the church shall sing the praises of 
 God, or the Bible find admirers, or the human heart retain its 
 appreciation of the sublime and beautiful. 
 
 There is nothing in the world, except religion, which has 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 115 
 
 made a deeper impression on man than poetry And there is 
 nothing in relig'ion itself except its own vital truth, by which it 
 has acquired and maintained its ascendency over man, more 
 than by its poetry. So that it is impossible to tell how much 
 the world owes to religion, and how much religion owes to 
 poetry. If the Bible then had contained no poetry, its religion 
 would have lost an incalculable source of power : of which all 
 forms of false religion had plentifully availed themselves. In- 
 deed we can hardly conceive how the religion of the Bible, which 
 is preeminently the religion of the heart, could have gained its 
 present supremacy over civilized man, without the aids of poetry 
 and music. We know that all false religions have seized upon 
 them for help : and no great delusion has gained even a partial 
 triumph without their aid. 
 
 " There is no form of religion," says Gilfillan, " so false, but 
 that it has availed itself of the aid of song. Thor and Woden 
 of Northern Europe, Bramah and Vishnu of Asia, have all had 
 their poet laureates. Mohammed is the hero of a thousand 
 parables, poems and tales in the East. Every belief or unbelief 
 has found its poetry, excepting always modern materialism, as 
 represented by the utilitarian philosophy. There is no specula- 
 tion in its eye — no man of genius can make it beautiful ; be- 
 cause it has not one beautiful element in it, and because no 
 man of genius can believe it. Its sole music is the chink of 
 money, and its main theological principle — the gradual devel- 
 opment of mud into man and dirt into deity — is as incapable 
 of poetic treatment, as it is of scientific proof." 
 
 From the survey which we have now taken of the poetry and 
 the bards of tl^e Bible, we have seen how the truth of God and 
 the nature of man, the religion of heaven and the songs of 
 earth, are linked together in immortal ties. What God hath 
 
116 POETRY AND THE BAKDS 
 
 thus joined together let no man put asunder. Religion and 
 Poesy, united in the Bible from their birth, have lived together 
 through all ages, companions in the church on earth, and as we 
 learn from the visions of the Apocalypse, destined to be com- 
 panions forever in the church above. For it is one of the last 
 and the most delightful revelations of the book of God, that 
 this religion of heaven, whose harbinger was the song of the 
 morning stars and the sons of God, whose monarch minstrel and 
 whose prophet bards sang so sweetly and so long upon the 
 holy liiils of Zion, and whose great Messiah was heralded to 
 earth by a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God in the 
 chorus — " Glory to God in the highest : peace on earth and 
 good will to men" — that this religion, after it shall have been 
 sung in the poetry of every human tongue, and filled the world 
 with the voice of its melody, shall at last, gather together 
 around the throne on high, all its earlier and its later bards 
 for the grand concert of eternity : and that there, upon the 
 bright plains of glory, in an amphitheatre which shall sweep the 
 circuit of the all-surrounding skies, and rear its dome amid the 
 echoing arches of the everlasting firmament — there the innumer- 
 able company of the redeemed from earth shall tune their 
 golden lyres, and the thousands and thousands and ten times 
 thousands of angels, cherubim and seraphim, shall bring their 
 harps, and with their immortal tongues, shall sing the " song 
 >of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb," whilst 
 God himself shall hear and approve the praise. Then shall 
 the redeemed from Adam's race lift up their loudest, sweetest 
 song— even the new song of redemption — " Tliou art worthy, 
 for thou wast slain" "Unto him that washed us in his blood, 
 and hath made us kings and priests unto God : to him be glory 
 and dominion forever and ever. Amen." 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 117 
 
 Such then is the Bible ; such its poetry, its religion, its 
 auticipations ! And now in conclusion, as an illustration of the 
 estimation in which the Bible is held by men of genius, and in 
 perfect keeping with our subject, we may refer to an incident, 
 which is one of the most touching and beautiful to be found in 
 modern biography. It is an incident in the last days of 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 If there is any one, amongst all the brilliant writers of this 
 nineteenth century, who may be said to have raised himself 
 above his fellows by the force of literary genius, and to have 
 won the very highest position in the world of letters, so as to 
 be fairly entitled to a double chaplet of poesy and prose, it is 
 that gifted son of the North — the author of Marmion and of 
 Waverley, who held the world so long spell-bound while he 
 was known only as the " Great Unknown." 
 
 When he, thus crowned with honors at home, and with the 
 laurel-wreath of a world-wide fame, was at last crowned with 
 length of days, and confined to his bed by that sickness from 
 which he never recovered ; and whilst he lay there at Abbots- 
 ford in the bosom of his family, calmly awaiting the hour of 
 death, then near at hand, on one occasion of partial relief, he 
 requested a friend to read aloud for him. "What book 
 shall I read ?" asked the friend. " Why do you ask such a 
 question ?" said the dying man. " There is but one : there can be 
 but one now : bring me the Bible." 
 
 Verily, there is a time in every man's life, when the Bible is 
 the only Book — the last and only book for the peasant and 
 the prince, for the dying child and the dying man of genius. 
 
118 ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY 
 
 CHAPTER IIi: 
 
 ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Elements and Characteristics of Eloquence— Illustrations of Eloquence— Earliest 
 Example of Eloquence in the Old Testament — Judah as an Orator— Aaron as an 
 Orator— Other Examples from the Old Testament— Eloquence of Ilushai, the 
 Archite. 
 
 Fkom the review already taken of the Hebrew poets and 
 poetry, it is easy and natural to pass to a kindred topic, and one 
 too that is sufficiently ample for a separate illustration, viz.: — 
 " The Eloquence and Orators of the Old Testament." Rich and 
 attractive as we have found this venerable book in the domain 
 of poesy, it will be found not less so, when we come to survey 
 its prose writings, and point out the examples of that soul- 
 subduing eloquence, by which these men of old, spoke to their 
 fellow-men, sometimes as they were impelled by their own 
 genius, sometimes as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and 
 in one case, as " never man spake." 
 
 Our field of vision, though lying in the same book, will be 
 wholly changed. An entirely different class of personages will 
 now stand before us. Although the highest models of elo- 
 quence are to be found distributed alike through the Old 
 Testament and the New, still the orators of the Bible are not 
 its poets. And it serves to illustrate most strikingly the vast 
 variety of material in this book, that, of all the men who have 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 119 
 
 been mentioned in the last chapter, or may be mentioned iu 
 this, only one, and truly speaking, not even that one, wears the 
 double character of bard and orator. We propose to consider 
 the orators of the Old Testament and of the New, successively • 
 but as the Subject is one of special interest, let us first examine 
 a Uttle into the nature of eloquence in general. 
 
 I. ELEMENTS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ELOQUENCE. 
 
 It is not an easy matter to give a satisfactory analysis of elo- 
 quence. Dim indeed, and shadowy is the line which divides it 
 from good classic prose on the one side, and from poetry on the 
 other. Yet there is a line. All true poetry, whether of the 
 beautiful or the sublime, is in some sense, eloquent : and all 
 eloquence of a high order, is tinged with a coloring of poetry : 
 because eloquence not less than poetry, is the language of 
 human nature when excited — the language of strong emotions 
 and of a vivid imagination. Still eloquence and poetry are 
 not the same, and must be distinguished. 
 
 Regarded simply as an art, the distinction is broad enough, 
 as indicated by the etymology of the terms, poet and orator : 
 the one expressing thought and feeling, by means of words 
 arranged, or, if you please, manufactured into a definite, 
 regular order, called verse or rhythm, and the other expressing 
 thought and feeling by words, studied or unstudied, poured 
 forth from tlie mouth, without regard to metre or the harmony 
 of numbers. As mere artists, therefore, the poet is a maker 
 of words, mostly written words ; the orator, a speaker of 
 words mostly unwritten ; but both alike conveying thought 
 and feeling to others. The hand, with its proper writing 
 materials, might be regarded as the visible emblem of the one : 
 
110 ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY 
 
 and the mouth, with its appropriate aids of tone, look and 
 gesture, as the symbol of the other. 
 
 But mere art is the least important element, either of poetry 
 or eloquence. All verse, however regular its numbers, is not 
 poetry : nor is all oratory, however sonorous and Ornate, elo- 
 quent. There must be something else : there must be a living 
 spirit in the words — a sort of divinity stirring within the num- 
 bers or the speech, before we can say, that this is poetry, or 
 that is eloquence. We may have the shibboleth of poetic 
 diction, and the glow of poetic images, as well as the harmony 
 of sweet sounds, where there is no true spirit of poesy. So 
 also there may be the spirit of real poetry, where there is no 
 form of verse : as in Ossian, or in our translation of the Bible, or 
 in the original Hebrew itself, and as there would be in Milton or 
 any other great poet, whose verse might be turned into prose, 
 without, at all, ceasing to breathe the true spirit of poetry. 
 
 And precisely so is it with the orator. A man may open his 
 mouth and speak all day : and in all his words there may be no 
 eloquence, either of thought, feeling, or imagination —not one 
 glowing image, not one thrilling thought, not one soul-stirring 
 appeal. And yet another man, with a certain earnestness and 
 enthusiasm, shall arise and present the same arguments, though 
 in different words; or, if you please, the very same words, though 
 in a different manner, and in him all will be eloquent — there 
 will be eloquence in every accent, look and gesture : and he 
 will so electrify the audience, that they shall not know these 
 words and arguments are the same. 
 
 What constitutes the difference ? As all men are not 
 orators, nor all oratory eloquence, by what process, and at 
 what point, does simple speech lay aside its dullness and undergo 
 that wonderful transformation which entitles it to be called 
 eloquent ? It is hard to tell. There is perhaps nothing more 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 121 
 
 difficult to bring within the compass of a complete definitiuu 
 than the nature of true eloquence. We shall not attempt it. 
 There are some things which must be felt in order to be appre- 
 ciated. We should hardly attempt to define for others, the 
 form and features, the look and lineaments of an angel, even if 
 we had seen one. So, to those who have not witnessed for 
 themselves the exhibitions of real eloquence all descriptions 
 would be useless. But no man needs a logical definition to 
 ascertain what eloquence is, or to know when he hears a true 
 orator. For it is of the very nature of this inspiration to 
 carry its own credentials along with it, and by the living voice 
 to cleave a way for itself directly to the heart. Let it suffice 
 then, to point out and to illustrate by examples, the different 
 species of eloquence, leaving the nature of the thing itself to 
 the taste, judgment, and opportunities of each individual. 
 
 The object of the orator, whether at the bar, or on the 
 forum, in the pulpit or the lecture-room, in all judicial, delibera- 
 tive, religious and popular assemblies, is to convince, instruct, 
 please, persuade, or excite his audience, as the case may be ; 
 sometimes the one and sometimes the other, and it may be all. 
 Now, the power by which he does this, most effectively, is what 
 we call eloquence. But that power partakes of different 
 elements in different cases, and manifests itself in several differ- 
 ent ways in different orators. And these diversities give rise to 
 different orders or species of eloquence. It seems to us, from 
 such examination as we have been able to make, that these 
 several elements aud characteristics of eloquence, may all be 
 reduced to the four following — each distinct enough to give rise 
 to a peculiar species, and all, at the same time, comprehensive 
 enough to cover every style and order of true eloquence : 
 
 The first is the element of superior knowledge and intellectual 
 6 
 
12^ ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY 
 
 power in the orator — the eloquence of pure reason and argu- 
 ment. Its chief characteristic is strong, clear, original ^Jiought, 
 forcibly expressed. We may denominate it the eloquence of 
 the Intellect, as distinguished from each of the other orders. 
 
 The second is that element of power in the orator which 
 springs from a refined taste, a vivid imagination, and great 
 command of language, It deals much in analogies and illus- 
 trations. It has a high appreciation of the sublime and beauti- 
 ful. It is characterized by classic diction and brilliant imagery. 
 It may be called the eloquence of Taste and Imagination. 
 
 The third element is that of earnestness, enthusiasm and deep 
 emotion in the speaker. All its utterances come fresh from 
 the fountains of feeling in the soul All its words are oracles 
 and commands. The orator appears like one inspired — one 
 born to command by the very energy of his will and intensity 
 of his convictions. This may be called the eloquence of Sym- 
 pathy and the Passions. 
 
 The fourth is the element of graceful delivery, including every- 
 thing that pertains to the person, manner, tone, look and 
 gesture of the speaker. It is that power which can supply the 
 place of the other three ; and often, as on the stage, makes 
 things that are not, appear as though they were. This may be 
 called the eloquence of Action and the Voice : of which Garrick 
 may be taken as the highest type. 
 
 II. ILLUSTRATIONS OF ELOQUENCE. 
 
 Now it is manifest that all the greatest orators of ancient and 
 modern times have possessed these four elements of power, and 
 exhibited these several varieties of eloquence. And their sue- 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAME^-T. 123 
 
 cess has been in proportion to the perfection of this combination 
 of gifts and endowments. Clearly these qualities all met in 
 Demosthenes and in Cicero. They all met in Chatham, Fox and 
 Sheridan, though in very different degrees. They were all 
 combined, though unequally, in Chalmers, Edward Irving, and 
 Robert Ilall. The most perfect model of eloquence which our 
 own country has ever produced — Patrick Henry — was distin- 
 guished for a happy combination of all these characteristics. 
 But from all the accounts which have come down to us from 
 bis contemporaries, it is evident that he was Ifar more indebted 
 to the last two of these characteristics than to the first two. 
 Dr. Alexander, who heard him, at the bar, in a case of life and 
 death, has given us the following testimony : " The power of 
 Henry's eloquence was due, first, to the greatness of his emotion 
 and passion, accompanied with a versatility which enabled him 
 to assume at once any emotion or passion which was suited to 
 his ends. Not less indispensable, secondly, was a matchless 
 perfection of the organs of expression, including the entire 
 apparatus of voice, intonation, pause, gesture, attitude and 
 indescribable play of countenance. In no instance did he ever 
 indulge in an expression that was not instantly recognized as 
 nature itself : yet some of his penetrating and subduing tones 
 were absolutely peculiar, and as inimitable as they were inde- 
 scribable. These were felt by every hearer in all their force. 
 His mightiest feelings were sometimes indicated and communi- 
 cated by a long pause, aided by an eloquent aspect, and some 
 significant use of his finger." 
 
 Macaulay, who now holds a place amongst the ablest of hving 
 orators, is evidently the opposite of Henry, in being mostly dis- 
 tinguished for the eloquence of taste and imagination, and also 
 of the intellect. Again, Whitfield, a perfect master of the elo- 
 
124: ELOQUEXCK AND ORATORY 
 
 quence of sympathy and the passions, of action and delivery 
 not wanting also in taste and imagination, was unquestionably 
 the greatest of pulpit orators while living, but is scarcely 
 known to posterity by his writings, because he was deficient in 
 the eloquence of the intellect. 
 
 On the contrary, Edmund Burke, excelled all his contempo- 
 raries by his massive intellect, his varied learning, his classic 
 taste and exuberant imagination, and being dead, yet speaketh 
 in his wvi ings ; whilst as a living orator, because lacking a single 
 characteristic — the eloquence of delivery and the voice — he was 
 not only eclipsed by inferior men, but left to pronounce his great 
 speeches to empty benches. Still who can deny that Burke 
 was an eloquent man ? We might as well deny that there is 
 any such thing as eloquence in the world. It is obvious, then, 
 that there are different orders of eloquence. It is obvious further, 
 that whilst all these characteristics must meet to form a perfect 
 and successful orator, yet they have been exhibited in very dif- 
 ferent proportions by those entitled to be called eloquent. 
 Sometimes one, and sometimes another has been the praminent 
 characteristic. 
 
 We have seen a striking illustration of this difference of gifts, 
 in that remarkable triumvirate, whose eloquence adorned our 
 national senate for a quarter of a century, whose statesmanship 
 filled the world with its fame, and whose loss, so recently and 
 so nearly together, our country has been called to deplore. 
 Webster, Clay and Calhoun are beyond all comparison the 
 three greatest statesmen our country has produced in this nine- 
 teenth century, and they take their rightful place also amongst 
 the greatest forensic orators and parliamentary debaters of the 
 world. And so nearly balanced were their abilities that it is 
 almost impossible to decide the point of superiority, and say, 
 
OF TUK OLD TKS l-AME^^T. 125 
 
 who made the deepest impression on the men of his generation. 
 There can be no question, as to one pohit — whose influence will 
 be greatest on posterity, because that is determined by their 
 writings. Xow each of these eminent men possessed, in some 
 degree, all the essential elements of eloquence. And yet how 
 widely different — how utterly dissimilar were their styles of ora- 
 tory — how peculiar to each, how inimitable by any other, and 
 how characteristic of the man, was his own mode of speech ! 
 They did not differ from their fellow-men, more widely, than 
 they differed from each other. Perhaps of no three men in 
 America, could it be more truly said, than of each of these, that 
 as a man and an orator, he was sui generis — forming an order 
 by himself. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun's eloquence was the eloquence of intellect and 
 argument — pure, clear, original thought flowing from one of the 
 acutest of intellects, combined, at the same time, with an 
 energy of will, a depth and earnestness of emotion, a high 
 wrought enthusiasm, and a conviction within, that always seem- 
 ed bent on carrying its purpose in defiance of all opposition. 
 He was but little aided by the imagination, and almost unin- 
 debted to the outward graces of delivery, saving such as neces- 
 sarily arose from a commanding person, an eye ever burning 
 with the fires of genius, and a voice indicative of the utmost 
 decision and energy. But it was a combination of the first two 
 characteristics — intellectual power and enthusiastic passion — ■ 
 possessed in a preeminent degree, that gave him his influence 
 as an orator and his greatness as a statesman. We may take 
 him as the representative and the type of the eloquence of Intel' 
 lect and Enthusiasm. 
 
 Jlr. Webster's was also the eloquence of intellect and argu- 
 ment, as massive and comprehensive as that of his great 
 
126 ELOQUENCE AND OKATOKY 
 
 compeer, but at the same time aided by a taste as classical as 
 Cicero's and an imagination almost as exuberant as Burke's — an 
 eloquence too, uttered with all the force that an imposing per- 
 son, a powerful voice, and an energetic delivery could give ; 
 but wiihal so stately, so magnificent, so coldly brilliant, that 
 it did not always touch the heart and move the passions, except 
 on extraordinary occasions, when the circumstances themselves 
 aided the speaker's appeal. He possessed three of the elements 
 of a great orator in high perfection, and the fourth to some 
 extent. His great power lay in his extraordinary combination 
 of argument, taste and imagination. His eloquence is eloquence 
 to be read as well as heard. His intellect v/as like the clear* 
 sky of a winter's night, when all the stars of the firmament are 
 out — and we fancy that every star is a gem of thought — a dia- 
 mond of the mind. We take him as the exponent of the elo- 
 quence of Reason and Imagination. 
 
 Mr. Clay's eloquence was preeminently that of the feelings 
 and the passions. Feeling deeply himself, he was a perfect mas- 
 ter of all those natural arts of delivery which enabled him, at 
 will, to move and to control the sympathies of his hearers. With 
 an intensity of earnestness, which gave him the aspect of one 
 born to command, and with an enthusiasm which filled and fired 
 his whole soul, he needed not the slow processes of argument, 
 nor the aids of imagination and classic diction to effect his object, 
 but taking the most direct and effective way of reaching the heart 
 — that is, the short cut through the door of its sympathies and 
 passions— he carried the citadel, first by stratagem and then by 
 storm. He was not wanting in powers of reasoning, nor in 
 flights of imagination, but he did not depend on these. He had 
 more effective artillery. His great power as an orator lay, not in 
 the eloquence of intellect and argument, nor in that of taste and 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 127 
 
 imagination, but in the burning eloquence of a soul on fire, giv- 
 ing utterance to itself with those matchless graces of delivery, 
 that charm of a personal presence, that magic of a look, that 
 pointing of a finger, that clarion-like ringing or thunder-tone of 
 the voice, which it is impossible, for any one who heard him, to 
 believe could have been surpassed by Demosthenes. In this last 
 characteristic, he was unlike both his great compeers, and much 
 more resembled Patrick Henry. We take him, then, as the re- 
 presentative of the eloquence of action and delivery, combined 
 with enthusiasm and the passions. 
 
 III. EARLIEST EXAMPLES OF ELOQUENCE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 After this somewhat protracted, though we trust, not unin- 
 teresting nor unprofitable illustration of the several orders of 
 eloquence, let us now address ourselves to the main subject be- 
 fore us — to a consideration of those examples which so abun- 
 dantly adorn the annals of scripture history. For let no one 
 suppose that eloquence and oratory are things unknown to the 
 Bible ; both the Old Testament and the New, make mention of 
 the professional orator, and give us specimens of almost every 
 kind of eloquence. The prophet Isaiah, in his third chapter, 
 gives the following enumeration of prominent public characters 
 and heads of the people — " The mighty man, and the man of 
 war, the judge and the prophet, and the prudent and the an 
 cient ; the captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the 
 counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator." 
 Here the eloquent orator is the climax of the catalogue, which 
 seems to show in vrhat estimation the art of eloquence was 
 held amongst his countrymen at that early day, long before the 
 
128 ELOQUENCE AND OKATOKl 
 
 Acropolis of Athens had rung with the notes of Grecian 
 eloquence. 
 
 The first example of a full and regular oration, which we find 
 on record in the Bible, is in the forty-fourth chapter of Gen- 
 esis. It is tlie speech of Judah, before Joseph in Egypt, in 
 behalf of his brother Benjamin, and if this had been the first 
 speech that was ever delivered, it would be a proof, that the 
 eloquence of the bar had preceded all other eloquence. For 
 it has all the characteristics of an argument in defence — a plea 
 and vindication before a judicial tribunal ; but whilst it is the 
 first recorded speech, delivered in the presence of a numerous 
 audience, which has come down to us, it was by no means the 
 first instance of public speaking. The Bible mentions seve- 
 ral earlier occasions of public speaking, and even records what 
 was said, in a few instances of a less formal and public charac- 
 ter. For example we have the long and very effective speech 
 of Abraham's servant, probably Eliezer of Damascus, delivered 
 to the kinsmen of Rebekah, in which he recites the events of 
 his journey, tells of the wealth and honor of Abraham, and 
 seeks to win the prize of a beautiful young bride for his mas- 
 ter's son. Eloquence has not always been so successful as it 
 was on this occasion, when it found its way to the heart of the 
 damsel and of all her kindred. And those who would achieve 
 a like success for themselves on such occasions, might do well 
 to study, not only the natural, heartfelt eloquence, but the 
 ardent piety and faith in Providence, which marked this first 
 recorded speech and offer for a bride. 
 
 An earlier instance still, but of a aififerent kind, we find in 
 the short speeches of that dialogue between Abraham and 
 Ephor, about the purchase of Machpelah, which, we are told, 
 '• was held in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 129 
 
 the city ;" and in which, as you may observe, both speakers 
 exhibited much of the dignity, grace and deference of the fin- 
 ished orator. Similar to this too, was another dialogue, held 
 long afterwards, at the meeting and reconciliation of the twin 
 brothers, Esau and Jacob, in the presence of their respective 
 bands, who must have constituted no inconsiderable nor un- 
 interer^ted auditory. And in this connection we find an exam- 
 ple — the first recorded example, of still another kind of elo- 
 quence — the eloquence of prayer. For you must bear in mind 
 that prayer is one of the forms of oratory, perhaps the original 
 and primitive form, being an address, not to men, but to God. 
 This is implied iu the very word oratory. That solemn and 
 impressive dialogue between Jehovah and Abraham respecting 
 the overthrow of the cities of the plain, can hardly be called a 
 prayer, although in the end it partook somewhat of the nature 
 of prayer. It was a most beautiful and eloquent dialogue and 
 remonstrance, but strictly speaking not a prayer. Accordingly, 
 if we except a few brief expressions of prayer in the hfe of 
 Abraham, and also the prayer of Eliezer on his mission for Re- 
 bekah, the first recorded prayer of any length which we find in 
 the Bible is that of Jacob, prior to his meeting with Esau. On 
 this Dr. Kitto well remarks : " Since the most ancient remain- 
 ing example of any human act and thought, is deemed worthy 
 of peculiar notice and consideration, the first human prayer 
 that has reached us is entitled to attention." This prayer is a 
 model of earnest, humble, confiding importunity ; it is in these 
 words : " God of my father Abraham and God of my 
 father Isaac, tlie Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy 
 country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee. I 
 am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all th3 
 f.-uth which thou has showed unto thy ssrvant ; for with my 
 
 6* 
 
130 ELOQUENCE AND OKATORY 
 
 staff I passed over this Jordan, and now am become two bands 
 Deliver me I pray thee from the hand of my brother, from the 
 hand of Esau ; for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, 
 and the mother with the children. And thou saidst, I will 
 surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, 
 which cannot be numbered for multitude." 
 
 Hero then, as early as the times of Abraham, Isaac and Ja- 
 cob, we have recorded specimens of three kinds of eloquent, 
 per&uabive speech — the oral narrative, the dialogue, and the 
 prayer. But long before Abraham's day, we find still another 
 form of oratory mentioned. We read of Noah, who is described 
 in the New Testament, as a "preacher of righteousness," 
 and who warned the antediluvian world of an approaching 
 deluge, while the ark was preparing, during probably a hun- 
 dred and twenty years. Though not one word of his preach- 
 ing has come down to us, we may consider him as the earliest 
 example, at least on record, of the eloquence of the pulpit. 
 We can easily believe that with such a theme upon his lips 
 as the wrath of God about to be poured out upon a guilty 
 world in the waters of a universal deluge, his preaching must 
 have been eloquent and powerful. Nor can we tell how many, 
 who died during this respite of 120 years, may have repented 
 and believed, and thus been saved by his preaching ; but we 
 know that all the living perished except those of his own 
 household. They continued says our Saviour, " eating and 
 drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, till the flood came 
 and took them all away." Like many of his successors, this 
 first of preachers may have been constrained at last to say — 
 " Lord, who hath believed our report." 
 
 If we ascend the stream of sacred history still higher, we 
 shall come, at last, to the record of another speaker, and ano- 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 131 
 
 ther speech — a speech delivered to tlie first audience that ex- 
 isted on earth, conceived and uttered too with great art, and 
 with the full purpose of persuasion — a speech, alas ! as effect- 
 ive as it was fair, as fatal as it was false. It is the brief, but 
 cunning address of that arch-tempter, who, " skilled to make 
 the worse appear the better reason," presented such a 
 show of reason and argument, as one entitled to expound the 
 law of God. " Ye shall not surely die : for God doth know, 
 that in the day ye eat thereof, ye shall be as Gods, knowing 
 good and evil." It would seem, that the spirit of inspiration 
 had recorded for us this first plausible and fatal speech, as if 
 to be prophetical alike of the vast infiucuce and the vast abuse, 
 amongst men, of the noble art of persuasion, and as if to warn 
 us, by one memorable example against the wiles of the deceit- 
 ful special pleader, and sophist, and rhetorician. For here, in 
 this first speech of that old serpent, tlie Devil, we have the ori- 
 ginal type and model of all those orators, great and small, who 
 knowing the right have defended the wrong, and prostituted 
 their high talents to plead the cause of falsehood and injustice. 
 How often, in the course of ages, and how often, alas ! in our 
 own times, have truth and justice fallen in the streets, judg- 
 ment been turned away backward, the cause of suffering inno- 
 cence been trampled in the dust, and pampered vice and crime 
 gone unwhipt of justice, through the perversion of the high and 
 sacred gifts of eloquence I 
 
 'Sow, we have a heart-felt reverence and homage for the nobl 
 science of the law, a profound respect and admiration for the 
 legal profession, as its ministers and expounders — we regard 
 the one as the very sanctuary of all social and civil order, and 
 look up to the other, as the high priests of truth and justice, 
 clothed v,-ith the delegated authority of God ; but when we see, 
 
132 ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY 
 
 as we have too often seen, the sworn expounders of ilie law, 
 vindicating the most awful crimes known to the Decalogue, 
 when we see those to whom we are accustomed to look as the 
 natural and divinely appointed guardians of life, character and 
 public order, combining, under the mere forms of law, to defeat 
 all the ends for which law was ordained of God, we have no 
 language adequate to express our feelings of grief and alarm. 
 Our confidence in the tribunals of justice is shaken : our feel- 
 ing of protection in the enjoyment of life, liberty and happiness, 
 is rudely torn away : and the native sense of justice, which un- 
 derlies the public conscience, receives a wound, at the hands of 
 its professed friends, from whicli it recoils in amazement and 
 terror. 
 
 And if there is any responsibility, which it will be fearful to 
 meet in the day of final accounts at the bar of the judge of 
 quick and dead, it must be the responsibility of the ministers 
 of justice wlio have perverted the heaven-born gifts of genius 
 and eloquence, thus to trample her sacred name in the dust. 
 If there is any woe in the Bible which is fearful and overwhelm- 
 ing, it is the woe pronounced on those, who plead the cause 
 of injustice and oppression, " calling evil good and good evil, 
 putting darkness for light and light for darkness," confounding 
 and breaking down all the landmarks between right and wrong. 
 Eloquent oratory is a splendid gift, but let the eloquent orator 
 beware how he abuses that gift. For there is a God of infinite 
 holiness on the throne who will hold him to a strict account for 
 every word ; and that God hath said — " Woe unto them that 
 justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness 
 of the riGrhteous from him." 
 
of' the old testament. 133 
 
 IV. JUDAH AS AN ORATOR. 
 
 But returning from this digression, and passing over all the 
 earlier and less finished examples of public speaking in the Bi- 
 ble, we may select the plea of Judah, as an instance of the 
 most simple, touching and beautiful forensic eloquence. "We 
 need not stop to depict the scene. You all remember the try- 
 ing circumstances in which he stood up to plead for his breth- 
 ren and himself in that august presence — before the powerful, 
 apparently harsh, and, to them all, unknown governor of 
 Egypt. A stranger far from home, and powerless ; in a land 
 of despotic power and dark idolatry, he stood arraigned before 
 the judgment seat on a charge which could not be denied. 
 Before him and around him were doubtless gathered the stern 
 officers of justice and a crowd of unsympathizing spectators ; 
 whilst in the back-ground stood his brethren with desponding 
 hearts and looks of agony. He stood moreover vrith the con- 
 sciousness of a dark deed of former guilt yet unatoned — a dreadful 
 secret which his companions knew, but which none durst reveal — 
 and at the same time conscious of perfect innocence in the matter 
 of which they were now accused — under all these struggling emo- 
 tions, amidst all these crushing disadvantages, he stands there to 
 plead for liberty, it may be for life. 
 
 AVe know not with what looks and accents he delivered the 
 speech. We can only imagine what must have been the looks, 
 and tones and gestures of a man speaking under such circum- 
 stances. Indeed the speech itself, which is on record, embraced 
 in the short compass of seventeen verses, may be taken as an 
 index of what these were. Aside from these, the speech con- 
 tains all the elements of real eloquence. Its chief characteristic 
 
134 ELOQUENCE AND OEATORY 
 
 is its touching pathos — its appeal to the teiiderest sympathies 
 of the soul. The deepest fountains of feeling are broken up, 
 and poured out in every word. Its earnestness, is an earnest- 
 ness almost unto death. It contains also argument — the argu- 
 ment of the most simple, straight-forward, truthful narrative of 
 facts. It appeals also to the imagination : and it is beautiful 
 to mark, with what delicacy the speaker's fancy plays around 
 the venerable form of that sorrowing patriarch who, in his dis- 
 tant home, is waiting for Benjamin, whose very life is bound up 
 in the life of the child, and whose grey hairs must go down to 
 the grave if he does not return. 
 
 But let us read the passage, as there is perhaps nothing in 
 the Bible more worthy of a frequent perusal, as a model of good 
 taste and simple natural oratory. The whole company, on the 
 finding of the cup, had returned to the city. Brought into 
 Joseph's house, they fell dovv-n on the ground before him. And 
 Joseph said unto them, " What deed is this, that ye have 
 done ? Know ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine ?" 
 
 And Judah said, " What shall we say unto my lord ? What 
 shall we speak ? or how shall we clear ourselves ? God hath 
 found out the iniquity of thy servants ; behold we are my 
 Lord's servants, both we, and he also with whom the cup was 
 found." 
 
 And he said, " God forbid that I should do so ; but the man 
 in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my servant ; and 
 as for you, get ye up in peace unto your father." 
 
 Then Judah came near unto him and said, " Oh, my lord, let 
 thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord's ears, and 
 let not thine anger burn against thy servant ; for thou art even 
 as Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, have ye a 
 father or a brotlier ? And we said unto mv lord. * We have a 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 135 
 
 father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one ; and 
 his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his 
 father loveth him.' And thou saidst unto thy servant, ' Bring 
 him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him.' And 
 we said unto ray lord, ' The lad cannot leave his father, 
 for if he should leave his father, his father would die.' 
 And thou saidst unto thy servants, ' Except your youngest 
 brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no 
 more. And it came to pass, when we came up unto thy 
 servant, my father, we told him the words of my lord. And 
 our father said, ' Go again and buy us a little food.' And we 
 said, ' "We cannot go down ; if our youngest brother be with 
 us, then will we go down ; for we may not see the man's face, 
 except our youngest brother be with us.' Then thy servant, 
 my father, said unto us, * Ye know that my wife bare me two 
 sons. And the one went out from me ; and I said, Surely he 
 is torn in pieces, and I saw him not since. And if ye take this 
 also from m?, and mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my 
 grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.' Xow therefore, when I 
 come to thy servant, my father, and the hid be not with us ; 
 seeing that his Hfe is bound up in the lad's life : it shall come 
 to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will 
 die ; and thy servants shall bring down the grey hairs of thy 
 servant, our father, with sorrow to the graye. For thy servant 
 became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, ' If I bring 
 him not unto thee, then, I shall bear the blame of my father 
 forever.' Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide, 
 instead of the lad, a bondman to my lord : and let the lad go 
 up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, 
 and the lad be not with me ? lost peradventure, I see the evij 
 that shall come on my father." 
 
136 ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY 
 
 Now if eloquence is to be measured by tlie effect it produces, 
 and that be adjudged great which accomplishes its purpose, 
 then was this aj eloquent and powerful speech. It gained its 
 end completely. It changed the whole plan of Joseph, which 
 had been to keep Benjamin in Egypt. It melted his soul to 
 tenderness. He could restrain his feelings no longer ; he made 
 himself known to his brethren and wept aloud in the hearing 
 of all the house of Pharaoh. If Judah had known at the first, 
 who this exalted personage was before whom he was pleading, 
 and if he had been able to read his inmost heart during the 
 delivery of his speech, he could hardly have put words together 
 making a stronger appeal to the feelings and imagination of 
 Joseph. Says that eminent biblical critic, Dr. Kitto, ''There 
 is not in the whole range of literature a finer piece of natural 
 eloquence ; and there are few who have read it, without being 
 moved, like Joseph, even to tears." We certainly do not know 
 a piece of the same compass, in any uniuspu'ed composition, 
 which can so affect us. 
 
 V. AARON AS AN ORATOR. 
 
 The next upon our list of Bible orators is Aaron, the brother 
 of Moses. It would seem that Moses, with all his extraordinary 
 gifts and powers, was no orator, at least, in his own estimation. 
 Although his educational advantages in Egypt had been great, 
 and perhaps his public services also, and although he is described 
 as a " man mighty in words and deeds," yet, up to the time of 
 his commission to deliver Israel, he seems not to have been dis- 
 tinguished for the gift of public speaking. He may have 
 become so afterwards ; but on this ground, at the time of the 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 137 
 
 commission, he pleaded exemption from the arduous work. 
 Aaron, his elder brother, however, who had remained in Egypt 
 during the forty years' absence of Moses, and had no doubt 
 acquired some considerable influence amongst his countrymen, 
 did possess this very qualification which the other lacked ; and 
 that in a high degree, for He who formed man's mouth testified 
 that he could " speak well." In that extraordinary interview, 
 which took place at the burning bush on mount Horeb, between 
 Moses and the Almighty, among other excuses for not accept- 
 ing the great commission, we hear him offering the following : 
 — " Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor 
 since thou hast spoken to thy servant : but I am slow of speech 
 and of a slow tongue." In this perhaps he had spoken too dis- 
 paragingly of his natural gifts, as well as of the Lord's power : 
 and witli much displeasure the Lord said, " Is not Aaron the 
 Levite thy brother ; I know him that he can speak well ; and 
 he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth ; and 
 thou shalt be to him instead of God." 
 
 Thus commissioned and empowered, to act as one man — an 
 arrangement which combined the energy of the man of deeds 
 with the eloquence of the man of words — the two brothers 
 went forth to fulfill their high and solemn task. Having first 
 met in the wilderness by divine direction, they returned together 
 into Egypt, with the wonder-working rod in their hands, and a 
 " Tiius saith the Lord " upon their lips, to deliver the messages 
 of Jehovah, first to their own people and then to Pharaoh. 
 Arrived at the scene of action, and received as deliverers by 
 their suffering countrymen, they hear again a voice from hea- 
 ven, reaffirming their joint commission, and saying to Moses : 
 — " See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh ; and Aaron thy 
 brother shall be thy prophet ; thou shalt speak all that I com- 
 
138 ELOQtTENCE AND ORATOEY 
 
 mand thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, 
 that he send the children of Israel out of his land." 
 
 But we need not repeat the story of their wonderful labors. 
 You remember what followed — ^liow they stood day after day to 
 plead their cause before the monarch and the magicians and all 
 the Court of Egypt — how they waxed bolder and bolder, as 
 they delivered their sublime and awful messages in the name of 
 the God of Israel. If ever there was a voice of eloquence heard 
 amongst men which made the wicked tremble, even on the 
 throne of power, it must have been the voice of these stern, 
 uncompromising ambassadors from the desert, as they stood 
 some sixteen times in the presence of the tyrant, pleading the 
 cause of their oppressed brethren, and alternately denouncing 
 and averting the wrath of heaven. If ever words were deeds, 
 they were these words, which, lightning-like, were so speedily 
 followed by the thunder-bolts of Divine judgment. 
 
 Now there are three things which are always needful for the 
 display of eloquence of the highest order ; three essential par- 
 ticulars must conspire together in the production of a grand 
 and powerful speech ; and if these conspire, the speech need 
 not be long in order to be eloquent and effective. There must 
 be a great occasion, a great subject, and a great speaker. No 
 one of these will do alone ; no two of them will answer with- 
 out the third. Says a high authority, Mr. Webster, " true 
 eloquence does not consist in mere speech. It must exist in 
 the man, in the subject, and in the occasion." Such a subject 
 Demosthenes had in the liberty of Greece, and such an occasion 
 in the threatened hivasion of Philip, king of Macedon ; besides 
 many otliers. Such an occasion and such a subject Cicero 
 found in defending the rights of Koman citizenship against 
 Verres, and the safety of the republic against the machinations 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT,. 139 
 
 of Catiline. Such an occasion and sucli a theme of absorbing 
 l^ublic interest, Burke and Sheridan had on the trial of Warren 
 Hastings ; Chatham on the American War ; Brougham at the 
 trial of Queen Caroline ; and Robert Emmet when asked, 
 " Why sentence of death should not be pronounced against 
 him." Such Whitfield always had in preaching salvation to 
 the vast crowds that attended his ministry, both in England and 
 America. Such a theme and such a crisis too of intense moral 
 sublimity, Patrick Henry and his compatriots found in our 
 Eevolutionary struggle. Such had Mr. Clay more than once, 
 in introducing his great compromise measures for the pacifica- 
 tion of our country. And such had Mr, Webster whenever he 
 stood forth as the expounder of our Constitution, and defender 
 of our national union. 
 
 In all these cases, and in many others that might be men- 
 tioned, the three circumstances of a great occasion, a great 
 theme, and a great man conspired together to the creation of 
 great eloquence. Now apply the canon to the case in hand ; 
 and tell us when did these three essentials ever meet in such 
 sublime combination, as when the two brothers stood before 
 Pharaoh, as Divinely authorized deliverers of Israel, demand- 
 ing a hearing in the name of Jehovah, and with outstretched 
 hand and uplifted rod, reiterating the message, till Egypt's 
 river rolled with blood — till its soil crept with reptiles and its 
 air swarmed with insects — till all its vegetable and its animal 
 tribes died of pestilence or devouring vermin — till its sky al- 
 ternately grev/ black with hail storms or blazed with lurid 
 lightnings, and a cry of death was heard at midnight in every 
 habitation of the land ! The subject was the emancipation, 
 from a horrible bondage, of a nation, probably not much short 
 of three millions of people. The occasion was the manifiest in- 
 
140 ELOQUENCE AND OKATOKY 
 
 terpositioQ of Jehovah in the ten successive and miraculous 
 judgments which spread desolation over the most powerful 
 kingdom then in the world. The speaker was not simply the 
 fluent, eloquent Aaron, supported by his more powerful 
 brother, but the Lord himself, who was revealing his mighty 
 arm and uttering that voice which shakes both earth and 
 heaven. They spoke to Pharaoh, the very words which the Al- 
 mighty had spoken to them. 
 
 VI. OTHER EXAMPLES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 But not wishing to dwell too long on the Old Testament, we 
 must now group together, by way of reference or of mere pass- 
 ing notice, several other striking examples of eloquent public 
 speaking, along with one, not less remarkable, of a private 
 character. These, could we dwell upon them, would not be 
 found wanting in any essential attribute of moral sublimity and 
 power. Such, for instance, was the noble and dignified speech, 
 recorded at some length, which Joseph delivered in the pre- 
 sence of the wise men of Egypt, when he interpreted the dreams 
 of the king, and foretold the years of plenty and of famine. — 
 Such were the still fuller and loftier speeches of Daniel, long 
 afterwards, on similar occasions ; once when he stood before 
 Belshazzar and a thousand of his lords and chief estates, to 
 expound the mysterious hand writing on the wall, and tell of 
 the judgment which was even then waiting at the door ; and 
 twice before that, when he stood before Nebuchadnezzar, and so 
 announced the decrees of heaven, that this proudest of Chal- 
 dea's monarclis fell down and worshipped Daniel, commanding 
 an oblation to be offered to him as one having the spirit of the 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 141 
 
 holy God. We might mention, as further examples, those awfully 
 sublime, messages some of them recorded, and some barely 
 referred to, which on great and trying occasions, Elijah and 
 Elisha, Isaiah and Jeremiah, each in his day, delivered to the 
 kings and courts of Israel and Judah. 
 
 We might dwell upon another scene of interest (now greatly 
 increased by the light of Mr. Layard's discoveries of Nineveh), 
 and tell of that extraordinary display of power by a single 
 voice speaking in the name of the Lord, which took place w^heu 
 Jonah passed through the great city, and for one whole day 
 proclaimed in all its streets, in the hearing of its vast popula- 
 tion, those words of terror : " Yet forty days and Xineveh shall 
 be overthrown," — until king and people repented before God 
 in sackcloth and ashes. To use the language of another : " He 
 must have been the subject of strange and conflicting emotions 
 when he entered the gates of that proud capital. The stern 
 soldiers upon the battlements, armed w^ith swords and shields, 
 helmets and spears — the colossal images of winged compound 
 animals that guarded the gates — the gorgeous chariots and 
 horsemen that rattled and bounded through the streets — the 
 pomp and state of the royal palaces — the signs of trade and 
 commerce, wealth and luxury, of pleasure and wickedness on 
 every hand — must have amazed and perplexed the prophet, 
 conscious of his utter loneliness amidst a mighty population, of 
 his despicable poverty amidst surrounding richefi, of his rough 
 and foreign aspect amidst a proud and polished community — 
 there was enough to shake his faith, and to cowardize his bold, 
 haughty, and scornful spirit. Yet he dared not a second time 
 abandon his mission. He therefore passed along the broad 
 ways, and the great places of concourse, crying in solemn tones, 
 ' Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.' " No 
 
142 ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY 
 
 doubt this great burden of his speech was enforced by other 
 words, and perhaps by a recital of all that had happened to 
 him in the deep. 
 
 We might speak also of the eloquence of another very differ- 
 ent occasion ; of that exciting and joyful day, when the Jewish 
 exiles, on their return from Babylon, gazed with gratitude upon 
 the rising walls of their new city and temple, and heard Ezra, 
 the patriot scribe and priest, from his wooden pulpit in the 
 street, and from morning till midnight, reading and expound- 
 ino; the word of God to the assembled multitude. We have 
 no record of what he said. But we know there must have 
 been great eloquence there, because it was a great day for 
 Jerusalem, the speaker had a great theme, and he was himself 
 a distinguished servant of God. 
 
 We might set before you, in like manner, the scenes of an 
 earlier and similar but still more imposing occasion ; when at 
 the dedication of the first temple, Solomon, the most august of 
 Hebrew monarchs, stood before the altar of the Lord, while 
 the cloud of the Divine glory filled the house. Having first 
 addressed the myriads of devout worshippers there assembled, 
 he kneeled down upon the scaffold of brass in the centre of 
 the court, and spreading forth his hands towards heaven, 
 poured out an address to Jehovah, which is recorded for our 
 instruction, and is at once the longest prayer in the Bible, and 
 the most magnificent liturgy in human speech. 
 
 To this brief enumeration of cases, we must now add yet 
 another of wholly different character. It is an illustration of 
 eloquence in private between a man and his friend — the subject 
 and his sovereign, if we do not misjudge the narrative ; but 
 still a case, where the theme, the occasion and the person, were 
 all important enough to produce a grea t impression. It ir> con- 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. "143 
 
 tained in that remarkable passage, where Nathan the prophet 
 appeared before David with a message from the Lord respecting 
 those fearful crimes of murder and adultery which had just been 
 perpetrated in secret. With the utmost skill and delicacy the 
 prophet introduces his subject by a parable of the most touch- 
 ing pathos and beauty, setting forth a case of glaring injustice 
 and oppression. This parable, which excels all description, 
 we must recite. It was in these words — " And he said unto 
 the kiug, There were two men in one city ; the one rich and 
 the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and 
 herds. Bat the poor man had nothing save one little ewe-lamb 
 which he had bought and nourished up : and it grew up to- 
 gether with him and with his children ; it did eat of his own 
 meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was 
 unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the 
 rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of 
 his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come 
 unto him ; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for 
 the man that was come to him. And David's anger was 
 greatly kindled against the man : and he said to Xathan, As 
 the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely 
 die. And he shall restore the lamb four-fold, because he did 
 this thing, and because he had no pity." The speaker thus 
 gains from the unconscious monarch an impartial verdict of 
 self-condemnation in the guise of a sentence of death against the 
 supposed offender : and then, as we may well imagine, suddenly 
 changing his whole look, and tone and gesture, he utters that 
 fearful indictment of high crimes and misdemeanors, of which 
 every sentence seems to ring with the words — " Thou art the 
 man," and which at once brought from the king the bitter con- 
 fession — "I have sinned against the Lord." 
 
M:4 ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY 
 
 If ever words were barbed arrows, piercing to the heart of 
 jonscions guilt, they were the words of this memorable speech. 
 If ever eloquence mustered all its forces for a single charge, and 
 poured them out in one intense and burning sentence, it was ia 
 this expression — " Thou art the man." We might suppose 
 such a speech to have been taken as the model of Junius and 
 all kindred writers. It has in fact been admired and imitated 
 by all the great orators of all ages who have been familiar with 
 the Bible. In fact, it may be observed, that almost all great 
 speakers and writers, have either intentionally or unintention- 
 ally, paid the Bible the compliment of borrowing its language 
 for their passages of greatest power. When they would give 
 to truth its most cutting power — when they would put barbs 
 upon the arrows of invective — when they would bring an argu- 
 ment or appeal to its keenest edge — when they would wind up 
 a magnificient sentence or paragraph by a still more magnifi- 
 cent close — when they would sum up all in one expression 
 which everybody should understand and feel and remember 
 forever — they seem to have felt that the work was best accom- 
 plished by some apt allusion, or illustration, or quotation, taken 
 from the word of God. How many offenders, great and small, 
 have had the truth brought home to their consciences, in these 
 very words of Nathan to David — "Thou art the man !" But 
 often as they have been quoted — often as they have been imitated, 
 no orator of ancient or modern times has ever found an expres- 
 sion of greater point and power. Perhaps the nearest parallel 
 to this speech might be found in that bold interview between 
 John Knox and the Queen of Scots, in which, to a question of 
 the queen, the reformer replied—" If princes, madam, exceed 
 their bounds, no doubt they may be resisted by power." It v/as 
 to the study of such scriptural models as this, that Knox owed 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 145 
 
 his heroic fidelity as a preacher. And doubtless to the same 
 source, an orator of very different character, John Randolph 
 of Roanoke, was indebted for much of that bold defiant elo- 
 quence, with which at times, with shrill, unearthly voice, 
 piercing eye and pointing finger, he stood like a spectre from 
 the grave, and poured out vials of wrath against vice and cor- 
 ruption in the high places of political power. 
 
 Vil. HUSHAI THE ARCHITE. 
 
 Passing over all these and many other examples of effective 
 thrilling oratory that might be mentioned, let us pause to notice 
 one more remarkable case before we leave the Old Testament. 
 It is the speech of Hushai the Archite, the friend and counsel- 
 lor of David. It was delivered in the audience of the elders 
 and chief men of Israel, who had been hastily summoned by 
 Absalom to deliberate on the state of public affairs at the time 
 of his usurpation — perhaps the first cabinet council of which we 
 have any record in the history of the world. Whether we con- 
 sider the crisis which called forth this speech, or the important 
 results which flowed from it, we must regard it as one of the 
 most remarkable instances of political sagacity and oratorical 
 skill to be found in the Bible. We know of no speech more 
 worthy of a profound and careful study by the admirers of 
 eloquence. Upon it the cause and kingdom, the life and earthly 
 destiny of David, turned as upon a pivot. 
 
 The rebellion of Absalom had succeeded beyond all expecta- 
 tion. David, with a small band of faithful friends and of 
 veteran warriors, had hastily retired from the city on the 
 upproach of his ungrateful son. The throne, the palace, all 
 
 7 
 
14:6 ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY 
 
 Jerusalem, had fallen, without a blow, into the hands of that 
 son. Even Ahithophel, the infallible counsellor, had gone over 
 and espoused the cause of the usurper. Elated with his unex- 
 pected success, Absalom calls a council of his nobles and mighty 
 men, to determine what was best to be done in reference to 
 David and his few followers, now on their retreat towards the 
 Jordan. 
 
 Ahithophel gives his opinion at once, and with his usual ener- 
 getic decision. He counsels action — immediate and hot pursuit 
 of the king. He urges, that with twelve thousand chosen men, 
 himself at their head, tliej should pursue David that very night 
 and overtaking him while weary and weak-handed, should kill 
 him, put all his followers to flight, and thus by a single stroke 
 render all further opposition impossible. With this counsel, 
 we are told, Absalom and all the elders of Israel were well 
 pleased. For they saw at a glance, that if adopted, it must be 
 as successful as it was decisive. 
 
 But there was another honorable counsellor at hand, whose 
 opinion was worth being heard on this important occasion. 
 And probably with a view to confirm what had already been 
 said and agreed upon, as well as out of deference to so distin- 
 guished an adherent, Absalom calls him in to hear what he will 
 say. This was Hushai the Archite, well known hitherto as a 
 fast friend of David, but who, that very evening, at the request 
 of the king, had left him, returned to Jerusalem, held an inter- 
 view with Absalom, and given in his adhesion to the usurper. 
 He it is, that now appears in the council, at the very juncture 
 when Ahithophel's counsel is on the point of being carried, and 
 by invitation rises to give his opinion. We can easily imagine 
 how he felt, and almost how he looked under the keen search- 
 ing glances of the selfish, ambitious, black-hearted men, who 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 147 
 
 were already thirsting for the blood of their old king, and now 
 reluctantly paused to give an impatient hearing to this new 
 comer. 
 
 — "He rose, and in his rising seemed 
 
 A pillar of state ; deep on his front engraven, 
 
 Deliberation sat and public care; 
 
 And princely counsel in his face yet shone." 
 
 Never did an orator stand up under more embarrassing cir- 
 cumstances. Never did an orator undertake a more difficult 
 or dangerous task. At heart the fast friend of David, though 
 professing allegiance to Absalom, he stands there in the midst 
 of violent, unprincipled men, and by one wrong word, he may 
 not only sink the cause of his master but forfeit his own life. 
 But he sees that a crisis has come ; he must speak now, or 
 never, for David. He sees with the clear intuition of an experi- 
 enced statesman, that if AhithopheFs counsel is followed, all is 
 lost ; David's kingdom and his life will have perished together 
 belore to-morrow's sun. His grand object then is to gain time 
 — time enough for David to make his escape beyond the 
 Jordan. To do this he must, by some kind of argument or 
 appeal, defeat the counsel of Ahithophel — that counsel which 
 no man had ever defeated before — that counsel which, being 
 followed, had never been known to fail — that counsel of which 
 the Bible says — " it was as if a man had inquired at the oracle 
 of God." 
 
 And most skillfully did he accomplish the task. His speech 
 shows a consummate knowledge of human nature — a perfect 
 insight into the secret motives and springs of action of the 
 men whom he addresses. He seems to have discerned at a 
 glance, if he did not know already, the precise mental and 
 moral calibre of the men with whom he now has to deal. If 
 
14:8 ELOQUENCE AND OEATOKY 
 
 we had no otlier information touching" the character of 
 Absalom, this speech would furnish the key by which to read 
 him through and through. He does not attack a single princi- 
 ple advanced by Ahithophel, nor object to a single position 
 except one — the bare question of expediency. That he knew 
 was the only principle which weighed a feather in the minds of 
 his auditors. He makes no appeal to any feeling of filial love, 
 or of natural compassion, in order to win for David a milder 
 fate, or a single day of grace : because he knew that every 
 heart in that assembly was utterly dead to any such appeal. 
 Self-love and indulgence, vanity and ambition, were the govern- 
 ing instincts of Absalom and his band. So Hushai sees that 
 he must gain his point by gaining these. xVccordingiy he makes 
 such an appeal to their hopes and fears — he so depicts the 
 perils of a night attack, so paints the well remembered prowess 
 of David and his men of war, making them feel that they 
 might fall into a very den of lions by the way, and so sets 
 before them the glory of a general battle with all Israel in the 
 field, and Absalom as commander-in-chief — that they begin to 
 wonder at the rashness of Ahithophel's policy of a pursuit at 
 night, and to think that there will be not only safety, but even 
 glory in delay. His speech is an argument grounding itself 
 upon facts — well known, incontestable facts — but appealing to 
 the imagination and to all the passions that swayed the souls 
 of his hearers. 
 
 The speech itself is on record, all embraced in seven verses in 
 the second book of Samuel. It is so brief, so ingenious, so 
 effective, so masterly every way, and withal so seldom read, 
 that we must now quote it entire, hoping that you will take an 
 early opportunity to examine it in the Bible at your leisure. 
 We shall give it just as it stands in our Bibles, only interposing a 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 149 
 
 word or two here and there, to complete or elucidate the mean- 
 ing, which words will be readily distinguished. 
 
 " And Hushai said, the counsel that xlhithophel hath given 
 LS not good at this time. For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy 
 father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are 
 (even now) chafed in their minds as a bear robbed of her 
 whelps in the field ; and thy father is a man of war, and will 
 not lodge with the people (unguarded and exposed). Behold he 
 is hid now in some pit, or in some other place (well defended 
 and safe) ; and it will come to pass, when some of them (who 
 would pursue him) be overthrown at the first, that whosoever 
 heareth it, will say, there is a slaughter among the people that 
 follow Absalom. And (then) he also that is valiant, whose 
 heart is as the heart of a lion shall utterly melt : for all Israel 
 knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they that are 
 with him are valiant men. Therefore I counsel, that all Israel, 
 be generally gathered unto thee, from Dan even to Beersheba, 
 as the sand that is by the sea for multitude : and that thou go 
 to battle in thine own person (getting to thyself all the glory 
 of a conqueror). So shall we come upon him in some place 
 where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew 
 falleth on the ground ; and of him and of all the men that are 
 with him, there shall not be left so much as one. Moreover, if 
 he be gotten into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that 
 city, and we will draw it into the river, until there be not one 
 small stone found there." 
 
 For aught we know, this may be but the brief outline of the 
 speech, which the consummate orator filled up at length : for 
 it is easy to see with what power of argument, imagination 
 and passion he might have dwelt on each successive idea. Or 
 these may be all the words he uttered — his looks, tones, 
 
150 ELOQUENCE AND ORATORY 
 
 gestures and pauses doing all the rest. But short or long, when 
 his speech was ended, his work was done. The triumph was 
 complete. The effect was overwhelming. ** Then Absalom 
 and all the men of Israel said, the counsel of Hushai the Archite 
 is better than the counsel of Ahithophel." And by way of 
 solution for an issue so wonderful, the sacred historian then 
 adds, that the " Lord had appointed to defeat the good or wise 
 counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring 
 evil upon Absalom," We need not pursue the narrative, you 
 know the result : Absalom perished in that battle in which he 
 had hoped to win the glory of a conqueror : and David was 
 restored to his throne. But the single point on which all these 
 great events hung, was the speech of Hushai — a speech perhaps 
 only five ftiinutes long ! 
 
 Now in these days of windy words and long speeches, when 
 all men claim to be eloquent and talk by the hour, when 
 oratory is often a compound of one grain of sense to a hundred 
 weight of verbiage and nonsense, we are scarcely prepared to 
 appreciate the power of so short a speech as this. Its heavy 
 artillery is fired, not by the hour, but by the minute. The 
 whole work of the orator was probably done in far less time 
 than it has taken us to describe it. But never did human elo- 
 quence win a more signal and triumphant victory. In force 
 and brevity, it calls to mind the speeches of our own great 
 Franklin, who is said never to have spoken above fifteen 
 minutes on any occasion, and never to have lost a question on 
 which he had spoken. We believe the Congress of our day, 
 have discovered an exact mathematical formula for the expres- 
 sion of oratory — adopting one hour as the maximum and mini- 
 mum of every speech, on every subject great and small. 
 
 This short speech of Hushai reminds us of an interesting 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 151 
 
 passage in Macaulay's History of England. In his account of 
 the celebrated trial of the Seven Bishops — a trial which had 
 drav/n together the highest eloquence and genius and legal 
 learning of the times, the historian speaks of a young lawyer, 
 John Somers, who as yet had been unknown to fame. 
 *' Somers rose last. He spoke little more than five minutes, 
 but every word was full of weighty matter ; and when he sat 
 down, his reputation as an orator and a constitutional lawyer 
 was established." The side on which he pleaded in that case, 
 also gained the day. 
 
 As it regards the great public interests which were at stake on 
 this speech of Hushai, and the personal courage displayed by the 
 orator, we hardly know where to find a parallel. The nearest that 
 now recurs to us, though still differing in many points, is the 
 celebrated speech of Patrick Henry in the Virginia House of Bur- 
 gesses of 1765, when he offered the first resolution ever offered 
 in America, against the British Stamp Act, and amidst cries of 
 " Treason 1 Treason !" from all parts of the house, exclaimed, 
 " Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George 
 the Third may profit by their example." Wlio then could 
 calculate, or who now, the precise amount of impression made 
 by that single burst of eloquence upon the destiny of America 
 and of the human race ? In like manner who can tell us 
 what the history of Israel and of the world might have been, if 
 the speech of Hushai had never been delivered in the council of 
 Absalom ? 
 
 But brief and powerful as was the plea of Somers on th 
 Bishops' trial ; brief and effective as were the arguments of 
 Franklin in our halls of legislation ; brief and sublime as were 
 the orders of Napoleon or the harangues of Cromwell to his 
 soldiers on the eve of battle ; brief, personal and fearless as 
 
152 THE ELOQUENT 0EAT0K8 
 
 was this warning of Henrj in the house of Burgesses — still, 
 when we weigh all the circumstances of brevity, difficulty, dan- 
 ger, embarrassment, power and success, Hushai the Archite 
 must be acknowledged to stand at the head of this kind of elo- 
 quence — at once the father and the prince of all those orators, 
 who, by a single speech, have changed the destiny of states and 
 empires. 
 
 This closes our survey of the eloquence and orators of the 
 Old Testament. And with this, it will perhaps be best for us, 
 though somewhat abruptly and contrary to the original design, 
 to close the present chapter. The theme is so rich, and it has 
 grown upon our hands, so far beyond any expectation enter- 
 tained at the beginning of our review, that we cannot now, 
 without crowding too much into a single chapter, present 
 anything like an adequate, corresponding view of the eloquent 
 orators of the New Testament. Here then let us pause, reserv- 
 ing the eloquence of the New Testament for separate and fuller 
 discussion in the next chapter. 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 153 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Fxamples of Perverted Eloquence— Herod and Tertullus— Speech of Gamaliel— The EIo. 
 quent Apollos— Stephen's Address to the Council — Preaching of John the Baptist- 
 Peter as an Orator — Speech of James before the Synod— The Pvecorder or Town- 
 clerk of Ephesus— The Eloquence of Paul— Paul on Mars Hill— Discourses of our 
 Lord — Conclusion. 
 
 Having had occasion to divide our subject into two parts, 
 let us now proceed to an examination of the eloquent orators of 
 the New Testament, in the light of tliose general character- 
 istics and illustrations of eloquence which have already been 
 pointed out. Amongst the multitude of public speakers who 
 figure upon its pages, entitled to wear the stany crown of ora- 
 tory, it must suffice to sketch only a few of the most prominent 
 and remarkable examples. And for the sake of the contrast 
 which it may furnish, let us begin with the case of those who 
 claimed, but were not entitled to that crown : for here, as in 
 almost every thing else, the Bible teaches by contrast, giving 
 us samples of the bad mingled with the good and the noble. 
 
 1. EXAMPLES OF PERVERTED ELOQUENCE HEROD AND 
 
 TERTULLUS. 
 
 There are two, expressly mentioned as orators in the New 
 Tes^^ament, who have gained the title only by their abuse of the 
 
 7* 
 
154: THE ELOQUENT 0RAT0K8 
 
 gift, and wbose names on the sacred pages enjoy only that kind 
 of immortality which unusual infamy gives to the tyrant, or 
 superlative baseness to the sycophantic sophist. They are king 
 Herod and Tertullus — the one a tool in the hands of the wicked, 
 the other a despot whose hands were stained with the blood of 
 the righteous. In the twenty-fourth chapter of the book of 
 Acts, we read of a "certain orator named Tertullus" — a Roman 
 orator as the name indicates, who, hired by the Jewish priest- 
 hood for the purpose, went down to Csesarea, to prosecute the 
 Apostle Paul when he was on trial there before the Roman 
 governor Felix. He was one of those special pleaders, to be 
 found in every age, whose talents are offered for sale on all oc- 
 casions to the highest bidder, and are easily purchased by 
 wealth and power, regardless of truth or justice, right or 
 wrong ; and who, from long practice as well as natural instinct, 
 can always speak better on the side of falsehood than of truth. 
 His object was to convict Paul of sedition, heresy and profana- 
 tion ; and the weapon with which he attempted it, was flattery — 
 foul and fulsome adulation of the noble virtues and worthy 
 deeds and amiable character of Felix — a man who had once 
 been the base-born freedman of the Emperor Claudius, and who 
 now, according to Tacitus, " exercised royal authority with the 
 spirit of a slave, and indulged himself in every species of cruelty 
 and lust." It is instructive to see how this specious rhetorician — 
 this fit descendant of the father of lies — this hanger-on to the 
 skirts of men in power — this disgrace of a noble profession, 
 thought, by bending the supple hinges of the knee, and by the 
 smooth and oily common-places of flattery, to carry the day, as 
 it were by implication, against such a man as Paul ! 
 
 But as the result proved, the eloquence of Tertullus was no 
 match for Paul's, even at the corrupt bar of Felix. There is 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 155 
 
 not a finer contrast in all the Bible than is here presented be 
 tween the Apostle's dignified and manly defence, and this low 
 judicial fawning of his mercenary accuser. Doubtless many 
 persons, have thought the eloquence of Rome to be vastly 
 superior to the eloquence of Jerusalem. But on this, the only 
 occasion where we have ever seen the two in conflict, it is clear, 
 that the Hebrew won a perfect triumph over the Roman ora- 
 tor. We must not however do Rome the injustice to take Ter- 
 tullus as a fair sample of her oratory. Indeed the world would 
 never have heard of him but for Paul. His name lives on the 
 page of sacred history by an unexpected immortality, because 
 linked with a man whom it was his trade to destroy ; so that 
 " a certain TertuUus " becomes, without a rival, the Tertullus 
 and the sycophant of the New Testament forevermore, AYith 
 a name as euphonious as that of Tully, he has come down to 
 us distinguished as the Scripture type and representative of all 
 that class of slack-twisted special pleaders who are eloquent for 
 pay, and whose eloquence finds vent in a hypocritical adulation 
 of the possessors of wealth and power. 
 
 The other example of perverted eloquence is that of King 
 Herod, recorded ia the twelfth chapter of Acts. This cruel 
 and ambitious tyrant, whose hands were stained with the blood 
 of the Apostle James, and would have been stained with 
 Peter's also, but for his miraculous deliverance from prison, 
 seems to have possessed, in a high degree, the gift of popular 
 eloquence ; at least in a high degree for a king. For we are 
 informed by the sacred writer, that, " upon a set day, Herod, 
 arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne and made an 
 oration unto the men who had come from Tyre and Sidon. 
 And the people gave a shout, saying. It is the voice of God, 
 and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord 
 
156 THE ELOQUENT OEATOES 
 
 smote him, because he gave not God the glory ; and he was 
 eaten up of worms and gave up the ghost." 
 
 Who can read this account without feeling that it is a fear- 
 ful thing to abuse the gift of eloquence, without feeling that the 
 Almighty hath set the seal of his hottest displeasure upon the 
 man who does so ? This horrible fate — perhaps the most horri- 
 ble and shocking recorded in the Bible, seems to have fallen 
 upon Herod, to give the world a warning of the awful responsi- 
 bility which those incur, who prostitute to base and selfish 
 purposes, the noble endowments of eloquence. In his vanity, 
 and pride, and royalty, he had, like Nebuchadnezzar of old, 
 though with far less excuse, blasphemously arrogated to him- 
 self the prerogatives of deity. Instead of rending his clothes, 
 restraining the people, and giving God the glory, as Paul and 
 Barnabas did at Lystra, when the priests of Jupiter and Mer- 
 cury cried, " The gods have come down among men," and were 
 about to offer sacrifices to them — Herod receives, unrebuked, 
 the idolatrous shout of the multitude, "It is the voice of God, 
 and not of man." It was probably the very homage he had 
 courted. And for receiving it without rebuke, he was rebuked 
 from heaven, so as to stand to all posterity, like Absalom and 
 Catiline, and Mirabeau and Burr, a very name for blasted ambi- 
 tion and talents thrown away. There is nothing in the history 
 of man, which Divine Providence has more frequently and 
 signally frowned upon, than this vain-glorious self-idolatry. 
 Nebuchadnezzar thought himself almost a God, because of 
 ' great Babylon which he had built ;" and he was driven out, be- 
 reft of reason, to find a shelter among the beasts of the field, 
 Alexander wished the world to think him a god, because he 
 had conquered it ; and soon reaped a just reward in dying, " as 
 the fool dieth," by drunkenness. Napoleon tried the same experi- 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 157 
 
 ment of self-deification, in modern times, and while he thought 
 that destiny was his own, Divine providence was only spreading 
 around him those meshes which at last caught and caged him 
 forever. So on a scale infinitely smaller, this blood-stained 
 Herod deemed himself worthy to be called a god, because he 
 had made a great speech ; and for it he was devoured by 
 worms. You remember, that the temptation held out as a bait 
 at the commission of the first sin in Eden, was — "ye shall be 
 as gods :'' and ever since that day, whenever this experiment of 
 pride has been repeated, the Providence of God has ponred coa- 
 tempt upon the argument of Satan, by leaving those who would 
 be gods to become fools or brutes. Well did the ancient pro- 
 phet say — " Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither 
 let the mighty man glory in his might ; let not the rich man 
 glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in the 
 Lord." 
 
 II. THE SPEECH OF GAMALIEL. 
 
 But let US notice next the speech of Gamaliel before the 
 great Sanhedrim, the highest council of the Jews, when the 
 Apostles, a little after the day of Pentecost, were arrested 
 and brought before that body for trial. This speech, as 
 recorded, was exceedingly brief, all being comprised in five 
 Tcrses ; but it is one, which, by its spirit of moderation as well 
 as by the truth of its sentiments, reflects great credit upon its 
 author. It is full of practical common sense, sound views of 
 policy, and faith in the overruling providence of God ; whilst 
 its doc^.rine of religious toleration must have been greatly in 
 advance of the times. The speech is an argument, sustained 
 by several historical cases, for letting the Apostles alone, or 
 
158 THE ELOQUENT 0RAT0E9 
 
 leaving them to the providence of God, under the conviction 
 that their doctrine, if of men, would soon come to naught, but 
 if of God, could not be successfully resisted. Jew as he was, 
 and a Pharisee of the highest style, his mind seems very clearly 
 to have grasped that grand truth of j)olitical and ecclesiastical 
 philosophy, which the church and the world have been so slow 
 to learn — that persecution can never put down a good cause, 
 and is always sure to help a bad one. When we read this wise 
 and moderate speech, we wonder how such a persecutor as Saul 
 of Tarsus could have proceeded from the school of such a 
 master. This, however, may be but another illustration of the 
 very common fact, that the public speeches of great men may be 
 much better than their practice or their creed. Be this, how- 
 ever, as it may, the address of Gamaliel to the council, on the 
 present occasion, was a noble and successful effort on the side 
 of right and justice, well worthy of the man who was univer- 
 sally regarded by his countrymen as the most learned and dis- 
 tinguished doctor of the law then living. 
 
 It evidently saved the Apostles from further imprisonment, 
 and most likely from death at the instant. For when Gamaliel 
 rose to speak, the body was filled with rage and clamoring for 
 their destruction. We have only to consider the materials of 
 which that body was composed, and the circumstances under 
 which the speaker interposed his counsel, to see how great 
 must have been his weight of character and weight of words, 
 to bring about such a result as their release. Gamaliel was a 
 Pharisee, whilst the Sadducean party now had a majority and 
 a great ascendency in the Sanhedrim, and were greatly exas- 
 perated with the Apostles for preaching that doctrine which 
 they abhorred the most — the resurrection of the dead. The 
 apostles who had been before them on a former occasion, not 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 159 
 
 only preached that doctrine boldly to their faces, as they had 
 done to all Jerusalem, but they had openly on both occasions 
 set their authority at defiance, and charged thera explicitly with 
 tke murder of Jesus. So that now they felt that something 
 decisive must be done : and we are told, " they took counsel 
 to slay them." At this critical juncture, Gamaliel, although 
 belonging to a party in the minority, stood up and delivered 
 his speech, which may be read at your leisure, and need not be 
 recited now. He was as successful in changing the mind of this 
 council as Hushai had been in changing the council of 
 Absalom. Nothing can reveal more clearly the power of right 
 words, and the influence of a wise counsellor, when brouji-ht to 
 bear at the right time and place. When we know the temper 
 of the body he had to address, and know the position he occu- 
 pied there, we can only account for the fact stated at the close, 
 that " to him they agreed," by supposing, either that this was a 
 speech of extraordinary power, or that the orator was a man 
 of extraordinary character and influence. The latter, we know 
 to have been true, and doubtless the former was also. We 
 take this speech of Gamaliel, as an admirable example of what 
 may be called deliberative eloquence — succinct, practical, cau- 
 tious and effective. 
 
 This is one of the rarest, as it is one of the noblest and most 
 useful kinds of eloquence. Happy is the church, happy the nation, 
 whose councils are adorned by the presence of these Nestors and 
 Gamaliels of eloquence to direct, or hold in check the ardor of 
 younger men ! This style of eloquence depends upon a clear, 
 sound judgment, integrity of character, and, for the most part, 
 the ripened experience of age. Such was the eloquence of 
 Franklin. Such was the eloquence of Dr. Witherspoon, both 
 in our civil and ecclesiastical councils, who waited till others 
 
160 THE ELOQUENT 0RAT0E8 
 
 had expressed their opinions, and then, " in a consise, clear and 
 forcible manner, gave his views, and generally with a unani- 
 mous result." And such eloquence too was often heard in the 
 calm clear voices of those two venerable men, so long associated 
 in life and so little separated in their deaths — Drs. Miller and 
 Alexander. 
 
 III. ^THE ELOQUENT AP0LL03 
 
 But it is time for us to approach another interesting branch 
 of our subject — the eloquence of preaching and of the pulpit. 
 As a matter of course it is in the New Testament that we find 
 the liighest models of this species of oratory. Because the 
 preaching of the cross is called foolishness, and " it pleased 
 God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that be- 
 lieve," we are not to infer, that there was nothing attractive 
 and powerful in the eloquence of the Apostles and first preach- 
 ers of Christianity. We know, that tbeir Divine master had 
 promised to give them a "mouth and wisdom which all their 
 adversaries should not be able to gainsay nor resist." And so 
 we find them in fact, speaking with a freedom and boldness 
 from the very first, which astonished the rulers and councils 
 before whom they were brought. If we had no direct testi- 
 mony on the point, it would be natural to conclude, that men 
 who spoke " in demonstration of the spirit and with power," 
 must have spoken eloquently. But we are not left to mere infer- 
 ences. We know, for example, on the testimony of Scrip- 
 ture, that Apollos was "an eloquent man," although we have 
 no report of any of his sermons. 
 
 Apollos was one of the earliest ministers of the church of 
 Corinth. So far as we are able to learn his character from a 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 161 
 
 few brief notices on the sacred pages, he seems to have some- 
 what resembled the apostle Paul, in enthusiasm, eloquence and 
 diversified learning. Paul mentions him more than once in his 
 epistles. He rebukes the several parties in the Corinthian 
 church for saying, "I am of Paul, and another I am of Apollos, 
 and another I am of Cephas ;" and asks, " Who then is Paul, 
 and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed ?" He 
 then adds, " I have planted, Apollos watered, and God gave 
 the increase." From this alone it is evident that Apollos was a 
 faithful and succesful minister of the gospel. But we have a 
 much fuller account of him in the Acts of the Apostles. We 
 there read, that " a certain Jew, Apollos, born at Alexandria, 
 an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephe- 
 sus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord ; and 
 being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the 
 things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. And he 
 began to speak boldly in the synagogues, whom when Aquila 
 and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and ex- 
 pounded to him the way of the Lord more perfectly. And 
 when he was come unto Achaia, he helped them much, who 
 had believed through grace. For he mightily convinced the 
 Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus 
 was the Christ." 
 
 Being thus a Jew by birth, and a native of Alexandria, the 
 seat of Egyptian learning, and enjoying, like Paul, the double 
 advantage of being deeply read in the Jewish scriptures and 
 in the literature of foreign countries (if, as it is natural to do, 
 we suppose him also to have been acquainted with Grecian 
 learning, as he was with Jewish and Egyptian), he must have 
 been eminently fitted to exercise his ministry in the refined cities 
 of Ephesus and Corinth. Possessing also an eloquent tongue, and 
 as we infer from the narrative, unusual powers of reasoning, he 
 
lo2 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 must have been eminently successful as a preacher. It is not 
 wonderful, thus endowed, that he should be mentioned as hold- 
 ing rank with the apostles Paul and Cephas in the public esti- 
 mation at Corinth. He belongs to a class of characters men- 
 tioned in Scripture of whom just enough is known to excite 
 curiosity and make us greatly desire to know more. All that 
 we know of him, though little, is very good ; and from this it 
 is safe to infer that Apollos was one of the most eloquent 
 and accomplished preachers of the primitive church 
 
 IV. — Stephen's address to the council. 
 
 Going back, somewhat, in the order of events, we find 
 another name, worthy of honorable mention on the roll of 
 New Testament orators. It is that of Stephen, one of the first 
 deacons, and the very first martyr, of the Christian church. 
 Though not immediately called by his office to preach the gos- 
 pel, yet he appears, very soon after being appointed a deacon, 
 to have engaged in the discussions of the synagogue, where he 
 reasoned with the people, and defended the cause of his Mas- 
 ter with such wisdom and spirit, that his opponents, unable to 
 answer him or put him down by words, hurried him away for 
 condemnation to the great council. His speech before that 
 body, on the charge of blasphemy, as alleged by suborned wit- 
 nesses, was delivered in answer to the question of the high 
 priest, its presiding officer — " Are these things so ?" In the 
 apprehension of all present, who had heard the awful charges, 
 that question was virtually a demand, why sentence of death 
 should not be passed against him ; for their law had but one 
 punishment for such a crime when proved. 
 
 We know not what his whole argument would have been, if 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 163 
 
 he had not boen interrupted ; but if wo may judge by that 
 part of it which he was parmitted to deliver, it must have been 
 a sublime and eloquent vindicatiou. Interrupted as it was, it 
 fills up the whole of the seventh chapter of the Acts, and with 
 the exception of some of our Saviour's discourses, it has the dis- 
 tinction of being the longest speech recorded in the Bible. Paul, 
 then a young man, was present and heard it, and had probably 
 himself been disputing with Stephen in the synagogue. Paul, no 
 doubt remembering it well long afterwards, communicated it to 
 Luke, who was thus enabled to report it accurately and fully. 
 The speech evidently glows with all the enthusiasm of elo- 
 quence. Though the speaker was fully aware of his perilous 
 position — that on his words his life hung as by a thread — ^}'et 
 he betrays no indication of embarxassment, or haste or fear. 
 AVith the utmost deference to the rulers who sat to judge him, 
 and with perfect self-possession, he takes for his theme " the 
 God of Gtlory," and with devout and patriotic ardor, traces 
 the long line of his providences towards " the seed of Abraham 
 his chosen." 
 
 Before such an audience, who can imagine a more thrilling 
 theme, or a more exciting scene. Arraigned to answer for his 
 life to the charge of blasphemy against Moses and the law, and 
 the God of Israel — brought to the bar of that august Sanhe- 
 drim, whose long white beards and robes of oflQce gave it the 
 aspect of infallible wisdom — inspired himself with a wisdom 
 more than mortal under the teachings of the Holy Ghost — he 
 stood, as his Saviour had done in that same presence, calm, 
 serene, self-composed and trusting in God — his face shining as 
 it had been the face of an angel, his eye lifted up to those hea- 
 vens, where a little after he saw Jesus standing on the right 
 hand of the eternal throne, his vcice rising and sweUiug respon* 
 
164 THE ELOQUENT OltATOKS 
 
 sive to all the deep emotions of a soul filled with the love of 
 Clirist. Suddenly, and apparently in the midst of his discourse, 
 he changes his tone into one of severe rebuke. At this point, 
 says Dr. Dick, " It is probable that his hearers gave signs of 
 impatience ; and Stephen perceiving that they were about to 
 interrupt him, seized the moments which remained to him, to 
 tell them a few unwelcome truths, which would serve as his 
 dying testimony against the incorrigible enemies of his Saviour." 
 Accordingly, he makes no allusion to the charges preferred 
 against himself, but lays at their own door the much more 
 awful charge of having murdered the Son of God. Feeling 
 that the cause of truth demanded such fidelity, whatever might 
 be the consequence to himself, he bursts forth into the follow- 
 ing terrible invective : " Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in 
 heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost : as your 
 fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your 
 fathers persecuted ? and they have slain them which showed 
 before of the coming of the Just One ; of whom ye have been 
 betrayers and murderers ; who have received the law by the 
 disposition of angels and have not kept it." 
 
 This was more than they could bear. No Gamaliel, evea 
 had he been present, and so disposed, was then able to pour 
 into their counsels a spirit of moderation and wisdom. All 
 further formalities of law were stopped. They could not wait 
 to take a vote. They were clamorous for blood. Says the 
 record, " They were cut to the heart, and gnashed on him with 
 their teeth. They cried out with a loud voice, stopped their 
 ears and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of 
 the city and stoned him." And as if to mark the greatness of 
 the contrast between the bigoted rage of the persecutor and the 
 peaceful spirit of the victim, the sacred writer adds : "Ho 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 165 
 
 called upon God, saying, ' Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ;' and 
 kneeling down he cried with a loud voice, * Lord, la!^ not this 
 sin to their charge.' And when he said this, he fell asleep." 
 Glorious termination of a brief and glorious life I The historic 
 pcge recounts many scenes of thrilling eloquence, in life and in 
 death. But out of the Bible, it contains no record of a voice 
 more eloquent, even to the last agonies of death, than Stephen's. 
 And when that bold and eloquent tongue lay silent in the dust, 
 it was only to receive a crown of martyrdom which shall last 
 forever. As he fell asleep in Jesus and the last prayerful 
 accents of the living voice died away, another voice of eloquence 
 that never dies, began to plead, and by it, he being dead yet 
 speaketh. His example -took up the unfinished argument of his 
 lips, and bore it down to every successive generation. The 
 classic Greeks showed their appreciation of eloquence by giving 
 it an apotheosis amongst the immortal gods : but here in the 
 early death and heroic martyrdom of Stephen, eloquence found 
 a different and truer apotheosis. 
 
 V. PREACHING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 
 
 But leaving this true-hearted speaker in all the glory of his 
 early martyrdom, and going still farther back in the sacred his- 
 tory, we hear the voice of another bold advocate of truth and 
 reprover of wickedness in high places — the first indeed that is 
 heard in the opening pages of the New Testament. It is the 
 voice of one who, for a season, was held in universal admiration, 
 as the greatest prophet, preacher, and reformer of the times. 
 It is that long-expected voice, which breaks forth from the 
 wilderness of Judea, crying, " Prepare ye the way of the Lord, 
 
166 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 make his paths straight," and is heard again on the banks ol 
 the Jordan, pointing out the Messiah and saying, " Behold the 
 Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." It is 
 John the Baptist, the connecting link of two dispensa.tions— the 
 last and greatest prophet of the old, the first and most honored 
 preacher of the new, in whom the law uttered its voice of thun- 
 der mingled with the swpet music of a gospel of repentance and 
 peace. 
 
 We have no detailed report of the preaching of John ; but 
 we have many short extracts, varying in length from one verse 
 to ten, which seem to be taken from his speeches on different 
 occasions, and, as in a nutshell, to contain the substance of his 
 preaching. Judging from these, as well as from the testimony 
 of onr Saviour to his eminence, and from the deep impression 
 made on the public mind of the nation, we must conclude, that 
 there was something unusually powerful and effective in the dis- 
 courses of this preacher of the desert. It is recorded as the 
 saying of the people on one occasion, that, " John did no mira- 
 cle ;" so that the whole effect of his ministry must be ascribed 
 under God to his character as a prophet and his eloquence as a 
 preacher ; and this effect, we know, was so great, that all the 
 people were in expectation concerning him, " musing in their 
 hearts if he were not the Christ ;" their highest authorities were 
 willing for a reason to rejoice in him, as " a burning and shin- 
 ing light," and even the wicked Herod " did many things aod 
 heard him gladly." 
 
 Now, in speaking of John and other preachers of the New- 
 Testament as eloquent orators, we do not wish to convey to 
 your minds the impression, that their sole power, or even their 
 chief power, lay in their gifts of eloquence. We have no desire 
 to ascribe any undue influence and importance to their natural 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 167 
 
 endowments, to the disparagement of those which were super 
 natural. We wish you always to remember that all these inspir- 
 ed preachers, just like the poets of the Bible, would have been 
 nothing and could have done nothing successfully in their great 
 work, though they had spoken with the tongues of men and 
 of angels, without the grace of God and the power of the Holy 
 Ghost. Still it is just as true, that they had natural endow- 
 ments, as that they had these high spiritual and miraculous 
 endowments. And God wrought in them by the one as well as 
 by the other. For the most part, these mighty, superhuman gifts 
 and endowments found utterance and expression through the 
 medium of those faculties and attainments which they possessed 
 cither by nature or education. And we are not' to think that 
 their speech was any the less real, persuasive, eloquent, effec- 
 tive human speech, fitted to melt the heart and move the will, 
 because they often spoke with other tongues as the Spirit gave 
 them utterance. So far from disparaging the eloquence of the 
 New Testament then, because its orators spoke with an inspira- 
 tion direct from heaven, we ought rather to exalt its power and 
 influence because it possessed this Divine element. This Divine 
 influence left John, and Stephen and Apollos, as free to exer- 
 cise all their natural gifts, and to use all the arts of persuading 
 men, as if they had been under no such afflatus. Let no one 
 object then to the application of the term eloquent to their 
 preaching. And when we attribute to such preaching, the 
 usual effects of great and powerful eloquence, let no one imagine 
 we are making void the grace and power of God. We are 
 only magnifying the power of that grace which can employ the 
 tongue of the eloquent, as it employs other things, for the 
 accomplishment of its grand designs. 
 
 Great must have been the power of eloquence, in John's case, 
 
168 THE ELOQUENT OKATOES 
 
 destitute as he was of the power of w^orking miracles, to draw 
 together the vast multitudes of all ranks and classes of the peo- 
 ple that crowded to his baptism. Clothed as he was in the 
 garb of one of the old prophets, much no doubt of his popular- 
 ity and power would be due to the estimation in which the 
 people held a character so awful and sublime. But as there 
 had been no great prophet in Israel for four hundred years, and 
 as John was yet a young man of thirty, how could his title to 
 the prophetic office be established so soon and so universally ? 
 The only answer seems to be in the extraordinary character of 
 his preaching. By his bold, energetic, authoritative, heart- 
 searching eloquence, as a preacher of righteousness and a teacher 
 come from God, and by this alone, could he establish thus easily 
 his mission as a prophet in Israel. Nothing less than this could 
 have attracted from their homes and their business the myriads 
 of people that waited upon his ministry on the banks of the 
 Jordan. For we are told that all Jerusalem and all Judea, and 
 all the region around, went out to him there. Short as it is, 
 enough remains to us of the preaching in which he warned that 
 generation of vipers to flee from the wrath to come, besides the 
 fact that he at last fell a victim for his fidelity in reproving 
 vice, to convince us that John must have possessed, in a remark- 
 able degree, the attributes of a great popular orator. 
 
 Gilfillan speaks of him thus : " He attended no school of the 
 prophets, he sat at the feet of no Gamaliel ; but among the 
 rocks and the caves, and the solitudes of the wilderness, he 
 extracted the sublime and stern spirit of his office. The tame- 
 less torrent, dashing by, taught him his eloquence. The visions 
 of God furnished him with his theology. He had indeed no 
 rhythmic utterance, and figurative flights : but he had the dress, 
 the spirit, the power, the wild-eyed fervor, and the boldness of 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 169 
 
 his prototypes : and hence the wilderness of Jordan rang to 
 his voice, Judea was struck to the heart at his appearance, and 
 Jerusalem went out as one man to his baptism." 
 
 This description may be in part true ; but there is much 
 more probable truth iu the opinion of Dr. Kitto, that John 
 being of the tribe of Levi, an only son, and withal a child of 
 so much promise at his birth, had received the very best pro- 
 fessional education his country could afford ; and that he 
 retired to the wilderness for meditation, according to the custom 
 of the times, only a few years prior to his entering on the great 
 mission of his life ; where he indeed remained, sustained chiefly 
 by locusts and wild honey, till the day of his showing unto 
 Israel. 
 
 But we must not dwell too long on this interesting and 
 remarkable character — combining at once all the highest excel- 
 lences of prophet, preacher and reformer, in the life of a young 
 man. With his name we are accustomed to associate the great 
 and good of other times. We think of this light of a dark 
 age, this harbinger of the Messiah's advent, in connection with 
 those morning stars of the great reformation — Wickliflfe, 
 Jerome, and Jolm Huss. There was something also of the 
 same noble daring, and singleness of purpose, and energetic 
 eloquence in Luther and Calvin. But perhaps the nearest 
 approximation to his spirit,. and character, and work, which the 
 ministry of modern times has ever presented, was exemplified in 
 the stern heroic preaching of Scotland's great reformer, John 
 Knox. 
 
170 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 VI. PETER AS AN ORATOR. 
 
 But what shall we say of the preaching of the Apostle 
 Peter ? He stands forth prominently in the whole evangelical 
 history as one of the greatest public speakers of the New 
 Testament. During the life of Christ, we find him the foremost 
 speaker on all occasions ; and after the ascension, he seems to 
 have stood forward the acknowledged leader and advocate of 
 the apostolic band, whenever their cause needed to be publicly 
 defended. From the bold promptitude and ready facility with 
 which he expressed his opinions, as well as from the ardent 
 enthusiasm that marked his character, it is obvious that he was 
 by nature endowed with many of the best gifts of eloquence. 
 The two sons of Zebedee, were called by our Saviour, " Boan- 
 erges," or " sons of thunder ;" which would lead us to suppose 
 that they too must have possessed, in high degree, at least some 
 of the characteristics of eloquence. But notwithstanding this, 
 we find Peter, wherever public speaking was called for, taking 
 precedence of James and John, as he did of all the rest. 
 
 In the Acts of the Apostles, we find reports, more or less 
 full, of some nine or ten of the discourses delivered by Peter, 
 at different times, to the people or their rulers, or to his 
 brethren of the church. For example, we have his address to 
 the company of a hundred and twenty disciples immediately 
 after the ascension of Jesus ; his longer discourse on the day 
 of Pentecost ; his speech to the multitude in Solomon's porch, 
 in connection with John, at the healing of the lame man ; his 
 defence before the council on the day following, and another 
 similar defence not long afterwards ; his awful rebuke of 
 Ananias and Sapphira at Jerusalem, and also of Simon Magus 
 
OF THK NEW TESTAMENT. 171 
 
 the sorcerer at Samaria ; his sermon before Cornelius and his 
 household at Caesarea, the first sermon to the Gentiles ; his 
 subsequent vindication of that matter before the .brethren of 
 the church ; and last of all, his speech in the first general 
 Synod of Jerusalem on the observance of the ceremonial law 
 among the gentile converts. In all of these, as also in his two 
 general epistles, we find many striking indications of that natu- 
 rally vigorous intellect and high-toned eloquence which so often 
 burst forth in the presence of the Master. There was not a 
 little of the heroic and sublime in that calm and dignified pro- 
 test to the council, when forbidden to preach any more under 
 pain of imprisonment or death : "Whether it be right in the 
 sight of God, to hearken unto you, more than unto God, judge 
 ye ; for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen 
 and heard." 
 
 But the most remarkable and effective of all these, was his 
 discourse on the day of Pentecost, which, along with the labors 
 of his colleagues, resulted in the conversion of three thousand 
 souls. Of course it is not to be understood that these conver- 
 sions were the work of Peter's eloquence, except so far as that 
 eloquence was inspired of God, and blessed of God, as an instru- 
 ment in the hands of the Divine Spirit. Xo real conversion on 
 that, or on any other occasion, is the work of mere human 
 oratory. Peter may have been, and probably was, an eloquent 
 man all his life ; and when inspired of God, as he was on the 
 day of Pentecost, even that natural eloquence must have 
 appeared immeasurably more eloquent than it ever did before 
 But no eloquence of Peter's, whether natural or inspired, could 
 ever convert a sinner without the special and direct agency of 
 the Holy Ghost. On the other hand, it is at the same time true, 
 that God, who works by the most appropriate means in effect- 
 
172 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 ing human salvation, just as he does in other things, employs 
 the tongue of the eloquent in siiYing men. And although there 
 was the direct miraculous agency of the Holy Ghost on the 
 day of Pentecost, accompanied by visible signs and mighty 
 wonders — cloven tongues of fire and new languages which they 
 had never learned — still it was by the preaching of Peter and 
 the eleven associates — their bold, faithful, pointed, heart-search^ 
 ing proclamation of the truth as it is in Jesus — that three 
 thousand souls were added to the church on that memorable 
 day. 
 
 And when in the annals of Christianity did any sermon, or 
 as we should rather say, set of sermons, on a single day, produce 
 so large a result ? If eloquence may be measured by its fruits, 
 this day's preaching of the inspired Apostles must stand without 
 a parallel in the annals of preaching. It was indeed a day of 
 Pentecost to Christianity — a glorious ingathering of her first 
 fruits. And God seems thus early to have established a pre- 
 cedent and a model for the preachers and the churches of all 
 coming generations. 
 
 Now you may be familiar with the achievements of pulpit 
 eloquence in modern times ; you may have read with what 
 breathless interest, all classes of people, the great and the 
 learned, as well as the poor and unlettered, hung upon the lips 
 of Whitfield, of Chalmers, of Edward Irving, of Robert Hall; 
 how vast audiences were electrified, and half entranced by the 
 beseeching music of the voice, when uttered by young men like 
 Summerfield or Larned ; how congregated thousands were 
 alternately bathed in tears and striken down in terror in the 
 powerful revivals of Jonathan Edwards, or of the old divines 
 of Scotland ; how a grand assemblage of corrupt and courtly 
 auditors were made to start to their feet instinctively, as over 
 
OF THE NlOW TESTAMENT. 173 
 
 tlie mortal remains of Louis XIV. Massillon pronounced the 
 words — " God only is great ;" but after all these and a thousand 
 kindred triumphs of the pulpit, the conversion of three thou- 
 sands souls in one day from the ranks of men whose hands were 
 stained so recently with the blood of Jesus, must still remain 
 as the greatest achievement ever made by the eloquence of 
 the pulpit. You may, if you please, dispute the claims of the 
 Bible orators to superiority in other departments ; but there 
 can be no dispute here. There has been no preaching on earth, 
 so eloquent, so powerful, so triumphant, so sublime as that 
 which the Bible records. 
 
 VII. SPEECH OF JAMES BEFORE THE SYNOD OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 We may notice next, as a fine example of dignified, delibera- 
 tive eloquence, the speech of the apostle James, before the first 
 general council of Jerusalem, the substance of which is reported 
 in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts. This is not James, the 
 brother of John, for he had already been put to death by the 
 sword of Herod ; but that James who wrote the general epis- 
 tle, whom Paul calls the *' brother of our Lord," and who was 
 distinguished amongst his contemporaries by the title of "James 
 the Just." It is remarkable that nothing remains in the New 
 Testament of any of the sermons of the brothers, James and 
 John, though as " sons of thunder," they must have acted a 
 conspicuous part in preaching the Gospel. It is well observed 
 by a recent writer, in regard to these brothers, as showing 
 how different may be the career of usefuhiess to which Christ 
 calls his ministers, that " one died before the middle of the 
 first Christian century, the other lived to its close ; oue 
 
174 THK eloqdp:nt orators 
 
 of them was called to lay down his life, the first martyr of the 
 twelve, almost before the gospel had been preached out of Jeru- 
 salem : whilst the other outlived all the band, saw the gospel 
 established in every land, and at last died in peace." Liitle 
 did their ambitious mother dream of the strange but glorious 
 destiny that awaited the one and the other, when she asked 
 that her two sons might sit on the right hand and the left of 
 the throne of Jesus ! 
 
 But to return to the other James ; he seems, as an apostle, 
 to have exercised his ministry at Jerusalem; for many years, to 
 have been a man of great weight in counsel, and probably tc- 
 havebeen the president or moderator of the synod just referred tc 
 On the solemn and important questions which had to be decid 
 ed at that meeting, we are told there had been much contro 
 versy. In the synod itself there was no little disputation ; for 
 the main question at issue, touching the binding authority of 
 the law of Moses upon the gentile churches, was one of no little 
 perplexity to men educated as they had been. Several had 
 advanced their opinions. Peter had delivered a short speech 
 full of practical wisdom and sound but liberal doctrines. Paul 
 and Barnabas, who had brought the question up from Antioch, 
 bad each in turn addressed the assembly, declaring all the won- 
 derful things God was working among the Gentiles. James 
 waited till all were done, and then spoke. His antecedents 
 were of such a character as might have inclined him to take 
 the side of a rigid adherence to the Mosaic institutions. But his 
 mind seems at once to have grasped the true doctrine as already 
 expounded by Peter, who had received a revelation on the sub- 
 ject. He gives his opinion in accordance with that view, ad- 
 ducing arguments from Scripture to support it. The speech, as 
 reported, is short, but full of weighty matter. It seems to have 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 175 
 
 reconciled all conflicting views of both parties, and its senti- 
 ments, with almost its very words, were immediately adopted and 
 sent forth to the churches in the form of a decree of the council. 
 This whole case is one of great interest to us, because it 
 shows how even the inspired Apostles, who had received direct 
 revelations from the Lord, had still to use their natural facul- 
 ties and bring together their united wisdom, in arriving at the 
 knowledge of the truth on many important points. We see 
 them meeting with the elders of the church, consulting, delib- 
 erating, debating, and at last coming to a unanimous decision, 
 which was the result of conference — mind meeting mind in ar- 
 gument, opinion modifying opinion in counsel, and truth ex- 
 plaining and enlarging truth, when thus laid together. Instead 
 of giving a special revelation on the subject, or rather, after 
 he had giveu such a revelation to one of them, the Lord saw 
 fit to leave them to discover the whole truth by the ordinary 
 means of mutual conference and consultation. 
 
 VIII. — THE RECORDER OR TOWN-CLERK OF EPHESUS. 
 
 Let us turn now to an example of public speaking altogether 
 different from any we have yet contemplated ; for it is re- 
 markable how diversified are the styles of oratory exemplified 
 in the New Testament. This is an address, delivered to a col- 
 lection of the people which had all the characteristics of an in- 
 furiated, ungovernable mob. It must be acknowledged that it 
 requires talents of a peculiar order to address such an assem- 
 bly. Perhaps the most difficult task which an orator ever es- 
 says, is to oppose — successfully to oppose — the demands of an 
 unreasoning, raging mob. It is worthy of remark, how many 
 
176 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 notices of the doings of such mobs we find in the New Testa- 
 ment. It was a mob, that under color of the forms of law, 
 crucified the son of God. It was a mob that more than once, 
 in the streets of Jerusalem, took up stones to stone him. It 
 was such a mob that, at Nazareth, led him to the brow of the 
 hill whereon their city was built, intending to cast him down 
 the precipice. It was a grave and dignified assembly, madly 
 converting itself into a mob, that put Stephen to death. It 
 \ 'as through mob violence that Paul was, in many places, ex- 
 pelled from the synagogue, scourged and cast into prison ; and 
 at one time stoned and left for dead. It was one of the 
 most fierce and diabolical of mobs, that once rushed upon him 
 in the temple of Jerusalem, casting off their clothes, throwing 
 dust into the air, crying " away with such a fellow from the 
 earth," and purposing to tear him in pieces. 
 
 But of all the mobs mentioned in the New Testament, this 
 one at Epliesus is to us, the most curious and instructive, as 
 well from its being so graphically described and so near akin to 
 the mobs of our own times, as from the remarkably adroit 
 and sensible speech of the town-clerk who at last quelled it. 
 
 You will get a wrong impression of the character of this 
 officer, if you think of him only as a clerk or secretary of some 
 petty court in Ephesus. In addition to his office of recorder, 
 or keeper of the archives of the city, he was, for the time being, 
 a magistrate, and indeed the chief magistrate of Ephesus. His 
 office, which was held for one year, corresponded very nearly 
 with the office of mayor in one of our cities : so that the town- 
 clerk was the highest presiding officer of that great city at the 
 date of this occurrence. And with the knowledge of this fact, 
 you will be better prepared to understand the reasons of that 
 success with which he allayed so great a storm by so short a 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 177 
 
 speech. lu virtue of bis ofiSce, it was his right and duty to 
 preside in the lawful assemblies of the people, and hence we 
 find hira acting so conspicuous a part at this unlawful and im- 
 mense gathering in the Ephesian theatre. Dr. Kitto. from 
 whom these particulars have been chiefly derived, tells us, that 
 "The theatre at Ephesus was the largest structure of the kind 
 ever erected by the Greeks, and was capable of seating fifty 
 thousand persons. It was excavated from the sloping side of 
 mount Prion, looking towards the west, and was faced with a 
 portico. The exterior diameter was 660 feet. Like all other 
 ancient theatres, it had no roof, but the spectators protected 
 themselves from the sun by head-gear adapted for a screen, or 
 by holding a light parasol in their hand, or sometimes a kind 
 of tarpaulin was drawn across the theatre itself. Here the 
 scenic representations were exhibited, and here were held the as« 
 semblies of the people. This theatre is still discoverable by its 
 ruins, which are of immense grandeur. Its interest to us arises 
 from the certainty, with which it can be identified as the scene 
 of one of Paul's most perilous conflicts." And here he adds — 
 " We witness a curious, but not unparalleled union, of the 
 ' great goddess Diana,' with the great god Self, whose worship 
 still exists, though that of Diana is extinct." 
 
 The vast multitude of craftsmen and others was headed by 
 Demetrius, one of the chief manufacturers of " silver shrines of 
 Diana." Having first filled the whole city with confusion, and 
 sought in vain to find Paul, they caught two of his companions, 
 and rushed with one accord into the theatre, rending the air 
 with the shout — " Great is Diana of the Ephesians." This 
 wily and selfish man, who had raised all the uproar, was actu- 
 ated by the basest motives of gain. But with the true instinct 
 of a demagogue, he had contrived to cloak this love of filthy 
 
 8* 
 
178 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 lucre, under the specious pretence of devotion to the glory of 
 their presiding deity. His speech to his fellow-craftsmen, so 
 loud in professions of concern for the temple of the great god- 
 dess, whose "magnificence not only Asia, but all the world 
 worshipped," is about the most finished specimen of the peculiar 
 art of demagogism, to be found in ancient times. 
 
 When the vast stream had poured itself into the theatre — 
 some crying one thing and some another, and many not know- 
 ing why they were there at all, but all ready for deeds of blood 
 - — Paul who had thus far kept out of the way, was informed of 
 their proceedings ; and learning, that his two companions were 
 in the hands of the mob, he determined to go himself and share 
 their danger. Nothing in all the heroic history of that great 
 apostle, more strikingly displays the noble generosity and high- 
 souled courage of the man, than that he should dare to appear 
 before such a mob. His brethren, knowing the peril, would 
 not suffer it ; and in this purpose they were sustained by cer- 
 tain of the chief men of Asia, or religious officers of the city, 
 who were friends of Paul. 
 
 In the meantime a Jew, named Alexander, probably with a 
 view to shield his own countrymen from the fury now directed 
 against the Christians, tried to get a hearing. He came for- 
 ward, beckoning with the hand, and " would have made a de- 
 fence to the people." But they had met for deeds, not words — 
 they had come for execution and not speecdi-making. They 
 only drowned his voice in a louder and longer cry of " Great is 
 Diana of the Ephesians." This we are told they kept up, " all 
 with one voice about the space of two hours." 
 
 At this stage of affairs the recorder seems to have arrived ; 
 or it may be, he was there before, waiting the favorable mo- 
 ment to interpose with his authority. And when at length he 
 
OF THE NEW TE5TAMKNT. 179 
 
 had SO far appeased the multitude as to gain a hearing, he de 
 livered that brief, and for such an occasion, admirable speech, 
 which is recorded by Luke in six verses, every word of which 
 was directly to the point, and full of strong- common sense. We 
 need not cite it here, as you can examine it at your leisure. 
 Bat if we judge it from the stand-point of heathenism at which 
 it was delivered, and try to fancy ourselves in the recorder's 
 place, it is difficult to conceive how he could have acquitted him- 
 self with more dignity, more wisdom and more success. He said 
 precisely the right words at precisely the right time. " And 
 when he had so spoken he dismissed the assembly." The one 
 wise man had turned away the wrath of a multitude, and de- 
 livered the city. There was an influence going out from the 
 man of high official station over all the masses of that fierce 
 mob ; but there was a much mightier influence going out from 
 the words of wisdom which he uttered. It is not every city of 
 a Christian land that is blest with so wise, so influential, so elo- 
 quent a mayor as the town-clerk of Ephesus. Heathen though 
 he was, he has the distinction of having his speech recorded on 
 the sacred page. 
 
 IX THE ELOQUENCE OF PAUL. 
 
 But Paul — what shall we say, how shall we speak of Paul? 
 Where shall we find words to rise to the matchless majesty of 
 such an orator as Paul ? Every association that clusters around 
 his name inspires the mind with ideas of eloquence. Whatever 
 he writes, whenever he speaks, wherever he goes, his words 
 and actions all burn with eloquence. He rises with ease and 
 grandeur to the sublimest truths of revelation : and he bends 
 with grace and dignity to the minutest details of daily life 
 
180 THE ELOQUENT OEATOKS 
 
 and duty. Whatever subject he touches, however lowly, or ob« 
 scure, or commonplace, becomes at once radiant with the 
 light of truth, and sublime through the inspirations of eloquence , 
 There is, in the whole character and career of this great apostle, 
 such a wideuess of view., such a completeness of design^ such a sus" 
 tained and lofty bearing, such an assemblage of rare and noble 
 attainments, that we scarcely know what to admire the most— 
 v/hether Paul the man or Paul the minister — Paul as theologian 
 or as moral hero— as logician or as orator — as the champion of 
 truth, or as the martyr of Christianity. It is no exaggeration, 
 speaking of mere men, to call him the prince of preachers and the 
 prince of moral heroes. And though he calls himself the least 
 of the Apostles, it is manifest that in many respects he stands 
 at the head of the list. Of msro men, there is no character 
 in the Bible, except Moses, that deserves to be put in compar- 
 ison with him — none that accomplished so much while living — 
 none that after deatli has exerted so great an influence. Regard- 
 ei simply as a man of genius, apart from all his supernatural 
 r;ifts, w^e suppose there was not a human mind to be found in all 
 the length and breadth of the Roman world of his generation, 
 more richly endowed with the attributes of greatness than Paul's. 
 It would seem that Divine grace had so called him to his 
 work, and so equipped and adorned him for it, as to give the 
 world, m one living man, a specimen of tlie whole power of 
 Christianity upon the character — to illustrate by example what 
 human nature might become and might achieve when controlled 
 and sanctified by grace. Excepting only the character of Jesus 
 and the preaching of Jesus, there is no character nor voice of 
 eloquence, even in the New Testament^ which can stir all the 
 depths of the soul to sympathy and admiration, like Paul's. 
 Eighteen centuries have responded with reiterated and increas. 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 181 
 
 Ing applause to that eloquence ; eternity alone can disclose the 
 influence of such a character and such a life. 
 
 We need not speak now of that peculiar style of familiar 
 yet elevated conversation — that earnest, importunate, enthusias- 
 tic, authoritative talking, as it were face to face with the 
 churches, which runs through all his Epistles, and distinguishes 
 them as the most eloquent and effective letters that were 
 ever penned. We need not speak of the unreported eloquence 
 of those almost countless occasions, when in the synagogues of 
 the Jews, before the temple shrines of the Greeks, in the 
 streets, houses, and market places of the whole Roman Empire, 
 from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Athens, from 
 Athens to Rome, he lifted up his voice with mighty reasonings 
 to convince and persuade men. And we need not speak of 
 that deeper eloquence of living and heroic deeds, which, in 
 defiance of all opposition, uttered itself unceasingly in planting 
 churches, and carrying the glad tidings of salvation to regions 
 " where Christ had not been named." Let us pass over every- 
 thing of this kind, to notice some of those public discourses of 
 the great apostle which, to some extent, have been recorded in 
 the book of Acts. 
 
 Besides brief addresses on different occasions, we find reports 
 of six of his speeches, which are given at considerable length. 
 And these were delivered under circumstances calculated to call 
 forth his highest powers of eloquence. For instance, we have a 
 long address, setting forth the way of life by the gospel, 
 delivered to the men of Israel in the synagogue at Antioch : 
 we have his short and masterly address to the men of Athens 
 on Mars Hill : his pathetic farewell address to the elders of the 
 Ephesian Church ; his bold and powerful speech to the mob of 
 Jerusalem from the steps of the tower ; his dignified and tri- 
 
182 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 umphant vindication at C^sarea against the charge of Ter- 
 tullus ; and his sublime defence of himself and apology for 
 Christianity before King Agrippa and the court of Festus. The 
 world has justly ranked these six speeches amongst the noblest 
 triumphs of pulpit eloquence. For although we have but a 
 fragment on which to rest our judgment ; still it is easy, even 
 from that, to see what the whole must have been. It is not 
 easy, however, to decide which of the six is the master-piece, 
 so perfectly adapted is each to the end which the speaker had 
 in view. 
 
 The last of them — the defence before King Agrippa and his 
 royal sister Bernice, has generally been regarded as the most 
 eloquent, which may be owing partly to its being reported at 
 greater length than the others, and partly to the attending cir- 
 cumstances. It was manifestly a speech of great power, aside 
 from any consideration of the occasion that called it forth, or 
 the impressions produced by it. But when we take all these 
 into consideration, and think of the circumstances in which 
 both the speaker and his auditors stood, it must be pronounced 
 an effort of the very highest moral sublimity. Reflect a 
 moment on the scene. 
 
 Paul was a prisoner in bonds, still awaiting his trial, as he 
 had been during two long years of delay, and now at last appeal- 
 ing for a hearing to the bar of Augustus at Rome. Just at 
 this time, Agrippa, attended by Bernice, who, though a sister, 
 was suspected of bearing to him a relation which no sister 
 could lawfully hold, came down to Caesarea to pay their court 
 to Porcius Festus, the newly aj^pointed governor of the pro- 
 vince. Having heard the particulars of Paul's case, and pro- 
 bably a good report as to his eloquence, the Jewish King, who, 
 notwithstanding his Herodean blood, and liis sinful life, seems to 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 183 
 
 have had some natural conscicuce left, expressed a desire to hoar 
 Paul speak. Accordingly we are told that, " on the morrow, 
 when Agrippa was come and Bernice, with great pomp, and 
 was entered into the place of hearing, with the chief captains 
 and the principal men of the city," evidently making a large 
 and imposing assembly, " at Festus's commandment Paul was 
 brought forth." "And Festus" — apparently feeling now that 
 he had a prisoner worth showing, and whose showing contri- 
 buted something to his own self-importance — " said. King 
 Agrippa, and all men who are here present v/ith us, ye see this 
 man, about whom all the multitude of the Jews have dealt with 
 me, both at Jerusalem and also here, crying that he ought not 
 to live any longer. But when I found that he had committed 
 nothing worthy of death, and that he himself hath appealed 
 unto Augustus, I have determined to send him. Of whom I 
 have no certain thing to write unto my lord. Wherefore I have 
 brought him forth before you, and especially before thee, 
 King Agrippa, that after examination had, I might have some- 
 what to write. For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a 
 prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him." 
 " Then Agrippa said unto Paul, * thou art permitted to speak 
 for thyself.' And Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered 
 for himself:" — "I think myself happy. King Agrippa, because 
 I shall answer for myself this day before thee, touching all the 
 things whereof I am accused of the Jews. Especially, because 
 I know thee to be expert in all customs and questions which are 
 among the Jews. Wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently. 
 My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first 
 among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews : who 
 knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after 
 the straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee. And now 
 
184 THE ELOQUENT OEATOES 
 
 I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise, made of 
 God unto our fathers. Unto which promise our twelve tribes 
 instantly serving God, day and night, hope to come : for 
 which hope's sake. King Agrippa, I am accused of the 
 Jews." 
 
 Such is his opening of the case ; such his exordium and 
 clearing of the question. But you are doubtless familiar with 
 the speech, and we need not recite it further now. You 
 remember with what impressive grace and courtesy and 
 ease, he addressed himself to the august auditory. You 
 remember with what self-possessed dignity, with what fearless 
 fidelity, with what conscious superiority over his lordly judges, 
 despite their interruptions, he waxed warmer and warmer under 
 the kindlings of his lofty theme, until they not only held him 
 guiltless of any crime, but almost envied his position as a Chris- 
 tian. You remember with what earnestness, and with what 
 irresistible logic, he made the appeal direct, and pressed home 
 the " argumentum ad homiuem," to the very conscience of the 
 liing — " For the king kuoweth of these things, before whom 
 also I speak freely. King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets ? 
 I know that thou believest. Why should it be thought a thing 
 incredible with you that God should raise the dead." And 
 when at last, these appeals had drawn from the king, the unex- 
 pected declaration — " Almost thou persuadest me to be a Chris- 
 tian," the apostle, seizing so good an opportunity to deepen the 
 impressions he had made, instantly replied — " I would to God 
 that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were not 
 only almost, but altogether, such as I am, except these bonds." 
 " This," says Dr. Kitto, " was a master-stroke of true elo« 
 queuce, that the finest orators of Greece or Rome never 
 equalled. The effect was electrical, Agrippa started from his 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 185 
 
 Beat, and broke up the court, by departing with the governor 
 and Beruice, as if afraid that he should commit himself further 
 were he to listen any longer." 
 
 X. — Paul's address on mars hill. 
 
 But if we should single out any one of the six recorded speeches 
 of the apostle, as being the sublimest triumph of his eloquence, 
 we should take his address at Athens, before the Court of 
 Areopagus on Mars Hill, although the report given of it is 
 evidently but a brief compend of what he saidou that occasion. 
 Briefs and skeletons of sermons are proverbially dry. Bat it is 
 not so with those of the Scriptures. There is a vital spirit still 
 breatliiug in every word and sentence of these inspired frag- 
 ments. The one now before us possesses a peculiar interest, 
 from the fact that it was the first meeting, at least on any- 
 thing like a grand scale, of the eloquence of Jerusalem with 
 that of xVthens. It was the first formal and direct assault, 
 which this new and foreign religion, called Christianity, had as 
 yet made upon the fables of the ancient classical mythology in 
 the home of their nativity and the citadel of their strength. 
 Many triumphs it had won in Ephesus and other cities of Asia 
 Minor. Something too had been achieved in the chief cities of 
 Macedonia. But this was now the first promulgation of the 
 truth to the Greeks themselves on their own classic soil. It 
 was the first direct collision between the educated, imaginative 
 mind of the Asiatic world, and the educated mind of the highly 
 polished, artistic people of the European world. It was Shem 
 and Japheth coming together after long centuries of separation, 
 each bringing the religious system he had been perfecting for 
 
186 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 ages, at last to try their strength, on the arena of reason And 
 argument, in an open contest for the mastery of the world. 
 Versed as Paul was, from his singular advantages of genealogy, 
 nativity and education, both in the learning of the East and 
 the West, and able, even before his endowment with the gift of 
 tongues, to speak to the Hebrews in Hebrew, and to the Greeks 
 in Greek, he was eminently fitted to represent the cause of 
 Christianity at this Athenian meeting of the two worlds, the 
 two races, and the two religions. We can well imagine 
 with what enthusiasm, and with what yearning desire to save 
 souls, such a man as Paul must have trod, for the first time, 
 the classic soil of Attica — the* far-famed land of poetry and the 
 arts, of heroes and sages, of temple-crowned hills and story- 
 telling glens, of gushing fountains, bright skies, and balmy air : 
 and how he would feel when at last he stood within the gates 
 of that proud city, which was the boast of Greece, the shrine 
 of genius, the home of art, the cradle of philosophy, but at the 
 same time the seat of every false god. And so, we are told, 
 that while tarrying at Athens for his companions, " his spirit 
 was stirred within him " when he saw such a city wholly given 
 to idolatry. 
 
 Disputing first with his own countrymen there in the syna- 
 gogue, as was his custom wherever he went, and then witii all 
 others whom he met, from day to day, in the market-place, he 
 was, after a while, encountered by a company of the Epicurean 
 and Stoic philosophers, who brought him to the great council 
 hall of the city on the top of Mars Hill, in order to hear more 
 fully what this babbler and setter forth of strange gods had to 
 say. In that place the Athenians — professional teachers, poets, 
 rhetoricians, critics, philosophers, logicians — were accustomed 
 to meet daily for the purpose of " teUing or hearing some new 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 187 
 
 thing." In Ihat place also the highest court of the city was 
 accustomed to hold its sessions. In that very hall the great 
 Socrates, four centuries before, had been arraigned, tried and 
 condemned to death, on this same charge of inculcating the 
 worship of strange gods. 
 
 It is obvious from the narrative and from the apostle's speech 
 that he had been brought into the presence of this court, not 
 merely out of idle curiosity to hear him speak, but for the pur- 
 pose of an investigation, and if need be a trial, touching the 
 doctrines he had been inculcating during his stay at Athens. 
 And if so, it is equally obvious, that he was in no little peril of 
 his life, in case he should appear to have been setting forth the 
 worship of some new, unauthorized God. For, as Dr. Kitto 
 again tells us, you must bear in mind, that whilst the Athenians 
 were willing and even anxious to establish the worship of every 
 distinguished deity in the world, it v/as a matter which belonged 
 solely to the state. It was death for an individual unauthorized 
 to establish or teach any new worship. How then did Paul, 
 who had been boldly preaching Jesus and the Resurrection, 
 manage to exonerate himself from this dangerous charge ? In 
 the most admirable manner in the world. By a single sentence 
 in the very opening of his speech, which must have relieved 
 every mind in his audience, and eUcited new interest in his 
 cause, he extricated himself from all suspicions on that point. 
 Taking advantage of his recent observations in their city, and 
 with a skill and ingenuity, that would have done credit to any 
 orator in the world, abstaining from any allusion to their laws 
 or his implied violation of them, he virtually told them, that it 
 was his mission to declare to them, that Deity, the creator of 
 heaven and earth, whom they had been ignorantly worshipping, 
 and whom the state had already recognized by that public altar 
 
188 THE ELOQUENT 0RAT0E8 
 
 which it had erected, with an inscription — " To the unknown 
 God." 
 
 " Having thus skillfully opened his case," says the learned 
 author just referred to, " Paul proceeded with his statement ; 
 and it is very safe to say, that in all the choicest oratory of the 
 heathen world, there is nothing to compare with the splendor, 
 majesty and dignity with which he entered upon his explana- 
 tion ; and the felicity is no less admirable than the boldness 
 with which he refers to the scene by which he was surrounded. 
 The court of the Areopagus was uncovered, and above him 
 was only the canopy of heaven. Around him was pkin and 
 mountain, and in the distance was the expanse of ocean. Im- 
 mediately before him was the Acropolis, with the glorious 
 Parthenon, and the colossal statue of Minerva, and a thousand 
 other images, many of them glittering with silver. How im- 
 pressively then, but with what peril, must he have uttered these 
 ^Yords — ' God that made the world, and all things therein, see- 
 ing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in 
 temples made with hands ; neither is worshipped with men's 
 bands.' " 
 
 Now, if ever the three elements of a great occasion, a great 
 subject and a great man conspired together to give the eloquent 
 Athenians a specimen of a great speech, it was the case when 
 this lone but fearless ambassador of the true God, knowing as 
 he did the absolute certainty of all that he preached, stood up 
 in that venerable hall which erst had rung with the clarion 
 voice of Demosthenes, to proclaim the sublime truths of Chris- 
 tianity to these worshippers of the unl^nown God. Imagine if 
 you can the moral glory of such an occasion, such a theme and 
 such a preacher. He stands in an open court, on an elevated 
 point of the city, where there is everything around him, in earth 
 
DF THE NEW. TESTAME>IT. 189 
 
 and sky, on land and sea, in nature and art to strike the out- 
 ward sense, and fill the soul with emotions of awe and grandeur. 
 He stauds in the midst of living men who claim to be the elite 
 of the earth, of monuments dedicated to the mighty dead of all 
 past generations, of temples and oracles sacred to the presiding 
 deities of every nation. And stands alone, sole representative 
 of a religion, which he knows by revelation from heaven shall 
 one day dethrone every deity, shut up every temple and silence 
 every oracle in Athens and in Greece. And his task is so to 
 preach that religion now, as not to arouse the prejudices or 
 excite the wrath of these bigoted and boastful philosophers. 
 
 Most nobly and successfully does he perform the arduous 
 task. In the language of Gilfillan : " He rises to the majesty 
 of the scene. He fills easily and amply the great sphere which 
 he finds around him. He feels the dignity of his position. He 
 knows he has a message from the God who made that ocean, 
 these mountains and these heavens. The men of Athens are 
 clamoring for some new thing ; he has the latest news from the 
 throne of God. They are worshipping the 'unknown God ;' it 
 is his task to unveil his image and show him shining in the face 
 of Jesus Christ. In nine immortal sentences he condenses all 
 the primal truths of nature and of Christianity." 
 
 But as the speech is short and at all times worthy of our 
 profoundest study, let us now quote it entire : 
 
 ** Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too 
 superstitious (or rather ye are overmuch devout). For as I 
 passed and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this 
 inscription, ' To the unknown God.' Whom therefore ye igno- 
 rantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the 
 world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven 
 and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands j neither 
 
190 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, 
 seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things. And 
 hath made of one blood, all nations of men, for to dwell on all 
 the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before 
 appointed, and the bounds of their habitation : that they should 
 seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him, 
 though he be not far from every one of us. For in him we live 
 and move and have our being ; as certain also of your own 
 poets have said — * For we are also his offspring.' For as much 
 then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think 
 that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven 
 by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God 
 winked at ; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. 
 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge 
 the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordain- 
 ed ; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he 
 hath raised him from the dead." 
 
 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead — a doc- 
 trine deeply repugnant to the Greeks, though they held the 
 immortality of the soul — " Some mocked, but others said we 
 will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from 
 among them. Howbeit certain men clave unto him and believed ; 
 among whom was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman 
 named Damaris, and others with them." His labor had not 
 been in vain. These persons, no doubt, became the nucleus 
 of a church at Athens — the first fruits of Attica to the 
 Lord. 
 
 Now what, think you, would have been the judgment of man- 
 kind, if, instead of a mere synopsis like this, one of Paul's dis- 
 courses as long as those of Demosthenes and Cicero, had come 
 down to us ? Suppose we had one of his speeches as complete 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 191 
 
 as the longest of his epistles. He had too much to do to write 
 his sermons ; and there was no one to report them in full. But 
 suppose we could now read all he said on Mars Hill, or all that 
 speech which made Felix tremble, or that which almost per- 
 suaded Agrippa, or that which he delivered at Jerusalem in 
 Hebrew, what would be our judgment of his eloquence, arguing 
 from the less to the greater? After reading Demosthenes 
 throusrh an hour's oration, we do not wonder that the Athe- 
 nians rent the air with the cry — " Let us rise and march against 
 Philip." But suppose the world had to measure the calibre of 
 the Grecian or the Roman orator by fragments of their 
 speeches, no longer than those of Paul on Mars Hill. Might 
 not the world greatly modify its opinions as to their compara- 
 tive merits ? 
 
 But it may be objected to all this, that Paul speaks dispara- 
 gingly of his own eloquence. We do not wonder that he, who 
 had seen the glory of Jesus, who had been " caught up into 
 paradise, where he heard unspeakable words, which it is not 
 lawful for a man to utter," and who in view of the Divine holi- 
 ness was accustomed to deprecate all excellency of speech or 
 wisdom of words, as used by the men of this world, and to 
 speak of himself as the chief of sinners — should also speak of 
 of his " bodily presence as weak and his speech is contemptible." 
 But whatever he thought of himself, it is clear that none of his 
 hearers, not even the enemies who said so, ever thought his 
 speech contemptible or his bodily presence weak. Though his 
 name was Paul, the little, he had a mouth and wisdom which 
 none of his enemies could gainsay or resist — an eloquence of 
 utterance and a soul of energy which never failed him. The 
 true gauge of the power of words lies in what words can 
 accomplish. Words not backed by deeds never were, and never 
 
192 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 can be eloquent. Eloquence is great only wlien it can do great 
 things, or what is the same, make others do them. 
 
 Now it is manifest, that in the whole Jewish, Grecian and 
 Roman world, there was no power, iotellectual or moral, which 
 could stand up against Paul ; none, in fact, that ever did with- 
 stand him but the power of mere brute force. Physically, of 
 course, the Roman Empire was stronger than Paul and his fel- 
 low apostles ; but in every other sense, they were more than a 
 match for the world, as the result proved. And as the chief 
 instrumentality which they used in accomplishing their great 
 work, was public speaking — the preaching of the truth ; so, we 
 must pronounce the public speaking, which had such power to 
 move the world, eloquence of the highest order ; and none the 
 less so, but indeed all the more so, because it was wielded by a 
 Divine power. 
 
 There are several incidents recorded of Paul's public speak- 
 ing which evince his consummate ability and address as an 
 orator. For instance, you remember how, at Lystra, the priest 
 of Mercury was about to offer sacrifice to him as the chief 
 speaker, under the impression that the god of eloquence had 
 come down. That such a man as Felix should be made to 
 tremble on his seat of power, when he reasoned of righteousness, 
 temperance and judgment to come, is another proof of it. And 
 that such a man as x\grippa should be made to confess himself 
 almost persuaded to be a Christian before all the court of Festus, 
 is still another. See, too, with what promptness and graceful 
 majesty, he replied to the rude interruption of the governor. 
 " I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the words 
 of truth and soberness." You may remember also how at one 
 time he carried his cause triumphantly over the Sanhedrim by 
 taking advantage of their own dissensions, and rebuked the 
 
OF THK NEW TESTAMENT. 193 
 
 high priest in his very chair of office, with the bold and terrible 
 retort — " God shall smite thee, thou whited wall : for sittest 
 thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be 
 smitten contrary to law ?" You may remember how at last hav- 
 ing won for himself the reputation of " turning the world upside 
 down," which in fact he had done, though not, like the mighty 
 men of this world, with the thunders of any human artillery, or 
 the lightning of any physical sword, he took an appeal from all 
 the petty tribunals, both of Jew and Gentile, and carried up his 
 great cause, the cause of Christianity against the world, to the 
 highest tribunal on earth, the judgment bar of Cassar, where he 
 tells us, *' no man stood with him." No man, learned in the 
 law of nations, ever baffled his adversaries and covered them 
 with confusion more effectually than Paul did by this appeal. 
 And never did an orator have a nobler cause to plead, or occupy 
 a position of higher moral grandeur, than Paul held, when thus 
 appealing, he stood before Nero. What would we not give to 
 have that speech ? 
 
 We have all, perhaps, admired the lofty bearing with which, 
 in different lands and in different ages, the preachers of the 
 go-pel, as if animated by one spirit, have stood up for the defence 
 of truth and right in the presence of the kings and nobles and 
 mighty men of the earth. There is nothing in the history of 
 man more glorious than this. There are no deeds that men 
 have ever done, which have more successfully vindicated the 
 dignity of human nature, and made man worthy of the attention 
 of angels, than these brave deeds of the unarmed preachers of 
 the truth as it is in Jesus. We have read how the corrupt 
 court of France was often made to tremble under the daring 
 appeals and applications of Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon. 
 We have read how the trumpet tongue of John Knox, anawed 
 
 
 
19^ THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 by royalty and beauty even in tears, failed not to charge home 
 the sins and follies of the Queen of Scots. We have read how 
 George II. of England was awed into silence and admiration, 
 when rebuked for his levity, by Samuel Davies of Virginia, 
 saying to him — " When Jehovah speaks, let the Kings of the 
 earth keep silence." We have read how Wickllffe and Luther, 
 Wishart and Rogers, Bunyan and Baxter, and a cloud of such 
 witnesses for the truth, stood up boldly against the strongholds 
 of prevailing vice and fashion, and were not afraid to beard the 
 lion in his den, when duty required it. 
 
 But whence this daring fidelity to the cause of truth ? 
 Whence this heroic devotion to principles for which no Grecian 
 or Roman orator ever died ? In what school did the preachers 
 of righteousnes learn this brave style of eloquence ? Why 
 have they been so sublime ? The answer is obvious. It lies in 
 the fact, that they have taken Paul and his fellow apostles as 
 their models, and they have only followed in the footsteps of 
 these inspired orators, even as they followed in the footsteps of 
 Christ. 
 
 XI. DISCOURSES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 But if such be the eloquence of his ministers and servants, 
 what shall we say of the Master himself ? If such distinction 
 belong to the merely human orators of the Bible, as compared 
 with those of other nations, how shall we speak of the Divine 
 preeminence of that eloquent voice, which once shook the earth, 
 and shall yet once more shake both earth and heaven ! If any 
 thing more were wanting to complete our picture, to place the 
 seal of triumph and glory upon these inspired orators, and to 
 exalt the eloquence of the pulpit above every other kind of elo- 
 
OF THE KEW TESTAMENT. 195 
 
 quence, it is found in the fact tliat Christ the son ot God was 
 a public speaker and a preacher of the gospel. 
 
 It would seem at first view hardly lawful to call him an ora- 
 tor : and yet, in the highest sense of the term, he was as truly 
 a human and Divine orator, as he was both God and man. He 
 spoke in public and in private. His converse was with God 
 and with man. His great mediatorial office of prophet made 
 him a public teacher to the world. As an ambassador sent from 
 Heaven, he had a great mission to establish and proclaim by 
 mighty works and mighty words. His ministry of three years 
 was a period of almost daily public speaking. " To you, men, 
 I call, and my voice is to the sons of men." Speech, public, 
 private, unceasing, human speech was one of the grand instru- 
 ments of his power on the world, one of the essential departments 
 of the work he came to do. 
 
 AVhat must have been the soft, beseeching music of that voice, 
 of which it is written, that they " wondered at the gracious 
 words which proceeded out of his mouth :" " The common peo- 
 ple heard him gladly :" " He spake as one having authority, and 
 not as the scribes ;" " Never man spake as this man ?'' What 
 must have been the eloquent Divine power of that voice of wis- 
 dom, love and authority, which sometimes put every adversary 
 to silence, and sounded the very depths of the human heart, so 
 as to reveal all it had ever felt or done — that voice, which from 
 the mountain's brow, beneath the tranquil skies, in view of 
 the bright glad waters of the sea of Galilee, breathed forth its 
 words of blessing and salvation to the lost sheep of the house 
 of Israel — that voice whose every accent was in such deep sym- 
 pathy with human want and woe, that it could speak peace 
 to the troubled soul, joy to the desolate, light for the straying, 
 pardon for the guilty, health for the sick, hope for the despairing, 
 
196 THE ELOQUENT OEATOES 
 
 life for the dying — that voice which had such absohite com 
 mand over all the elements of nature, that it could say to the 
 raging winds and waters — " Peace, be still ;" and there was a 
 calm ; or to the dull cold ear of death — " Damsel, arise," "Lazarus, 
 come forth ;" and it was obeyed — that voice, whose possessor 
 was in such sublime communion and harmony with the heavenly 
 world, that thrice did he draw down a response and testimony 
 from God, as if it had been a voice of thunder or of an angel. 
 
 Talk we of the eloquence of human tongues ? Here is a voice 
 of Divine eloquence, clothing itself in the language of men, but 
 fresh from Heaven, which the living and the dying of every 
 generation have listened to, as they have to no other voice. 
 'Tis the voice of Jesus, the man of sorrows and acquainted with 
 grief, but God over all and blessed forever. In his very name 
 there is a music and a charm which no other name of men 
 or angels can inspire. In his voice there is an eloquence and a 
 power which can awake the dead — which all that are in their 
 graves shall hear, and when they hear it, shall spring to life 
 again. 'Tis the voice of him who made the world, who '•' spake 
 and it was done ; who commanded, and it stood fast." Tlie 
 first voice to which these heavens and earth reverberated at the 
 beginning, saying, " Let there be light," is the same voice that 
 is appointed to wake the dead and close the scenes of time. So 
 that the Bible opens and closes, like the course of time, with 
 the voice of God. Jesus, the great teacher, prophet, priest and 
 king of our salvation, is the first and last to speak on the grand 
 theatre of this material creation — the Alpha and Omega, alike 
 of all human eloquence and all created existence. How pro- 
 found — how sublime — how solemn his words : " Marvel not at 
 this ; the hour cometh, in which all that are in their graves shall 
 hear his voice, and they that hear shall live." 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 197 
 
 We need not dwell upon the peculiar characteristics of our 
 Saviour's public and private discourses. They must be familiar 
 to all. But his discourses stand alone, and unapproachable in 
 the history of literature and of eloquence. No other teacher, not 
 even his inspired Apostles, ever spoke as he did. You will call 
 to mind at once his remarkable parables, of which about thirty 
 are recorded at length, and which, for originality, beauty, and 
 power of truth, have no parallel in human language. They 
 have been the study and the admiration of the world for eight- 
 teen centuries. You will think also of his wonderful sermon on 
 the Mount, which at one view embraces all the great essential 
 principles of morality and virtue, as well as all the primary 
 precepts of the gospel. You will remember too all those fear 
 ful denunciations of woe and impending judgment which he 
 seems to have uttered against the Pharisees and wicked rulers 
 of Jerusalem, as if every sentence had drawn from him a tear- 
 You will readily call to mind the many occasions on which he, 
 by a few heart-searching words, stripped off all the disguises 
 of his foes and put to silence and confusion those who had laid 
 snares to destroy him, by reporting what he said. And you will 
 not forget those long, affectionate, parting discourses, reported 
 by John, which he delivered to his disciples on the night before 
 his death. If there is pathos — if there is earnestness — if there 
 is sublime truth — if there is the soul of eloquence, to be found 
 in words, you have all in these farewell words, these sacred 
 *' memorabilia " of Jesus. 
 
 Socrates was a great and wise man for his generation. For 
 a Greek and a heathen, he had made great attainments in prac- 
 tical wisdom. But, living or dying, he uttered no such senti- 
 ments of sublimity and truth, as these last sayings of Jesus. 
 There is no such Divine consolation, no such voice of eloquence 
 
198 THE ELOQUENT ORATOES 
 
 to sustain and cheer the soul in its passage through the dark 
 valley and shadow of death. One sentence from the lips of 
 Jesus has more to comfort and inspire, than all the Socratic 
 philosophy of the "Memorabilia." It may be doubted, after all, 
 whether in all points, Socrates lived or died, as he had taught, 
 like a philosopher : but the world has never questioned that 
 Jesus Christ lived, and taught, and died, as never man did — as 
 none but God could do. 
 
 . XII. — CONCLUSION. 
 
 But finally ; from the survey now taken of the eloquent 
 oratory of the Bible, both in the Old Testament and the New, 
 the conclusion seems fair and legitimate, that this book is 
 entitled to hold the first rank in the annals of human eloquence ; 
 that it contains models of thought and expression in almost 
 every department of speech, possessing the highest attractions 
 of taste and genius, as well as of inspiration — models equal, if 
 not superior, to any that mortal ears have ever listened to, or 
 human hearts ever felt. 
 
 Now this is no small claim which we arc making for the Book of 
 God, when we ascribe to it the highest attractions of eloquence. 
 For there is nothing in all the walks of genius that men more 
 admire than real eloquence : and it is impossible to over-esti- 
 mate the influence which eloquence has wielded over the des- 
 tinies of men and nations. The gift of speech is one of the 
 greatest and best of God's gifts to man. The tongue of elo- 
 quence is one of the sublimest and most effective of all the 
 endowments of genius. 
 
 There is no music this side of the music of the spheres and 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 199 
 
 the songs of angels, so sweet and entrancing as the music of 
 the human voice. There is no creature that God hath placed 
 on earth so eloquent, so musical, as man ; and there is no elo- 
 quence or music which man can make, so sublime and godlike, 
 as that which he makes with his voice. Man hath sought out 
 many inventions to extend his dominion and supplement his 
 power ; but there is no instrument yet invented so attractive, 
 so sublime, so sweet as his voice. "What is the inarticulate 
 roar of the cannon, or burst of the bomb-shell, or beat of the 
 drum, or blast of the bugle, or whistle of the steam car, or 
 pealing note of the organ, compared with the thought-laden 
 thunder and meaning-melody of the human voice ? What is 
 the rude roar of the monarch of the forest, or the wild scream 
 of the eagle, or the loud neighing of the steed, or the sweetest 
 music of the nightingale, compared with the male or female 
 voice of our species ? Nay further ; what is even the deep- 
 toned anthem of the sea, and the earthquake, the cataract, the 
 volcano and the storm ? It is louder and stronger ; but is it 
 more eloquent and sublime, than the articulate, intelligent voice 
 of man ? Says the apostle, " there are, it may be, so many 
 kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signi- 
 fication." But there is no voics on earth so significant as 
 man's. There are voices of music, eloquence, poesy — voices of 
 high and holy significance to the ear of reason and religion — 
 in all the realms of nature ; but it is only when the human 
 voice hath taken them up and given to them a tongue in human 
 speech, that these inarticulate voices of nature become intelligi 
 ble, eloquent and sublime. 
 
 But these, you may say, are the voices of God. In the very 
 same sense is the voice of man the voice of God ; for he is its 
 author. The great intellect — the great orator, with all the 
 
200 THE ELOQUENT ORATORS 
 
 music of his eloquent tongue, is not less the workmanship of 
 God, than is the great mountain or the great sea. A distin^ 
 guished statesman and orator of our times, Lord Brougham, 
 has remarked that a great mind, on some important occasion 
 and some lofty theme, giving utterance to itself in eloquent 
 speech, is the sublimest spectacle which the world now affords. 
 Who has not felt the force of that remark ? If we include, as 
 we ought, in the term eloquence, man's address to God in 
 prayer as well as his address to his fellow-men, it is clear, that 
 eloquent speech is the sublimest act which he can perform, 
 since the age of miracles. In accordance with this idea, we 
 find the inspired Psalmist repeatedly speaking of his tongue or 
 voice as the glory of his physical frame: " Wake up my 
 glory," " I will sing and praise thee with my glory." If it 
 were possible, who now would not give more to hear Paul's 
 speech on Mars Hill, or before the bar of Nero, than to see the 
 Parthenon at Athens, or the Coliseum and Pantheon at Rome 
 in all their glory ? Who that has a soul within him, would not 
 go farther to lioar Chalmers or Robert Hall preach, than to 
 see London or Edinburgh, Ben Nevis or Loch Lomond ? The 
 grandest monument of human art now on earth, is probably St. 
 Peter's at Rome ; but who would not pay more for one hear- 
 ing of Sheridan's speech on the trial of Warren Hastings, 
 than for one vision even of all the glory of St. Peters ? The 
 cataract of Niagara is considered the sublimest single spectacle 
 in all the realms of nature ; but where is the man, who, if he 
 had the option of gazing for an hour on that "glorious robe 
 of beauty and of power," or of hearing Patrick Henry, or 
 Henry Clay speak an hour, would not say, let me hear the 
 great man eloquent ? Yes, we hold this double truth — that 
 man himself, is, after all, the sublimest of all God's works on 
 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 201 
 
 earth, and that eloquence is the sublimest of all the acts of 
 man, provided only he be a true man. 
 
 Hence we are not surprised at the prominence which public 
 speaking holds in the Bible, and in the whole economy of God's 
 grace to the world. We do not wonder that God hath ordained 
 by public speech — the preaching of the cross — to accomplish 
 the greatest work that is ever to be done on earth. In the 
 conversion of a sinner to God, through the preaching of the 
 truth — in the conversion of a world to God, by the agency of 
 living, speaking men, the gospel has given to human eloquence 
 at once its noblest mission, and its grandest development. 
 
 By all that admiration, then, which we feel for genius and 
 eloquence when employed in the accomplishment of the greatest 
 and noblest ends, we are attracted to the Bible as the book of 
 books. And in all that superiority, which, from the sublimity 
 and importance of their themes, its orators have attained over 
 others, we have an argument that the book is from God. For 
 that its comparatively unfavored orators, in what has been 
 called a rude, unlettered age, and of an unartistic race, should 
 have reached this perfection of beauty and sublimity, and 
 should still hold an acknowledged mastery over all civilized 
 nations, are facts which admit of but one solution — which is, 
 that God himself is the great speaker, and all its other speak- 
 ers have been his mouth-piece, his authorized oracles and am- 
 bassadors. 
 
 9* 
 
202 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 Interest of the Subject— General View— Classification— Picture of Eve— Sarah and 
 Rebekah— Character of Deborah— Character of Esther and Ruth— Jezebel and Atha- 
 liah— HerodiaB and her dancing Daughter— Abigail, Hannah, and Martha— The Ma- 
 rys—Concluding Remarks. 
 
 I. INTEREST OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 In illustration of our main proposition in these pages — the 
 classical attractiveness of the Bible — it is important to present, 
 at least, a specimen of its historical or biographical characters. 
 In nothing perhaps does its superiority over all other books 
 appear more manifest, than in its brief, graphic, inimitable del 
 ineations of human character. From first to last, it opens to 
 our view, besides its poets and orators, a magnificent succession 
 of living characters — kings and statesmen, heroes and sages, 
 patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, young men and maidens, 
 old men and children. In a field so vast, where volumes might 
 be filled, we can only select a few prominent groups, by way of 
 example. For this purpose, let us take first the Women of the 
 Bible, or, as they may be called in modern phrase, " the Ladies 
 of the olden time." In order to win from the youth of both 
 sexes a deep and abiding interest in our task at the outset, we 
 would here seek to present, on the foreground of the picture, 
 the loveliest group of all. We would call them to the contem- 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 203 
 
 plation of a woman in her most ancient record. W^e would 
 invite them to look first upon that character, which, in an 
 ascending scale, was the last to appear amid the scenes of crea- 
 tion, and which, by being last, seemed to bear the aspect of the 
 most finished production of creative wisdom, and the nearest 
 approximation to Divine perfection, of all that was made. 
 Woman's earliest, noblest record is the Bible ; and upon this 
 fact we would now fix your attention as one of the chief attrac- 
 tions of the book. 
 
 You are, doubtless, familiar with the record of her virtues, 
 her sufierings, and her achievements, in other books and on 
 other fields of fame. You have all, perhaps, read the story of 
 the heroic women of the American Eevolution, or that of the 
 memorable women of Scotland's covenant ; yoa have heard the 
 fame of many a noble lady in many a royal court during the 
 age of chivalry and romance ; you have admired the renowned 
 matrons of Grecian and Eoman history ; and you have marked, 
 with a peculiar pleasure, the luminous patliway of woman in all 
 those fields of literature, of beneficence, and of Christian mis- 
 sions, which have been opened to her by our modern civilization. 
 But it is not of any of these that we are now to speak. Our 
 present purpose is to ascend the stream of female biography to 
 its fountain-head ; to read a record of higher antiquity and 
 nobler heraldry than any of tliese could boast ; in short ,to carry 
 you back, and, if you have not already formed the acquaintance, 
 to introduce you to the beautiful, the heroic, the artless, the 
 pure-minded, the queen-like, the oft-inspired women of the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 In the portraiture of female character which is presented in 
 the Bible, we behold a galaxy of moral and spiritual beauty, 
 excelling all the ancient world, and still shining out from the 
 
204: TYPES OF FEMALE CHAKACTER 
 
 darkness of ages in all its original, undimmed radiance. We 
 gaze upon it with admiration, as we do upon the star-geramed 
 firmament of the night, which has lost nothing through the 
 lapse of time, but is as fresh and lovely now as when the even- 
 ing and morning closed the first week of creation. In the 
 women of the Bible we see something of that native beauty 
 which is unindebted to the tricks of art, and which, when 
 " unadorned is adorned the most." In these ladies of the olden 
 time, these honored women of the earth's first golden age, we 
 have those primeval types of womanly beauty and glory, which, 
 like originals from the great masters of painting and sculpture, 
 have stood for the study and admiration of the world. More 
 heroic than the mothers of our revolutionary struggle, more 
 saintly than the high-souled daughters of Scotland's covenant, 
 more queenly than the queens of any royal court, more renowned 
 than all the ladies fair for whom the wars of chivalry were 
 waged, more majestic and sublime in virtue than Lucretia or any 
 matron of Grecian and Roman story, more beautiful and glori- 
 ous than Rebekah the Jewess in Ivanhoe or any other creation 
 of romance, the women of the Bible, in all that constitutes the 
 peculiar glory of their sex, have stood through ages as the 
 brightest exemplars to mankind. Embosomed on the pages of 
 sacred history, like stars upon the diadem of night, these daugh- 
 ters and sisters of the patriarchs, these wives and mothers of the 
 sons of God, have been shining there, as by heaven's appoint- 
 ment they were intended to shine, for the guidance of the 
 women of every generation to the end of time. What they 
 have been thus far, they are still — the most perfect models 
 by which to form the manners and the moral character of 
 woman. 
 
 To the contemplation of these models, your attention is now 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 205 
 
 invited. Amid the hurry and bustle of this age of excitement, 
 and empty show, and heartless fashion, it may do ns good to go 
 back occasionally to the simplicity of nature. We live in an 
 age of wonders. On all hands we hear the cry of new inven- 
 tions, the boast of improvement, the march of mind, the din of 
 many running to and fro, and knowledge increasing. Almost 
 everybody smatters of science, and almost everything hisses 
 with steam. Everything is in motion, and everybody seems 
 to be striving to verify the couplet — 
 
 " Tramp, tramp along the land we go, 
 Splash, splash across the sei." 
 
 At such a time it may be as delightful as it is profitable, to 
 escape from these scenes of noise and confusion, and take re- 
 fuge, at least for an hour, in that old world of tranquillity and 
 peace, where, beneath genial skies, and amid rural scenes, the 
 mothers, wives, and daughters of patriarchs and kings, prophets 
 and apostles, dwelt so long to make home happy, and prepare for 
 heaven. Such a retrospect of the past, and such a contempla- 
 tion of the biography of the highly-favored women of the Bible, 
 may well be considered appropriate here, if we shall succeed 
 at all in commending these pages to the parents and teachers, 
 above all, to the mothers and daughters, of our times. The 
 theme is one which is strictly and emphatically educational, and 
 one, too, which ought to prove instructive to the young, attrac* 
 tive to all. 
 
 II. GENERAL VIEW. 
 
 The number of women mentioned in the Bible by name is 
 about eighty, besides some twenty others, whose names are not 
 given, but who are individually described by their social rela- 
 
206 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 tions ; sucli as Pharaoli's daughter, Lot's wife, Peter's wife^s 
 motlier, the widow of Nain, the woman of Samaria, the witch 
 of Eador, the queen of Sheba, and the elect lady of John's se- 
 cond epistle. We have, therefore, about one hundred in all, 
 whose names or characters, singled out from the general mass, 
 have acquired a distinct personality, and have been rendered 
 immortal on the pages of the sacred volume. Their history, 
 left on record by the infallible pen of inspiration, runs through a 
 period of four thousand years ; from Eve, the first wife and 
 mother of our race, down to that excellent lady to whom the 
 beloved disciple, inditing his second epistle, says : " I rejoiced 
 greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth." Their 
 biography is written with every varying degree of fullness, from 
 a single significant name, like that of Josiah's mother, Jedidah, 
 "the amiable, the well-beloved," or that of Job's daughter, 
 Jemima, " handsome as the day," up to a description so com- 
 plete that it gives name to a whole book, as in the case of Ruth 
 and Esther. Their lives, characters, and fortunes, as delineated 
 between these extremes, are beautifully diversified with all that 
 goes to make up the real world — all the lights and shadows of 
 human existence. 
 
 There is no scene of prosperity or adversity, no condition of 
 youth or old age, no degree of joy or sorrow, hope or despair, 
 through which some of these women of the Bible have not passed. 
 There is no relationship of life, private or public, domestic^ 
 social, or civil, in which woman ever stood or can stand, that 
 they have not held ; whilst some of them occupied peculiar 
 and wonderful positions which no woman will ever fill again on 
 earth. In all the diversified ranks of human society,^ in all the 
 changing circumstances of wealth and poverty,^ of grandeur and 
 lowliness, they have stood, from Bathsheba, on the right hand 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 207 
 
 of Solomon's throne, and Esther, queen of a hundred and twenty- 
 seven provinces, down to the poor widow casting her two mites 
 into the treasury, or Lydia selling her purple, or Dorcas work- 
 ing at her garment, or Magdalene weeping at Jesus's feet. 
 
 Whether we contemplate the women of the Old Testament or 
 the New; whether we follow the mother of Moses, secretly launch- 
 ing the frail bark of her babe upon the waters of the Nile, or the 
 mother of Jesus, in the gaze of the multitude, beholding her son 
 and Lord expire on the cross ; whether we look upon Miriam as 
 she stands up exultingly with all the band of Israel's daughters on 
 the Red Sea's shore, or see Deborah, the heroic, heaven-inspired 
 prophetess, at the head of the armies of Israel, going forth to 
 battle against the enemies of her country, and returning with songs 
 of victory ; whether we view Jephthah's daughter laying down 
 her young and lovely life as a willing sacrifice on the altar of 
 filial duty and patriotism, or behold the women of Galilee and the 
 daughters of Jerusalem, the Marys and the Marthas, as in their 
 silent, unutterable sorrow, they watch the hill of death, and lin- 
 ger around ihe tomb, and win for their sex the imperishable glory 
 of being " earliest at the sepulchre and latest at the cross " — we 
 must acknowledge that there is no sphere of honor and trust, no 
 post of danger, trial and responsibility, which woman ever filled on 
 earth, higher than those which the women of the Bible have filled. 
 
 And further still, in their moral character we behold as great 
 a diversity as in their social condition and their external for- 
 tunes. Every virtue, every grace, every glorious moral attri- 
 bute that can adorn and ennoble the female heart, is illustrated 
 in the lives of some of them ; whilst all the depths of dark de- 
 pravity, to which woman ever stooped on earth, are revealed 
 in others. The good and lovely, however, greatly outnumber 
 the bad. But the female biography of the whole world does 
 
208 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 not display more strikingly the extremes of good and evil in 
 moral character, than they are displayed in the women of the 
 Scriptures. Nowhere else, except in the actual world around 
 us, can we find such a field for the study of character, such a 
 life-like picture of the heart in all its workings. What a con- 
 trast, for example, have we between vile, haggard vice, as re- 
 presented in the witch of Eudor, and calm, celestial virjtue, as 
 represented in Anna, the prophetess, " waiting for the consola- 
 •tion of Israel !" Look at those heaven-daring monsters of 
 cruelty, Athaliah and Jezebel, queens of Judah and Israel, as 
 contrasted with the loving sisters, Mary and Martha of Bethany. 
 Or, behold Naomi and Ruth, in their humble piety and whole- 
 hearted affection, as contrasted with Herodias and her daughter 
 in their proud, vindictive, ferocious guilt ! 
 
 Now this wide diversity of female character is so exhibited in 
 the Bible, from first to last, as to make us admire and love the 
 virtuous, whilst we abhor and loathe the vicious. And herein 
 is displayed a wonderful peculiarity of all the Scripture biog- 
 raphy, both male and female. 'Tis a peculiarity which reveals 
 the skill of a master mind, and the delicate touches of an im- 
 maculate hand. 'Tis that conscientious, consistent, ever-watch- 
 ful, inflexible regard for truth and virtue, which makes us feel 
 that these unparalleled portraits could have been drawn by no 
 less than a hand Divine. On this background of four thousand 
 years, on this biographical canvas, stretching from the Creation 
 to the Advent, embracing the widest possible variety of outline 
 and detail, portraying an almost endless diversity of circum- 
 stances and social condition, and comprehending a range of 
 moral character from the extreme of spotless virtue to that of 
 hideous vice, one hundred of the most notable and strongly 
 marked women of antiquity, many of them of different nations 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 209 
 
 and races, are so presented to our view as to produce invariably 
 upon every mind, whether aged or young, refined or illiterate, 
 inclined to virtue or prone to vice, the same grand moral im- 
 pression of admiration for the virtuous and disgust for the 
 vicious. On whatever groups of the picture you gaze, whether 
 on its angels of innocence or its monsters of iniquity, or on all 
 the shades of character that lie between, one invariable, salu- 
 tary lesson, of admiration for the holy and abhorrence for the 
 bad, remains fixed upon the heart forevermore. 
 
 You must not expect to find the women of the Bible all an- 
 gels. If they had been^ they would not have been the best 
 models for us. We needed the shadows, as well as the lights, to 
 form a perfect picture. But the thing we most needed was the pen- 
 cil of inspiration ; so to blend the lights with the shadows, as to 
 produce the right moral effect, and thus to make the mothers, 
 wives, and daughters of the earth's earliest history, the authorized 
 models for moulding the moral character of woman in every age 
 and every land to the end of time. Nor, again, must you expect 
 to find even those women of the Bible, who may pass for an- 
 gelic, altogether or at all times such. They are holy, and good, 
 and lovely : but they are not sinless. They are still of the 
 earth, belonging to human nature, though walking with God. 
 And, in this respect, they differ from those ideal, dream-like 
 creatures of our modern poetry and fiction, whose idolized 
 perfection consists in its infinite unlikeness to anything real 
 on earth. Indeed, it is as much by the faithfully recorded faults 
 and foibles, infirmities and defects of these scriptural charac- 
 ters, as by their bright, angelic virtues, that the spirit of inspira- 
 tion intended the daughters of all subsequent ages to be taught. 
 For just as the extremes of virtue and vice are represented 
 on the gi'eat picture, in the character of different persons, so 
 
210 TYPES OF FEMALE CHAKACTER - 
 
 also all the intermediate degrees of good and evil, in lighter oi 
 darker shades, are found mingling sometimes in the same person, 
 and that person as Rahab, or Magdalene, at last a saint of God. 
 Now, if the highly-favored ladies of our times should be at 
 all disposed to think disparagingly of the woman of the Bible, 
 and to ask why she was not more perfect, more accomplished, 
 more refined, let them bear in mind that the woman of the Bi- 
 ble, was the pioneer of the world's civilization ; that she had 
 but few examples, if any, to study ; that she had to go before 
 as an original, and set the fashion for those who came after- 
 wards ; that she had not, what all have now, an inspired vol- 
 ume, containing one hundred Divinely drawn characters, to 
 teach her what woman ought to be or ought not to be. It is 
 by her experience, and through the lessons derived from her ex 
 ample, that tho female world is such as we find it now. She 
 has thus become the riches of the world, and by her instrumen- 
 tality as a predecessor, a pioneer and a model, woman has since 
 attained that superiority of position, of influence, of mental 
 and moral culture, which now distinguishes her in every civil- 
 ized Christian land. Do not forget, then, that if the woman of 
 the Bible had not been just what she was thousands of years 
 ago, our much admired female friend, who reads these pages, 
 would be very far from being the accomplished lady she now is. 
 The proof of the fact is seen in that contrast, which, for eighteen 
 centuries, has existed between the intellectual, social, and mo- 
 ral condition of woman in Christian lands, and her condition in 
 countries where no Bible has been known. 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 211 
 
 III. CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 This loug gallery of strikingly diversified female portraits, of 
 which, thus far, we have been taking only a distant panoramic 
 view, may now be approached for a closer inspection, and will 
 be found arranged under the four following distinct divisions or 
 groups : 
 
 The first class is composed of all those whose characters, so 
 far as they have come down to us, are proverbial for wickedness 
 or folly ; whose talents and influence, while they lived, were 
 wholly perverted to evil ; and whose fearful examples, held 
 forth in the clear light of Scripture, still speak to warn the 
 youth of both sexes, and of every generation, from the paths 
 of transgression. In this dark group stand the infamous wife 
 of Potiphar, the sorceress of Endor, the blood-thirsty, incestuous 
 Herodias, with her dancing daughter, and the notorious queens, 
 Athaliah and Jezebel, whose whole royal authority was employed 
 in subverting the worship of Jehovah. Here also, we find, though 
 partly concealed from view by an overhanging veil of mystery, 
 such characters as the memorable but nameless wife of Lot, 
 the ill fated wife of the Levite mentioned in the book of Judges, 
 the treacherous Delilah, and the hypocritical Sapphira, wife of 
 Ananias. 
 
 The second division embraces all those, who, once proverbial 
 for their unholy lives, were converted, and so changed by the 
 grace of God, that they afterwards became as illustrious for 
 faith and piety, as they had formerly been noted for their de- 
 pravity. To this group of redeemed ones — brands plucked 
 from the burning — belongs Rahab of Jericho, who is one of 
 the only two women mentioned in Paul's long Hst of faith's wor- 
 
212 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 thies. Here also, we behold, among others, the woman of Sa- 
 maria, Mary Magdalene, the damsel of Philippi, and that poor 
 condemned outcast from the mercy of man to whom Jesus said, 
 " Go and sin no more." These remarkable trophies of saving 
 grace are, doubtless, set forth in the gallery of Scripture to 
 exemplify the great truth, that no life can be so wretched and 
 hopeless, no character so lost to virtue and sunk so low in sin, 
 as to be beyond the pale of Christian sympathy, or the power 
 of divine grace. 
 
 The third class is the largest of all. It is made up of all those 
 whose lives flow mingling to the end with manifold currents of good 
 and evil ; now the one and now the other predominating, and giv- 
 ing color to the stream. It is composed of mixed characters, in 
 which nature seems to struggle with grace for the mastery, and in 
 which it is difficult at times to say whether sin or grace most 
 abounds. There is a constant alteruation of light and shadow. 
 We see images of beauty amid broken fragments, treasures 
 of heaven in earthen vessels, jewels of immortality in caskets 
 of clay. We see the bright light of the sun softened down and 
 attenuated to a slender shadowy outline, and reflected from the 
 dark edge of the moon — the graces of faith, liope and charity, 
 shining thus through manifold obstacles of human infirmity and 
 sinful passion. To this group, which comes the nearer down to 
 our own experience of life only to give us the greater encour- 
 agement for rising above earth and earthly scenes, may be 
 assigned Eve, first in virtue and first in transgression ; Sarah 
 the devoted but impatient wife ; Hagar the ungrateful maid ; 
 Rebekah, the partial mother ; Miriam, the true hearted, but 
 ambitious sister of Moses ; Martha, the energetic, faithful, but 
 care-burdened friend of Jesus : and Salome, the aspiring mo- 
 ther of Zebedee's children. 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 213 
 
 The fourth class consists of those in whom the world has 
 found no blemish — all light without a shadow, all beauty with« 
 out a fault. Their characters appear before us in unsullied 
 purity — not because they had attained perfection, for, like all 
 others, they were sinful by nature, and only partially sanctified 
 by grace — but because the pen of inspiration has, purposely, 
 given us their virtues, and left their sins and imperfections 
 unrecorded. In this radiant group may be seen Deborah, the 
 sublime, heroic prophetess and mother in Israel ; Hannah, the 
 devout mother of Samuel ; Abigail, the prudent wife of David; 
 Ruth, the lovely Moabitess ; and Esther, queen of queens, in 
 the Old Testament ; and, in the New, Anna, the prophetess ; 
 Priscilla, the Jewess ; Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist ; 
 Mary, of Bethany ; Mary, the mother of our Lord ; Eunice 
 and Lois, the mother and grandmother of Timothy, and that 
 elect lady, who, of all the hundred, stands nearest to our own 
 times. It was important that we should have some specimens 
 of woman at her best estate — pictures of the genial, sunny- 
 side of human nature — and these stand forth as the finest 
 models which human nature, sanctified by grace, has yet real- 
 ized in its advance towards perfection. These portraits stand 
 out upon the canvas, painted with " colors dipped in heaven," 
 to give the world assurance of what lovely woman may become 
 when most adorned by grace, and of what she will become 
 in a world where there is no sin. These are like apples of gold 
 in pictures of silver. 
 
 As face answereth unto face in water, and the heart of man 
 to man, as the dark mountains of the shore and the bright 
 skies over head are alike mirrored upon the smooth and glassy 
 surface of the lake, even so may every woman find her own 
 exact image here reflected back, with every form and featurci 
 
214 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 every line of beauty or deformity, from some one of the 
 hundred. Here may she see herself in the truest of all mirrors, 
 drawn to the life by an infallible pencil, daguerreotyped by 
 the clear sun-light of heaven. And thus may she learn how 
 to overcome or avoid the imperfections of nature, and to adorn 
 herself with every attraction of grace, and glory, and divinity. 
 Women of every rank in society, every grade of intellect, every 
 sphere of fortune, and every stamp of character, may here find 
 a likeness and a counterpart, ranging from the wealthy Shuna- 
 mite, or the wise woman of Tekoa, or Huldah in the college, or 
 the queen of the South, down to the poor widow of Sarepta 
 with her pot of oil, and the little maid of Israel, captive in a 
 strange land. In these tranquil depths of antiquity, in these 
 pure and crystal waters of inspired truth, more than in all the 
 classic fountains of Greece and Rome — more, too, than in all 
 the streams of modern poetry and fiction — may our much-loved 
 daughters behold the true outlines of celestial virtue and beauty, 
 reflected, as from the bosom of a mountain-lake, spread out 
 beneath o'er-arching skies, and environed by hills and banks of 
 green. Here, on the one side, in these bright images of grace 
 and loveliness, reflected from the heavens above, they may dis- 
 cern those lineaments of character, which, if imitated, shall 
 make them scarcely less than angels. And there, on the other, 
 in those darker groups, reflected from the rugged rocks on the 
 shore, may they trace the lines of transgression, which need 
 only to be followed to render them little better than fiends or 
 arch-angels fallen. And thus, from a whole survey, both of the 
 evil and the good, of things which are lovely and things which 
 are unutterable, shall they come away, as from a vision into the 
 unseen world, with the grand lesson upon their hearts, that, 
 " the character of woman, like the snow, is the fairest thing on 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 215 
 
 earth wlien fair, and the foulest when foul and mingled with 
 the mire." 
 
 IV. — PICTURE OF EVE. 
 
 But, after this nasty, bird's-eye view of the picture in its 
 several groups, let us now approach a little nearer, and take a 
 more particular survey of some of the individual characters that 
 stand foi'th most prominently on the scene. In so wide a field, 
 where every object is full of interest, but where time will not 
 permit us to gaze on all, nor linger long on any, we shall feel 
 at liberty to select those points which please us most. As we 
 pass along this crowded gallery of Scripture, enriched by the 
 contributions of so many centuries, let us single out, for a minu- 
 ter view, those characters in the several groups, which have 
 attained the greatest celebrity, either by the prominence of 
 their stations, the brightness of their talents, or the loveliness 
 of their virtues. 
 
 Kext to the virgin mother of our Saviour — and, in some 
 respects, even before her — the most notable and gifted woman 
 of the Bible was Eve, daughter of God, wife of Adam, mother 
 of mankind, and queen of the new created world. Talk we of 
 high nobility, and royal blood, and illustrious descent ? Here 
 is one from whom all the royal lines of earth have sprung — a 
 woman crowned with glory by the birth-right of an earlier ori- 
 gin, and invested with sovereignty by the imposition of a 
 mightier hand than any other could ever boast. Talk we of 
 wisdom, and knowledge, and genius ? Here is one whose clear 
 intellect, undimmed by folly, unsullied by a sin, and unindebted 
 to the toils of pupilage, was the direct workmanship of Him 
 who poured intelhgence into the mind of angel and archangel, 
 
216 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 cherubim and seraphim. Talk we of happiness and virtue ? 
 Here is one, who, alone of women, tasted that blessedness which 
 springs from a state of absolute perfection ; whose soul, created 
 in the image of the righteous and holy God, was the seat of 
 every human perfection, and whose person was the centre of 
 attraction to everything that dwelt in Eden. Talk we of beauty? 
 Here is one, with the smile of heaven in her eye, the dew of 
 youth on her cheek, and the sun-light of immortality on her 
 brow ; whose intellectual and moral beauty of the soul, fit com- 
 panion for such a dwelling-place, shone forth in every gesture 
 and movement of that fearfully and wonderfully-made body which 
 was the last and highest material production of creative power. 
 The artists of every generation, vying with each other to 
 make tlie canvas speak or marble breathe, and, in their deep- 
 est meditations, calling up every image of beauty from the tra- 
 ditions of antiquity, the studies of the great masters, the walks 
 of nature, and the realms of imagination, when they would give 
 the world their leau ideal of perfection in one finished model, 
 have essayed their utmost skill, and reached the chef-d'cEuvre 
 of the pencil and the chisel, as they have reproduced Eve in 
 Paradise. The human mind can go no farther in its conception 
 of the beautiful, than when it pictures to itself the character 
 and person of Eve on the morning of her creation. Blest with 
 tlie companionship of Adam and the favor of God, enjoying the 
 williog homage of all animated nature, and sovereignty over all 
 the creatures of God, possessing a heart in harmony with all 
 the works of God, and with God himself, she was beautiful her- 
 self, and she saw beauty in everything around her. She tasted 
 the cup of perfect, unalloyed felicity, and she diffused joy 
 through all that Paradise over which both God and man had 
 delighted to crown her queen. 
 
TN THE BIBLE. 217 
 
 The spirit of poesy, too, in its sublimest song, has vied with 
 painting and sculpture in bodying forth its highest conception 
 of the beautiful ; and, in the Eve of Milton, we have one of the 
 noblest contributions that human genius ever laid upon the 
 altar of the Bible. As a commentary on the marriage relation, 
 instituted in Eden when God pronounced the " twain one flesh," 
 as a picture of perfect conjugal affection and domestic bliss, as 
 the utterance of a heart alive to nature and in deepest sym- 
 pathy with all that was beautiful in the universe, what can 
 exceed these words of Eve's address to Adam ? 
 
 " Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet 
 With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant the sun, 
 When first on this dehghtful land he spreads 
 His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, 
 Ghstering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth, 
 After soft showers, and sweet the coming on 
 Of grateful evening mild ; then silent night, 
 With this, her solemn bird, and this fair moon, 
 And the.e, the gems of heaven, her starry train ; 
 But neither breath of morn, when she ascends 
 With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun 
 On this dehghtful land, nor herb, fruit, flower. 
 Glistering with dew, nor fragrance after showers, 
 Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night. 
 With this, her solemn bird, nor walk by moon, 
 Xor glittering starlight, without thee is sweet." 
 
 But alas ! how soon was this scene of joy and beauty changed 
 to woe and death, and Eden lost in the waste wilderness ! 
 How suddenly did this sun of glory go down while it was yet 
 day I How was the gold become dim, and the most fine gold 
 changed, and the crown fallen from the head I Through the 
 temptation of the Prince of Darkness this bright and happy one, 
 
 10 
 
218 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 who had been created only a little lower than the angels, sinned 
 against God and brought death into the world with all our woe. 
 She, the first woman, wife and mother of our race, who, while 
 sinless, had stood as a model of immaculate perfection and 
 glory, now stands as the most memorable example on the scroll 
 of time to teach her daughters that it is an evil and bitter 
 thing to sin against God. 
 
 V. SARAH AND REBEKAH. 
 
 After Eve, the next most remarkable woman of the Old Testa- 
 ment — who, indeed, is oftener referred to in the New than any 
 other — is Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and mother of Isaac. 
 The sacred historian represents her as a woman of exceeding 
 beauty. " Behold," says her husband, " thou art fair to look 
 upon," and, wherever she went, she attracted the attention of 
 the people and rulers of the land as one that was " very fair." 
 So great was the admiration which she won, even from kings 
 and princes, that, on more than one occasion, Abraham thought 
 his hfe endangered by her beauty, and endeavored to conceal 
 the wife in the sister. 
 
 The natural beauty of form and feature, like the intellectual 
 and moral beauty of the soul, is the gift of God, and is no more 
 to be underrated or despised than other good gifts. Of course, 
 the mere material beauty of the outward form cannot be com- 
 pared, in value, with this higher spiritual beauty of the char- 
 acter. But, as evincing the handiwork of the infinitely wise 
 God, everything beautiful has a claim to be admired and loved. 
 It is just as proper to admire and to prize beauty of person in 
 foman, as the beauty of the rose and the rainbow, the flowing 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 219 
 
 river and the waving grain, the blue mountain and the bending 
 sky. God has not made the human form so fair, and implanted 
 within us an appreciative sense of the beautiful, and then for- 
 bidden us to admire what is lovely. True ; female beauty is a 
 frail, fading flower. And so is the beauty of the rose, and the 
 rainbow, and the summer landscape. True, also, it is a danger- 
 ous gift. And so are the gifts of intellect and education. 
 Talents, angel-bright, may be perverted and abused not less 
 than material beauty ; and history will show that man has per 
 verted his strong arm and his iron will to bad purposes just as 
 often as woman has abused that influence which springs from 
 personal beauty. 
 
 But, in the case of Sarah, outward personal beauty was found 
 in happy combination with the nobler spiritual beauty of a lofty 
 mind and a virtuous character. Celebrated and admired in that 
 age for her unusual share of natural gifts and graces, she has 
 become still more distinguished through all succeeding ages as 
 an example of deep womanly affections — her faith in God, 
 her conjugal fidelity, her maternal tenderness, and her self-sac- 
 rificing devotion to her husband. By the one she was an object 
 of attraction to her contemporaries ; by the other she has be- 
 come an object of admiration to all who have come after 
 her. 
 
 And though her faith did sometimes stagger at the long de- 
 lay of the promises, though her generous, devoted, high-toned 
 spirit was sometimes ruffled and over-mastered by ingratitude 
 and disobedience, yet in this she is but an illustration of a fact 
 which has occurred a thousand times, that the greatest charac- 
 ters may bend under the weight of the petty annoyances of daily 
 life, after standing erect under the pressure of all the storms 
 and battles of great occasions. She could not bear the inso- 
 
220 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 lenc€ of the ungrateful bondmaid and her mocking son, although 
 she was equal to the greatest trials which any woman could 
 be called to endure — even the voluntary surrender of her hus- 
 band, in order to accomplish the Divine promises, and then the 
 strange sacrifice of the very son of those promises. Adequate, 
 as she was, to all tliat a wife and mother could be called to do, 
 or suffer on a large scale, she failed most signally in the ordin- 
 ary duties of a mistress. 
 
 The name of Sarah, associated as it is with the father of the 
 faithful, and the heir of all the promises, notwithstanding her 
 errors and infirmities, stands preeminent among women in that 
 " cloud of witnesses," whose acts of faith are recounted by the 
 apostle Paul to the Hebrews, with the high eulogiara. That of 
 them the world was not worthy. To the character of Sarah 
 the apostle Peter also makes honorable allusion, in exhorting 
 the wives and daughters of the church to the cultivation of all 
 the womanly Christian graces. 
 
 "Let not your adorning be the outward adorning of plaiting 
 the hair, and wearing of gold, and putting on of apparel. But 
 let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not cor- 
 ruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which 
 is, in the sight of God, of great price. For after this manner, 
 in the old time, the holy women, also, who trusted in God, 
 adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own hus- 
 bands. Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord ; 
 whose daughters ye are as long as ye do well and are not afraid 
 with any amazement." 
 
 Now we are sometimes afraid, and with no little amazement, 
 that many of our fair country-women have quite forgotten this 
 exhortation. In these days of outward adorning and elegant 
 accomplishments, of many schools, and many books of new cos- 
 
IN TUE BIBLE. 221 
 
 tumes and woman's rights, of social reforms and conventions to 
 change the ordinances of God, we very much fear that many of 
 our fine ladies would think it no honor to be called the daugh* 
 ters of Sarah. Of what authority can either Paul or Sarah be 
 to those, whose highest conception of the coming millennium 
 seems to be, that it will be a time, now very near, when all pa- 
 rents shall be in subjection to their children, and all husbands 
 to their wives ? In such lialcyon days, " of bliss surpassing 
 fable," when juvenility shall reign without a rival, and the world 
 have its second boyhood and girlhood, it may be questioned 
 whether your modern fashionable lady, deeply read in novels, 
 deeply learned in etiquette, deeply dyed in social philosophy, 
 would not wholly repudiate the gentility and ladyship of Sarah 
 and the other women of the olden time who communed with 
 God, held converse with the angels, and had their daily walk 
 with the nobles of the earth. 
 
 But to proceed. One of the most interesting and lovely charac- 
 ters amongst all these ladies of the olden time is that of Rebekah, 
 the youthful bride, the matronly wife, the aged companion of 
 Isaac. Like Sarah, she had her faults, but they are lost in the 
 superior lustre of her virtues. It will suffice, at present, to re- 
 fer to a single passage in her history. 'Tis one of interest to all 
 — of especial interest to all young gentlemen and ladies who 
 may need counsel touching one of the most important transac- 
 tions of life. It is her youthful marriage with Isaac, the man of 
 her choice, and the man too of her parents' choice. In the ex- 
 ample of Isaac and Rebekah — one of the best, indeed, in all 
 the Bible as it regards married life — we find this sacred institu- 
 tion entered upon, and observed through a long life, precisely 
 as God ordained it in Eden, and as Jesus Christ re-ordained it 
 in the New Testament when he said . " For this cause shall a 
 
222 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 man forsake his father and his mother and cleave unto his wifC; 
 and they two shall be one flesh." 
 
 The times are changed, and the customs of society changed, 
 but this first detailed account of marriage is not without its in- 
 terest and intruction for the youth of our day. If such a mis- 
 sion," says Dr. Kitto, speaking of Abraham's servant, " were at 
 all possible under our own system of manners, it would certainly 
 not be among the girls gathered round the village pump that 
 the messenger would expect to find a match, in all respects suit- 
 able, for the son of his wealthy and well-born master. But in 
 that age, when, as now in the same countries, the young females 
 of the most honorable families discharge the commonest domes- 
 tic offices, and to whom the fetching of water from the well out- 
 side the town was a service in whicli peculiar pleasure was 
 taken, from its enabling them to meet their companions, the ser- 
 vant knew that the young females whom he might shortly ex- 
 pect to see at that place, must include the very class from which 
 his choice was to be made." 
 
 Now, you may be somewhat acquainted with the writings of 
 classical antiquity ; you may be more or less familliar with the 
 pages of our modern poetry and fiction ; you may have read 
 much of history, biography, and the drama ; but it may be 
 safely affirmed, that in all your reading, whether ancient or 
 modern, sacred or profane, you cannot find anything of equal 
 compass on the subject of marriage, so interesting, so instructive, 
 and so beautiful, as that long twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis 
 which tells us all we need to know about the wedding of Isaac 
 and Rebekah. If you will read it carefully again you may no- 
 tice four circumstances that render it, notwithstanding its anti- 
 quity, a manual of instruction to every young man and 
 woman, in choosing a companion for life, as much better as it 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 223 
 
 is shorter than Hannah More's " Coelebs in Search of a ^V^ife," 
 or Goldsmith's play '* She Stoops to Conquer," or any other un- 
 inspired production. 
 
 First, it was a marriage, literally and truly, in accordance 
 with the will of the Lord. This was regarded as an essential 
 point alike by the young people and their parents on both sides. 
 Every step, from the beginning to its consummation, by all the 
 parties engaged in it, even to the servant who went for Rebekah, 
 was taken in reliance upon Divine Providence, and with prayer 
 for the blessing of heaven upon the nuptials. The whole matter 
 had been committed to the Lord's direction, as every marriage 
 ought to be. 
 
 Secondly, it was free, cordial and unrestrained on Rebekah's 
 part as well as on the part of Isaac, and on the part of their 
 parents. The choice of her own heart was consulted and 
 respected as the ultimate authority. There was no compulsion 
 by parental dictation. The parents decided nothing, and gave 
 the messenger no answer till her own decision had been made, 
 "Wilt thou go with this man?" And she said, " I will go.'* 
 Prompt, courag3oas and baautifal reply ! But had she said 
 " No," there the matter would have ended. They would not 
 have compelled her to go. Her negative would have stopped 
 all further proceedings. 
 
 Thirdly, it was no wayward, foolish, and ungrateful runaway 
 match. Rebekah decided for herself, but decided in accordance 
 with the wishes of her parents. Had they said " No," she 
 would not have gone. Their negative, like hers, would have 
 stopped all farther proceedings. She would not have married at 
 all rather than marry in opposition to the wishes of her parents. 
 Thus to the parent and the child, belonged a rightful veto as 
 God and nature intended it should belong in every ease of mar- 
 riage. Do you ask, What is a young lady to do, when her pa- 
 
224 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTEK 
 
 rents oppose her marriage in a particular case. We answer, Do 
 nothing ; but remain as she is. Do not marry at all rather than 
 marry under such circumstances. There had better be no mar- 
 riage, while the world stands, than marriage in defiance of pa- 
 rental authority. It is a sinful breach of the great law of na- 
 ture and of heaven, when a parent compels his daughter to 
 marry against her own heart's choice ; and it is no less so for 
 a daughter to marry in defiance of the will of her parents. The 
 young woman, who is capable of bringing upon the once happy 
 home of her childhood, all that desolation which is implied in 
 an elopement, and of inflicting such unmitigated cruelty upon 
 the mother to whom she owes the highest of all earthly obliga- 
 tions, is, to say the very least, unfit herself to be a wife and 
 mother ; and the world would be no loser if she should never 
 marry. We speak with emphasis upon the subject ; because 
 anything, which, in the name of marriage, thus tramples upon 
 the sacredness of home, and the rights of j^arcnts, however it 
 may be tolerated in our fashionable society, we can only regard 
 as an. evil and an outrage, as abhorrent to nature as it is contrary 
 to the law of God. 
 
 Fourthly, the courtship of Isaac and Rebekah, unlike many 
 in our day, was one of perfect candor, of straight-forward, 
 business-like simphcity, and of admirable delicacy and fair-deal- 
 ing on all sides. There was no double-dealing, no coquetry, no 
 unwomanly vacillation ; no unmanly breach of contract, no 
 saying one thing and meaning another ; no female diplomacy, 
 no modern marioeuvering. The young and lovely Rebekah shines 
 forth as the model of artless innocence, of open-hearted truth- 
 fulness, of womanly decision, of lady-like delicacy, and of 
 devoted piety and trust in God. And as for Isaac, walking 
 afield at eventide, to meditate, holding quiet communion with 
 nature, and lifting up his eyes, at last, to behold the camels 
 
m THE BIBLE. 225 
 
 coming, and Kebekah with them, how can we think otherwise 
 of him than as the most blessed and happy man of his day ? * 
 From a review of the whole case, we think there is mnch to 
 admire in this ancient marriage ; and there are many lessons 
 which our much-loved daughters might learn from its natural 
 simplicity and beauty. There is more real refinement, and 
 more of the true dignity and glory of woman in such a marriage 
 as Rebekah's than in all the clandestine elopements, and roman- 
 tic adventures, and sentimental wooiugs by moanshine, and 
 mercenary bargainings for wealth and ambition, that our nov- 
 elists have ever depicted, or our modern belles ever sighed for. 
 
 VI. CHARACTER OF DEBORAH. 
 
 But let us turn now to a type of female character altogether 
 different from any we have yet contemplated ; let us turn from 
 tlie private to the public — from the tranquil scenes of domestic 
 life to the stirring incidents of the political. It is upon an 
 inspired prophetess of the Lord that we are now to look. 
 
 Seven of the hundred women of the Bible bear the title of 
 prophetess, not to mention the four virgin daughters of Philip, 
 the Evangelist. These are, the good Anna, of the gospel his- 
 tory, and the wicked, self-styled prophetess, Jezebel, of the 
 Book of Revelation ; and, in the Old Testament, the wife of 
 Isaiah, the Noadiah of Nehemiah, Huldah of Jerusalem, Mh'i- 
 am the sister of Moses, and Deborah. Let us consider, for a 
 moment, the last of these, as being the most remarkable and 
 the most gifted of the prophetic group, and possessing, too, as 
 much of the heroic as the prophetic spirit. 
 
 She was a wife and a mother in Israel ; and, nc doubt, faith- 
 
 10* 
 
226 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 fully discharged all those duties which constitute the glory of 
 woman. But, from the brief record of her public acts and the 
 success of her daring achievements, as well as from her sublime 
 poetry, it is manifest that she possessed, in rare combination, 
 many of the highest intellectual and moral endowments. She 
 united, at once, the genius of the poet, the administrative 
 ability of the civil ruler, the wisdom of the judge, the courage 
 of the military leader, and that high-toned patriotic enthusiasm, 
 which made her the deliverer of her country when there was 
 not a man, in all the twelve tribes, for the space of twenty years, 
 who had dared to strike a blow for its deliverance. Raised up 
 and inspired of God for the occasion, called first to be the civil 
 head of the nation because there was no one else competent to 
 the place, and then, most reluctantly, called to take the field at 
 the head of its armies, when all hearts were quailing for fear, 
 though } 3rself undaunted before the multitudinous array of 
 Israel's proud invaders, this wife of Lapidoth and mother in 
 Israel *vent forth from her quiet home beneath the palm-tree ; 
 and, infiiiing her own indomitable spirit into Barak and her 
 countryrxen, turned not back till every foeman had been driven 
 from the land, and in her sublime words, " the stars in their 
 courses h; A fought against Sisera." Israel triumphed gloriously. 
 But it wa a greater triumph for woman than for Israel. From 
 the men o. that generation, and for her sex, she won a triumph 
 which sho: Id stand as a memorial in all generations to come. 
 If there wo'e no other proof on record of the strength of female 
 character, and the capacity of female intellect, this signal victory 
 and triumphal song of Deborah would remain as a perpetual 
 monument to the intellectual and spiritual glory of woman. 
 
 Many subsequent triumphs have been won by woman in 
 almost every field of human action. But to Deborah belongs 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 25? 
 
 the distinction of being the pioneer of her sex in this depart- 
 ment of greatness. The true sphere of woman, in which Provi- 
 dence intended, as a general rule, that she should win her 
 highest glory, is not the battle-field, nor the cabinet of state, 
 nor the hall of legislation, nor, indeed, the throne of empire. 
 But there are examples enough in history, like that of Deborah, 
 to show that when occasion calls for it — which, indeed, is not 
 often — woman is capable of the very greatest achievements in 
 every sphere of human enterprise, in every field of intellectual 
 and moral efi'ort. The commanding influence of Deborah, the 
 poetic genius of Sappho, the martial spirit of Zenobia, the 
 administrative ability of Queen Elizabeth, the statesman-like 
 character of Margaret of Denmark, the heroic courage and 
 achievements of Joan of Arc, Flora Macdonald, and Grace Dar- 
 ling, the versatile talents of Madame De Stael, the classical 
 learning of Madame Dacier, the scientific attainments of Mrs. 
 Somerville, not to mention a hundred others, stand not only as 
 an evidence of what woman has done in all the walks which man 
 has claimed as his own, but as an argument for what she could 
 do, if all those walks were as open to her as they are to him. 
 Oh, yes ; there can be no doubt at all that woman has the 
 ability, or, what amounts to the same, could very soon acquire 
 the ability, to manage the world, and manage it very well too, 
 if man would resign the sceptre and change places with her. 
 But then there can be no doubt at all, that she would be the 
 greatest loser by the change ; nay, she would lose infinitely 
 more than she or the world could gain by such a bargain. 
 
 Now, it adds a peculiar lustre to the character of Deborah, 
 that she did not seek to sink the woman in the warrior. She 
 could play the heroine on a grand scale, when occasion called 
 for it, in the deliverance of her country. But she undertook it 
 
228 TYPKS OF FiQIALE CHAKACTKS 
 
 reluctantly, feeling that it was not her congenial element. The 
 victory she won was worthy of the cause she had espoused. 
 Her triumphal hymn was worthy of the victory. And all were 
 worthy of such a woman, wife, and mother. With equal truth 
 and beauty it has been remarked of her, by the accomplished 
 author of "Woman's Record," that, ''she did not assume for 
 herself the title of Judge, Heroine, or Prophetess, though she 
 was all these, but she chose the tender name of Mother as the 
 highest style of woman ; and described the utter misery of her 
 people as arousing her to assume the high station of a patriot 
 and leader. It was not ambition, but love, that stirred her 
 noble spirit, and nerved her for the duties of government. She 
 is a remarkable exemplification of the spiritual influence woman 
 has wielded for the benefit of humanity when the energies of 
 man seemed entirely overcome." 
 
 Her song of victory, which fills up the fifth chapter of the 
 Book of Judges, is one of the earliest as it is one of the sublim- 
 est poems in the world. It breathes, in every line, with patri- 
 otic ardor, with lofty enthusiasm, with heroic courage, with 
 thanksgiving to God, all poured forth from a heart glowing 
 with poetic beauty, and swelling with the afflatus of prophetic 
 inspiration. Nobly and truly has it been characterized by a 
 late writer in the following words : " The battle is over : and 
 now comes the great song of praise and triumph — one of the 
 sublimest pages of poetry within the compass of the Scriptures. 
 It is the only war-song in existence that has the Divine mingled 
 with the human, the very deepest and sweetest spirit of grateful 
 piety with the loftiest temper of patriotism and national enthusi- 
 asm. Its sublime apostrophes, its bursts of feeling, its rapid 
 and startling changes of thought, its lightning-like descriptions, 
 its comprehensive historic allusions, its questionings, its solemn 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 adjurations, its grandeur of faith in God, and gratitude to him, 
 all make it one of the most extraordinary compositions in the 
 Bible. If we should consider it an effort of human genius, it 
 would be unrivalled ; there is nothing to be compared with it 
 in the world of literature." 
 
 VII. ESTHER AND RUTH. 
 
 But, from the heroic and warlike, turn now and look npon 
 quite a different picture. Look at Esther in her majesty — after 
 Eve the most queenly woman of all the hundred women of the 
 Bible — once Hadassah, the poor orphan girl of the Jewish cap- 
 rivity, now the successor of Yashti, queen of an empire extend- 
 ing from India to Ethiopia. When did imagination ever dream 
 of a greater and stranger change of fortune than hers ; from 
 the orphan to the queen, from the prisoner of the captivity to 
 the mistress of the palace, from the poor exile to the throne of 
 the greatest empire in the world ? She was beautiful ; and 
 that had been the stepping stone to her exaltation. But her per- 
 sonal beauty was the very least of her charms. There was a 
 higher spiritual beauty, a strength of character, which was to 
 all her outward graces, more, even, than the fine-wrought tex- 
 ture is to the polish of the marble. Behold her, at the zenith 
 of her power, holding fast her religion in the midst of all the 
 blandishments and luxuries of an oriental court, fasting and 
 praying for her down-trodden countrymen. See her after three 
 days and nights of anxious communion with her God, out of 
 the love she bears her kindred and the institutions of her 
 fathers, making up her mind to the great issue ; and then, with 
 a decision and self-sacrifice worthy of a martyr venturing her 
 
230 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 life, her all, for the good of her people, with the memorable 
 answer, " If I perish, I perish." 
 
 There was decision of character for jou. There was courage 
 of the highest order. There was the sublimity of true moral 
 greatness, worthy of the Jewess and worthy of the woman. 
 There, beneath that form of unusual loveUness, dwelt a soul of 
 extraordinary attributes — a spirit of patriotism and religious 
 principle that could look danger and death in the face, and 
 calmly risk all it had on earth for tlie common good of the 
 nation. But the victim was not needed. The intention was 
 accepted for the deed. She had evinced a heroic confidence in 
 God worthy of a daughter of Abraham ; and, by it, she saved 
 the seed of Abraham from extermination. We know not a 
 finer specimen of female biography, nor a loftier example of 
 piety holding fast its profession through all temptation, nor a 
 more delightful illustration of the special, over-ruling Provi- 
 dence of God, than is exhibited in the life and fortunes of this 
 beautiful orphan girl, Hadassah ; this majestic, self-sacrificing 
 Queen Esther. Risking all, willing to lose all for others, she 
 gained all, both for others and herself. 
 
 Let us leave, for a moment, the palaces of the great and the 
 noble, whilst we turn back to look upon a lowly scene of domes- 
 tic, rural life. And what picture of youthful piety and love is 
 this that stands so invitingly before us now ? 'Tis Ruth, the 
 native of a heathen land, the daughter of an idolatrous race, 
 now converted to the faith of Israel. 'Tis Ruth, cleaving to 
 Naomi with a filial and a religious devotion, which says : 
 ''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 people shall be my people, and thy 
 God my God Where thou diest I will die, and there will I be 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 2Sl 
 
 buried ; the Lord do so to me, if aught but death part thee and 
 me." 'Tis the lovely and virtuous Ruth, gleaning in the harvest- 
 fields of Bethlehem, becoming the lawful wife of Boaz, and ere 
 long a mother in Israel — a mother of that royal race from 
 which should spring the Saviour of the world, himself to be born 
 in that very Bethlehem where Ruth followed the reapers, and to 
 be born of a damsel as humble as herself. 
 
 In the beautiful and instructive story of Ruth, her choice to 
 go with Naomi is, perhaps, the most interesting passage. It 
 was evidently the turning point in the destiny of the young and 
 widowed Moabitess. It exhibits her feelings in deciding an 
 alternative, on which depended all her fortunes for this world, 
 and, it may be, her soul's salvation in the world to come. It 
 represents her in the act of meeting and settling the greatest 
 issue of her life — the question, whether she would stay at home 
 and live on with her kindred in idolatry, or give up all for the 
 people and the service of the only living and true God. 
 
 She chose the latter. We know not how long and painful 
 the struggle may have been which brought her to that decision. 
 We only know her choice as the opposite of her sister-in-law's ; 
 and there was no motive short of religion adequate to such a 
 choice. Certainly there was nothing in the external fortunes 
 of Naomi to captivate her heart. Her language, however, is 
 more than that of mere human friendship. It reveals the 
 intense energy and decision of a soul, voluntarily relinquishing 
 all the ties of country and kindred, to choose a portion in the 
 God of Israel and an humble lot among his people. To all 
 the difficulties and hardships suggested by Naomi, she replied 
 with the resolute devotion and ardor of one whose heart was 
 fixed, " Entreat me not to leave thee." All the considerations 
 of personal interest and all the prospects of wordly good were 
 
232 TYPES OF FEMALE CliARACTER 
 
 against the choice she made. These had already prevailed 
 with Orpah to decide the other way. Ruth's language shows 
 that with her the main element and motive of the choice was 
 religion. She decided to go with Naomi to a strange land, 
 rather than return to her mother's house in her own land, 
 because Naomi's people were God's people, and Naomi's God 
 the true God. 
 
 It was a noble choice, most touchingly expressed, and most 
 faithfully carried out. Most cheerfully she encountered all the 
 hardships of a foreign land and all the privations of extreme 
 poverty for the sake of the true religion. And she did not lose 
 her reward. 
 
 She verified thus early the saying, which was long afterwards 
 written, " Godliness hath tlie promise of the life that now is, 
 and of that which is to come." 
 
 As she toiled there iii the fields of Boaz for her daily bread, 
 an unknown stranger among the reapers, how far from any of 
 ber youthful imaginings and day-dreams of the future, must 
 have been the thought, that the blood which then coursed 
 through her veins, and mantled on her cheek, would descend 
 and flow through many of the most renowned personages of the 
 world's history — through David and Solomon, Hezekiah and 
 Josiah, Mary and Jesus. Her history, wonderful in the lowli- 
 ness of its beginning, and wonderful in the grandeur of its 
 termination in the great Messiah, is, indeed, a striking illustra- 
 tion of the fact that truth is often stranger and more beautiful 
 than fiction. "Her example," says Mrs. Hale, "shows what 
 woman can do, if she is true to the best impulses of her nature, 
 and faithfully works in her mission, and waits the appointed 
 time." Her life, like that of Estlier, so humble iu its origin 
 and so illustrious in its results, is a lesson to teach us how, 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 233 
 
 in the Providence of God, great effects flow from little 
 causes. 
 
 Her exaltation may call to mind many similar, though less 
 remarkable cases, in modern history. Take one example. 
 Early in the seventeenth century, a poor English girl went up 
 from the country to London to work her way through the world 
 as a servant. By industry, economy, and an early marriage, she 
 was soon placed above want. Her first husband dyins", she 
 then married Edward Hyde, a young lawyer, who became Earl 
 of Clarendon, and Lord High Chancellor of the State. Her 
 daughter married the Duke of York, who became James IL of 
 England ; and her two grand-daughters, Mary and Anne, be- 
 came, successively, queens of Great Britain — two, indeed, of 
 the best of all the English sovereigns. And thus was she, like 
 Ruth and Esther, raised up to become a fountain-head of influ- 
 ence, which should be extended over one of the greatest king- 
 doms of the earth and perpetuated to the end of time. 
 
 The Bible does not tell us that Ruth was fair. Not a word 
 is said about her personal appearance. And yet there is some- 
 thing in the whole narrative which seems naturally to suggest 
 the idea that she was beautiful. Every reader gets that 
 impression, instinctively, unconsciously; he cannot tell why, or 
 from what. Everything that has been uttered about her, every 
 picture that has been drawn, seems to take that point for 
 granted. The beauty of her character seems to throw its soft, 
 sunny reflection over her whole person. She is, to every ima- 
 gination, a poetic image — an impersonation of the beautiful not 
 less than a historic character. We love to think of her in that 
 light, as we do of Eve, and the very silence of the Bible seems 
 to favor the illusion. As we fancy how she looked in the early 
 dawn, threading her way with elastic steps through the ripen- 
 
234: TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 ing wheat-fields of Boaz, we think of her as one who might 
 have prompted the lines of Scott : 
 
 "Ne'er did Grecian chisel trace 
 A nymph, a naiad, or a grace 
 Of finer form or lovelier face." 
 
 Ruth is, indeed, in some respects, the gem of the whole gal- 
 lery of Scripture portraits. And, as we read her beautiful 
 poetic story, we almost wonder that her great-grandson, the 
 sweet Psalmist of Israel, did not sometimes tune his harp to 
 weave a chaplet of song around the name and memory of such 
 a mother. But, for aught we know, he did. Amongst the 
 many tributes which the modern muse has paid to her loveliness 
 and virtue, we may select, as an appropriate close for our brief 
 sketch, the following lines from Hood, which, though somewhat 
 fanciful, are certainly very beautiful ; 
 
 '* She stood breast high amid the corn, 
 Clasped by the golden hght of morn, 
 Like the sweet-heart of the sun, 
 Who many a golden kiss had won. 
 On her cheeks an autumn plush 
 Deeply ripened— such a blush 
 In the midst of brown was born, 
 Like red poppies grown with corn. 
 Round her eyes her tresses fell — 
 Which were blackest none could tell; 
 But long lashes veiled a light, 
 That had else been all too bright. 
 And her hat, with shady brim, 
 Made her tressy forehead dim ; 
 There she stood amid the stocks, 
 Praising God with sweetest looks. 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 235 
 
 Sure, I said, heaven did not mean, 
 AVhere I reap thou shouldst but glean; 
 Lay thy sheaf adowu and come 
 Share my harvest and my home." 
 
 VIII. JEZEBEL AND ATHALIAH. 
 
 By way of contrast, let us turn, for a moment, from these 
 virtuous and holy women, whose names distinguish two of the 
 most beautiful books of Scripture, to gaze upon two others of 
 a totally different character. In Jezebel and Athaliah, the 
 mother and daughter, one the queen of Israel and the other of 
 Judah, one the wife and the other the daughter of Ahab, we 
 behold a double incarnation of wickedness. Companions alike 
 in their heathen idolatry, in their inordinate ambition, in their 
 unrelenting cruelty and blood-thirstiness, in their successful 
 usurpation of royal authority, and in their mad rebellion against 
 Jehovah, they were associates in the awful doom, which, at 
 last, -overtook them. The crimes of Athaliah, in the destruc- 
 tion of her grandchildren, were even more aggravated than 
 those of Jezebel. But to Jezebel, as the mother, belongs the 
 greater share of the responsibility and the guilt. And accord- 
 ingly, her name, like that of Judas and of Cain, has descended 
 to all generations as a proverb and term of reproach. The 
 vocabulary of the world cannot pronounce a more disgraceful 
 stigma on a woman than to call her Jezebel. Xo child is ever 
 named for Jezebel. 
 
 It is a mournful but significant fact, that the darkest, 
 bloodiest period, in the whole history of the Jewish nation, is 
 that in which these two women of iron, seizing the reins of 
 power, exercised absolute dominion over both the court and the 
 
236 TYPES OF FEMALE CHAEACTEK. 
 
 people of Israel and Judah. The one, even while the wife of 
 Ahah, by her superior talents and her iron will, was virtually 
 sole sovereign of Israel. The other, the widow. of Jehoram, 
 with a heart of adamant, killed her grandchildren in their infancy 
 that she might reign without a rival, queen of Judah. And 
 whilst their influence and their lives lasted, idolatry, and crime, 
 and every abomination filled the land. The Bible has, in one 
 short sentence, left us a standing monument of the infamy of 
 Athaliah. Speaking of her son, Ahaziah, it says : " His mother 
 was his counsellor to do wickedly." Alas ! how many public 
 crimes and calamities, in every age, are explained by that 
 sentence. 
 
 The deep and fearful significance of this mournful fact lies 
 in this — that when woman, fired with the demon of ambition, 
 once lays aside that peculiar character which God hath given 
 her for a glory and a covering, and attempts to assume the 
 character and play the part of man on the world's great stage, 
 instead of raising manhood to the skies she only sinks it to 
 the level of the brute or demon. A man does not more unsex 
 himself and discredit humanity, by wearing a woman's garb and 
 acting a woman's part in life, than do women degrade and 
 unwoman themselves when they strive to be like men. Jezebel 
 and Athaliah tried to make themselves men, and succeeded only 
 in making themselves fiends. Their example is as full of warning 
 as it is of woe. But they have not been without their succes- 
 sors and imitators. Many others, undeterred by their awful fate, 
 have attempted to play, on a larger or smaller scale, the same des- 
 perate game of ambition and folly. One of the most noted instan- 
 ces in moderm history is that of the highly-gifted, but eccentric 
 Christina, queen of Sweden. Restless, dissatisfied, and un- 
 happy, even on the throne, because Providence had not made 
 
TS THE BIBLE. 237 
 
 her a man, she at length, to the grief and mortification of her 
 people, abdicated the throne, apostatized from the religion of 
 her Protestant father, and left her native land to wander over 
 Europe in the dress of a man. Assuming male attire, and dis- 
 missing all her female attendants on the border, she renounced 
 her country, her religion, her sex, and, as we think, her charac- 
 ter as a woman, with the declaration : " I would become a man ; 
 but it is not that I love men because they are men, but merely 
 that they are not women." 
 
 Alas ! have we not reason to fear, that the succession in this 
 unwomanly and wicked folly, has not yet ceased ? Are there 
 not still those who, instead of honoring that noble and glorious 
 heritage of womanhood which God hath given them, are filled 
 with a miserable ambition to be like men, and spend their lives 
 in an open quarrel against earth and heaven, because they are 
 not and cannot be men ? 
 
 vs.. HERODIAS AND HER DANCING DAUGHTER. 
 
 In this connection it may not be out of place to intro- 
 duce another mother and daughter of somewhat similar 
 character from the pages of the New Testament. Among 
 the very few dark pictures of female character in these later 
 Scriptures, there is one that stands out prominently as a 
 warning to all generations. It is that of the incestuous 
 wife of Philip, and her dancing daughter, whose life of sinful 
 pleasure demanded no less a sacrifice than the blood of John 
 the Baptist. 
 
 It is somewhat doubtful whether the daughter of Herodias 
 ought to be classed among the women or children of the New 
 
238 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 Testament at the time she is represented as dancing before He- 
 rod. She may have been a woman grown, or nearly grown, at 
 that time. It is more probable, however, that she was a young 
 girl, as yet entirely subservient to the will of her wicked moth- 
 er. The readiness with which she let go the opportunity of 
 gaining some splendid present from the king for herself, in or- 
 der to gratify her mother's unreasonable and atrocious request 
 for the head of John the Baptist, seems to show that she had 
 not reached an age to think for herself, but was still within the 
 sphere of girlhood. It was hardly to be expected that any 
 thing good could come out of the Herodian family; and the 
 incident recorded of this young girl, gives a striking illustration 
 of the depravity which prevailed in what might be called the 
 elegant, fashionable circles of that day. It was then as it is 
 now in such circles — the child was a true mirror to reflect the 
 vices of the parent. 
 
 Of all the comments we have seen on this transaction, the 
 most graphic is that of Dr. Kitto, which we here give in his 
 own words : " It was his birth-day, which was celebrated with 
 high festivities at court. The Jews generally disliked the cele- 
 bration of birth-days : and this was one of the heathen customs 
 which the Herodian family had adopted from the Romans. On 
 the present occasion, Herod gave a great supper to his lords, 
 high captains, and chief estates ; and, before it closed, a fair 
 young girl, to whom Herod was greatly attached, was intro- 
 duced, and commenced one of those solo dances for which the 
 East has long been celebrated. That fair child was Salome, the 
 daughter of Herodias by her former husband. With such 
 marvellous grace and thrilling effect did she perform this dance, 
 that Herod, already warm with wine, became excited, and, in 
 the fervor of his enthusiasm, vowed that she should have what- 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 239 
 
 ever she asked, even to the half of his kiugdom. Little could 
 he imagine what this child had been tutored by her wicked 
 mother to ask ; and he was shocked and grieved, when, instead 
 of some costly bauble, she asked for the head of John the 
 Baptist. The sternest man there must have shuddered to hear 
 from those beautiful young lips the blood-thirsty request, atro- 
 ciously specific, * Bring me here the head of John the Baptist in 
 a charger.' John is not only to lose his head, but the bleeding 
 trophy is to be brought to her ; it is to be brought to her thtrt^ 
 that there may be no evasion ; that the high lords who have 
 heard the vow, may witness its fulfillment. Then she tells how 
 it is to be brought. Not in any careless way, not in a napkin, 
 not held by the hair, but in a dish ; so that she — that young 
 girl — may receive it into her own hands, and take it where she 
 pleased, without danger of soiling her rich dress with a prophet's 
 blood. This is frightful. It was done, nevertheless. A man 
 was sent to behead John in prison ; and presently it was brought 
 to the young princess, who, doubtless, received it with becoming 
 grace, and bore it off daintily to her mother. That the girl 
 could go through all this, however well tutored, seems to show 
 that Salome was indeed a true daughter of Herodias. How she 
 received this precious gift we are not told ; but there is a tra- 
 dition that she drew forth the still warm tongue that had 
 rebuked her crimes, and veiigefully transfixed it with her bodkin." 
 Poor young girl ! what an education had she received I 
 Her mother, no doubt, looked with pride upon her splendid 
 accomplishments. What treasure had she not expended in 
 teaching her to dance 1 And now, though so young, she was 
 perfect, even in the sight of the king and all his great lords I 
 An elegant dancer, with a mind utterly destitute of intellectual 
 and moral culture I Her mother had succeeded in making her 
 
240 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 an adept in that accomplishment, in which any stage-player 
 or circus-rider might have excelled her, and had left her desti- 
 tute of that intellectual grace, without which woman is a 
 cipher, and of that m-oral grace, without which she soon 
 becomes a monster. She was the daughter of a royal house, 
 and she could dance, but her young hands were stained with a 
 prophet's blood, chiefly because of her superiority in dancing. 
 How much better would it have been for her if she had never 
 learned to dance ! How much better if her name had come 
 down to us, like that of another and humbler Salome, who, 
 probably, never danced at all, but lives embalmed in the most 
 precious of all memorials, as one who watched at the sepulchre 
 of Jesus. Who would now exchange the reputation, not to say 
 the lot, of Salome, watching at the tomb, for that of Salome, the 
 dancing daughter of a queen ? 
 
 And what a commentary, by the way, does this case afford 
 on the boasted accomplishment of dancing I The evil of danc- 
 ing consisted then, as it always has consisted, not in the dancing 
 itself, but in tlfe things it leads to. In that case it led to a sinful 
 excitement, a foolish oath, and an awful murder. And in how 
 many cases has it led to the loss of health, the loss of life, and 
 the loss of the soul ? In how many cases has it blotted out for- 
 ever every serious impression, and prepared the young to run a 
 career of folly and reckless dissipation ? And is it no sin for 
 Christian parents, knowing the evils to which dancing is sure to 
 lead, deliberately to teach their children this dangerous accom- 
 plishment ? Will they give them cards, and not expect them 
 to gamble ? Will they send them to the theatre, and not 
 expect them to be injured ? Will they send them to the race- 
 course, and then caution them to beware of evil influences? 
 And shall they train their children to all the " misty mazes '* 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 241 
 
 of the dance, and yet, with strange inconsistency, expect God to 
 convert and save them, while thus placing one of the greatest 
 obstacles in the way ? 
 
 Salome's dancing was evil, because it led to evil. And yet 
 this was the least objectionable form of dancing. It was a solo 
 dance, and that by a female ; and that too at home in her mo- 
 ther's house. The advocates of our modern, promiscuous dan- 
 cing, sometimes pretend to justify it by the Scriptures. But 
 they forget that no such thing as the dancing of the sexes to- 
 gether is to be found in the Scriptures. There are instances of 
 a man dancing alone in a religious service, as David did ; and 
 manyinstances where women danced with women as Miriam at 
 the Red Sea ; but we can confidently affirm, that there is not a 
 single example of our modern fashion of the sexes dancing to- 
 gether, in all the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. No man 
 can show any place in the Bible where men joined with women 
 in the dance. And for this ancient custom some tolerable rea- 
 son might be given. For if healthful exercise of the body 
 is the thing aimed at in dancing, why not let ladies take it alone 
 and under circumstances where they can get the full benefit 
 of it, untrammelled by the presence of men ? Does common 
 sense require people to take exercise at night in crowded suffo- 
 cating rooms, in full dress, bound and girdled to very compres- 
 sion ? Can you imagine anything more uncongenial to a lady's 
 health than the late hours, the torturing, tight dress, and the vio- 
 lent yet constrained exertion, of the ball-room ? When men per- 
 form their hardest labor, they wish to be alone, or in the open air, 
 or at least freed from the burden of much dress. But delicate 
 ladies go through the excessive fatigues of the dance, often the 
 hardest labor of their lives, the very victims and martyrs of the 
 fashionable dress-maker, and all this for the sake of healthful 
 
 11 
 
242 TYPES OF FEMALE OHARACTER 
 
 exercise ! Surely, the flimsiest of all sophistries is the pretence 
 that health can be promoted under the artificial and absurd con- 
 ditions of our promiscuous dancing. If health be the object, let 
 ladies dance at home immediately after the morning bath, the ear- 
 lier the better. If there be " a time to dance," that would be 
 the best time. 
 
 But if graceful motion be the thing aimed at, why mix it up 
 with the uncouth and grotesque awkwardness of the male dan- 
 cer ? As for men, they certahily can find a better species of 
 exercise ; and gracefulness, in their case, is out of the question. 
 We may be free to admit, there is something womanly and 
 graceful in the movement of the female dancer ; though even in 
 her case, the gracefulness is mainly owing to the flowing dress, 
 or to personal beauty. If the lady is naturally graceful and 
 comely, she would look just as well on horseback, or on a morn- 
 ing or evening walk, as in the dance. If she is ugly, and badly 
 dressed, no extra skill in dancing can redeem the performance 
 from contempt. So that, even in the female dancer, this boast- 
 ed gracefulness of movement is far more dependent upon other 
 accidental circumstances, than upon any intrinsic beauty in the 
 act of dancing. The grace is in the person, not in her move- 
 ments, and would belong to her just as well if she did not 
 dance at all. 
 
 But be the case as it may with a young girl, who ever saw 
 anything graceful and dignified in the dancing of men ? To 
 us, the whole thing of a man's dancing is absurd and ridiculous 
 to the last degree. If there were nothing else against it, the 
 closely cut dress of our modern man of fashion, fitting his body 
 and limbs like the bark of a tree, renders graceful dancing an 
 impossibility. There is no poetry in any such exhibition of a 
 Aan, or of any other animal clad as he is. For if the man la 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 243 
 
 large and heavy, the spectacle calls up the image of an elephant 
 whose very footstep shakes the ground. If the man is small 
 and frisky, we are constantly reminded of the fitful antics of a 
 monkey or baboon. If the performer is tall and slender, who 
 knows when his excessive gyrations may bring him down like a 
 sapling before the wind. Whatever dancing may be as an 
 amusement for women and children, we cannot rank it among 
 the manly sports and performances. The actions of man are 
 graceful only as they are manly ; and they are manly only as 
 they are in keeping with the duties and responsibilities of men. 
 On this principle, all the exercises of labor in art and industry 
 may be graceful ; the evolutions of the soldier under arms may 
 be graceful ; the bearing of gentlemen in all the needful inter- 
 course of society may be graceful. But dancing, being a mere 
 amusement, in no way related to any of the needful employ- 
 ments of life, can be defended on no such ground as that of dig- 
 nified, manly exercise ; but must stand as a mere amusement, 
 on its own intrinsic propriety, if indeed it has any. Stripped, 
 then, as it is, of every element of that kind of beauty which 
 springs from utility to the purposes of life, what is there 
 left of it, as a mere amusement, to make it decorous in men ? 
 Suppose you could behold a company of men alone to them- 
 selves, dancing with each other for mere amusement, or dancing 
 in public for the edification of others, what would be your im- 
 pressions of the scene ? Would you call that a natural and 
 manly sport ? No. Your contempt for an exhibition so puerile 
 would be in exact proportion to two things : first, the zest with 
 which they enjoyed it ; and secondly, the age and standing of 
 the men who could be thus amused. Hence, we say, dancing was 
 never intended for man ; least of all for our modern cloth-har- 
 nessed man. And if our fine gentlemen must dance, they ought 
 
244 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARAJTER 
 
 oat of mere poetic justice, to assume the toga of the ancients ; 
 or else, for the sake of this peculiarly feminine amusement into 
 which they have intruded, they ought to borrow- a belt and a 
 skirt from their lady partners. 
 
 There is no disputing about tastes, according to the ancient 
 maxim, and thus we account for the extreme favor in which 
 dancing has been held in our modern fashionable world. As to 
 the moral bearing of it, history shows that it has ever flourished 
 most in two opposite stages of society — in the barbarous state, as 
 among all savage tribes, and in a corrupt, degenerate civilization, 
 as during the decUne of the Roman empire. It is, however, not 
 the only relic of barbarism on the one hand, and of degeneracy 
 on the other, which has been adopted as the peculiar favorite 
 of our most refined aristocratic circles. Tlie theatre can boast 
 the same authority and duelling also — two far worse things 
 than dancing, though upheld by that same sort of taste which 
 rejoices in the dance. 
 
 But as touching the classic beauty of man's dancing, we are 
 very willing to abide by the decision of the old Greeks and Ro- 
 mans. Most assuredly, these masters of the fine arts, who have 
 filled the world with monuments of classic taste, were compe- 
 tent judges of everything that could be deemed essential to 
 grace and accomplishment in man or woman. They had their 
 dances. But with them it was a performance assigned to wo- 
 men and children, or to hired professional characters, trained 
 for the purpose. They went to see the dance, just as they went 
 to see the circus, or stage plays ; but they never thought of 
 dancing themselves ; at least, such as had any self respect, or 
 claim to gentility. Who ever heard of Roman ladies, or wives 
 and daughters of Grecian heroes, dancing with men ? Who 
 ever read of Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, or Pcmpey, 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 245 
 
 or Demosthenes, dancing like a young girl ? Think of a Ro- 
 man senator dancing in public or private for his own or any- 
 body's amusement I Think of these world-conquerors, whose 
 aspirations from boyhood were all of glory, exhibiting them- 
 selves in that capacity to which the young gentlemen of our 
 day aspire — the capacity of an exquisite dancer — the brilliant 
 achievement of a ball-room renown I It was only as Roman 
 virtue began to decay, under the corrupt sway of the Emperors, 
 and effeminate luxury to eat out all manly heroism from the 
 hearts and habits of the people, that dancing won its way into 
 the higher circles. In the days of Cicero, the sentiment of the 
 genteel, fashionable world was that which he expressed ; " No 
 man dances unless he is mad or drunk." If dancing was thus 
 thought uuraanly, when the performers had the long, flowing 
 Grecian and Roman dress to redeem it from contempt, how 
 much more undignified is it now, when the prim, starchy, tight- 
 fitting attire of the gentleman dancer, instead of concealing 
 only exposes the muscular machinery by which the perform- 
 ance is carried on I We do not wonder (if the anecdote be 
 authentic) that such a man as Daniel Webster, when accosted 
 in the saloons at Washington by one of those sprightly young 
 gentlemen who think that the earth would not revolve if the 
 dance should cease, and imploringly asked if he did not dance, 
 should have replied : " Xo, sir ; I never believed that I had 
 the capacity to learn." We cannot guarantee that Mr. Web- 
 ster ever said it, for it is only a newspaper report : we are very 
 sure, however, that he ought to have said it, for it is 
 in perfect keeping, alike with the good taste and the greatness 
 of such a man, that he should never discover that he had any 
 capacity to dance. 
 
 Viewed in all its pleas, we can see no defence of our modern, 
 
246 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 promiscuous dancing, from the charge of being an irrational, 
 unscriptural and injurious custom ; and until the world gets 
 back to the religious solo dance, or the exclusively female dance, 
 of the Bible, we shall remain in the opposition to all dancing ; 
 and we would, in fact, be glad to see the whole ceremony ex- 
 tirpated from civilized society as an unmeaning and useless 
 waste of time — the offspring of a barbarous, and the idol of a 
 degenerate age. 
 
 X. ABIGAIL, HANNAH, AND MARTHA. 
 
 But gladly leaving these dark pictures of warning and woe, 
 let us turn now to three very prominent examples of a different 
 order — three admirable women, who lived at different periods, 
 but may be fitly associated in the same group. Hannah, Abi- 
 gail, and Martha, had not much in common, either as to their 
 history or their condition in life ; and yet there was a solid 
 basis of character, consisting in energy, earnestness, prudence, 
 and sound common sense, which belonged to the three alike, 
 and strongly distinguished them. The wise, the amiable, the 
 judicious wife of David, the earnest, devout and self-denying 
 mother of Samuel, the energetic, hospitable, affectionate sister 
 of Lazarus, taken altogether, present us with a rare assemblage 
 of the virtues which should adorn a woman. 
 
 We know not whether Solomon drew his pictures from real 
 life, or from the records of the ancients. We know not that any 
 real personage sat as the original of that unrivalled portraiture 
 of womanly excellence, which he has drawn for us in the clos- 
 ing chapter of the book of Proverbs. If, however, we might 
 select any one out of the hundred women of the Bible, who was 
 worthy to sit for such a picture, and who came nearest to the 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 247 
 
 realization of that splendid impersonation of the perfect ladv, 
 as a wife and mother, we should select one of these ; we should 
 select the wise and amiable Abigail, or the devout and holy 
 Hannah. But the probability is, that Solomon, like all other 
 great artists, drew his images of beauty, not from any one, but 
 from many living forms. And so, if we take the excellences of 
 this threefold group, and add them all together — if we take the 
 holy Hannah, the wise Abigail, and the industrious Martha, 
 and blend their virtues all in one character, combining the 
 piety of the mother with the wisdom of the wife and the energy 
 of the sister, we may (excusing the anachronism) realize the heau 
 ideal of this matchless description. You have doubtless, often 
 admired this gem from the sacred cabinet, or, to speak more 
 properly, this crown, all radiant with gold and diamonds and 
 precious stones, which the royal poet hath wrought for the 
 moral and spiritual coronation of woman. We may safely 
 affirm, that, after nearly three thousand years of progress and 
 improvement, you cannot find in human literature either in its 
 poetry or its prose, Burke's celebrated picture of his wife includ- 
 ed, a finer and more complete impersonation of all that consti- 
 tutes the glory and the true mission of woman in the world, 
 than we have in his description of a lady of the olden time. 
 As you read it, think of Abigail, Hannah, and Martha, of the 
 Bible, as sitting for the picture, and do not fail to commend it 
 to the Abigails, Hannahs, and Marthas of our own day. 
 
 "Who can fijd a virtuous woman ? 
 For her price is far above rubies. 
 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, 
 So that he shall have no need of spoil. 
 She wi!l do him good and not evil all the days of her life. 
 She seeketh wool and flax, 
 And worketh willingly with her hands. 
 
248 TYPES OF Fi MaLK CHARACTEB 
 
 And she is like the merchant's ships ; 
 
 She bringeth her food from afar. 
 
 She riseth also while it is yet night, 
 
 And giveth meat to her household, 
 
 And a portion to her maidens, 
 
 She considereth a field, and buyeth it ; 
 
 With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard* 
 
 She girdeth her loins with strength, 
 
 And strengtheneth her arms. 
 
 She perceiveth that her merchandise is good : 
 
 Her candle goeth not out by night. 
 
 She layeth her hands to the spindle. 
 
 And her hands hold the distaff. 
 
 She stretcheth out her hand to the poor ; 
 
 Yea, she reacheth forth her hand to the needy. 
 
 She is not afraid of the snow for her household; 
 
 For all her household are clothed with scarlet. 
 
 She maketh herself coverings of tapestry ; 
 
 Her clothing is silk and purple. 
 
 Her husband is known in the gates. 
 
 When he sitteth among the elders of the land. 
 
 She maketh fine linen and selleth it ; 
 
 And delivereth girdles unto the merchant. 
 
 Strength and honor are her clothing ; 
 
 And she shall rejoice in time to come. 
 
 She openeth her mouth Avith wisdom ; 
 
 And in her tongue is the law of kindness. 
 
 She looketh well to the ways of her household, 
 
 And eateth not the bread of idleness. 
 
 Her children arise up and call her blessed : 
 
 Her husband also, and he praiseth her. 
 
 Many daughters have done virtuously. 
 
 But thou excellest them all ! 
 
 Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain ; 
 
 But a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. 
 
 Give her of the fruit of her hands. 
 
 And let her own works praise her in the gates." 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 249 
 
 XI. MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS, AND MARY OF BETHANY. 
 
 Almost all the women of the New Testament are worthy of 
 our admiration. With their characters you are already so 
 famih"ar that we need not dwell upon them long. We can 
 know them but to love them, and " name them but to praise.*' 
 It would be a pleasing task to set forth the virtues of the pious 
 Elizabeth, the aged Anna, the charitable Dorcas, the hospit- 
 able Lydia, the warm-hearted Mary Magdalene. But we must 
 pass over all these to speak of two others, who are, perhaps 
 the most remarkable of the whole New Testament group — 
 Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary of Bethany. You are, 
 probably, aware that there are five Marys mentioned in the 
 New Testament — Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary the mo- 
 ther of Mark, in addition to the three already named. But the 
 central object of the whole group is the Virgin Mother of our 
 Lord. 
 
 The Papists have gone to such an absurd extreme in their 
 idolatrous exaltation of the Virgin Mary, that Protestants, 
 avoiding their error, are scarcely prepared to appreciate her 
 character as the Bible warrants. We must not, however, fall 
 into the opposite extreme of withholding our respect and admir- 
 ation from the one woman of our race, who was accounted 
 worthy to be the medium of the Divine Incarnation, and from 
 whom the Son of God derived his human nature, and, to some 
 extent, his human character. No such glory as this belongs to 
 any other woman. But, aside from this distinction, there is 
 not a female character in all the Bible adorned with nobler 
 attributes or lovelier virtues. She wins our affections by her 
 humble, unaffected piety ; she wins our sympathies by her un- 
 
 11* 
 
250 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 wonted trials ; not less than our admiration, by the unusual 
 glory which heaven conferred upon her. The angel Gabriel 
 pronounced her the " highly favored of the Lord, blessed among 
 women ;" and, in her own beautiful song of thanksgiving to the 
 God of Abraham, she exclaims, by the spirit of prophecy, "All 
 nations shall call me blessed." But though she knew all this, 
 and rejoiced in the honor of being the mother of Israel's long' 
 predicted Messiah — the virgin mother to whom was committed 
 the care of the infancy and childhood of the Immanuel of the 
 prophets ; yet, through life, she seemed never elated with 
 vanity or ambition, but stands as a model, even to the lowliest 
 of women, by that uncomplaining devotion 'with which she 
 identified herself with the humble fortunes of Joseph, and that 
 motherly tenderness with which she watched the destiny of 
 Jesus. As we follow her, the highly- favored of the Lord, the 
 angel-honored woman, through all the shifting scenes of her 
 history — the manger at Bethlehem, the offerings of the wise 
 men, the interview with Simeon and Anna at the temple, the 
 flight into Egypt, the carpenter's shop at Nazareth, the journey 
 to the passover, the three days' search for the child at Jerusa- 
 lem, the marriage at Cana in Galilee, the press through the 
 crowd to speak with him, the attendance at the crucifixion — as 
 we follow her thus, from the manger to the cross, and see the 
 devoted wife, the yearning mother, the true-hearted woman, 
 pondering all these things, and bearing all these things, until, 
 at last she stands at the cross, supported by her companions in 
 tears, and even then, whilst the " sword is piercing her own 
 soul," ministering, as best she can, to the dying sorrows of her 
 Son and Lord, by whom she is committed to the protection of 
 the beloved disciple — we cannot withhold from her, and we 
 would not, if we could, the tribute of our tears It is a relief 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 2Sfl 
 
 and a privilege to join with all generations in calling her bless- 
 ed, in admiring the character and revering the memory of such 
 a woman. We will not, because we are Protestants, consent 
 to lose our inheritance in such a character. Such a character 
 is the common legacy of her sex, and of all mankind, handed 
 down as an incentive to virtue, by being a living exemplification 
 of its power. Such examples reconcile us to life, and help to 
 prepare us for heaven, by making us feel that celestial grace 
 may clothe itself in the frail garments of humanity, and dwell, 
 for a season, here on earth as an angel of mercy. 
 
 *' Earth has its angels, though their forms are moulded 
 But of such clay as fashions all below, 
 Though harps are wanting, and bright pinions folded 
 "We know them by the love-light on their brow. 
 
 ** I have seen angels by the sick one's pillow ; 
 
 Theirs was the soft tone and the soundless tread ; 
 When smitten hearts were drooping like the willow. 
 They stood between the living and the dead. 
 
 '* There have been angels in the gloomy prison, 
 In crowded halls, by the lone widow's hearth, 
 And where they passed the fallen have uprisen — 
 The giddy paused, the mourner's hope had birth. 
 
 ** 1 have seen one whose eloquence, commanding, 
 Roused the rich echoes of the human breast ; 
 The blandishments of wealth and ease withstanding, 
 That hope might reach the suffering and opprest. 
 
 " And by his side there moved a form of beauty, 
 Strewing sweet flowers along his path of life, 
 And looking up with meek and love-blent duty— 
 I called her angel, but he called her wife. 
 
252 TYPES OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 " 0, many a spirit walks the earth unheeded, 
 That when its veil of sadness is laid down, 
 Shall soar aloft with pinions unimpeded, 
 And wear its glories like a starry crown." 
 
 Sdch was Mary, the mother of Jesus. And such, also, 
 though in a different way, was Mary of Bethany, the sister of 
 Lazarus, the loving disciple of Jesus. With her, the last but 
 not the least, in this long gallery of Scripture portraits, we 
 must now bring our remarks to a close. No one could more 
 appropriately close the scene. There is a charm in her simple 
 story that renders her character peculiarly attractive. After 
 all that has been said of the others, if we had to select out of 
 all the hundred any one for a daughter, a sister, or a wife, we 
 should be most likely to choose the affectionate Mary of Beth- 
 any. 
 
 She it was who chose the good part, sat at Jesus^ feet, and 
 heard his word. She it was, also, who, a few evenings before 
 his death, brought her beautiful alabaster box of sweet per- 
 fume, and poured it upon his head as a consecration for the 
 tomb. And for this act of deep devotion and unutterable love, 
 she received the only eulogium of fame which the Son of God 
 ever pronounced ; almost the only personal eulogium which is 
 pronounced on man or woman in all the Bible — " Verily I say 
 unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout 
 the whole world, this also that she hath done, shall be spoken 
 of, for a memorial of her." 
 
 And how truly has that prediction been verified ! How won- 
 drously, while other great deeds have been forgotten, has that 
 little act filled the world with its fame ! Who, for eighteen 
 centuries, has not heard the praise, and read the memorial of 
 Mary's love I What numbers have been won, and what num- 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 253 
 
 bers more shall yet be won to Jesus, by the beauty of Mary'3 
 youthful piety ! 
 
 The precious perfame of that alabaster box was soon lost 
 upon the evening air of Bethany ; but the perfume of a love 
 that could never die, still remains fresh as the story of the 
 cross. The hands that poured it out, the eyes that wept, the 
 hair that wiped away the falling tears, and the heart that beat 
 in grateful, holy love, were all, after a few brief years, laid to 
 rest in the silent sepulchre of Bethany : but the name and the 
 spirit of Mary still hve, immortal on earth and immortal in 
 heaven. Beautifully has it been written of her and of her 
 undying eulogium : 
 
 "Thou hast thy record in the monarch's hall, 
 And on the waters of the far mid sea ; 
 And where the mighty mountain shadows fall, 
 The Alpine hamlet keeps a thought of thee ; 
 Where'er, beneath some oriental tree, 
 The Christian traveller rests — where'er the child 
 Looks upward from the pious mother's knee 
 There art thou known — where'er the book of light 
 Bears hope and healing ; there, beyond all bhght, 
 Is borne thy memory, and all praise above; 
 say, what deed so lifted thy sweet name, 
 Mary ! to that pure silent place of fame ? 
 One lowly offering of exceeding love." 
 
 Many daughters had done virtuously, but she of Bethany 
 excelled them all. No sceptred monarch, no jewelled queen of 
 earth, ever won such a commendation, or received such a 
 monument as Mary's — " Spoken of as a memorial of her." 
 The men of this world, in their generation, have delighted to 
 hold in proud and perpetual remembrance all those worthies of 
 
254 TYPES OF FKMALE CHARACTER • 
 
 past ages, who, by their learnhig, their genius, their sufferings, 
 or their swords, have battled most bravely for the rights of 
 man, and have left their marks the deepest on the sands of 
 time. 
 
 *' Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause 
 Bled nobly, and their' deeds as they deserve, 
 Receive proud recompense." 
 
 In honor of their hallowed dust, and their imperishable 
 deeds, a grateful posterity has loved to pile the monumental 
 column higher and higher, until it " meets the sun in his com- 
 ing, and the last rays of departing day play around its summit." 
 The very spots that gave them birth, and the hallowed retreats 
 where their ashes sleep, have been rendered immortal by their 
 presence. Their names have been linked forever with the seas 
 and oceans on which they sailed, and with the ancient rocks, 
 rivers, and mountains, where their deeds of mighty daring were 
 done. The muse has touched her lyre with unusual melody, 
 and invoked her loftiest inspiration to chant their requiem 
 in immortal verse : 
 
 *' They fell devoted but undying, 
 The very gale their names seemed sighing; 
 The waters murmured of their name, 
 The woods were peopled with their fame ; 
 The silent pillar, lone and grey, 
 Claimed kindred with their sacred clay , 
 Their spirits wrapt the dusky mountain, 
 Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain, 
 The meanest rill, the mightest river, 
 Rolled mingling with their fame forever." 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 255 
 
 But here is a richer recompense, a more enduring monument, 
 a higher glory. Here, on these sacred pages, is a memorial, 
 which will last when woods and waters, pillars and temples, 
 rivers, mountains and sparkling fountains, shall all have passed 
 away. The good name, and the unsought fame, of Mary of 
 Bethany, shall outshine and outlast all the mere heroes and 
 heroines of earth, as the sun outshines the stars of night, and 
 as the Divine outlasts the human. 
 
 XII. CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 Such is a faint outline of the female biography of the Bible. 
 Has it no attractions ? No attractions for the young ? No 
 attractions for woman ? In what other book can woman find 
 so glorious a record of the past ? In what other book can 
 she find so blessed a recompense for the future ? To what 
 other book does she owe so much for that beauty of character, 
 dignity of position, and power of moral influence, which she 
 now enjoys in every civilized laud ? Well may woman stand 
 by the Bible ; for in every age, and in every country, it has 
 stood by her. Well may she be the fast friend of the Bible ; 
 for the Bible has ever been her best of friends. Well may 
 woman rejoice in the success, and share in the glory, of what 
 the Bible has done for mankind ; for it is mainly through its 
 influence on woman that the Bible has reached the heart of the 
 world. It is by making woman what she has been, and what 
 she now is, wherever its influence has been felt at all, that the 
 Bible has been able to do anything for man, or make any head- 
 way in bringing the world to its present advanced condition. 
 
 The softest, sweetest, purest light, which earth \^as able to 
 throw around the sorrowful pathway of the Son of God, as he 
 
256 TYPES OF FEMALE CHAKACTER 
 
 toiled for our good, was the light which sympathizing woman 
 shed, as she ministered to his wants. It is to the eternal honor 
 of woman, that she had nothing to do with the rejection and 
 crucifixion of the Son of God. The women of Galilee and the 
 daughters of Jerusalem ministered to him and sympathized with 
 him to the last. So far as our record goes, no hand or voice 
 of woman was ever lifted against the life of Jesus, and, except- 
 ing only the damsel who accused Peter, none against his dis- 
 ciples. Even the heathen wife of Pilate made an effort to save 
 him. In that darkest, bloodiest, tragedy of history, so far as 
 we are informed, woman took no part but that of sorrow and 
 sympathy, for the suflferer. There is every reason to think 
 that if woman could have saved him, Jesus would not have been 
 crucified. So, that while she bears the blame of being foremost 
 in the first great transgression, she is not chargeable with the 
 awful guilt and cruelty of the last. Her sole office at the cruci- 
 fixion was to watch and weep, and, so far as she could, miti- 
 gate the sorrows of her suffering Saviour. 
 
 And so in return for this sympathy, the most blessed and 
 cheering light, which heaven, in its mercy, has ever thrown 
 around the suffering pathway of woman, on earth, is the light 
 which shines out from the Bible and the cross. Heaven was 
 pleased when the daughters of Israel received the Son of God 
 to their houses and their hearts ; and, to the daughters of every 
 land and generation, heaven has repaid their friendship a 
 thousandfold, by that gift of gifts — the Bible. The women of the 
 Bible, especially those of the New Testament, in the part they 
 enacted in the history of Jesus, are the typical characters of 
 their sex for all the ages to come*. They stood at the cross, as 
 the true representative women of Christianity. It is not to be 
 overlooked, that they stood there, bearing all the high social 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 257 
 
 relations which have since constituted the peculiar charm and 
 glory of Christian woman ; in the character of mother and wife 
 and sister and maiden, performing their holy ministries of love in 
 that awful scene. The brief reference of the Evangelist to 
 them is deeply significant. " Now there stood by the cross of 
 Jesus, his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of 
 Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene." Where should a mother and 
 wife and sister be, if not at such a scene ? And from that day 
 to this, when has Christian woman ever failed to be at the 
 cross of suffering virtue ! 
 
 Here at the cross we behold the grand inauguration of wo- 
 man's true mission and vocation amongst men. Here was she 
 called and consecrated of God, as by a new baptism, to that 
 companionship with suffering, and to those offices of kindness 
 and condescension, which were to make her the ministering an- 
 gel of a dying world from that day onward to the end of time. 
 
 Here in the deep, unutterable sympathy of these bleeding but 
 still steadfast, loving hearts, at the cross, we discern the prophe- 
 tic type of that wonderful combination of character — courage, 
 compassion, fortitude and self-sacrificing devotion — which woman 
 has ever since been winning for herself on a thousand fields, 
 from the days of Anastasia, Monica, and Helena, of the ancient 
 church, down to Elizabeth Fry, Dorothea Dix, Lady Colqu- 
 boun and Florence Nightingale of our own times. 
 
 And truly, if we needed any demonstration that the Christian- 
 ity of this nineteenth century is a vital power in the earth, we 
 have it in the fact that woman is still true to that great com- 
 mission which was given her at the cross : that in the name of 
 Jesus, she is willing to sacrifice all, to suffer all, to toil and die 
 for the perishing. We have the proof in such a life as that of 
 Ann Hasseltine Judson. We have the triumphant vindication 
 
258 TYPKS OF FEMALE CHARACTER 
 
 in such a character as that of Florence Nightmgale. And the 
 homage which the world — even the infidel world — ^is paying to 
 such virtue, is but an unconscious tribute paid to the truth 
 of Christianity. For what but that mighty influence of redeem- 
 ing love which first attracted the women of Galilee to the cross 
 of their suffering Saviour, could have called these young women 
 away from their homes of elegant ease and aflQuence — the one 
 to go and die upon an inhospitable heathen coast after years of 
 privation and peril, the other to brave all the risks of war and 
 pestilence in a foreign land, and to watch day and night at the 
 couch of sickness and death. What book but the Bible, and 
 what influence but that which went forth from Calvary, ever 
 formed a character like this ? If goodness be a test of truth, 
 who will dare to say, in the face of such examples, that Christian- 
 ity is not the very truth of God ? 
 
 You need not fear to place the Bible in the hands of your 
 daughters, just as it is, and in all its parts. For though it treats, 
 with unsparing fidelity, of all subjects, and all shades of 
 character, the vicious and the vile, as well as the virtuous and 
 the good, yet, unlike any other book of genius, it leaves on all 
 a hallowed influence. No one was ever corrupted by the plain- 
 spoken simplicity of the Bible. 
 
 Like the light of heaven, it is never contaminated by contact 
 with impurity. It is as pure when shining on the stagnant 
 marsh, as when playing around the tops of the snow-clad moun- 
 tains. Beautifully and truly has it been said, that, " the finger 
 of inspiration, like the finger of the sunbeam, touches corrup- 
 tion, and still remains pure." For, when the Bible speaks on 
 themes too delicate for common speech, w^e are made to feel as 
 though we were listening to the voice of God. 
 
 For beauty and sublimity, for taste and genius, for truth and 
 
IN THE BIBLE. 259 
 
 pnrity, there is no book of education for our sons and daughters 
 in the world, that can take the place of the Bible. It is the 
 book which every pious woman seeks to put into the hands of 
 her child, as the earliest and best pledge of a mother's love, 
 and which, ere long, when she comes to make her last leg- 
 acy, she wishes to leave as a holy rehc, sacred to a dying 
 mother's memory. Whatever has been the success of the 
 Bible on other fields, there is oue field where its triumph has 
 been complete, so far as it has gone. It has gained the female 
 heart. It has won the victory of woman's love. It has liuked 
 her destiny with its own in the everlasting bonds of mutual 
 affection and mutual interest. And the hold, which the Bible 
 has to-day throughout Christendom upon the heart of woman,- 
 is as strong and indissoluble as that which woman herself has 
 upon the heart of man. So, that if the infidel sneer were true, 
 that the Bible is fit only for women and children, it would be 
 none the less true, that it has thereby controlled the destiny of 
 the world. For as all men, infidels included, were once children 
 born of women, how could God make a book more fit for man 
 than by making it fit for women and children. 
 
 But we must close ; and we know not how to close such a 
 theme more appropriately than in the strong hypothetical lan- 
 guage of another : " If Christianity shouUi ever be compelled 
 to flee from the mansions of the great and the noble, from the 
 academies of philosophy and the halls of legislation, from the 
 thrones of power and the throngs of busy men, we should find 
 her last retreat around the hearth-stones of Christian homes, 
 her last sanctuary in the hearts of tlie women and children of our 
 firesides ; her last altar on earth would be the female heart ; her 
 last audience, the children gathered around a mother's knees ; 
 ber last sacrifice, the secret prayer escaping in silence frcm 
 ber lips, and heard perhaps, on'y at the throne of God." 
 
260 EEPRESENTATIVE TOlfNG MEN 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Range and Limits of the Theme— The First of Young Men— The First Two Brothers- 
 Character of Joseph — The Youth of Moses — Sketch of David and Jonathan — Sketch 
 of Samuel and Saul— Saul and Samuel at Endor— Character of Absalom— The Young 
 
 . Man as Sovereign— The Young Men of the Captivity — Young Men of the New Tes- 
 tament. 
 
 I. RANGE AND LIMITS OF THE THEME. 
 
 In speaking of the Young Men of the Bible as one of its 
 attractions, and introducing them to you as the subject of a 
 separate chapter, we would not, by any means, wish to incur 
 the charge of taking undue liberty with- sacred and venerable 
 names ; or, of attempting to modernize antiquity beyond what 
 is just and reasonable. Some degree of familiarity of this kind 
 may do us good, just as it does to be brought into immediate 
 contact or communication with the distant parts of the earth. 
 We must modernize antiquity, somewhat, in order to appreciate 
 it ; even as we translate foreign tongues into our own idiom 
 before we can feel their full import. The time is probably not 
 distant, when the whistle of the steam-car shall be heard over 
 the hallowed hills of Judea, and the electric telegraph will, no 
 doubt, soon stretch its wires along the base of Ararat and 
 across the plains of Shinar. And so, the more we can be made 
 to feel that our antipodes on the other side of the globe are our 
 
OF THE BIBLE- 261 
 
 fellow-citizens, and the more we can be made to realize that the 
 antediluvians on the other side of the flood were our brothers, 
 men of like passions with ourselves, the better shall we under- 
 stand them, and the better will it be for the world. 
 
 The young men of the Bible I How rich, how comprehensive, 
 how suggestive the theme ! How full of hope to the aged, how 
 full of enthusiasm to the young, how fraught with interest to 
 all ! The majority of men in our day claim to be young men ; 
 at any rate, feel themselves to be young ; and this, for all the 
 purposes of energetic life, is, in fact, equivalent to being young. 
 To picture to ourselves the men of antiquity as young men, is, 
 therefore the most effective mode of bringing them home to our 
 own experience ; because it is as young men that we have 
 most in common with them. It is as if the old world and the 
 new stood face to face, and thus shook hands with each other 
 on friendly and familiar terms. 
 
 The patriarchs of the Bible, who stand in solemn grandeur, 
 like sentinels along the lines of history, or, like mighty mon- 
 archs with the crown of centuries upon their heads, were all 
 young men once ; as truly young and hopeful as any of us. 
 And if we wish them to come down from their hereditary 
 heights to converse with us awhile, we must conceive of them 
 as young men, like ourselves. Let us endeavor to get the 
 impression fully into our minds that the first men in the world 
 were young men ; that, before there were any patriarchs or 
 venerable names in history, young men stood forth upon the 
 stage of life as the fresh materials out of which all the patri- 
 archs and ancients of history had to be fashioned. The child, 
 it has been said, is father to the man ; in the same sense, the 
 young men of the earliest ages have become the founders and 
 forefathers of the world. To them belongs, unsought, the high 
 
262 REPRESENTATIVE YOTJNG MEN 
 
 distinction of being the model men of all ages, the original 
 fountains of all biography, the forefathers of all history. They 
 have become to all generations, what they were to their imme- 
 diate successors, the primitive and standing types of humanity, 
 the representative ideas after which all other men have been, to 
 some extent, moulded into their several shapes and characters 
 of greatness. 
 
 The young men of the Bible have been imitated, reproduced, 
 and rivalled, a thousand times by their successors ; but they 
 have never yet been surpassed by any of them, either in native 
 genius, in mighty prowess, in heroic achievement, or, in exalted 
 piety. Born amid the glories of a new-created world, cradled 
 in the lap of the most ancient civilization of our race, blessed 
 with the birthright of the earliest of all human primogeniture, 
 and crowned by God himself as kings and priests of this whole 
 visible creation, they have ever stood prominent amongst men, 
 like Saul among the Benjamites. They have held their supre- 
 macy through all the lapse of time ; and no young man of 
 their successors has ever been able to snatch from their grasp 
 the sceptre of wisdom, power, and glory. 
 
 There have been mighty men of valor and renown in every 
 age ; giants have walked the earth more than once, and the 
 sons of genius have scaled the mountains in almost every 
 ancient and modern laud ; more than one young Scipio has 
 wrested glory from the hands of an aged Hannibal ; more than 
 one Pitt wielded the helm of statesmanship and empire in early 
 youth ; many a young man, even in our day, when individual 
 power is well-nigh lost in that of the masses, has made his mark 
 upon the world, and left his foot-prints deeply imbedded in the 
 sands of time. But then it must never be forgotten, that what- 
 ever heights of glory, valor, and virtue, these mighty men of 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 263 
 
 modern times have attained, they have been greatly indebted to 
 the examples of greatness set before them in the Bible ; they 
 have only followed the patterns of genius which have been 
 shown to them in this ancient mount of God. It is fortunate 
 for mankind, that, while the earth was yet fresh and fair, — 
 youth still in its bloom, the life-blood of enthusiasm beating at 
 the full, and the fires of genius undimmed by disease and pre- 
 mature decay, — some of the earliest and the largest specimens 
 of man should have been caught in the net of history, whilst 
 the pen of a ready writer w^as at hand, to describe and record 
 them in a book, for our learning. It is not the least, among the 
 many services which the Bible has done for the world, that it 
 has transmitted to us these specimens of a primitive, giant 
 growth ; relics and memorials of physical, intellectual and 
 moral manhood, stereotyped, as it were, or fossilized, for the 
 studies of the youth of all generations, like those gigantic 
 remains of a pre-Adamite world, which once caught and caged 
 within the rocks, have at last been revealed for the contempla- 
 tion and the wonder of modern geologists. 
 
 The youn^ men of the Bible, in one sense, would include all 
 the men of whom it speaks ; inasmuch as they were all once 
 young. But this would give us a theme co-extensive with the 
 whole range of Scripture biography, a theme far too wide for 
 our present purpose. It is proposed, at present, to take a more 
 limited view ; to confine ourselves to the biography of those who 
 are described as young men, and who are celebrated for the 
 qualities they possessed, or the achievements they wrought, in 
 the days of their youth. And even from this number, which is 
 also too large to be embraced in a single chapter, we must 
 select only tho most remarkable examples. We shall aim to 
 present to you those notable personages that stand out in bold 
 
264 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 relief on the canvas of inspiration, most strongly marked with 
 the several attributes of genius, wisdom, courage, piety, ambi- 
 tion or folly ; such as will best serve to set before us a picture 
 of the young man in all his moods of mind, in all his shades of 
 character, and in all his changes of fortune ; illustrating, at 
 one view, his highest ascent on the pathway of glory when vir- 
 tuous, and his deepest degradation in the abyss of ruin when 
 depraved. For it is thus, by the mingling of the good and 
 the bad together, that the Bible would teach us the great, 
 double lesson, to be warned from hell by the woes of the one, 
 and allured to heaven by the example of the other. But, even 
 in this last selection, it will be our privilege and our choice to 
 lean strongly to virtue's side. Of the several characters, who 
 are now to pass under review, about twenty in all, it will be 
 found that the large majority were such as feared God from 
 early youth, and made their lives illustrious in virtue, while 
 only a few attained the bad preeminence of guilt and folly. It 
 is with the young men of the Bible generally, as it was with the 
 apostles of Christ, one Judas associated with eleven good men. 
 And, whilst many other examples might be mentioned, both 
 among the evil and the good, still the twenty, here selected, 
 seem to stand out so prominently above their fellows, as to 
 justify our designation of them as the Representative Young 
 Men of the Bible. 
 
 II. — THE FIRST OF YOUNG MEN. 
 
 And who shall head the list ? Shall any one stand before 
 him, who, fresh as a morning in Paradise, stood forth in all the 
 beauty and manly vigor of a life just begun, at once the noblest 
 work and brightest image of Jehovah ? It is manifest, that uc 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 265 
 
 ennmeration of the young men of the Bible would be complete 
 without Adam, the first of men. His was the first young breath ; 
 the first throbbing pulse, of an almost infinite series. He was 
 the earliest link of life in a chain, which is still unbroken, and 
 is ever stretching onwards. He was a young man in a double 
 sense : first, young as to time, compared with what he was 
 when he died : and, secondly, young in nature, because created 
 immortal, in a state absolutely free from any principle of decay, 
 disease, or death. At his creation he was young in years ; and, 
 by nature, he was young in immortality, even as an angel is 
 always young ; and, but for sin, he would never have grown 
 old. Even after the temptation and fall, he must be regarded 
 as a young man for at least fifty or a hundred years. For, 
 when men lived almost a thousand years, this would be a shorter 
 allowance for youth and early manhood than twenty or even 
 ten years now. But it is recorded of Adam, that he lived nine 
 hundred and thirty years : and this alone, if there were nothing 
 else, would be sufficient to show that it was not as an old man, 
 nor indeed as a man of middle age, but as a young man, Adam 
 came forth from the hand of his Creator — young and fresh as 
 the green trees of Paradise, young and radiant as the roses that 
 bloomed along its banks, young and joyous as the birds that 
 warbled amid its bowers, young and beautiful as the new-creat- 
 ed light of the morning, young and vigorous as the rising sun, 
 when he " cometh out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong 
 man to run a race." 
 
 It is as a young man only, that our present theme calls us to 
 speak of Adam. But it is chiefly as a young man, you will ob- 
 serve, that the Bible speaks of him. It tells us nothing about 
 the deeds of his life's meridian, or the events of the long cen- 
 turies of his declining old age. Aside from the single verse 
 
 12 
 
266 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 that writes his epitaph, the shadow of an impenetrable oblivion 
 hangs over the last and larger portion of his years. In fact, 
 all we know of Adam belongs to what may be called the season 
 of his youth. All the great things which he did or suffered, 
 by which he left his mark upon mankind, and all the grand 
 events, which the providence of God accomplished by him, took 
 place while he was yet a young man. His communion, face to 
 face, with God ; his investiture with dominion over all the visi- 
 ble creation : his probation as the federal head and representa- 
 tive of our race ; his union in marriage with a help-meet, who, 
 by sharing his nature, was worthy to share his joys and destined 
 to share his woes ; his transgression and fall with her ; his con- 
 demnation and expulsion from Eden ; his forfeiture of the Divino 
 favor, and of life for himself and all his posterity — these con- 
 stituted the great events of the life of Adam, and all these 
 must have occurred before he had ceased to be a young man. 
 To the same period, indeed, must be referred the birth and ed- 
 ucation of his two eldest sons. 
 
 And what a contrast of extremes did his life exhibit I As 
 the first sovereign, the first husband, the first father, the first 
 sinning and sorrowing man, how speedily did he pass through 
 all those scenes of trial, those alternations of bliss and woe, 
 hope and despair, glory and shame, which made the life of the 
 first young man forever memorable as a picture and prophecy 
 of the whole world ! The history of nearly six thousand years 
 has been but a vindication of his title as our federal head and 
 representative. No claim en earth was ever attested by a 
 fuller record or stronger array of facts. 
 
 Before he sinned he stood upon an eminence of light, of wisdom, 
 knowledge, glory, purity, and blessedness, which no one of his 
 successors has ever reached save he who was the second Adam. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. Sfff 
 
 The genius of Haydn, in the grand oratorio of the Creation, 
 has soared on its subliniest pinions, when celebrating the glory 
 of his person, the excellence of his character, and the felicity of 
 his original estate. 
 
 " In native worth and honor clad, 
 "With beauty, courage, strength adorned, 
 Erect with front serene he stands, 
 A man, the lord and king of nature all. 
 His large and arched brow sublime, 
 Of wisdom deep declares the seat, 
 And in his eyes with brightness shines, 
 • The soul, the breath and image of his God. 
 
 With fondness leans upon his breast. 
 The partner for him formed, 
 A woman fair and graceful spouse ; 
 Her softly smiling virgin looks, 
 Of flowery spring the mirror. 
 Bespeak him love and joy and bliss." 
 
 But there was a change. Oh, how rapid and mournful the 
 change ! By one act he stooped from glory to disgrace, from 
 the heights of immaculate purity and Divine companionship, to 
 the depths of corruption, desolation, and death. It was a trans- 
 ition not merely from life, but from immortality to death. By 
 one act of disloyalty and treason against the Author of his 
 being, his spiritual and immortal beauty was forever marred, his 
 physical strength decayed, his honor in the dust. The silver 
 cord of youth was loosed, the golden bowl of glory broken, the 
 pitcher with all its nectared waters of life crushed at the foun- 
 tain, and the wheel that should have drawn endless supplies from 
 the wells of immortality, shattered into fragments at the cistern. 
 
 In this first apostasy, we behold an illustration, as lasting as 
 
268 REPRESEITTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 our race, of the fearful turpitude of sin. In the awful conse* 
 quences which have flowed and are still flowing, wide as the 
 world and ceaseless as the course of time, from that first sin of 
 the first of young men, God has taught the world, as though 
 the buried dead of sixty centuries lifted up their solemn voices 
 from the dust, crying, " the way of the transgressor is hard." 
 For if the earth, as we see it now, with all its generations of 
 the living and the dead, is still bearing the curse and paying 
 the penalty of that first transgression, what shall the end be 
 of those who are still living in sin sixty centuries nearer to the 
 day of final reckoning ? Ah I there is a voice in the example 
 of this first of men, which will go down to the last of liis pos- 
 terity as fresh and earnest as it comes to us to-day, saying, Take 
 heed, the wages of sin is death. 
 
 III. THE FIRST TWO BROTHERS. 
 
 Passing from Adam to his sons, we may dwell, for a moment, 
 on the two brothers, Cain and Abel, as prominent characters 
 among the young men of the Bible. In that fearfully skeptical 
 production of Byron, called the " Mystery of Cain," in which ho 
 makes Cain study theology under the instructions of the devil, 
 and utter almost every kind of blasphemy against his Maker, 
 the two brothers are represented as married men at the time of 
 Abel's death. Byron, though a gifted poet, was but a sorry 
 theologian ; and it is to be hoped that no young man, however 
 fascinated by his genius, will ever take him as an authority for 
 his faith, or as an example for imitation in matters of religion. 
 Still, in this case, there is nothing in the sacred narrative to con- 
 tradict his representation of the brothers as married men. The 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 269 
 
 probability is, that, by an ordinance of marriage made expressly 
 for Adam's family, the sisters of these two brothers had become 
 their wives, and, it may be, the mothers of their children, prior to 
 the dreadful tragedy narrated in the fourth chapter of Genesis. 
 And if so, though the Bible is silent on the subject, this double rela- 
 tionship would seem to give a deeper interest to the recital, and cast 
 a darker gloom over the scene of the first murder and fratricide. 
 
 Be this, however, as it may, it is manifest, from the very face 
 of the narrative, that the two brothers were then young men, 
 and of about the same age, possibly twin brothers. They 
 would be comparatively young for that generation, even at the 
 birth (ff their younger brother, Seth, one hundred and twenty 
 years after the Creation ; for a century could have abated 
 nothing from the vigor of an existence whose natural limit was 
 a millennium. But we know that .the death of Abel had 
 already occurred before the birth of Seth, probably some con- 
 siderable time before. 
 
 Contemplate for a moment, then, the case of these first brothers 
 of our race, whose tragic story, short as it is, possesses for us a far 
 deeper interest and significance than that of the celebrated but 
 somewhat fabled Romulus and Remus, to which the greatest em- 
 pire of the ancient world traced its origin. Children together, 
 the first that ever felt the caresses of parental love ; companions 
 for each other in all sports and pastimes of boyhood from early 
 dawn to even-tide ; the sharers of each other's budding thoughts, 
 the partners in each other's youthful joys, the keepers of each 
 other's ripening counsels, and, as yet, the joint and only heirs 
 apparent to all the world ; young men, each in his occupation 
 blest, the one a shepherd of the flocks with all their living 
 wealth, the other a tiller of the ground with all its teeming pro* 
 duce J young men, girded with strength and power, with bodily 
 
270 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 frames that might endure a thousand years, with knowledge 
 such as Adam and Eve, who had talked face to face with God, 
 could teach them, with intellects only one remove from the in- 
 spiration of the Almighty, with enthusiasm fed on all that was 
 sublime and beautiful in the blue heavens overhead and the 
 green earth at their feet — thus blest and thus endowed, these 
 two brothers ought to have lived to love each other, to bless 
 the world, and to glorify God. 
 
 And but for sin, they would have done so. Alas, what bitter 
 fruits did the tree of transgression bear in the first family of a 
 fallen race I apples of Sodom, where lately bloomed the tree of 
 life, and grapes of Gomorrah, where might have flourished the 
 choice vine of Eschol I The one was righteous, the other 
 wicked. The one was a believer in the promise, and a devout 
 worshiper at the altar of. Jehovah ; The other was skeptical, 
 rebellious and ungodly. The first disagreement in the world, 
 the first strife, the first death, originated in a difference of reli- 
 gion. And from that day to this, the deepest, widest distinction 
 amongst men, whether as individuals or nations, has been that 
 which has marked them as religious or irreligious. There is no 
 interest on earth so important as religion ; and there is no dis- 
 tinction of human character so radical and enduring os that 
 which is founded in religion. " By faith," says the Bible, " Abel 
 offered unto God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain." In 
 the one, faith wrought good works, secured the favor of God, 
 and ended early in the bliss of heaven. In the other, unbelief 
 and irreligion produced envy, envy brought forth hatred, and 
 hatred soon ended in the guilt of murder. In Cain we look 
 upon the downward career of a young man, portrayed as in a 
 drama of three acts : first, the rebellious sinner against God, 
 then the despiser of his brother's virtae, and at last the shed- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 2Y1 
 
 der of his brother's blood. Because his own works were evil 
 and his brother's righteous, he hated him, and hated the God 
 whom he served ; and with nothing to restrain these vindic- 
 tive and malignant passions, be soon fell, as many a young man 
 has since fallen, never to rise again ; to go down, with the stain 
 of blood on his hands, the brand of infamy on his brow, and the 
 scowl of despair upon his soul, a perpetual proverb and warning 
 to posterity. 
 
 But in the brief and beautiful career of righteous Abel, we 
 contemplate the young man on another scale ; the first of true 
 believers, the first of accepted worshipers, and first on the roll 
 of the noble army of martyrs. He was the first to die on earth ; 
 and he died on account of his superior faith and virtue. He 
 fell a victim and a sacrifice at the altar of his religion. It is 
 a significant fact, that the first death on earth was a death of 
 martyrdom for the profession of religion. But by that early 
 death, and by his young and lovely life, he yet speaketh. By 
 his example the world was first taught the grand moral lesson, 
 that death may be more glorious and blessed than life, that it 
 is better to die for virtue than to live in sin. " The living strive, 
 the dead alone are glorious :" and a dead Abel, speaking from 
 the dust, is more sublime than a living Cain, wanderino- from 
 the haunts of men, and bearing the curse of God. If he was 
 the first to taste death on earth, thus prematurely cut off by 
 the rude hand of violence, he also had the peculiar honor of 
 being the first inhabitant of earth that ever tasted the life and 
 bliss of heaven. And, doubtless, all the faithful and good 
 among the descendants of Adam down to the floood, while they 
 deplored his youthful doom, rejoiced in that entrance, which, 
 through faitli and through death, he had gained to a better 
 paradise than that which had been lost on earth. Well might 
 
272 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 they commemorate his death, and gather round his tomb to 
 sing his hopeful requiem. 
 
 " The dead, 
 The only beautiful who die no more, 
 The only blest : the dwellers on the shore 
 Of spring fulfilled. The dead ! whom call we so ? 
 They that bi-eathe purer air, that feel, that know 
 Things wrapt from us." 
 
 IV. CHARACTER OF JOSEPH. 
 
 But we must pass on ; and, at a single bound, we now cross 
 a long interval of time, from the antediluvian to the postdilu- 
 vian world. Much might be said of the youth of Isaac and Ish- 
 mael, of Esau and Jacob ; but there are other characters more 
 prominent as young men. Next after Abel on the list of those, 
 who, as young men, have figured largely in Bible history, and 
 left the impress of their character on mankind, must be ranked 
 Joseph in Egypt. 
 
 His character indeed is one of the noblest in history, as his 
 life was one of the most eventful. Of merely human characters, 
 his life presents us with perhaps the most admirable and perfect 
 picture which can be found in all the Old Testament biography. 
 In him we behold the nearest approximation to the New Testa- 
 ment characters ; the gentle, affectionate spirit of the beloved 
 disciple seems to shine forth in a young man of extraordinary firm- 
 ness and decision during a career of unusual trials and hardships. 
 In all the wonderful vicissitudes and fortunes which marked his 
 early career, as the favorite son, the artless dreamer, the envied 
 brother, the sold captive and exile, the falsely accused and im 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 273 
 
 prisoned servant, the inspired interpreter, the honored states- 
 man and ruler of all the land of Egypt, we behold the same 
 young man of unsullied honor, unimpeachable purity, noble, 
 generous affections, and steadfast devotion to the God of his 
 fathers. 
 
 We look upon his life as one of the most signal and beautiful 
 illustrations which the Bible furnishes of the doctrine of a spe- 
 cial providence, ever educing good out of evil, and over-ruling 
 the wickedness of men for the accomplishment of its grand de- 
 signs. His whole history is doubtless recorded in Scripture, in 
 its opening book, for the purpose of inculcating most impres- 
 sively the great truth, that there is a God who governs in the 
 afifairs of men ; that He, who created the world, as recorded in its 
 first chapter, and who governs it, as evinced by the account of 
 the deluge and the destruction of Sodom, also guides, with un- 
 erring skill, the minutest details of human life ; so that promo- 
 tion cometh not from the east, nor from the west, nor from the 
 south, but God is the judge ; he putteth down one and setteth 
 up another. 
 
 '* There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough hew them how we will." 
 
 As we read this early and charming biographical story, we 
 seem to follow a mountain stream, clear and sparkling as it 
 issues from the fountain-head, but meeting soon with many ob- 
 structions amid the rocks, falling over many rough and fearful 
 precipices, sometimes almost lost from view in deep, dark glens 
 and tangled forests, then emerging to the sunlight, and then 
 disappearing again ; so that no one, for a while, can tell what 
 direction it will take to the sea, or where it shall empty, or how 
 it shall find egress at all from the hills and mountains that en- 
 
 12* 
 
274 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 viron it ; until, at last, escaping at a point and through a 
 channel that we least thought of, with every barrier passed, with 
 every obstacle overcome, and as if fresh with strength gathered 
 from all that had impeded its progress, it rolls away across the 
 plains of half a continent, in one deep, onward, ever-widening, 
 and irresistible current, to its home in the world of waters. 
 Such was the current of Joseph's life, from the home of his 
 childhood in the mountains of Canaan, down to the day in 
 which, as a revealer of the future, and a prophet of the Most 
 High, he was proclaimed prime minister in the court of 
 Pharaoh, and second ruler of the kingdom of Egypt. The 
 Scripture narrative, extending through thirteen chapters, is a 
 succession of the most graphic and thrilling scenes, sometimes 
 possessing the tragic interest of a drama, sometimes rising to 
 the third heaven of sublimity in their delineation of true moral 
 heroism, often surpassing in wonder the strangest creations of 
 fiction and romance, and always fraught with the most touch- 
 ing pathos that religion, poetry, and human sympathy can in- 
 spire. We. feel, while reading it, that there is but one thing 
 on earth so beautiful as truth, and that is virtue. 
 
 See him, first, at the age of seventeen, doomed to death by 
 his unnatural brothers, and, as it were, buried alive in a deep 
 pit of the wilderness. What a picture of youthful innocence 
 and virtue suffering wrongfully is that I What must have been 
 the anguish of his soul as he struggled and begged for life, and 
 then cried for help to the God of his father, there beneath the 
 ground I And why is he there ? He, the young and tender 
 brother, is thrust down, and left to perish in darkness with 
 starvation, whilst they, the mature, athletic men, sit down quiet- 
 ly to enjoy their daily repast, surrounded by their flocks and 
 herds, and green pastures, and the pleasant light of the sun. It 
 
OF THE EIBLE. 275 
 
 was probably the first time in the history of the world, and it 
 ought to have been the last, that a child was so treated by 
 men, his brothers. 
 
 And what has he done to merit sucli a doom ? By the 
 manly beauty of his person, and the loveliness of his child- 
 like virtues, he has won too large a share in the affections of 
 the venerable patriarch, their father ; and for that they envy 
 him. In the honest integrity and fidelity of his young heart, 
 he has brought to the patriarch a report of their misdeeds ; 
 and for that they hate him. In the open-hearted candor and 
 simplicity of his unsuspecting boyhood, he has communicated to 
 them all his wonderful dreams ; and for that they conspire 
 against his life. At the command of his father, he has come 
 away from home on a mission of filial and fraternal love, to see 
 if it is well with his brothers and their flocks ; and now they 
 seize the opportunity to kill him, and see what will become of 
 his dreams. And but for Reuben, death would have closed the 
 scene at once. At his suggestion, deterred from staining their 
 bands with a brother's blood, they put him in a pit to die — 
 all, except Reuben who had better thoughts, consenting in their 
 hearts to the deed, and satisfied, that, whatever may become 
 of him, they have at least defeated his dreams. 
 
 And now the scene changes. God, who has great and won- 
 derful ends to accomplish on earth by this earth-imprisoned 
 child, in his providence, has sent along a caravan of Arahian 
 merchantmen, on their way to Egypt, who arrive at the SDot 
 just in time to save him, either from death in the cave or from 
 that deliverance which the eldest brother was meditating. 
 Reuben, with his good intentions, is now away ; and Judah, 
 partly relenting with natural pity for a brother of his own flesh, 
 and partly urged by a conscience which could not feci quite 
 
276 REPKESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 guiltless of blood, though noue had been shed, proposes to take 
 him out and sell him. And thus, because it was no profit to 
 slaj their brother and conceal his blood, avarice takes the place 
 which had been occupied by malice and murder ; and so, com- 
 promising the matter between their conscience and their crime, 
 as far as they could, they conclude to sell him as a slave for 
 twenty pieces of silver, little dreaming that all these sinful 
 efforts to defeat the dreams of the boy, and thwart the pur- 
 poses of heaven, would be the very means of fulfilling them. 
 
 Again the scene changes ; from the hill country of Canaan, 
 to the distant land of Egypt ; from a shepherd's tent and a 
 solitary cavern, to a crowded city, and capital, and court, of 
 the greatest kingdom of the times. A captive and an exile, 
 this seed of Abraham, this great-grandson of the " Friend of 
 God," is carried down into Egypt and again sold as a servant 
 to Potiphar, an ofiicer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard. 
 But, by the special blessing of heaven and his own good con- 
 duct, he soon finds favor in the eyes of his new master. He is 
 promoted to be overseer of all his house. The sacred narrative 
 tells us, in this connection, that Joseph was, " a goodly person 
 and well favored." Youth has now put on the strength of man- 
 hood. The tender, beautiful boy, whom a fond father once 
 loved too well, and whose loss he can never forget, has now rip- 
 ened into a full grown, active, noble young man. The servant 
 has become the trusted and honored ruler of all his owner^s 
 household. And, after some eight or ten weary years of cap- 
 tivity and exile. Divine Providence seems now, at last, about to 
 make compensation to Joseph for all the hardships he had suf- 
 fered ; when, suddenly, the scene changes again. 
 
 In a moment all seems to be lost — forever lost. All his bright 
 prospects are blasted. His good name is cast out as evil, his 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 277 
 
 reputation gone. The rising sun of his good fortune in Egjpt 
 is suddenly and disastrously eclipsed. He is a slave, he is a 
 prisoner, he is now treated as a criminal, he is imraured in a 
 dungeon ; it may be for life or it may be for an early death. 
 It was in fact, for more than two years. And why is he there ? 
 He is there through the vengeance of a woman — one whose 
 base wickedness had been baffled, disappointed, and put to 
 shame, by his own inflexible virtue. He is there falsely ac- 
 cused of the very crime which he bad manfully and heroically 
 resisted from first to last. He is there to satisfy the wrath of 
 Potiphar's wife, who, to treachery, and falsehood, and slander, 
 and the infamous sin which she wished him to commit, added 
 the cruelty and injustice of suffering an innocent man to lan- 
 guish for years in the state prison of Egypt on her account. 
 AYe can find bloodier women in Scripture, but it would be hard 
 to find a meaner one than this. 
 
 But in Joseph, at the point to which we have now traced 
 him, we behold the young man in his most illustrious character 
 — that of conqueror, that of self-conqueror. We behold him as 
 a sufferer ; but the character of a true moral hero shines out 
 through all his sufferings, like the sun between the clouds in a 
 day of rain. He had illustrated the proverb before it was writ- 
 ten, " He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a 
 city." His virtue had been assailed from day to day by all that 
 was fascinating in the siren song of sensuality, and by all 
 that was powerful and seductive in the persevering energy of 
 an unprincipled woman. But, strong in the fear of God, and 
 in the conscious purity of his own heart and life, he repelled 
 the tempter with the simple and sublime declaration, " How 
 can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God ?'' He 
 might have yielded to the tempter, as too many have done, plead- 
 
278 • REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 ing necessity and the force of circumstances. He might have 
 concealed the sin, saying, in his heart, there is no human eye 
 to penetrate the darkness and discover the crime, and, there- 
 fore, no great harm can result from it. But it was enough for him, 
 that it was a violation of the ordinance of God ; enough for 
 him, that there was an all-seeing eye in heaven, in whose* sight 
 the darkness shineth as the light. He stood upon that rock 
 of truth, " Thou God seest me," upon which, if a young man 
 stand, he shall be unmoved amid all the blandishments of 
 sensuality, and all the machinations of the devil. 
 
 It was a sublime moral triumph of reason over appetite, a 
 conquest of piety over passion, a victory of virtue over vice. 
 We see the young Hebrew, under the most trying circumstan- 
 ces, holding fast the faith of Abraham, successfully vanquish- 
 ing the greatest temptation of youth, and becoming a model to 
 the young men of all subsequent ages. And what though, in 
 his prison-house, the world may think him fallen ? He has 
 fallen, only as the martyr of truth and virtue falls, to rise again. 
 
 " Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, 
 The eternal years of God are hers." 
 
 Several years now roll away, when the scene changes more 
 strangely than ever before. The young Hebrew has found 
 friends, and has enjoyed the blessing of God during all the 
 years of his imprisonment. But now he is brought out from 
 his prison-house, called in haste by a mandate from the throne. 
 At the age of thirty years he stands before Pharaoh. Know- 
 ing the purpose for which he was summoned there, we can very 
 easily imagine the keen eye of scrutiny with which he is received 
 by the monarch, and the look of proud contempt and incredu- 
 lity with which he is regarded by all the hoary- headed magi- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 279 
 
 Clans and philos(^phcrs of Egypt. We can well imagine, too, 
 that, though a stranger and a prisoner, he stands there self- 
 possessed and unintimidated ; because we know he stands not 
 only in the confidence of an innocent man, but in the strength 
 of a wisdom derived from heaven. It is a glorious and trium- 
 phant position which he now occupies — that of superior know- 
 ledge, that of instructor to the king. It is, perhaps the ear 
 liest signal illustration, which history gives us, of our modern 
 maxim "Knowledge is power." It was certainly on this occa- 
 sion the greatest power in Egypt. A poor unknown prisoner 
 comes into that august presence of king and counsellors to re- 
 veal the future ; by the interpretation of a dream to make 
 kcown the decrees of heaven ; and, by his supernatural wisdom 
 alone, he goes out an acknowledged prophet of the Most High, 
 publicly declared to be a saviour and a ruler of all the land of 
 Egypt. 
 
 Can the annals of history or romance afford a more remark- 
 able example of sudden exaltation and triumph than this ? 
 Out of the Bible it would be difficult to find a scene on record 
 combining more of the elements of moral beauty and sublimity, 
 than this appearance of Joseph before Pharaoh. How has 
 God himself here vindicated the cause of suffering, down-trod- 
 den virtue, in the person of his young servant ! Yesterday, in 
 all the laud of Egypt, outside of the prison walls, there was 
 none so poor as to do him reverence. To-day, a grateful nation 
 at the bidding of their king, are ready to bow the knee be- 
 fore him. To-day he hears, and all Egypt hears, this new and 
 marvellous decree from the throne : " Forasmuch as God hath 
 showed thcQ all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou 
 art : Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy 
 word shall my people be ruled ; only in the throne will I be 
 
280 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 greater than thou. See, I have set thee over all the land of 
 Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put 
 it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine lin- 
 en, and put a gold chain about his neck ; and he made him to 
 ride in the second chariot which he had : and they cried before 
 him, Bow the knee : and he made him ruler over all the land 
 of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and 
 without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the 
 land of Egypt." 
 
 Beautifully has the Psalmist celebrated this exaltation of 
 the seed of Jacob : 
 
 *' The king sent and loosed him ; 
 Even the ruler of the people, and let him go free. 
 He made him lord of his honse, 
 And ruler of all his substance, 
 To bind his princes at his pleasure, 
 And teach his senators wisdom." 
 
 We need not follow him farther, though his subsequent his- 
 tory is full of interesting and affecting scenes. Seven or 
 eight years later, when the famine set in, we should find him 
 holding strange interviews with those brethren who had sold 
 him into bondage, and realizing to the full the prophetic 
 dreams of his childhood. And still farther on, when near the 
 age of forty, and a father then himself, we should see him 
 meeting and embracing the venerable patriarch, who had so 
 long mourned over the supposed tragic fate of his favorite 
 son, and whose aged heart had fainted for joy when he 
 heard the news from Egypt, but revived when he saw the 
 proofs of it, saying, it is enough ; Joseph is yet alive, and I will 
 go and see him before I die." Seventeen years later still, we 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 281 
 
 should behold him, with his children and his brethren, receiving 
 the dying benedict'ons of the patriarch, and then going up 
 into Canaan to lay his mortal remains in the cave Machpelah, 
 the burial-place of Abraham, And, last of all, we. should see 
 his great and unceasing kindness to his brethren, and hear his 
 own dying prophecy and request for burial in the land of his 
 fathers. 
 
 But it is enough for us to have traced his career as a young 
 man. The glory of his youthful character was the decision 
 with which he adhered, through all temptation, to the religion 
 of Jehovah. For twenty years he stood alone in the dark re- 
 gions of idolatry, the faithful worshiper of the God of Abraham. 
 In the prison and in the palace alike, in his boyhood and in his 
 manly prime, in his private chamber, where no human eye 
 could see him, and under the full gaze of Egypt's royal court 
 and people , he remained firm in his integrity and true to the 
 faith of his fathers. He stood alone in Egypt, not unlike Mil- 
 ton's seraph, Abdiel, among the apostate angels : 
 
 "Faithful found 
 Among the faithless, faithful only he ; 
 Among innumerable false unmoved, 
 Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, 
 His love he kept, his loyalty, his zeal : 
 Nor number nor example with him wrought 
 To swerve from truth or change Lis constant mind, 
 Though single." 
 
282 REPRESENTATIVE YOTJNG MEN 
 
 V. — ^THE YOUTH OF MOSES. 
 
 Next on the roll of illustrious young men, whose virtues and 
 achievements adorn the biographical annals of the Bible, wc 
 take the example of Moses. His life, of a hundred and twenty- 
 years, is naturally divided into three great periods of equal 
 length. The first forty years may be called the period of his 
 youth, all being spent in Egypt ; the next forty years, passed 
 in Midian, made up the period of middle age ; and the third 
 forty, in the wilderness, we may name the period of his old age. 
 Strictly speaking, however, he had no old age in the ordinary 
 sense ; for when he died, at one hundred and twenty, his eye 
 was not dim, nor his natural force abated. 
 
 If we should comprehend, under our present view, the whole 
 life of Moses, and measure it by the extent of its influence upon 
 mankind, we could find no superior in the annals of time, and, 
 perhaps, but one equal — that of the apostle Paul. As an 
 author, he is not only the earliest of historians, but by far the 
 most voluminous of the sacred writers. As an inspired prophet, 
 his communications with God were more direct and wonderful, 
 than those of any other prophet mentioned in the Bible. As a 
 sacred bard, his song of triumph at the Red Sea, his farewell 
 address to Israel, and his Psalm, the ninetieth, give him a rank 
 amongst the most gifted poetic geniuses that have adorned the 
 walks of sacred literature. As a law-giver and the founder 
 of an empire, whether we consider the nature or the duration 
 of the institutions he established, he stands above Solon or 
 Lycurgus, Numa Pompilius or Augustus, Mohammed or Confu- 
 cius, Alfred the Great or Napoleon. Though the sceptre of 
 empire has long since crumbled in the dust, his laws and insti- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 283 
 
 tations still live all over Christenclom — the oldest and most in- 
 destructible in the world. As a military chief and ruler of 
 men, his forty years' march through the wilderness, at the head 
 of some two or three millions of people, displays more execu- 
 tive talent, generalship, and daring, than all the campaigns of 
 Julius Caesar, or the expeditions of Alexander the Great, or 
 the celebrated retreat of the ten thousand under Xenophon, so 
 beautifully told in the Anabasis. Indeed, for the awful gran- 
 deur of his character as an inspired teacher, for the duration of 
 his institutions, for the versatility of his genius, for the extent 
 of his achievements while living, and the influence he exerted 
 on the world when dead, Moses has no compeer in history, 
 and none in the Bible, except the Great Apostle of the gentiles. 
 
 But it is not of the deeds of his meridian life, nor of the won- 
 derful events of his advanced age, that we are now to speak. 
 It is in his character and accomplisments as a young man only, 
 that we are now to contemplate him. It was by the discipline 
 of his youth, that heaven prepared him for his subsequent career 
 of glory. Xo human life ever had three great periods more 
 distinctly marked, and more unlike each other, than his. But 
 we should fail to learn one of its greatest lessons, if we did not 
 perceive, how the first period schooled him for the second, and 
 how the second equipped him for the third. The child is to 
 the man what the man is to the immortal. And the Moses of 
 four-score or of six-score years would not have been what he was 
 to Israel and to the world, had the Moses of twenty and 
 thirty years been a different young man from what wc find 
 him. 
 
 AVe pass over all those peculiar circumstances, that attended 
 the infancy of this beautiful child of the ark and the waters, to 
 fix our attention upon three prominent facts, gathered from the 
 
^84 EEPRESENTATIVE TOUNG MEN 
 
 sacred narrative, which determined the character of Moses, and 
 stamped the seal of immortality upon his youth. 
 
 The first is, that while educated by his own pious Hebrew 
 mother in the faith of his fathers, he was also educated in the 
 court of Pharaoh, being adopted by the king's daughter as her 
 son ; and, as such, there was before him every prospect of 
 power and glory which the monarchy of Egypt could hold out to 
 the aspirations of a young man. The Scriptures speak of him 
 as having the treasures and the pleasures of Egypt at his com- 
 mand. The inference is almost inevitable, that he was, or 
 would become, heir apparent to the throne. Be that, however, 
 as it may, all Egypt was before him, even if the throne was 
 not ; the memorable example of Joseph's exaltation, power, and 
 glory was before him ; and as the adopted son of Pharaoh's 
 daughter, it is natural to believe, that he had enjoyed greater 
 advantages for a career of honor and usefulness than any young 
 man of his day. 
 
 The second fact is, that he had diligently improved these ad- 
 vantages. We are told, that he was " learned in all the wis- 
 dom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds." 
 
 His education had been most complete and thorough. A 
 perfect master of the language and learning, both of the 
 Egyptians and Hebrews, he was at once, by his double know- 
 ledge, equal to two ordinary men. For it may be laid down as 
 a general rule, which has always held good, that a young man 
 re-duplicates his power and influence with each new language 
 and literature that he masters. In the full possession of all 
 that influence which springs from social rank, and conscious of 
 all that power which comes from a mind full of knowledge, 
 Moses, it seems, had already distinguished himself as a young 
 man by his mighty deeds, and had formed the purpose of 
 
OF rHE BIBLE. 285 
 
 achieving some great work of deliverance for his countrymen 
 as a prince and a judge over them. 
 
 But the third fact which distingushed and immortalized 
 Moses, even while ^ young man, was his remarkable self-denial, 
 his noble choice, his triumph of faith over ambition and worldly 
 glory. With all his stores of wisdom and all his bright 
 visions of worldly grandeur, he voluntarily resigned and 
 renounced his position in the court, and, as Josephus tell us, 
 his office as chief of the armies of Egypt, and took his portion 
 for time and eternity with the afflicted people of God. This is 
 the one act of heroic faith and patriotic self-sacrifice, which 
 the sacred writers have delighted to celebrate as the most illus- 
 trious act of his life. And this was the act of his youth — 
 faith's early choice, faith's manly triumph. It takes genius to 
 appreciate genius ; and faith alone can understand and appre- 
 ciate faith. So we find the greatest of apostles, doubtless 
 moved by the appreciating sympathy of a like faith and a like 
 character, celebrating this act of the greatest of prophets in the 
 following terms : " By faith Moses, when he was come to years, 
 refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; choosing 
 rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy 
 the pleasures of sin for a season ; esteeming the reproach of 
 Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt : for he had 
 respect unto the recompense of reward. By faith he forsook 
 Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king : for he endured as 
 seeing him who is invisible." 
 
 This sublime triumph of the unseen and eternal over all that 
 was seen and temporal, was the turning point of his destiny, the 
 decisive and irreversible passing of the Rubicon ; but a passage 
 altogether different, in its nature and results, from that which 
 sealed the destiny of Caesar. Moses gave up all for conscience's 
 
286 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 sake, wealth, power, pleasure and fame ; but, by the sacrifice, 
 he won all — immortality on earth and glory in the heavens. 
 Had he staid in Egypt, and become its monarch, mankind 
 would probably have known and cared as little about him as 
 they now know or care about the Pharaohs. 
 
 We have seen men, like Napoleon, after braving the sum- 
 mer's heat and winter's cold, after scaling Alps and Apennines, 
 after wading through seas of blood to grasp the crown of 
 empire, at last losing all and dying in exile. We have seen 
 others, like Cliaries V., or the late emperor of Austria, unre- 
 compensed by all their wealth and royalty, and wearied out 
 with the cares of state, in their old age abdicating a throne 
 which they could no longer fill with credit or comfort, and 
 resigning the sceptre to their feeble and unworthy sons. But, 
 in all the annals of the world's great men, we have found no 
 young man, like Moses, endowed with genius, rich in learning, 
 and conscious of ability, voluntarily relinquishing such a crown, 
 as that which lay within his reach, for such a recompense as 
 that he chose ; and all at the period of life when hope and en- 
 thusiasm were beating at the full. We have found many simi- 
 lar examples, ever since the days of Paul, in the annals of the 
 Christian church, in the ranks of its ministry and its mission- 
 aries, ancient and modern ; but they have all been men imbued 
 with the same spirit and faith that governed Moses. By this 
 faith and spirit of self-sacrifice for conscience' sake, he stood 
 upon a height of moral heroism and glory far above the kings 
 and conquerors of this world — a height which no young man 
 of Greece, of Macedon, or of Rome, ever attained — a height 
 to which no power on earth can ever raise our fallen human 
 nature, except that Divine power which comes from the princi- 
 ples of the Bible. Would you stand where Moses stood, and 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 287 
 
 reap the same recompense of reward ? Thtn fling away ambi 
 tion, fling away selfishness, be willing to lose all for Christ and 
 conscience's sake, even life itself, and you shall not lose your 
 reward. 
 
 VI. SKETCH OF DAVID AND JONATHAN. 
 
 Leaving Moses, we now cross another wide interval in the 
 Bible biography of young men. The time would fail us to 
 speak of the youth of Caleb and Joshua, Jephthah and Gideon, 
 Barak and Samson, although the youth of some of them was 
 highly distinguished. But, passing over these, let us fix our 
 attention upon two notable young men, who were contem- 
 poraries and companions in arms, and whose deeds of courage, 
 prowess, and patriotism, adorned the long, eventful reign of 
 Saul. They are David and Jonathan. 
 
 In them we behold the young mau on a new field of action, 
 and in a new character — that of the patriot-soldier and mili- 
 tary hero. The relation which existed between these two 
 young soldiers was peculiar and remarkable. No tie of con- 
 sanguinity bound them. But a tie, woven of the strong cords 
 of sympathy, similarity of character, and admiration for each 
 other's heroic deeds, had bound their hearts in a covenant of 
 affection, and a brotherhood of mutual interest, stronger than 
 the love of woman, and superior to all the calls of selfishness 
 and ambition. Under the circumstances in which they stood to 
 each other and to the kingdom, this friendship was as honora- 
 ble as it was extraordinary. For Jonathan, as eldest son of 
 Saul, was heir apparent to the throne ; whilst David, already 
 anointed as king by Samuel, was claimant of that throne by 
 Divine appointment. Yet they seem never to have thought of 
 
288 EEPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 each other as rivals. Nothing could more illustrate the piety 
 and self-sacrificing spirit of Jonathan, than his devotion to 
 the interests of his father on the one hand, and his devotion to 
 the welfare of his friend on the other. He stood between 
 them as a mediator and a preserver ; although, in the view of 
 this world's policy, he had everything to lose, personally, by 
 that mediation. But whilst fighting for his father against the 
 enemies of Israel, and at last dying by his side in battle, so far 
 from having any feelings of envy or ambition towards David, 
 he desired only to see him on the throne, and to occupy a 
 place next to him in the kingdom. 
 
 Noble, magnanimous, generous young man I the soul of honor, 
 the pride of thy country ; the living name for valor, patriotism, 
 and chivalry ; the impersonation of every manly and every 
 princely virtue ! And, in all these rare and lofty attributes of 
 character, David, while a young man, was not only a sharer, 
 but an equal. We scarcely know which to admire most — the 
 disinterested generosity of Jonathan in seeking the exaltation 
 of David, or the moderation and magnanimity of David in 
 repeatedly sparing the life of his persecutor, Saul, when he 
 might have cut him off at a blow, and quietly ascended the 
 throne. 
 
 Each of these young men had, at an early period of life, 
 performed a feat of daring valor for the deliverance of their 
 country, from which the mightiest champions of Israel had 
 shrunk ; and which at once established their fame as warriors 
 amongst the veterans of the camp, and endeared their names 
 to the people from Dan to Beersheba. Jonathan, with his 
 armor-bearer as his sole companion, had stormed the powerful, 
 and, as it was supposed, impregnable Philistine garrison at 
 Michmash, which resulted in the overthrow of the whole iuvad- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 289 
 
 ing army, and the deliverance of Israel from their oppressors, 
 David, too, alone and but a stripling, on another occasion, had 
 met and vanquished, in the face of the two hostile camps, the 
 proud champion of Gath, who had, from day to day, defied the 
 armies of the living God. By these unparalleled deeds, the 
 two young patriot-volunteers had won the hearts of all their 
 countrymen, and won each other's ardent love for life. 
 
 Now the whole world has rung with the renown of the cele- 
 brated defence of Leonidas and his band, at the pass of Ther- 
 mopylae, which saved Greece from the Persian yoke ; rung with 
 reports of the daring deeds of Mexander and Caesar, of the 
 personal courage of Napoleon and his marshals on many a hard- 
 fought field ; rung too, with well-merited eclat, for the gallan- 
 try and heroism of Nelson, of Decatur, of Lawrence and Perry, 
 on the seas ; but we venture to say, that you cannot find, in 
 any one of these, or in any other, more of the essential charac- 
 teristics of personal bravery, of daring purpose, of sublime self- 
 immolation on the altar of the public good, more of all those 
 elements, " the bold endeavor and the high emprise, the strength 
 to suffer and the will to serve," which go to make up a real 
 hero, than are to be found in these two exploits of the son of 
 Jesse and the heir of Saul. 
 
 By their gallantry on these two memorable occasions, they 
 crushed the power of the invader, inspired the armies of Israel 
 with fresh enthusiasm, and the whole nation with gratitude 
 and joy. So that the veteran soldiers of the camp vied with 
 the daughters of Israel in doing honor to the heroic young men, 
 who had thus, in the hands of Jehovah, become the deliverers 
 of their common country. 
 
 In the case of Jonathan, so great a favorite was he with the 
 victorious army, that, when he was doomed to die because of 
 
 13 
 
290 EEPEESENTATIVE YOUNG MEl? 
 
 a VOW which his father had rashly made in the heat of battle, 
 we are told : " The people interposed, saying to Saul, ' Shall 
 Jonathan die who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel ? 
 God forbid. As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his 
 head fall to the ground ; for he hath wrought with God this 
 day.' So the people rescued Jonathan that he died not." In 
 the case of David, when returning in triumph from the slaughter 
 of the Philistines, so high did the martial enthusiasm of the 
 people run, on account of the great victory whose first blow had 
 been struck by the stone and sling of the shepherd boy, that 
 we are told : " The women came out of all the cities of Israel 
 singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, 
 and with instruments of music. And the women answered 
 one another as they played and said, ' Saul hath slain his thou- 
 sands, and David his ten thousands.' " 
 
 How must the pious, patriotic hearts of these young chief- 
 tains, companions in danger and now in triumph, have swelled 
 with thanksgiving to God and visions of coming glory, when, 
 returning from the war, they first caught the notes of high and 
 holy hallelujahs to Jehovah, wafted upon the evening breeze 
 from all the band of Israel's daughters, and then wafted back 
 again from all the echoing hills and waters, perhaps in the very 
 words, forever memorable, of Miriam and her sisters at the Red 
 Sea, *' Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously." 
 It requires no stretch of fancy to mingle with them there, on 
 their long and winding way, now toiling up the hill at the head 
 of their war-worn veterans, all covered with dust, and laden with 
 the spoils of victory ; and now reaching the summit which 
 marks the boundary of home, whence may be heard, amid waving 
 palms and banners, from ten thousand glad voices of mother, 
 sister, and wife, the spirit-stirring words of that sublime chorus : 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 291 
 
 " Strike the cymbal, roll the timbrel, 
 Battle is the Lord's alone." 
 
 "Spread your biiimers, shout hosannas, 
 Israel's God is Lord alone." 
 
 We must, however, leave David and Jonathan. As models 
 of what a patriot-soldier and hero ought to be, they had no 
 equals in that age, and they have had no superiors in any. As 
 such, they are w^orthy to be studied and imitated by our youth. 
 Jonathan, while yet a young man, fell in defence of his country, 
 as already stated, at his father's side, in the fatal conflict of 
 Mount Gilboa. When the sad tidings of his death reached Da- 
 vid, in a distant part of the land, the young minstrel and 
 brother-warrior touched his harp in sweet and mournful strains, 
 and sung a requiem to the memory of his early and faithful 
 friend in the celebrated lamentation : 
 
 " 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 Phihstines 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 of one unanointed 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 livM, 
 And in their death they were not divided : 
 They were swifter than eagles, 
 They were stronger than lions. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 " 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 battle ! 
 
 Jonathan ! thou wast slain in thy high places. 
 
 1 am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan. ^ 
 Very pleasant hast thou been unto me ; 
 
 Thy love to me was wonderful, 
 Passing the love of women. 
 How are the mighty fallen, 
 And the weapons of war perished!" 
 
 Now we have sometimes tried to imagine what would be the 
 feelings of two such young men as David and Jonathan, if they 
 could come back into the world, and compare experiences with 
 the young men of our own highly civilized generation. Sup- 
 pose this eighth son of Jesse, the heroic shepherd boy, who was 
 not afraid to beard a lion in his lair, and who had, in fact, slain 
 both a lion and a bear, as well as the giant of Gath, before he 
 was thought old enough to be a soldier ; or, suppose this lion- 
 hearted, princely son of Saul could come and stand amongst 
 the boys and young men of our times long enough to see their 
 sports, their pastimes, and their achievements. What would 
 they think of our progress, our vaunted greatness and refinement ? 
 What opinion could these earnest, athletic, tem.perate. God- 
 fearing young men of the olden time form respecting the fash- 
 ionable young gentleman of our modern cities, whose chief ac- 
 complishments are, that he can smoke and swear, drink and 
 gamble, swagger and bet, and fight duels ; that he can, after 
 the most approved maxims of the science, dance and flirt with 
 silly women ; that he can afford to wear fine clothes, and do 
 nothing ; whose most brilliant achievements are his victories in 
 the ball-room, the bowling saloon, or at the card and billiard 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 29u 
 
 table ; and whose only title to fame is the fascination of hig 
 fine smile, and voice, and waving hair ? We honor and love 
 the young man who is a man, or is likely to become one ; we 
 hold him in eternal honor ; but if there is anything on earth 
 which we abhor, it is the character of the young fashionable 
 loafer, your cane-bearing, cigar-consuming, professed loafer, 
 who is neither boy nor man, but a compound of both, with 
 very little of either. 
 
 Alas ! we fear there is a large and growing class of these in 
 all our great cities, made up from the ranks of the wealthy 
 and the educated, and sometimes even from the families of the 
 church. Who has not marked with sorrow, in every city, 
 those beardless boys with the air of men, who seem to have 
 nothing to do but to lounge about at places of dissipation, and 
 whose words of levity and reckless profanity indicate the char- 
 acter which they have already formed ? Follow them through 
 ten years of city life such as this, and what is the result ? You 
 have a type of character which is produced now^iere else on 
 earth, except in cities and large towns ; you have young men 
 with some of the external, without any of the internal attributes, 
 of the gentleman ; young men, who combine the effeminate ap- 
 pearance of a girl with the ferocious vices of a gladiator ; young 
 men, who, to the morals of a bear, add the manners of a mon- 
 key. Aye, w^e honor the young man ; but it is when there is 
 something of a man in him ; something more, at least, than his 
 clothes and his hair. 
 
 What would David and Jonathan, Cyrus and Socrates, Cato 
 and Scipio Africanus, or even our own Franklin, think the race 
 of man was coming to, if tliey could rise from the dead, and 
 take their stations at the corners of our streets, to see that 
 living stream of elegantly-dressed and ruddy youth, from fifteen 
 
294 EEPEESKNTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 to twentj-five, pouring, at certain hours of the day, into those 
 splendid coffee-houses and gilded palaces of pleasure, in which 
 they are fitted and prepared to pour back again at night into 
 the theatre and gaming-houses, and haunts of vice that crowd 
 the city ? — If there is a spectacle on earth that might make 
 heaven weep, it is to see our educated youth, of respectable. 
 Christian families, with the boast of freedom and gentility on 
 their lips, selling their heavenly birthright for worse than a 
 mess of pottage — selling themselves, soul and body, to the de- 
 basing, execrable slavery of strong drink ; to see many a 
 promising boy, the hope of a mother's declining age, and many 
 a talented young man, whose stately tread once brought from 
 the dust the sound of liberty, coming at last to lie down in the 
 dirt and mire of a drunkard's grave. ! is there no puwer on 
 earth that can arrest the curse ; that can rescue our sons from 
 the horrible doom of drunkenness ; that can save our country 
 from the incubus and the infamy of intemperance ? We see 
 none, except in the strong arm of the law. 
 
 VII. SKETCH OF SAMUEL AND SAUL. 
 
 From the youthful David and Jonathan we may go back a 
 little in the order of events, to contemplate two other Bible 
 characters, who, in like manner, were most intimately associated 
 with each other through life, and were at last brought together 
 in death, in a most remarkable manner. These are Samuel the 
 Prophet and King Saul — one the founder of the prophetic order 
 in Israel, the other the first of Jewish monarchs — both leading 
 men in their generation and representative men to all the genera- 
 tions to come, but at the same time as utterly unlike and 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 295 
 
 repugnant to each other, as they were remarkable for their per- 
 sonal endowments. 
 
 In Saul we see a man who could not bear the exaltation of 
 power ; unfit to be a ruler, because he could not rule his own 
 turbulent spirit. Possessing unquestioned courage as a soldier ; 
 blest with a magnificent personal appearance, well befitting a 
 king ; in the words of the Bible, " a choice young man and a 
 goodly ; so that there was not among the children of Israel a 
 goodlier person than he ; from his shoulders and upwards 
 higher than any of the people ;" possessing also an air of mod- 
 esty, wisdom and virtue, that might have ennobled any private 
 station, he nevertheless, on becoming a king, seemed to lay 
 aside all his good qualities, to abuse all his advantages, and to 
 become by turns, a despot, a fury, a fanatic, a murderer, a 
 demon, and a rebel against God. He lived a wretched life, and 
 at last, fell in battle with the worse than doubtful reputation 
 of a suicide. His dark and turbulent spirit, the seat of every 
 malignant and ferocious passion, stands as a fearful warning on 
 the heights of power to teach us how far iniquity and disobe- 
 dience may get the mastery over a man, who in his youth 
 seemed to be the special favorite of earth and heaven, and to 
 wear the fair exterior of a servant of the Most Hisrh. 
 
 In Samuel we behold the very opposite. The noble son of 
 Hannah, growing in favor, both with God and man, stands 
 forth in bold contrast with the degenerate Saul. " All Israel 
 from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to 
 be a prophet of the Lord." His early childhood and youth, 
 baptized with all the hallT)wed influences of a mother's prayers, 
 dedicated to God amid all the holy ministrations of the public 
 Sanctuary, and adorned with all the virtues that were needful 
 to establish the sacredness of the prophetic oflBce, cast their 
 
296 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 lustre forward over his whole subsequent career. " Samuel 
 miuistered before the Lord, bemg a child girded with a lineu 
 ephod." He seems to have been the first child that bore the 
 character of prophet. Such a childhood might well make 
 an honorable manhood and a glorious old age. 
 
 In Samuel we trace the beginning of a new order of things 
 among the Jews. He seems to have been the founder of the 
 prophetic office as a permanent institution in Israel : just as he 
 was, by divine direction, the founder of the kingly government. 
 He arose at a time, when the spirit of prophecy, such as it had 
 been in the days of Moses, and of Deborah, had departed from 
 Israel. We are told that the " word of the Lord was precious 
 in those days ; there was no open vision." We have just 
 had occasion to refer to his childhood, but need not repeat the 
 story here. At the death of Eli and his sons, Samuel seems to 
 have become the civil and ecclesiastical head of the nation. He 
 was at once a statesman, jurist, and divine ; the last of the 
 fifteen judges of Israel, the first of that long line of prophets 
 which closed with Malachi, the connecting link between the 
 Theocracy and the Jewish monarchy. Though a Levite by 
 birth, we find him repeatedly ofi'ering sacrifice as a priest ; in 
 the administration of public justice travelling as a judge on an 
 annual circuit between Bethel, Mizpeh, Gilgal and Ramah, and 
 sometimes working the most stupendous miracles for the vindi- 
 cation of the cause of God, and the annihilation of the enemies 
 of his country. 
 
 But the great office which gave him supremacy over Israel was 
 that of prophet. As such he held a position of higher authority 
 before the people than the king himself whom he had anointed; 
 because he stood as the interpreter of the Divine will. There is a 
 peculiar interest in his long eventful history, beginning as it does 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 297 
 
 before he was born, and not ending even when be was dead. 
 The circumstances which anticipated his birth seemed to find 
 their counterpart in the strange apparition to Saul which fol- 
 his death. Few men ever spoke with such kingly authority, and 
 none certainly ever uttered a voice like his from the grave. 
 History tells us of many men of insatiable ambition, who, like 
 the famous Earl of Warwick, have aspired to the glory of making 
 kings and controlling the destinies of states and empires. But 
 here is a man, who without any aspiration or ambition, was the 
 first and greatest of king-makers, setting up one, and putting 
 down another in the name of the Lord and in virtue of his pro- 
 phetical character. 
 
 The longest and most remarkable prophecy delivered by 
 Samuel, is that which describes the manner in which the peo- 
 ple should be treated by their kings ; and which, as may be re- 
 marked of all kingly governments, was often fulfilled to the let- 
 ter under the Jewish monarchs. But perhaps the most interest- 
 ing passage in the life of this great man, is that in which he 
 protests his own integrity as a public* oflBcer, when resigning all 
 civil authority and inducting Saul into the kingdom. " And 
 Samuel said unto all Israel. Behold, I have hearkened to your 
 voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over 
 you. And now behold, the king walketh before you : and I 
 am old and grey-headed ; and behold my sons are with you ; 
 and I have walked before you from my childhood until this 
 day. Behold, here I am ; witness against me before the Lord, 
 and before his anointed : whose ox have I taken ? or whose 
 ass have I taken ? or whom have I defrauded ? whom have I 
 oppressed ? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to 
 blind mine eyes therewith, and I will restore it. And they said. 
 Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou 
 
 13* 
 
298 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 taken aught of any man's hand. And he said unto them, The 
 Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this 
 day, that ye have not found aught in my hand. And they 
 answered. He is witness." 
 
 What a beautiful tribute to the integrity of the man, who 
 through a long life had held the chief pkce of power, and now, 
 in his old age, voluntarily resigns that authority which he had 
 held so long and wielded so well I Glorious old man I sublime 
 in the simple consciousness of spotless virtue, eloquent at the re- 
 membrance that no misdeed had ever marked his public career. 
 We get the idea not only of a venerable prophet, but of an up- 
 right judge and patriot ; and the name of Samuel will stand for- 
 ever associated with that peculiar glory of an unsullied ermine, 
 which belongs to Aristides the Just among the Athenians, to 
 Sir Matthew Hale among the English, and to Chief Justice 
 Marshall in our own country. 
 
 VIII. SAUL AND SAMUEL AT ENDOR. 
 
 By way of episode, which is itself one of the most striking 
 characteristics of all the Bible history, we may here turn aside 
 to contemplate a most singular transaction, which, though not 
 belonging to our present theme, yet lies fairly in our way, and 
 gives a strange dramatic termination to the history of these two 
 representative men. 
 
 The most remarkable event connected with the name of 
 Samuel in the Bible, is that which occurred after his death — 
 his apparition to King Saul in the presence of the Witch of 
 Endor, as narrated in the 28th chapter of the first book of 
 Samuel. On a subject of so much interest to every Bible reader, 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 299 
 
 and yet of so much difficulty, we would venture, in passing, 
 to make a few remarks. Probably nothing in the Bible has 
 given rise to more learned and laborious discussion amongst 
 eritics than the case of the Witch of Endor. Some assuming 
 that the sorceress possessed powers of ventriloquism, have tried 
 to explain all the alleged phenomena of the apparition on 
 that hypothesis. Others have maintained, that the whole 
 thing was a fraud — a gross deception palmed off, on the always 
 excitable and now despairing mind of the king, through a secret 
 understanding between the Witch and Saul's two attendants. 
 Others have admitted all the appearances, as stated, to be real 
 facts ; but ascribe them to a supernatural power possessed by 
 the woman, as one in league with the Devil — real miracles 
 wrought by Satanic agency. Others again, and this we take 
 to be the only true view, hold to the reality of all the appear- 
 ances, but ascribe them to the miraculous power of God. That 
 is to say, the record is a true history, and no myth, and the 
 main fact, the apparition of the prophet, is a real miracle 
 wrought by the hand of the Almighty. 
 
 According to this view, the real prophet Samuel, who, while 
 living, had mourned over the transgressions of Saul and had 
 labored long and faithfully to reform him, and whom all Israel 
 had long ago buried in his quiet tomb at Ramah with deep and 
 heartfelt lamentations, did come back again to this living world 
 to utter one more, and his last, solemn warning. He came not 
 only to tell the guilty monarch of his impending doom, but to 
 reprove him for his last great offence — his treason against that 
 ancient statute of Israel, which, as he knew, " suffered not a 
 witch to live." We regard the apparition of Samuel as a true 
 miracle of God, intended to enforce a lesson against all idola- 
 trous and heathenish incantations, which the express letter of 
 
300 EEPEESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 the law had hitherto failed to enforce. As such it is no more 
 difficult to receive, than the stopping of the sun, the dividing 
 of the sea, the preservation of Jonah, or any other inexplicable 
 miracle of that miraculous age. For our own part, we never 
 undertake to explain a miracle, by bringing it within the range 
 of natural laws. To us there are no degrees of difficulty about 
 miracles. They are all or nothing. The least requires the 
 power of God ; the greatest claims nothing more. Without 
 God's finger, the least would be absurd and incredible : with it, 
 the greatest and the least are alike possible and alike reason- 
 able. 
 
 But that a true prophet of Jehovah should be brought back 
 from the dead, in order to reprove this first anointed king of 
 Israel in the very act of his high-handed violation of the law 
 which he had sworn to administer — that the very man, who had 
 anointed him to fill that exalted place in the Theocracy, which 
 the Lord himself had heretofore filled, should start up, as it 
 were from the ground, to utter his indignant and terrible denun- 
 ciation upon such high-handed treason, is not stranger, when we 
 consider the relation of the parties, and the greatness of the 
 occasion, than that a dumb beast should be made to lift a 
 warning voice against the madness of Balaam, or that the false 
 prophet himself, in the midst of his divinations, should be con- 
 strained to utter blessings instead of curses upon Israel. How 
 is it any more incredible that Samuel should come back into 
 this world, appearing to the senses of Saul and the witch of 
 Endor in the form of a man, and, with the articulate voice of a 
 man, foretelling the events of the morrow, than that Moses and 
 Elias should appear to Christ and his disciples on the mount 
 of transfiguration, and, in their hearing, speak of the approach 
 ing death at Jerusalem ? If we find no difficulty in the one 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 301 
 
 case, where is the exceeding difiBculty of the other ? As to any 
 question about a real resurrection, or in what bodies they 
 appeared, even setting EUas aside, we can do no more to 
 explain the apparition of Moses on the mount, than that of 
 Samuel at Eudor. But if angels often appeared in the form 
 and aspect of men, why is it difficult to conceive of Samuel or 
 Moses, as appearing in their own peculiar form and aspect ? 
 
 That Samuel did really appear, is evident from the fact, that 
 the sorceress herself was thrown into consternation at the appa- 
 rition. It is obvious that she expected no such messenger from 
 the grave. She felt that a spirit had come more than she had 
 bargained for — greater than her arts could quell c^gain. She 
 acted as one taken by surprise, and ready to cry out — " Angels 
 and ministers of grace defend us." That such a minister of 
 justice should start up in her dark abode of guilt, was felt to be 
 a frown from God, as awful as it was unexpected, both upon her- 
 self, who as an outlaw was practising, and upon the rebel mon- 
 arch who was seeking, these incantations of the devil. And 
 what think you, would now be the effect of such an apparition 
 in the midst of a clique of modern dealers in this same ancient 
 craft — your clairvoyants and mesmerizers, your spirit-rappers and 
 pretenders to intercourse with the dead. Suppose, that on some 
 quiet evening, in some private chamber or public hall, where 
 these modern propagators of superstition and folly are met with 
 their dupes, seated face to face around their tables of incanta- 
 tion, in eager expectation of the signs of a familiar sjMrit — sup- 
 pose God should utter his voice and work a real miracle — an 
 angel from heaven, or a messenger from the grave should 
 appear — " like gods ascending from the earth." There shall start 
 forth a venerable form, " an old man covered with a mantle," 
 and standing revealed to every eye, he shall utter, with up- 
 
302 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 lifted finger and unearthly voice, those words of terror — " The 
 Lord is departed from you, and become your enemy," — how 
 would such a company start from their divinations like the 
 witch of Endor, and feel that the day of doom had come. How 
 would they see " Ichabod," written upon all their vile pretences 
 and ill-gotten gains. How would they, in such an hour, find, like 
 Belshazzar, the " Mene, Tekel, Upharsin," of a righteous dam- 
 nation. 
 
 Alas ! for the strength of intellect and the boasted dignity 
 of human nature ! Is it not sad to think, that in these days of 
 light and knowledge, there are still women and men, claiming 
 intelligence and common sense, not to say respectability, who 
 have so far taken leave of their senses as to believe in witch- 
 craft — pretending to hold intercourse with the dead through 
 chairs and tables, brick and mortar — worshiping at a shrine 
 of folly more absurd and degrading than any heathen oracle 
 — worshiping in fact at the shrine of Endor (though under 
 a different name) where Saul met the indignation of an angry 
 prophet and an avenging God 1 And with what brazen- 
 faced effrontery do the abettors of these lying wonders parade 
 them before the public, as science — discoveries of science I 
 There is about as much science in them as there was in the den 
 of the witch of Endor — the science of " old wives' fables," and 
 of men half mad, like Saul. We all know— every man of 
 ordinary intelligence and common sense ought to know — that 
 whatever of fact or reality there may be in the strange phe- 
 nomena reported by mesmerizers, clairvoyants, rappers and table- 
 movers, can easily be referred to electricity, animal magnetism, 
 or known mechanical agents. And so far these reports are nei- 
 ther new nor inexplicable. All that is true about them has 
 been known long ago, or contains no marvel. The marvels and 
 
OF THE BIBLE. ' 303 
 
 the novelties will all turn out to be false. We believe that 
 after a full deduction has been made, first for fraud, and then 
 for fanaticism, there will be next thing to nothing left in the 
 way of" real facts, which are so new that they have been un- 
 known to science, and so wonderful that they must, per force, 
 be referred to supernatural causes. Science scouts the whole 
 .hing as a silly humbug. Religion frowns upon it as a willful 
 and dangerous delusion. And here lies the danger. The 
 absurd and wicked thing, the insane and dangerous thing, is this 
 claim of supernatural agency — the pretence of intercourse with 
 the dead, and of a revelation from the spiritual world. "We 
 have no hesitation in pronouncing such a claim, to be a sham 
 and a delusion — a species of witchcraft as vile and abominable 
 as that of Endor. 
 
 Do we judge harshly I We judge by the results, as well as 
 by the established maxims of God's word. By their fruits ye 
 shall know them. What fruit has this tree borne ? What 
 good thus far has it done for the world ? This whole tribe of 
 reformers have come with the boast of science on their lips. 
 In one form or other they have been at work some fifteen or 
 twenty years. Trace their labors backwards through their 
 various shifting phases of table-moving, spirit-rapping, biology, 
 clairvoyance, mesmerism and phrenology — and tell us, if you 
 can, what single discovery in science, or what useful invention 
 in the fine or mechanic arts, they have all together added to 
 the world during this age, so prolific in great improvements ? 
 The only fruits which this tree can claim, as of its own bearing, 
 have been " apples of Sodom and grapes of Gomorrah." It 
 has led some to suicide, and some to insanity, and many to a 
 total subversion of all religion and virtue. And next to that 
 stupendous imposture, called Mormonism — that vile compound 
 
304 KEPKESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 of licentiousness, ambition, hypocrisy and blasphemy, which is 
 seeking to inaugurate all the vices of savage life upon the 
 throne of civilization, we regard this wide spread revival of 
 Endorism as the most dangerous and degrading delusion of 
 the times. 
 
 " Saul," remarks GilfiUan, " abandoned of heaven must go 
 in his extremity and knock at the door of hell." It would seem 
 that even yet men sometimes prefer knocking at the door of hell 
 to that of heaven. There was a true prophet in Israel. But 
 Saul would neither hear nor obey his voice. There is a sure 
 word of prophecy in the world now — better than any Jewish 
 Urim and Thummira, or ancient heathen oracle — a revelation 
 from God himself, which tells us all we need to know about the 
 dead and the unseen world. But many forsake the Bible for 
 the unblushing impostures of Mormonism ; and many turn from 
 prophets and apostles, and the son of God who spoke from 
 heaven, to seek for familiar spirits through pots and cups and 
 tables : and thus knock at the door of hell. Everything on 
 earth has had an ancestry, and may boast a succession. We 
 take it, that the men and women who perambulate the country 
 and write books, professing to have communications with the 
 dead, are the legitimate successors of Saul and the Witch ot 
 Endor, with this difference, that she staid in her den and wrote 
 no book. In Pollock's Course of Time are two lines, in two dif- 
 ferent books, which, if they had stood together, would make 
 no mean example of parallelism, and describe this very case — 
 
 " Productive was the world in many things, but most in booka.'* 
 " Fertile was earth in many things, not least in fools." 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 30i 
 
 IX. THE CHARACTER OF ABSALOif. 
 
 Next upon our list of noted Bible characters, appears a per- 
 sonage altogether different from any we have yet contemplated. 
 It is Absalom, the third and most beloved son of King David, 
 with a character somewhat after our modern style. In him, we 
 behold a young man in his farthest extreme from the youthful 
 David and Jonathan. He stands out as an example of selfish- 
 ness, ambition, and intrigue ; the unnatural son, the daring 
 rebel, the unscrupulous usurper. He had the distinction, such as 
 it is, of being the handsomest young man of his generation. 
 " In all Israel," says the sacred writer, " there was no one so 
 much to be praised as Absalom for his beauty ; from the sole 
 of his foot, even to the crown of his head, there was no blemish 
 in him." We do not mention this as any disparagement in itself ; 
 for had there been anything else good about him, his fine phy- 
 sical form would have been a blessing. His heroic father, when 
 a young man, as we are told, was a " comely person and of a 
 beautiful countenance." But the outer man seems to have con- 
 stituted the only point of resemblance between the father and 
 the son. In every trait of character, no two young men of the 
 Bible are more unlike than David and Absalom. 
 
 Proud of his royal descent, both on the father's and the 
 mother's side, proud of his splendid personal appearance, he was 
 led by his excessive love of admiration, while yet at an early 
 age, to erect a marble pillar, in the king's dale, to bear his 
 name and perpetuate his precious memory. Too important a 
 character, in his own esteem, to run any risk of being forgotten, 
 he took the matter of posthumous fame in hand early, and, like 
 other mighty ones of the earth, built a monument to tell men 
 
306 KEPKESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 of the son of David, aud the grandson of the king of Geshur, 
 Perhaps he suspected, that, without something of the kind, his 
 name would soon perish. He gloried in dress, in chariots, 
 in fine horses, and in equipage. He had fifty men to run before 
 him as he dashed along the streets, through the gates, and over 
 the hills of Jerusalem. He seems, most of all, to have gloried 
 in the exuberance of his hair, probably cultivating it from year 
 to year with all that care with which a farmer would till his 
 fields for the harvest ; for we read, that he " polled it at the 
 end of the year," reaping an average crop if he cut it off, or 
 bearing an annual burden, if he only trimmed it, " of two hun- 
 dred shekels of the king's w^eight," — some four or five pounds 
 more or less, of hair and ointment together. He was mani- 
 festly the leader of the fashion of Jerusalem, and in that field 
 distanced every competitor. A king, in expectation, surrounded 
 already by his admirers and flatterers, he was to the court of 
 David what George IV. was to England in his day — the hand- 
 somest man, and at the same time of least account, in all the 
 kingdom. He was evidently the prince of dandies ; the embod- 
 iment of a fasliionable gentleman of the times ; the very Ches- 
 terfield of Jerusalem ; at once the Beau Brummel and the Beau 
 Nash of all Israel. 
 
 But he was, withal, a man of some tact and talent. He never 
 could have stolen the hearts of the people from a monarch so 
 beloved as David, and come so near to success in wresting the 
 the sceptre from his hands, had he not possessed something of 
 the adroitness and address of a popular leader. With all his 
 dandyism, he had talents enough to play the demagogue ; and 
 in that he diflfers from the modern dandy. He is, in fact, the 
 most finished example which the Bible gives us of that modern 
 character — the artful, intriguing, political demagogue. If any 
 
OP THE BIBLE. 307 
 
 one wishes to study the character at its fountain-head, and is 
 at all curious to see the most ancient portraiture of it in the 
 world, he may find it in this prince of popular idols as he is set 
 forth in the second book of Samuel. 
 
 With a bow of recognition to every passer-by ; with a smile 
 of flattery for every rich man, and a l^iss of condescension for 
 every poor' one ; with soft words of adulation for tlie great, and 
 honeyed promises of redress for the lowly, he set himself every 
 day in the gates of Jerusalem, as the reformer of abuses, the 
 fast and loving friend of the people, saying : " 0, that I were 
 made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or 
 cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice." The 
 Bible does not so inform us, but it is natural to suppose, that, 
 possessing as he did a fascinating person and an elegant address, 
 he was not a whit behind our modern demagogues ; but under- 
 stood all their arts of ingratiating himself with the people, and 
 stealing away the hearts of the men of Israel, by first making 
 himself exceedingly polite and agreeable to the women and 
 children. 
 
 Feeling himself to be one who was born to command, and 
 superior to his brothers by reason of his royal mother, there 
 was nothing to which he would not stoop in order to conquer. 
 He was the first to play that very common game of modern 
 king-crafi — assuming the demagogue for the sake of the despot 
 — willing to be the people's man in order to be the people's 
 master. And, with equal grace, he could play the flatterer 
 and the tyrant. Having long since treacherously slain his 
 eldest brother, Amnon, as much, no doubt, from policy with a 
 view to the succession as from revenge for his sister's injury ; 
 and having waited, probably, till Chileab, the second son, was 
 dead, and being impatient now for that throne to which he was 
 
308 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 thus heir apparent, and which the long life of David prevented 
 him from ascending — he devised that memorable conspiracy 
 and rebellion, which you have all read, and which need not now 
 be recited. With all his beauty and his advantages of birth 
 and education, with all his professions of justice and benevolent 
 regard for the people, his career in this unnatural, ungrateful, 
 cruel rebellion, proved him to be a man who could " smile and 
 smile, and be a villain ;" who could steal the " livery of heaven 
 to serve the devil in." 
 
 Think you we judge him harshly ? Read his life again, and 
 study his character well, and you will not think so. What I 
 judge him harshly, who, after driving from the throne that old, 
 heart-broken father that had loved him so tenderly and forgiven 
 him so much, and, after defiling his father's household upon the 
 very housetop, in the face of all Jerusalem, by an incest similar 
 to that for which he had killed his brother, could then raise an 
 army, and pursue him in person across the Jordan, determined 
 to be satisfied with nothing short of the patriarch's blood ? 
 No, no ; it was nothing softer, nothing better than a villain's 
 heart that beat beneath the fair exterior of such a man I His 
 history shows how the beautiful and diabolical may sometimes 
 meet in human nature ; how vice as well as poison may be 
 gilded ; how the deadly venom of the viper may lurk beneath 
 a skin radiant with the heavenly hues of the rainbow. 
 
 And his tragical end was an appropriate doom for such a life. 
 He fell in that battle in which he expected David to fall. By 
 seeking the life, not less than the throne of his father, he had 
 forfeited his own. And, as if the even-handed justice of heaven 
 w^ould have its perfect work, he fell a victim to his ambition by 
 means of that very personal adornment in which his vanity had 
 BO much gloried. There can be no manner of doubt that he was 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 309 
 
 hung by his hair ; for although we are barely told that he wag 
 caught by his head under the thick boughs of a great oak, still 
 had he been thus caught and suspended by anything fastening 
 the neck, he must have been instantly killed, either by the sud- 
 den shock or by suffocation, which we know was not the case. 
 The manner of his death has often reminded us of the apostle's 
 words, which, for aught we know, may have been suggested by 
 it : " Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have 
 long hair, it is a shame unto him ?" 
 
 The victory, however, which had saved the life of David at 
 the cost of his son's, was one of grief and bitter lamentation to 
 the doting father. For, after all his crimes, Absalom was still 
 the child of his yearning affections ; and there is probably not 
 on record a more striking illustration of parental love, than 
 that such a father should have said of such a son : "0, 
 Absalom I my son I my son ! Would to God I had died for 
 thee, my son !" No doubt the keenness of David's anguish 
 arose from the conviction, that he had been himself the cause 
 of his son's ruin. He had committed great crimes in his own 
 domestic relations ; and, although he had repented of them in 
 dust and ashes long ago, they were now, according to the 
 threatened judgments of God, bearing their bitter fruits in the 
 dissensions and premature violent deaths of his children. He 
 felt himself to be under the frown of God in all those calami- 
 ties ; and justly so, because he knew, as well as we do, that 
 even a man after God's own heart cannot commit great sins 
 without paying great penalties. And as he mourned and wept 
 for this darling child, he doubtless felt that had he been faithful 
 to his marriage relations, faithful to his child, and faithful to 
 God, this dreadful doom would not have overtaken him. 
 
 As for Absalom, every one who reads the narrative of his 
 
310 REPRESENTATIVE YOITNG MEN 
 
 rebellion must feel that he met the fate which he deserved ; thai 
 Joab was right, although in disobedience to the orders of hia 
 sovereign, in ridding the world of sucli a monster. He need 
 not have reared a pillar in the king's dale ; his name will long 
 survive his monument, and stand as a warning to all young 
 men, to tell the sad story of the worst of sons, the prince of 
 demagogues, and the fallen victim of a vaulting ambition. 
 
 X. ^THE YOUNG MAN AS SOVEREIGN. 
 
 But we should weary you to speak in detail of all the pro- 
 minent young men of the Old Testament. Those that remain to 
 be mentioned, we must pass over with a briefer notice, although 
 as distinguished, and as worthy of our study, as their predeces- 
 sors. From the whole line of Jewish kings, extending from 
 Saul to Zedekiah, most of whom ascended the throne in early 
 youth, we select, for a passing glance, but two examples, in 
 order to exhibit the young man of the Bible in the character 
 of sovereign. These are Solomon and Josiah. The first was, 
 in some respects, not only the most illustrious of kings, but the 
 most remarkable of men. His name has descended to all ages 
 in a way that no other name has ever equalled, a proverb for 
 wisdom, learning, wealth, and wordly grandeur. And for all 
 these he was most illustrious while as yet a young man. On 
 the shoulders of his tender youth was laid the weight of a great 
 empire, but with it he had the treasured experience of hoary- 
 headed wisdom and philosophy. He was less than twenty years 
 old when he sat down on the throne of David, at a period of 
 profound peace between Israel and all the surrounding nations 
 And, beyond all comparison, he was the most accompHshed mou« 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 311 
 
 arch in his personal attainments, and the most puissant one in 
 the extent of his influence abroad, that ever sat on David's 
 throne. The queen of the South bowed in homage at his feet ; 
 nor did Israel ever see " a greater than Solomon," save in him 
 who was both " David's Son and Lord," whose kingdom was 
 not of this world. 
 
 Blest with all the counsels which such a father as David could 
 give him, endowed with the genius of a poet and the profound 
 reason of a statesman ; crowned with an authority extending 
 from Egypt to the Euphrates ; possessed of all that golden 
 wealth which commerce was bringing him from the Ophir of 
 the East and the Tarshish of the West, and, above all, inspired 
 with a wisdom direct from God, he seems to have had all, and 
 enjoyed all, that Divine Providence could bestow on mortal man, 
 to make him great and happy. And although the meridian of 
 his manhood was darkened by many clouds, and the sun of his 
 old age at last went down in gloom, yet was his early youth a 
 morning of unparalleled brightness and glory. 
 
 In the example of Solomon, therefore we behold the young 
 man on the very pinnacle of this world's greatness ; we behold 
 him invested with the largest measure of fortune, fame, and 
 grandeur, that human life admits of ; we behold him like an 
 angel, standing in the sun, but without an angel's strength to 
 stand. Knowing as he did, by sad experience, the perils of 
 such a position, well might his dying father utter that solemn 
 injunction : " Thou Solomon, my son, know thou the God of 
 thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and a willing 
 mind ; if thou seek him, he will be found of thee ; but if thou 
 forsake him, he will cast thee off forever." 
 
 But we cannot follow his history further now. We mnst 
 leave him there in his tender youth on those heights of gloryv 
 
312 REPRESENTATIVE YOTTNG MEN 
 
 As we turn away, however, dazzled by the excessive light of 
 such a vision, we seem to hear a voice of foreboding, saying of 
 the world, " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity ;" we seem to hear 
 the voice of that same man, though no longer the voice of 
 youth, saying to the young men of every land : " Remember 
 now thy Creator, in the days of thy youth, while the evil days 
 come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say I have 
 no pleasure in them." 
 
 Of the good king Josiah, much more might be said than our 
 present limits will allow. Although his lot was cast in the last 
 degenerate days of the kingdom of Judah, he was imbued with 
 much of the patriotic, heroic, and religious spirit of his great 
 ancestor David. Had t]ie times and the people, and the long- 
 delayed judgments of heaven, permitted it, he might have re- 
 stored the nation to something of its pristine glory. He is an 
 example amongst many others in history to teach us, that cir- 
 cumstances and great men must work together in order to pro- 
 duce a grand result ; that a really great and noble character 
 may struggle in vain, as to any lasting result, when the great 
 occasion is wanting, when the foundations are destroyed, and 
 the times are all out of joint. Still, for the circumstances 
 surrounding him, he accomplished a great and glorious work. 
 Called to the throne when only eight years old, and distinguished 
 for his piety, even at that early age, he took in hand the work 
 of a radical reform among the people at twelve ; and during a 
 reign of thirty-one years, successfully carried forward the most 
 thorough work of that kind, which had ever been wrought 
 amongst the Jewish people. Fearing God from his childhood, 
 in a period of universal corruption, he had so far infused his 
 own spirit into the nation, and brought them back to the 
 observance of the law of Moses, that, when he was slain in 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 313 
 
 battle in his thirty-ninth year, fighting for his country, he had 
 the distinction of being the best-beloved while living, and the 
 most lamented when dead, of all the Jewish sovereigns. He 
 was to his country what Edward VI. would probably have been 
 to England had he lived as long — a wise king and a good 
 man. 
 
 XL YOUNG MEN OF THE CAPTIVITY. 
 
 In closing our account of the young men of the Old Testa- 
 ment, we have barely time to allude to several, under one group, 
 who lived in the perilous times of the Jewish captivity. In two 
 of them, Jeremiah and Daniel, we see the young man as he 
 appears in the sublime character of a prophet of the Most 
 High. Jeremiah was called to the prophetic office at an unu-. 
 Bually tender age ; and, after contributing much to strengthen 
 the hands of his youthful sovereign, Josiah, in his great refor- 
 mation, he continued to prophesy at Jerusalem during all the 
 years of its decline and fall — until prophecy was exchanged for 
 a book of Lamentations over the doom of his unhappy country. 
 Daniel was only in part contemporaneous with Jeremiah, coming 
 a little later on the stage, and being one of the children of the 
 captivity at Babylon, whilst the weeping prophet, after the fall 
 of Jerusalem, was carried down into Egypt. Daniel's whole 
 career, of alternate adversity and promotion in the land of his 
 exile, bears a very strong resemblance to that of Joseph in 
 Egypt. While yet a young man, he was as much distinguished 
 as an interpreter of dreams, a statesman, and prime minister of 
 the king of Babylon, as he was afterwards for his fearless piety 
 and his prophetical office. These two young servants of Jeho- 
 ▼ah, Daniel and Jeremiah, though living in distant cities, were 
 
 14 
 
314 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 greatly alike in that stern, inflexible energy and intrepidity of 
 character, with which they discharged their respective missions, 
 and braved the wrath of haughty, tyrannical kings on more 
 than one occasion. Jeremiah, though by nature endued with a 
 heart as timid and sensitive as any woman's, was by grace a 
 hero, armed for any work. We never see him alone, in the 
 privacy of his devotions, when he is not weeping, and pouring 
 out hijB complaints in the ears of Jehovah. And we never see 
 him in public, standing up to utter the vengeance of the Lord 
 against the corrupt kings and princes of Judah, when he does 
 not appear as a man whose face is adamant, and whose nerve 
 is iron. He was frequently imprisoned, and once immured in 
 a deep, dark dungeon, where he expected soon to perish in the 
 mire. 
 
 And so Daniel, rather than swerve a hair's breath from the 
 line of duty and allegiance to the God of his youth, did not fear 
 the wrath of all his enemies, nor shrink from the terror of a 
 lion's den. The world has loved to celebrate the noble daring 
 of its apostles of liberty, its champions for the rights of man, 
 its Tells and Savonarolas, its Hampdens and Sidneys, its Wal- 
 laces and Russells, its Husses and Jeromes ; but the world has 
 beheld no finer examples of heroic moral courage for truth and 
 right, and conscience sake, than those which were exhibited so 
 long ago in Jeremiah's dungeon and Daniel's night with the 
 lions. In the midst of sorrounding wickedness, and in the face 
 of danger and death, they stood up heroically as witnesses for 
 God ; ready, if need be, to seal their testimony with their 
 blood ; ready, by a death of martyrdom, to vindicate a life 
 devoted to the cause of the true God. 
 
 They stood not alone, however, even in those degenerate days. 
 W e find a parallel case in three other young men of the cap- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 315 
 
 tivity — Daniel's companions, Hananiab, Mishael and Azariah, 
 whose faith, like pure gold, stood the test of the fiery furnace 
 of Nebuchadnezzar. For daring all and suffering all in defence 
 of the true religion, these three children of the captivity, 
 although they escaped death, are well worthy of a place in the 
 noble army of martyrs. Along with Daniel, they had been pro- 
 moted by the king, and placed in authority over the provinces 
 of Babylon ; but rather than yield to a decree requiring them 
 to abjure their religion, by worshiping an idolatrous image 
 which he had set up in the plain of Dura, they were willing to 
 lose, not only their posts of honor, but their lives. Persisting 
 in their refusal, they were thrust into the " fiery furnace, heated 
 seven-fold ;" and thus appealing from man's judgment to God's 
 they were miraculously delivered by " One like unto the Son of 
 God," walking with them in the midst of the flames. 
 
 In their example, we have an early and sublime illustration 
 of the way in which men must obey God rather than man, 
 when human laws come in collision with the Divine ; not by 
 taking the sword of resistance, but by firmly standing to their 
 principles, and leaving the result to God ; not by rising in 
 rebellion against the " powers that be," but by standing ready, 
 like Paul, both to suffer and to die for the sake of their reli- 
 gion. The principle was gloriously illustrated in the history of 
 all the apostles, as it had been in the life and death of their 
 Master. It has been illustrated on every page of the book of 
 Christian martyrology. The persecuted witnesses of the truth 
 in every land — the heroic confessors, and reformers, and non- 
 conformists of the church, from Paul to Wickliffe, and from 
 Wickliffe to the presen*-hour — have only acted out this great 
 Protestant principle, which was so early and so signally vindi- 
 cated on the plain of Dura, by Shadrach, Meshach and Abed- 
 
BIB EEPKESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 nego — to obey God rather than man, to suffer all rather than 
 betray the truth. It is the opposite of that cowardly, time-ser- 
 ving, Erastian sph'it, which, under cover of loyalty to the state^ 
 would sell the Saviour for thirty pieces of silver ; whose first 
 principle is to hold fast to its living and let its religion go. It 
 is the opposite of the weather-cock spirit of the notorious vicar 
 of Bray, who, during the civil commotions of the English refor- 
 mation, was twice a Papist and twice a Protestant, and when 
 charged with his inconsistency, replied, " It is not so ; I 
 always keep to my principle, which is. To live and die vicar of 
 Bray." 
 
 XII. THE YOUNG MEN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 We cannot dwell, at any length, upon the character of the 
 young men of the New Testament. The completeness of our 
 subject, however, demands, that they should not be omitted 
 altogether. In order to have before us a sort of panoramic 
 view of the young men of the whole Bible history, it will be 
 sufficient barely to mention a few of the most memorable ex- 
 amples of the New Testament, whose names and characters are 
 already so familiar to the young, as not to need anything like 
 descriptive delineation, except so far as to indicate that rank 
 and dignity which they hold in the annals of human greatness. 
 
 Prominent on the pages of the Gospel history, and marked 
 by every eye, there stand forth two young men bearing the 
 same name, though greatly dissimilar both as to character, and as 
 to outward appearance — John the Baptist, and John the Evan- 
 gelist. Called in early life to the great mission of the gospel of 
 God — called to bear an active part in that great work for which 
 the young men and the old men, of all preceding generations had 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 317 
 
 been preparing the way — and endued with grace and wisdom 
 from on high, they were destined, each in his own peculrar sphere 
 and oflBce, to exert an influence on all posterity, by the intro- 
 duction and establishment of Christianity, as the religion which 
 must ultimately conquer the world. So far as we can ascer- 
 tain, they were each about thirty years of age, when they 
 appeared upon the great stage of actual conflict for God and 
 the gospel. The one, coming in the spirit and power of Elias 
 — clad indeed in the rough garb and wearing the austere aspect 
 of that greatest of all the ancient prophets — emerges from the 
 wilderness, where he had spent the riper years of his youth in 
 communion with nature and with God, and as the forerunner 
 of the great Messiah, stands on the banks of Jordan and utters, 
 in the hearing of the ten thousands of Israel there assembled, 
 that long predicted voice — " The Kingdom of Heaven is at 
 hand ; prepare ye the way of the Lord." The other, early 
 called into the family of Jesus, where he is accustomed to lean 
 upon the Master's bosom, and where doubtless his early attain- 
 ments in grace and purity, hgd won for him the title of " belov- 
 ed disciple," although probably the youngest of the apostolic 
 band, stands forth with all the ardor and energy of youth to 
 fulfill the high commission — " Go ye into all the world and 
 preach the gospel to every creature." The one, as the last and 
 greatest of all the prophets — a burning and a shining light — 
 ushered in the morning of Zion's glory, and then passed away. 
 His work was great and soon done. His fidelity and zeal won 
 for him an early grave and a martyr's crown. The other, as 
 the last and most Mest of all the apostles, was permitted first 
 to close the evangelical record, and then, by his wonderful 
 apocalypse, to close the cannon of inspiration — tarrying on 
 earth long enough to see that cause, in which he had spent his 
 
318 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 years, both of youth and manhood, estabUshed amongst all 
 nations. 
 
 Shall we mention other examples ? In Timothy, who had 
 known the Scriptures from his childhood, we behold, as it were 
 the connecting Hnk between the young men of ancient and of 
 modern times. In him as a faithful soldier of the cross, as a 
 preacher of the gospel of peace, and as a pastor in the church 
 of Christ, the young ministers of all subsequent times, have 
 found an admirable exemplar for their own instruction and 
 encouragement. Through the inspired directions given to him, 
 many a youthful herald of the cross has learned, so to temper a 
 burning enthusiasm with the wisdom of age, as practically to 
 verify the precept of the great apostle — " Let no man despise 
 thy youth." And of that apostle himself, what shall we now 
 say ? What might we not say of Paul, as a young man I of 
 Paul, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, the disciple of Gamaliel, the 
 young persecutor, the young convert to the faith of Jesus — 
 sacrificing all his prospects of wordly glory, and bringing all 
 his learning, all his energies, all his eloquence, to defend and 
 to propagate the cause of the crucified Nazarene I But it is 
 enough, at present, barely to mention his name, and with it, to 
 close our list. 
 
 From the rapid and extensive survey which we have now 
 taken of the broad fields of Scripture biography, you see what 
 distinguished honor God has, from the beginning, conferred 
 upon young men, in carrying forward the grand interests of his 
 kingdom in this world. You have seen what responsibihties 
 they have borne, what achievements they have made, what 
 destinies they have fulfilled, in the great drama of human his- 
 tory, during its first forty centuries. And the part performed 
 by the young men of the Bible, was but a type of what has been 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 319 
 
 done by young men in all subsequent ages. In every field of 
 discovery and achievement, many of the greatest and most en- 
 during works which have been accomplished on earth, have 
 been begun and often finished, by men, before they had reach- 
 ed the meridian of life. This is as true of the evil, as of the 
 good. The history of the world — the history of the church — 
 nay, the history of redemption itself, in an important sense, has 
 been written in the lives of young men. Perhaps" it is not too 
 much to say, that the greatest amount, both of evil and of 
 good, which all men have done, they have done while they were 
 yet young and strong. This, we know is true of many of the 
 must remarkable characters in history. Lafayette, in his 
 very boyhood, volunteered to fight the battles of America, and 
 before he was twenty-five, had won the confidence of Washington 
 the admiration of the world, and a name forever embalmed in 
 the memories of a free people. Alexander the Great had con- 
 quered the old world, and laid the foundations of the third 
 great empire of antiquity, before he had reached the age of 
 thirty-three. At a similar age, Scipio Africanus, the noblest 
 of all the Romans, had carried the war of his country into 
 Africa, and had won the prize of victory over the veteran, 
 and, till then, invincible Hannibal. Napoleon had fought his 
 most brilliant battles, formed his grand schemes of universal 
 empire, and filled the world with his fame, before he was twenty- 
 nine. Luther had kindled the fires of the great Reformation 
 before he was thirty-five ; and Calvin, deducing a finished sys- 
 tem of theology from the Scriptures, had published his immor 
 tal " Institutes," before he was twenty-seven. The younger 
 Pitt was prime minister of Great Britain in his twenty-third 
 year ; and before he was thirty, stood preeminent amongst the 
 statesmen of Europe. Henry Martyn, leaving the halls of science 
 
320 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN 
 
 and honorable preferment at home to preach Christ to the per 
 ishing, with heroic self-sacrificing toil, completed a translation 
 of the New Testament into two languages of the East, and fell 
 a martyr to the work at the age of thirtj-bne. Whitefield and 
 Summerfield were each immortal at twenty-five, having filled 
 both hemispheres with the fame of an eloquence and success in 
 preaching the gospel, which had not been surpassed -since the 
 days of the apostles. Our own great statesmen, the three 
 American magnates of this nineteenth century, Webster, Clay 
 and Calhoun, had, each before the age of thirty, won such 
 triumphs of eloquence at the bar and on the forum, as led men 
 to predict that meridian of splendor and old age of glory, which 
 they lived to verify. And when did the world ever behold 
 a more splendid combination of all the rare and glorious attri- 
 butes that make the young man immortal, than it has just wit- 
 nessed in our countryman. Dr. Kane, who, before he was 
 thirty-three, had trodden the most inaccessible parts of our 
 planet, and ^t thirty-five returned to die a martyr to the boldest 
 attempt that science and humanity ever made* to reach the 
 pole and save the lost ! 
 
 Such then is the glory, such the responsibility, to which God by 
 the voice of his providence, and by all the voices of past history, 
 calls the young men of this generation. But to conclude, and 
 to recapitulate : we have now contemplated the young man of 
 the Bible, as one of the most remarkable, the most instructive 
 and attractive features of the book. We have seen him in all 
 his shades of character, and fortune. We have marked him 
 farst in the person of Adam, coming forth as lord of a new world, 
 in the glorious image of his Divine Author. We have seen him, 
 a little after, sealed as the first of martyrs in Abel, and branded 
 as the first of murderers in Cain. We have seen him next, 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 321 
 
 under the inspiration and the wonder-working providence of 
 God, becoming, in Joseph, the deliverer and the mighty ruier 
 of the land of Egypt. We have gazed upon the moral gran- 
 deur of his character in Moses, as that of a self-denying and yet 
 triumphant believer in the unseen, the eternal, the Divine. We 
 have followed him next through the din of battle, and admired 
 the lofty bearing of the patriot soldier, and the invincible, 
 God-fearing hero, in the youthful David and Jonathan. We 
 have soon after read the wretched doom of Absalom, and learned 
 from him, what a young man is, when he becomes a rebel son, 
 a demagogue and usurper, a votary of vanity and a victim of 
 ambition. Then again, we have seen the young man as sove- 
 reign, standing on the perilous heights of hereditary power, 
 combining the character of poet, preacher, philosopher and 
 statesman, in the full-orbed glory of Solomon, or that of civil 
 and religious reformer in the young and much lamented King 
 Josiah. Still further on, amid the terrors of a dungeon, a lion's 
 den, and a fiery furnace, we have looked upon the young man as 
 he appears in Daniel and Jeremiah, arrayed in the stern and 
 awful grandeur of a prophet of God, or in the three children of 
 the captivity, as the uncompromising confessor, witness and 
 defender of the true religion. Later still, in John the Baptist, we 
 have heard the young man from the wilderness, in that sublime 
 voice, which seemed to concentrate all the prophetic voices of the 
 past in one, calling men to flee from the wrath to come, and to 
 *' behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." 
 And the last of all, in the seraphic St. John, in the admirable 
 Timothy, and in the indefatigable and incomparable Paul, we 
 have found the young man, under a new and nobler dispensation 
 of liglit and of love, proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation, in 
 the name of Jesus, to the perishing nations of the whole world. 
 
822 EEPEESENTATIVE YOUNG MEN- 
 
 And now, if anything more were needed to place the crown of 
 immortal glory upon the brow of youth, it is the fact, that 
 Jesus was himself a young man, and that, by dying and rising 
 again, as such, he remains a young man forever. The incarnate son 
 of God, before he was thirty-four, had fulfilled his great mission 
 on earth, finished his grand work of atonement and salvation, 
 won all his triumphs over death and hell, unbarred the prison of 
 the grave, glorified God, and purchased immortality for man — 
 and had done all in the character of a young man. As such 
 the first Adam had fallen and lost all. It was fit then, that the 
 second Adam, while yet in the dew of youth, should stand for 
 us, and restore the ruins of the fii'st. And it is a pleasing 
 thought, that in the person of Jesus, the inhabitants of heaven 
 now behold, not only the restoration of our human nature from 
 the ruins of the fall, but its exaltation and apotheosis in a state 
 of immortal youth. 
 
 These things the angels desire to look into. And into these 
 things the nations of the earth will desire to look more and more, 
 Christ is already the central object of all history, and all human 
 thought. It is the name which thrills most deeply through the 
 great heart of the world — which absorbs its daily activities, and 
 its midnight meditations, as no other name has ever done 
 before. Be the field of discussion what it may, be the writers 
 or speakers who they may — atheist or infidel, deist or skeptic, 
 rationalist or Christian — the all-absorbing theme is still the same, 
 the one ceaseless thought is about Christ. The oflBcers of the 
 Jewish Sanhedrim unconsciously uttered a great prophecy as 
 well as a great truth when they said, "Never man spake like 
 this man." For whether he spoke divinely or humanly, in words 
 wisdom or of fable, as a Jewish Rabbi or as the son of God, 
 one thing is certain, he so spoke that the world has never ceased 
 
OF TUE BIBLE. 
 
 to speak of hira, and never can. Even the infidels and ra- 
 .ionalists of these modern times, from Spinoza down to Strauss, 
 by every volume which they have published, and every effort 
 they have made to crush his cause, have only fulfilled the pro- 
 phecy and added fresh confirmation to that ancient record, that 
 no man ever spoke like Jesus. Such herculean efforts, made 
 from generation to generation, and still renewed after eighteen 
 hundred years of defeat, to prove him a common man, and his 
 religion but a dream, by the very intensity of their zeal, recoil 
 and refute themselves ; for they, if nothing else, bear witness, 
 that he was no common man, and that his religion is one of the 
 strongest vitalities in the world. The wider and stronger the 
 opposition, the stronger and clearer is the proof, that the young 
 Nazarene, though leaving the world after a few brief years of 
 public teaching, had nevertheless so lived, so spoken, and so 
 died, that all the world, infidelity not excepted, has heard his 
 voice and felt his power. By a public ministry of three years 
 spent in toil and privation, and ending in a death which the 
 world regarded as his complete and everlasting overthrow, 
 he produced effects upon the world, greater and more enduring 
 than any other man, public or private, old or young, ever pro- 
 duced. So that from the lowest conceded facts of his life, 
 regarded simply as a history, it is impossible to turn away 
 without believing the truth of his doctrine as a theology. 
 Admit the plain facts of his manhood, and there is no escape 
 from the logical conviction of his Godhead. The only solution 
 of such a Son of man, is in the conception of such a Son 
 of God. Admit the- " Christ of History," as the point has 
 been well argued by a recent author, and you admit all thai 
 the Christ of Revelation ever claimed to be. 
 
824. SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 .SCIENCE AND THE SAGES OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Relations and Bearings of the Subject — The Moral Science of the Bible — The Bible od 
 Physical Science — First Scientific Characteristic — Second Characteristic — Third 
 Characteristic — Additional Illustrations — The Sages of the Bible. 
 
 I. RELATIONS AND BEARINGS OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 No apology we trust, will be demanded for selecting the 
 Science and Sages of the Bible, as a topic entitled to stand 
 amongst those which have already claimed our attention in 
 these pages. Some, perhaps, may be ready to ask at first, 
 what good can come out of such a subject — so narrow in its 
 range, so barren in all its aspects, so unattractive in its very 
 announcement ? The Bible, it is freely admitted, is not a 
 scientific book in any ordinary sense. Whatever may be its 
 claims to literature, it does not profess to" teach the natural 
 ^lences ; it is not received as an authority in the scientific 
 world ; nor do its writers, anywhere, lay claim to the title of 
 philosopher or sage. 
 
 It does, indeed, sometimes speak of science, and of the Gre- 
 cian philosophers : but it is only to put us on our guard 
 against the babblings of a vain philosophy, and the oppositions 
 of a science falsely so called. It is evident at a glance, tliat 
 the book of God was not inspired for the purpose of being a 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 325 
 
 text book of natural science. It was not given as a history 
 of the wonderful phenomena of the material universe, but as a 
 revelation of man's origin, relations, duties and destiny. But 
 still, our theme, whether barren or fruitful in itself considered, 
 when viewed in all its relations and bearings, becomes one of 
 attractive interest to all those who wish to know, not only what 
 the Bible has said, but especially what it has not said, about 
 science and philosophy. We deem it of essential importance 
 to all the lovers of truth, and especially to our educated youth 
 who will soon be called to guide the opinions of others, that 
 the line which defines the true relations between science and 
 the Bible, should be distinctly drawn and clearly understood. — 
 It is our object to aid in pointing out the landmarks of 
 that important boundary. It has been well remarked by one 
 of our scientific men, that the subject may be presented in such 
 a way as to "impart instruction, remove difficulties from the 
 minds of the scrupulous, and deepen the convictions of re- 
 ligious truth ; but on the other hand, it is easy so to exhibit 
 it as to excite bigotry and prejudice, alarm the con- 
 scientious and do injury both to science and religion." Obvi- 
 ously it is a subject of profound interest alike to the scientific, 
 the literary and the religious man. 
 
 It may be claimed for the Bible, that in the broadest sense, 
 it is a book of learning, as learning existed in the ancient 
 world. It comes down to us, laden with the rich stores of 
 ancient oriental wisdom — the treasured lore of the first forty- 
 centuries of human history. It tells us of men, like Moses, 
 learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and Solomon filling 
 the world with the fame of his intellectual greatness. It tells 
 of Eastern sages, like Daniel, " skillful in Chaldean wisdom, cun- 
 ning in knowledge, understanding science," and of Western 
 
326 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 scholars like Paul, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and 
 versed in all Rabbinical and Grecian literature. 
 
 And although it has given no clue to scientific discovery, 
 and shed no light upon the brilliant pathway of our modern 
 science, in her explorations of material nature ; still, it has 
 not been without its influence in stimulating and directing the 
 progress of the modern scientific world. Although the Bible 
 has had no mission to teach philosophy how to cast her mea- 
 suring lines into the sea, or sink her shafts into the heart of the 
 earth, or stretch her telescopes through the untrodden fields 
 of space ; nevertheless it has been a book of intense and undy- 
 ing interest to the most scientific minds, not only because it con- 
 tains the Divine wisdom and Eternal life, but because of the pecu- 
 liar and wonderful relations which it sustains to science in general 
 and to the spirit of scientific discovery in particular. In its gen- 
 eral tone and spirit everywhere encouraging scientific investi- 
 gation, and yet nowhere pointing the way to scientific dis- 
 covery ; everywhere, speaking freely and fully of the diversified 
 phenomena of the earth and heavens, yet nowhere explaining 
 anything or professing to teach anything on such subjects ; it 
 has, in fact, so adjusted itself, from the beginning, to each ad- 
 vancement in science, that it would seem to have anticipated all 
 its discoverie> ; and so far from having received any damage 
 from all these new worlds of wonder which it has itself evoked 
 from the vast deep of things unknown, the Bible has only 
 awakened additional interest in its own revelations, and gained 
 fresh confirmation for its own claims from every realm of liv- 
 ing nature, and every department of the known universe. 
 
 Its language has adjusted itself to the vocabulary of univer- 
 sal science, in precisely the same way that its prophecy has 
 adjusted i:self to the facts of universal history. The history 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 327 
 
 of the world has famished a thousand opportunities of refuting 
 the prophecies of Scripture, had its prophecies been false. 
 Even so, the discoveries of modern science have furnished in- 
 numerable opportunities for disproving the alleged facts of 
 Scripture, had these facts been unfounded. That the Bible 
 should have maintained its ground so long and so well, under 
 the searching analysis and concentrated light of our modern 
 inductive philosophy, will appear all the more wonderful when 
 we consider how all other ancient books of religion, and schools 
 of philospphy, and systems of mythology, and anthropology, 
 have given way before it like the stars of night before the 
 morning sun. How long could the Shasters of India, or the 
 astrologies of Egypt, the hoary religious system of China, or 
 the astronomy of Ptolemy, the cosmology of the intellec- 
 tual Greeks and Romans, or even the partly borrowed Koran 
 of Mohammed, stand before the light of our modern astronomy? 
 But th& Bible has been standing before it, ever since the days 
 of Copernicus and Galileo, and still stands in the meridian 
 of its light as little dimmed or daunted by its brightness, as 
 the eye of the eagle by the sun. 
 
 "Hitherto," says Gilfillan, " the result of all new discoveries 
 has been, to dart new notice, new light, new interest, upon the 
 pages of this marvelous book, which, like the full moon, shines 
 undimmed, whatever stars come up the midnight. In her ma- 
 jestic simplicity, she fears no rival among all those new telesco- 
 pic orbs which are arriving every hour, and can suffer no eclipse 
 from them ; and neither need the Bible, in its pure, mild, and 
 crystal sphere, be alarmed at all the starry revelations of sci- 
 ence." No, the Bible has no more to fenr from science, than 
 science has to fear from the Bible. Why should either have 
 anything to fear, from the other ? Are they not both revelations, 
 
828 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 though written in different books, of the same infinitely wise and 
 perfect God ? And must not the true teachings of God in the 
 volume of his works, be always harmonious with the true teach* 
 ings of God in the volume of his words ? There can be no 
 greater absurdity than to say that true science can ever come 
 into real conflict with any true interpretation of the Bible ; for 
 it is just equivalent to saying, that God can contradict himself. 
 No ; let all such fears be buried with the theologians of Gal- 
 ileo's times, who thought, that if the earth moved, the Bible 
 must fall ; and that to prevent so great a catastrophe, they 
 must stop the mouth of the philosopher, by imprisonment or 
 death. Poor way that to stop the earth from moving or the 
 Bible from falling I True science and true theology are friends ; 
 and they may well afford to be fast friends now, in the day ot 
 their triumph, for they have gone hand in hand, through many 
 a day of peril in their past history. They point upward to 
 the same great Author, and onward to the same .destiny 
 of perfect knowledge. Ever since the Bible has had a fair 
 foothold amongst men, all the science in the world that has 
 been worthy of the name, has been found closely clus. 
 tering around it, and ready to make common cause in its de- 
 fence. Modern heathenism has produced no true science in 
 any department. The ancient classical nations produced very 
 little that outlived their downfall. Mohammedanism has ndded 
 nothing to the stock, that may not be traced to the Bible. 
 All that the barren soil of infidelity and atheism has ever pro- 
 duced, has been produced under the fostering influences of the 
 Bible. Historically, it is a most important and significant fact 
 that the Bible, so long as it has stood at all, has been standing 
 at the head of the science of the world ; and science has made 
 no advancement anywhere on earth without this book. All our 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 329 
 
 modern physical sciences, which have sprung np under the in- 
 ductive method of the Baconian philosophy, owe their existence 
 to that spirit of free inquiry which the Bible created among the 
 nations of Europe about the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. They are all daughters of the Great Reformation, as that 
 is of the Bible. And in return, the religion of the Bible owes 
 to modern science, her first-born, fairest child, an eternal debt 
 of gratitude for the noblest vindication of her own celes- 
 tial origin, that has ever been made for her since the age 
 of miracles. For modern science to assail the Bible, is as 
 if the child should lift an ungrateful hand against the mother 
 that had nursed its infancy. And for the Bible to assail science, 
 is but for the mother to turn against the daughter who bears her 
 image, and has done her most honor in the eyes of all mankind. 
 
 II. THE MORAL SCIENCE OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 But in what sense is the Bible a scientific book, and what do 
 we mean when we speak of the science of the Bible ? In a 
 general sense, all our knowledge of truth, of whatever kind, even 
 historical, is sometimes called science. And in that sense, the 
 Bible being all true, might be said to be full of science. But 
 this is not the usual meaning of the word. Strictly and pro- 
 perly speaking, the term science is applied only to that part of 
 our knowledge which has been systematized ; whose facts and 
 principles have been classified and arranged in a definite 
 order, by the process of the inductive philosophy. And in this 
 sense, it is obvious, that the Bible is not, and was not intended 
 to be, a scientific book. 
 
 At this point, however, we meet with an important distinction 
 
330 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 arising out of the very nature of the sciences. If we bok at the 
 whole circle of the sciences, we shall find, that they may all be 
 arranged under two grand divisions, in reference to the two dis- 
 tinct fields of human inquiry, the moral, or spiritual sciences on the 
 one hand, and the physical or natural sciences on the other, cor- 
 responding somewhat to the ancient distinction of physics and 
 metaphysics. Now, to one of these departments the Bible 
 holds a very different relation from that which it holds to the 
 other. In the one, it has scarcely spoken at all, and does not 
 claim to be a teacher. In the other, it has spoken, fully, earn- 
 estly, and with all the authority of a teacher come from God ; 
 but never even here, in a scientific form, never in the language 
 of the schools. 
 
 On the subject of the natural or physical sciences, which con- 
 stitute the peculiar glory of our modern philosophy, and whose 
 domain lies in the material universe, the Bible is almost 
 silent, giving us neither the materials nor the forms of a com- 
 plete science — giving some of its facts, but none of its theories. 
 But on all those branches of knowledge, in which classical anti- 
 quity gloried most, and gloried in vain, whose domain lies in 
 the unseen world of thought — the spiritual, immaterial universe 
 relating to God, to the nature of truth and virtue, to the 
 nature of man, as a social, moral, intellectual and immortal 
 being — on all these, the Bible has spoken clearly and abun- 
 dantly, giving us all the materials of the science of God and 
 man, but not in a scientific form — giving us the essential facts, 
 without the theory, of all moral science. 
 
 Whilst, then, we might search in vain, through the Bible, 
 for any systematic science, such as we find in our books of 
 chemistry or physics, still we may find there the elements of 
 the very highest science. We find indeed all the fundamental 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 331 
 
 facts and principles of, at least, four of the most important 
 branches of universal science. These are revealed on the 
 sacred pages, just as the true system of astronomy was revealed 
 on the face of the sky before the days of Copernicus, and 
 chemistry on all the objects of nature, long before the days of 
 the alchemists. True science, you know, may exist in its ele- 
 ments, long before there is any scientific eye to read it aright, 
 or reduce those elements to scientific order. 
 
 First, we have the sublime science of God himself, in all his 
 perfections, in all his relations to all creatures ; which we call 
 the science of Theology, the grand centre of universal science. 
 
 Secondly, we have the great science of moral truth and vir- 
 tue, of right and wrong in their relation to human duty, which 
 embraces the broad field of Ethics, or Moral Philosophy. 
 
 Thirdly, we have the science of the soul itself, the human 
 mind in its relation to truth and virtue, which is known by the 
 terms, Psychology, Mental Philosophy, or Metaphysics in general. 
 
 Fourthly, we have the science of law and government, the 
 august and noble science of man collectively — man as a social 
 being and a citizen ; which may be called Jurisprudence, Poli- 
 tical Economy, or Legislative science ; which has been thus 
 beautifully personified by Hooker : " Of law there can be no 
 less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, 
 her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and 
 earth do her homage, the very least, as feeling her care, and 
 the greatest as not exempt from her power. Both angels and 
 men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in a 
 different sort and name, yet all with one uniform consent, ad- 
 mire her as the mother of their peace and joy." 
 
 Now these four great branches of human knowledge, which 
 agree in this, that they are all founded upon moral evidence^ 
 
332 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 and all relate more or less to moral truth, are as justly entitled 
 to be called scientific, and constitute in fact, as regular 
 sciences, as any of those branches which we call natural o^ 
 physical. Theology is as truly a science as chemistry, and 
 Ethics as geology. And all of these great sciences of God and 
 the soul, of truth and duty, are written in the Bible, just as the 
 physical sciences are written in the great volume of nature. 
 Upon all these vast and important fields of scientific inquiry, 
 the word of God has shed a truer and a brighter light than 
 all other books, and oracles, and schools of philosophy, of 
 ancient or modern times. In Fpeaking of the science of the 
 Bible, therefore, we must ever bear in mind, that whatever of 
 scientific truth it contains, is found there, not in logical classi- 
 fied forms, but in its original essential elements ; not as geology 
 and astronomy are found in the text-books of the schools, but as 
 geology and astronomy are found in the field-books of the earth 
 and heavens. We gather up these facts and principles, these scat- 
 tered materials of science, and apply to them the process of 
 interpretation, classification, and inductive reasoning, and thus 
 educe the grand sciences of Theology, Ethics, Psychology, and 
 Civil Jurisprudence, The method by which this is done, is afs 
 truly Baconian, and the result of it as truly scientific, as that 
 which was pursued by Newton in the " Principia," or La Place 
 in the "Mecanique Celeste," or Humboldt in the "Cosmos." 
 r, In these four kindred branches of universal science, Theolog- 
 ical, Ethical, Psychological, and Legislative, the Bible has been 
 the great text-book and storehouse to all modern nations. It 
 has not only supplanted all the systems of antiquity, but it has 
 successfully driven every opposing modern system from the 
 field, and now it reigns without a rival over the whole realm of 
 Cimstendom. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 The Mosaic code, modified by the new law of the gospel, is 
 the basis of all the jurisprudence and legislation of the present 
 civilized world. And except in the departments of commercial, 
 maritime, and international law, which, from the peculiar char- 
 acter of the Hebrew Commonwealth, had not been contem- 
 plated in the Mosaic code, the world has not added much to 
 its original stock, nor mucli improved on its Scripture model. 
 In theology, the science of the Supreme Being, there is, of 
 course, no other authority known to civilized nations, but the 
 Bible. For even what is called Natural Theology, was a great 
 deep of darkness and confusion, until this surer word of revela- 
 tion came, to call liglit out of darkness, and order out of chaos. 
 The same is true of all moral or ethical science. Our existing 
 books and systems, so far as they have any claim to scientific 
 truth, are all founded upon the Sacred Scriptures. And as to 
 Psychology, or the pliilosophy of the human mind, it is obvious 
 that, whilst all the ancient writers have sunk into oblivion, all 
 the modern, from Locke to the present day, have ended very 
 nearly at the point where they began, and that is just where the 
 Bible left the subject so long ago. 
 
 By this, we do not mean to say that the Biljle has anywhere 
 given us a treatise on the human understanding, as Locke and 
 Reid, Stewart and Cousin, have done ; but only that the Bi- 
 ble has furnished the best materials for this and other kindred 
 sciences : first, because the Bible, being inspired of God for 
 the purpose, has had a deeper insight into human nature than 
 any other oracle, and has given us the truest, fullest represen- 
 tation of man in all his moods, and of man's mind in all its 
 exercises, which the world has yet seen. It was to be expected 
 that a book from God and a book on the soul, would tell ua 
 most, both about God and the Soul. 
 
334 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 The Bible has held the mirror up to nature with an infallible 
 and unsparing hand, and has reflected back to us a true image 
 of ourselves, which we may study at our leisure ; just as we 
 might study the same thing in Shakspeare. And this will 
 serve to illustrate our meaning. Who does not know that 
 a very good and true, and even full, philosophy of the human 
 mind might be educed from the writings of the bard of Avon ? 
 Why so ? Because he too held the mirror up to nature, long 
 enough and steadily enough, to catch a true picture of the 
 workings of the soul, in all its moods and exercises. Even so, 
 but infinitely better, is the true philosophy of the whole inner 
 man revealed to us in the perfect mirror of God's word, not as 
 a science, but as the constituent elements of science. 
 
 In this grand department, then, of the moral or spiritual 
 sciences, we claim for the Bible, and it is a claim which we 
 trust you are fully prepared to indorse, that it has given us the 
 only true and perfect theology in the world ; that it has given 
 us the only safe and solid foundation for virtue and ethical phi- 
 losophy ; that instructing us as to the origin, nature, aim, and 
 destiny of the soul, it has given us the only sure and settled 
 psychology ; and that, coming with authority from God, and 
 the sanctions of a future state, it has unfolded all the great 
 fundamental principles of human government, legislation and 
 jurisprudence. 
 
 III. THE BIBLE ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE FIRST CHARACTERISTIC. 
 
 But leaving now these broad fields of science, to the cultiva- 
 tion of which the Bible has contributed so much, let us pass to 
 the contemplation of those for which directly it has done so lit- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 335 
 
 tie. Let us consider the relation in which the Bible stands to 
 the pliysical sciences, which constitute the peculiar glory of 
 our modern philosophy. It is in this direction, that the genius 
 of the age in which we live is bending all its steps, and taxing 
 all its mighty energies. And it is in this quarter, if anywhere, 
 that the respective friends of science and the Bible, are in dan- 
 ger of misunderstanding and collision. Here, on the field of 
 material nature, where science now seems to be the strongest, 
 and the most confident of her strength, some, perhaps, without 
 due reflection, might be ready to think the Bible will be found 
 weakest and most vulnerable. And truly, for every educated 
 man, we know not a subject of wider interest, and greater 
 practical importance, than the clearing up of this relation, be- 
 tween the Bible and physical science. Let us now endeavor 
 to point out some of the distinctive landmarks. 
 
 And here, the first fact that arrests attention, is the remark- 
 able reticency of the Bible on the whole subject of physical 
 science — its dignified reserve and taciturnity — its forbearance to 
 philosophize — its profound, and, as we may say, most impres- 
 sive silence, on all the questions and theories of natural science. 
 
 The wonder is not that the sacred writers have given us 
 nothing as to the true theory of the universe ; for that they 
 could not know without a special revelation, and it was no 
 part of Divine inspiration to reveal it ; but the surpassing 
 wonder is, that they should have abstained from giving us any 
 thing that is false — abstained from giving any theory at all. 
 
 For whilst they were writing the Bible, the world was full 
 of all sorts of systems and philosophies ; full of magicians and 
 astrologers and theorizers about the heavens and the earth j 
 full of cosmogonists, and fabled oracles, and pretended divin- 
 ities, peoplftfg all the woods, and fields, and waters. And yet, 
 
336 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 the sacred writers have steered their way through all these 
 wonders of the times, and have not in a single line, committed 
 themselves to one of the multiplied absurdities, that crowd 
 all other contemporaneous writings. Amidst all these sophists 
 and idolaters they stood, and wrote their sublime history, in' 
 such a way, that the pure current of their narrative rolled on, 
 from beginning to end, uncontaminated by any of the systems 
 of four thousand years. 
 
 This too they have done, while speaking freely and fully, on 
 all the diversified facts and phenomena of universal nature, as 
 known to the ancients. But nowhere upon their pages is a 
 single theory discussed, or even propounded, as to any part of 
 the material universe ; and so profound and unbroken is this 
 silence, that although men have been searching these pages for 
 many centuries with the closest scrutiny, yet we are not aware 
 that any line of them has ever led to the first scientific dis- 
 covery on the one hand, or involved a single scientific blunder 
 on the other. 
 
 Nothing can well be more wonderful than this. When we 
 consider with what fullness and minuteness of detail, the Bible 
 has described the chief objects of material nature, animate and 
 inanimate, throughout the vast domain of the vegetable, ani- 
 mal, mineral and atmospheric kingdoms — how freely and how 
 frequently it has spoken of earth, air, water and fire — how it 
 has spoken of the origin of the earth and heavens, the sun, 
 moon, and stars, the thunder and lightning, heat and cold, day 
 and night, summer and winter — how it has spoken of the tribes 
 of men, the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, the 
 fishes of the sea, the plants of the field — spoken of everything 
 that hath, and everything that hath not, breath — when we 
 consider all this, must it not appear infinitely remarkable, that 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 337 
 
 the sacred book has never committed itself to any of the ten 
 thousand absurdities of antiquity, nor advanced a single phi- 
 losophical dogma, which modern science has exploded ? 
 
 " The Hebrew language," as used in the Old Testament, says 
 Herder, " contains more than two hundred and fifty distinct 
 botanical terms." And yet the Bible does not teach any sys- 
 tem of Botany. It gives us no system of Astronomy, and yet 
 it is constantly speaking of the heavenly bodies, from the sun 
 shining in his strength, and rejoicing as a strong man to run a 
 race, to the faintest star that peepeth through the eyelids of 
 the evening twilight. It treats not of animal Physiology, and 
 yet it describes the varied parts and functions of our "fearfully 
 and wonderfully made" animal frame, from the " blood which is 
 the life thereof," to the very hairs of our heads. It has noth- 
 ing to do with Geology as a science, and yet it tells of up- 
 lifted floods, and heaving mountains, and rending rocks, and 
 submerged continents, and is ever speaking of the hills and 
 waters in their endless phenomena. It contains no system of 
 Zoology, and yet it describes all kinds of breathing things, from 
 the leviathan of the seas, to the lion of the forest ; and from 
 the lion down to the moth upon our garments. It makes no 
 pretensions to a system of Natural History, and yet it contains 
 accurate accounts, so far as they go, both of the flora and the 
 fauna of all the ancient countries bordering the Mediterranean, 
 from the cedar of Lebanon to the hysop on the wall, and from 
 the ostrich of the desert to the sparrow that falleth to the 
 ground. 
 
 It gives us no explanation, no theory, no system, and scarce- 
 ly any classification. But what is most remarkable, when it 
 does classify, it is found to be correct. Without any apparent 
 aid from science, it sometimes seems to hit upon an order 
 
 15 
 
338 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 which the science of after ages approves. For example, when 
 in the first chapter of Genesis, it gives us a series or classifica- 
 tion of all the living creatures, that fill up the vast scale of 
 existence, between man at the head and the invertebrate ani- 
 mals at the foot, how wonderful is it that in its four divisions 
 of beasts, birds, reptiles and fishes, it should have given us 
 precisely that arrangement which our advanced modern 
 science has proved to be the true order of nature. 
 
 While however it gives us little classification on any subject, 
 it gives us facts on almost all — facts and phenomena, true to 
 life and nature, because attested by the senses of eye and 
 ear witnesses, and then recorded by the pen of inspiration. It 
 transmits its record of facts, leaving us to dispose of them as 
 we may in the light of advancing knowledge ; just as the med- 
 ical philosopher disposes of the facts which were observed and 
 recorded by Hippocrates, in Greece, some two thousand years 
 ago. 
 
 Says an eminent British naturalist : " The intention of Scrip- 
 ture is not scientific description ; yet, where we can now ascer- 
 tain the true meaning of the text, the imagery drawn from na- 
 tural history is always forcible, correct and effective, even where 
 it treats the subject under the conditions of the contemporary 
 popular belief." And one of our ablest American authorities, 
 Lieutenant Maury, is reported to have remarked recently 
 in a public lecture, that "in his investigations of science, 
 he had always found that whenever he could meet with any- 
 thing in the Bible on the subject, it afforded him a firm plat- 
 form." 
 
 Now few persons are aware of the frequency and fullness 
 with which the Bible has spoken on many of the visible phe- 
 nomena of the natural world. For instance, unusual as such 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 839 
 
 words would seem to be, and remote from its common topics, it 
 has mentioned " snow " and " frost," in more than thirty pas- 
 sages, and the " stars " in more than forty. But whenever it 
 has spoken, whether little or much, its statements are remarkable 
 alike for their accuracy as to facts, and their freedom from any 
 thing- like theorizing. 
 
 You know liow full the Bible is, of references and allusions 
 to the healing art ; how it describes diseases and the remedies 
 for disease ; how it speaks of physicians and apothecaries, and 
 embalmers from the days of Moses down to Him, who was the 
 great physician of souls. Yet, has it uttered no oracle, com- 
 mitted itself to no dogma, as to any system or science of med- 
 icine. This is indeed remarkable, when we remember its con- 
 stant reference to the leprosy and other diseases and their 
 cures during an authorship of fifteen hundred years, and a his- 
 tory of four thousand. 
 
 And here we may be allowed to mention a singular and cu- 
 rious fact which has not often been noticed. It is this : al- 
 though the Bible speaks of so many diseases, and remedies for 
 disease — so many outward applications for the body in disease, 
 such as the washings and sprinklings for the leprosy, the balm 
 of Gilead, the plaster of figs in Hezekiah's case, the oil and 
 wine of the good Samaritan, the water and clay of our Sa- 
 viour's miraculous cures, and even the leaves of the tree for the 
 healing of the nations, still there is not one recorded case of 
 a remedy for disease, taken internally, in all the book. No, not 
 a single instance of any medicine being administered, that had 
 to be swallowed. Strange as it may appear, to us who are ac- 
 customed to live on medicine, from Genesis to Revelation, there 
 is not one, unless that be an exception, in which the apostle 
 prescribes to Timothy, a " little wine for his stomach's 
 
340 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 sake and liis often infirmities." And this, we think, is as far from 
 establishing a precedent for medical practice, as it is from jus- 
 tifying strong drink as a beverage. 
 
 But to pass on ; these illustrations are sufficient to show 
 with what fullness and minuteness the Bible has spoken of 
 the facts of nature, without broaching any theory of nature. 
 
 In view, then, of this fullness on all the visible phenomena of 
 nature, how do you account for this profound silence — this ap- 
 parently guarded reticency of the Bible, as to any theory or 
 explanation of nature ? How is it that speaking so fully and 
 dwelling so long in the midst of all the wonders of which our 
 modern science treats, the Bible has never trespassed on one 
 foot of the ground which modern science has claimed as her 
 own ? 
 
 To us there is but one solution. It is because there was 
 a superhuman — even a Divine intelligence, ever present to 
 superintend and to guide the pen of the sacred writers, as ac- 
 tive and as potent in preserving them from what was false in 
 science, as in giving them what was true in religion. So that 
 the very silence of tlie Bible on all questions of physical science, 
 may be regarded as one of its internal evidences — as an unan- 
 swerable argument for its Divine inspiration. And on this point 
 we may adopt the striking remarks of Trench in reference to 
 another subject : " Nor is it only what Scripture says, but its 
 very silence which is instructive for us. It was said by one 
 wise man of another, that more might be learned from his 
 questions, than from another man's answers. With yet higher 
 truth might it be said, that the silence of Scripture is oftentimes 
 more instructive than the speech of other books ; so that it has 
 been likened to a dial, in which the shadow, as well as the light, 
 informs us." 
 
OF TUE BIBLE. 34:1 
 
 We are told ia the proverbs of Solomon, that " it is the 
 glory of God to conceal a thing," — that, " a fool uttereth all 
 his mind, but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards." And 
 so, the Bible seems everywhere to convey the impression, that 
 it has not uttered all its mind, and that, so far from exhausting 
 its knowledge, it might have told us infinitely more than it has 
 seen fit to do. And well would it be for the world, if men 
 w^ould imitate the example, at least so far as not to utter their 
 judgments on any and every question of science and religion, 
 before they have had the time or the means for examination. 
 The part of wisdom is to hold our judgment in abeyance on all 
 unexamined questions of learning, and like the sacred writers, 
 always know a little more than we appear to know, leaving 
 something to be found out " afterwards." It would save us 
 from many a vain delusion, and " many a foolish notion." 
 
 IV. SECOND SCIENTIFIC CHARACTERISTIC. 
 
 This brings us to notice another remarkable feature of the 
 Bible, in its relation to the natural sciences ; showing us the 
 way, by which it has steered so clear of all theories and all 
 absurdities on these great subjects. It is this ; that the sacred 
 writers have uniformly spoken of the phenomena of nature, 
 according to the usual language of men, in their daily inter- 
 course. They have spoken of nature, according to the appear- 
 ances of nature, and never in the vocabulary of science. And 
 the notable thing is, that they are as free from the technicalities 
 of ancient, as of modern science. They have taught nothing, 
 they have written nothing, in the language of the schools, — 
 not even ethics, not even theology. They always speak, God 
 
342 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 himself always speaks, after the manner of men, in the ordinary 
 phraseology of life. As well observed by Gaussen, with them 
 the sun rises, the sun sets, the sun moves, the sun stops, the 
 earth remains firm, as it seems to do. All things are spoken 
 of precisely as they appear to the senses. 
 
 But here an objection has been raised. It has been asked : 
 " Why did not the Creator so inspire the sacred historians, as 
 to make them speak in the vocabulary of true science, and make 
 them know, or at least appear to know, before we did, the true 
 theory of the universe, the principle of gravitation, the size and 
 distances of the heavenly bodies, the rotary motion of our 
 globe, its periodical revolution, and the relative immobility of 
 the sun 1" 
 
 Now, you will perceive, that this question just resolves it- 
 self into another ; viz. " Why did not God give a revelation to 
 teach us the physical sciences ?" And to this, it is a sufficient 
 answer to say, that he wisely chose, that we should exercise 
 onr minds in learning them, from the great book of nature, 
 where he had written them all at the beginning. There was 
 no need of a new revelation to teach science, when in the ample 
 scrolls of nature, men already had a revelation, which has in 
 fact been found all-suSicient. 
 
 But, suppose the sacred writers had been made to speak in a 
 language contrary to appearances, so as to suit the vocabulary 
 of our most advanced sciences. What then ? How would the 
 whole ancient world, in their ignorance of the experimental 
 facts of science, have understood this prophetic language of 
 science ? We shall presently see, that they had, in the Bible, 
 some remarkable expressions of this very kind, which they did 
 not, and could not understand, for this very reason, that they 
 had no means of verifying them experimentally. Unable to 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 343 
 
 appreciate those which were given, what benefit could they 
 have derived from having more ? That which would appear 
 beautiful and instructive to us, in the light of our experimental 
 philosophy, would have been a dead letter to them. And no 
 man, before the days of Copernicus, would have been able to 
 decipher the record, and tell what the letter meant. 
 
 No ; God hath wisely chosen the universal language of 
 appearances, as the vehicle of a revelation intended for all men. 
 Because the appearances of nature are, from generation to 
 generation, the same ; whilst the vocabulary of science is con- 
 stantly changing. The stars shine, just as they did centuries 
 ago : the winds blow, the rains descend, the waters roar now, 
 as they did then. The whole face of the earth and heavens, 
 wears about the same aspect to our eyes, that it wore in the 
 eyes of Abraham and Job, Methuselah and Noah. 
 
 Hence the language of appearances, which in all ages is the 
 language of daily intercourse, and always too the language of 
 poetry, is the most certain, intelligible, and permanent lan- 
 guage in the world. But as physical science, from its very 
 nature, must be always progressive ; and as our present ad- 
 vanced science is, after all, but an approximation to the truth ; 
 so, its vocabulary is ever changing ; and if the Bible had spoken 
 in the scientific dialect of our times, who can tell us, that this 
 would have suited the higher science of ages yet to come ? 
 
 Moreover, as many of these sciences are yet in their infancy, 
 some of them perhaps not yet born, whilst even the oldest are 
 comparatively young, who can tell us, what would have been 
 the proper stopping-place, had the sacred writers received a 
 scientific inspiration ? As has been most significantly asked, 
 would their knowledge " have reached the point which Newton 
 attained, or only the point where Copernicus stopped, or would 
 
34:4: SCIENCE AND THE SAQE8 
 
 it have extended over the heavens, as far as La Place and Her- 
 scIigI have carried it ?" But in either case, it would have still 
 remained incomplete and imperfect. 
 
 Ko ; in the whole domain of the physical sciences, the pur- 
 pose of Divine revelation was to give ns, as a starting-point, 
 the two stupendous truths, of a Divine Creator, and a Divine. 
 Providence over the universe, and leave all minor problems to 
 stimulate the curiosity, and develop the energies of man's intel- 
 lect. Hence God speaks to men, in the Bible, just as they 
 speak to each other ; not like a philosopher teaching science to 
 a class, but like a philosopher speaking to the children and 
 servants of his household, or to his fellow philosopher in their 
 common conversation. For you may observe, that in the ordi- 
 nary intercourse of society, men of science themselves speak the 
 language of appearances. 
 
 This point has been forcibly presented by Professor Gaussen, 
 in his work on the Inspiration of Scripture. 
 
 " Would men," says he, " have had the Bible to speak like 
 Sir Isaac Newton ? Would they forget, that if God should 
 speak about scenes of nature — I do not say only as he sees it, 
 but as the scientific men of future ages will see it — then the 
 great Newton himself had understood nothing of it. Besides, 
 even the most advanced language of science is not yet, and 
 never will be, after all, anything more than the language of 
 appearances. That which we call reality, is still itself only an 
 appearance relatively to a more elevated reality, and a more 
 profound analysis. And who can tell us where this analysis is 
 to stop ? The expression of appearances, provided it be exact, 
 is then among men, a language philosophically correct ; and 
 is that which the Scriptures ought to have adopted." 
 
 "Would you," says he, "have the Bible speak of the 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 345 
 
 scenes of nature otherwise than as we speak of thera to one 
 another, in our domestic or social intercourse ? — otherwise 
 even, than as the learned themselves speak of them to one 
 another ? When Sir John Herschell asks his servants to send 
 some one to awake him exactly at midnight, for the passage of 
 some star over his meridian lens, does he think himself obliged 
 to speak to them of the earth, of her rotation, and of the 
 moment, when she shall have brought their nadir into the 
 plane of her orbit ? I think not. And if you ever heard 
 him converse, in the Observatory of Greenwich, with the 
 learned Airy, you would see, that even in this sanctuary of 
 science, the habitual language of these astronomers is still just 
 like that of the Scriptures. For them the stars rise, the equi- 
 noxes recede, the planets advance and are accelerated, stop, 
 retrograde. "Would you then have Moses speak to all the gen- 
 erations of men, in a language more scientific than that of La 
 Place, Arago, and Newton ?" 
 
 It is delightful too to find scientific men, especially the scienti- 
 fic men of our own generation, often recurring to the old fami- 
 liar phraseology of the Bible when they would give utterance to 
 some of their sublimest conceptions. Never has science paid 
 to revelation a more graceful and heartfelt tribute than that 
 which has been offered at her shrine by the men of this 
 nineteenth century, as in their survey of the wonderful works 
 of God, they have given vent to their emotions' in the very 
 words of God. Every reader of Maury's Physical Geography 
 of the Sea must have been struck with this. This, too, con- 
 stitutes one of the many charms of Dr. Kane's graphic volumes. 
 
 Isolated for two dreary winters, and shut up in his little ice- 
 bound bh of life, almost as effectually as if he and his heroic band 
 had become inhabitants of another world, how did he feel the 
 
 15* 
 
346 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 overpowering grandeur of tlie God of Inspiration. " I have trod- 
 den the deck and the floes, when the life of earth seemed sus- 
 pended, its movements, its sounds, its colorings, its compan- 
 ionships ; and as I looked on the radiant hemisphere, circling 
 above me, as if rendering worship to the unseen centre of 
 light, I have ejaculated in humility of spirit, ' Lord, what is 
 man, that thou art mindful of him V " 
 
 V. — THE THIRD CHARACTERISTIC. 
 
 But we come now to notice, more fully, another still more 
 remarkable characteristic of the Bible, in its relation to the 
 progress of the physical sciences. It is one which has been, in 
 part, referred to already. It is the wonderful facility, with 
 which the language of the Bible, in certain pregnant expres- 
 sions, adjusts itself to every new scientific discovery, and har- 
 monizes with every successive stage of scientific advancement. 
 After all the gigantic strides which she has made, and is still 
 making, science has found it impossible to leave th« Bible be- 
 hind. However deep she has dug into the surface of the 
 earth, and however high she has climbed to build her nest 
 among the stars, she soon finds that the Bible is close at her 
 side. Nay, more ; when she has taken the wings of the morn- 
 ing, and said, I will dwell alone in the uttermost parts of the 
 sea, and when she has found some far-ofif island, in some remote 
 nook and corner of the universe, which she is abont to call her 
 own, by the right of prior discovery, she finds, to her amaze- 
 ment, that the Bible has been there before her — the pioneer 
 and the very prophet of discovery ! 
 
 As each new world of wonder has risen upon our view, and 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 347 
 
 each grand discovery has added its light tc the firmament of 
 our science, the language of the Bible has opened to receive it, 
 as if endued with the elasticity of an endless life, and the ex- 
 pansive power of an infinite intelligence. For three hundred 
 years past, but more especially during the last hundred, the 
 spirit of philosophical inquiry has been knocking at every door 
 in the universe, pushing her keen-eyed look of discovery, and 
 her bold fingers of experiment, into every field of the heavens 
 above, and every recess of the earth and ocean beneath ; and 
 from all these — from the rocks and caves of the mountains, 
 from the depths of the sea, from the torrid and frigid zones, from 
 every buried generation of the dead, from every realm of ani- 
 mated nature, and from every region of immensity, she has been 
 bringing home her spoils, her trophies of power, her treasures of 
 wealth and wisdom, her monuments of art and industry, to beauti- 
 fy and adorn her temple — the crystal palace of universal science, 
 enriched by the contributions of all lands and of all worlds. 
 
 And still the language of the Bible, so far from becoming 
 antiquated and obsolete, falls in and harmonizes, with all this 
 advancement, precisely as if it had been made to meet the 
 case, and had from the beginning, anticipated all the brilliant 
 discoveries and inventions of modern times. In a multitude of 
 passages, its pregnant, oracular words, enigmatical and dark 
 at first, have become luminous with the progress of time. 
 They have exactly reversed the aspect of the fiery pillar that 
 separated the camp of Israel from the Egyptians — they have 
 been dark to those that went before, but radiant as the light of 
 heaven to all who have come after: They have been rendered 
 clearer and clearer by the progress of science, precisely as 
 the prophecies obscure before their fulfillment, have been set in a 
 clear light by the onward course of history. Yes, the Bible^ 
 
SttS 6cip:nce and tue sages 
 
 though speaking the language of appearances, abounds in these 
 pregnant expressions, whose full force and beauty lay hidden 
 on the bosom of its narrative for thousands of years ; whose 
 full force and beauty were not perceived even by the men who 
 wrote them ; indeed, never could have been perceived without 
 the light of modern science ; and, perhaps are not even yet un- 
 derstood as they will be, by the men of future ages, who shall 
 be blest with a more perfect science. We hold, that in 
 these expressions, the language of the Bible has been, in a 
 measure, prophetical of all the wonders which modern science 
 has achieved. ' And there are pages in this venerable book, 
 whose meaning has been developed, verified, and fulfilled, by 
 the progress of scientific discovery, as truly and as signally, 
 as any of its special predictions, by the events of history. Pro- 
 phetically, it contains the history of all science, as it does the 
 history of all the world. 
 
 To make good this assertion, let us select a few illustrations. 
 For example, see how the first chapter of Genesis has enlarged 
 itself to the vast compass of the geological ages, prior to the 
 existence of man. A chapter swells into a volume ; a single 
 verse into the cosmogony of the universe. Does geology stretch 
 our vision backward, across the countless ages of the past, as 
 the telescope had already stretched it, over the trackless fields 
 of immensity ? Does it call for myriads of years, in which 
 whole families and tribes of plants and animals sprung into 
 existence, flourished for a season, and then passed away from 
 the earth, before man appeared upon the stage ? This opening 
 chapter of inspiration admits it all, covers it all, even seems to 
 have anticipated it all. 
 
 Geology traces man back to the age to which the Bible 
 refers him, and not one step farther ; both agree, that it was 
 
OF TUE BIBLE. 349 
 
 late in the era of creation, before he commenced his wonderful 
 career. Geology and Moses, also nnite in tracing the earth 
 itself, back to the very same point — to " the beginning," and 
 the creating hand of Omnipotence. Geology does not tell us 
 how long ago, that first beginning was ; nor does Moses. But 
 geology and Moses are agreed in this — that there was a 
 beginning somewhere — a Divine creation out of nothing. The 
 Bible is not any more sparing of time, than is geology. It 
 will allow all the time that science asks for, short of eternity ; 
 and geology herself will not allow that. Against the self-exis- 
 tence, or eternity of the material universe, science shuts the 
 door as effectually as the Bible has done. All the vast epochs 
 of organic life, whose history geology has discovered in the 
 earth's strata, graven as with an iron pen, and chronicled in 
 the rocks forever — all the teeming domains of vegetable and 
 animal existence, filling up those periods, whose perished forms, 
 so long buried, have recently been disentombed — all these 
 geology herself has traced to the hand of a Divine Author ; 
 and they serve the double purpose of magnifying the glory of 
 the Creator, while they illustrate the beauty and wisdom and 
 intelligence of this venerable book. 
 
 Thus, in the light of geological science, we behold wondrous 
 things in God's word, which otherwise we should never have 
 known. Thus has science become an interpreter of revelation, 
 making its words assume a new and nobler import, its facts a 
 larger and more profound significance. In the light of geologi- 
 cal discovery, how do all those passages rise into beauty and 
 grandeur, which connect the origin of the earth with water on 
 the one hand, and its destruction with fire on the other I They 
 seem, thus interpreted, to set before us three grand geological 
 cycles ; first, the " earth standing out of the water, and in the 
 water"— the period of the pre-Adamic world; next the 
 
350 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 " heavens and the earth, which are now kept in store, reserved 
 unto fire against the day of judgment " — the present order of 
 existence ; and then the last grand era of a " new heavens and 
 a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness " — the consumma- 
 tion of all things. In view of such revelations, might we not 
 even appropriate the exclamation of an apostle on another 
 subject ; — " Oh the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom 
 and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, 
 and his ways past finding out !" 
 
 But, in the light of astronomical science, we have a still 
 more remarkable illustration of the manner, in which the lan- 
 guage of the Bible seems to have comprehended and antici- 
 pated all our discoveries. For example, hear what the Bible 
 says, as to the shape and position of the earth. It was not 
 known to have spoken on that subject at all, until a true astro- 
 nomy gave us a light, by which to read understandingly, what 
 it had said. And doubtless, there are many other subjects, on 
 which it has given utterances, which we have not yet light 
 enough to read aright ; which we now see, as through a glass 
 darkly, but which a larger knowledge, hereafter, will enable us 
 to see with open vision. But what has it said about the shape 
 and position of the earth ? 
 
 Says the book of Job, " He stretcheth out the north over the 
 empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." Again, 
 " He hath compassed (or encircled) the waters with bounds, 
 until the day and night come to an end." Says Solomon, 
 *' When he prepared the heavens, I (wisdom) was there ; when 
 he set a compass upon the face of the deep :" that is a " circle," 
 for such is the meaning of the word, " compass," throughout 
 the Bible. Says Isaiah, speaking of the Almighty, "He 
 Bitteth upon the circle of the earth." . 
 
 How wonderful is this language I As remarked by another, 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 351 
 
 it might be taken as a fit motto for the last treatise on astro- 
 nomy, or an inscription for Lord Rosse's telescope, or Professor 
 Mitchell's observatory. Did Job, Solomon, and Isaiah, indeed 
 know, that the earth was a circle — a sphere suspended over the 
 empty place — hung up, on nothing, in the fields of space ? If 
 so, they were far in advance of all the men of their times, and 
 they had more knowledge of astronomy, than the world has 
 ever given them credit for. But if not, then what a proof is 
 this, of an infinite intelligence, pervading their thoughts, and 
 so shaping their words, as to anticipate the discoveries of our 
 times, without shocking the prejudices of their own ! 
 
 Again : of the fact that the sacred writers have been in ad- 
 vance of the world and wiser than all their translators, we have a 
 striking illustration, in the use of our word " firmament," to de- 
 note the starry heavens. We get the word, in this usage, from 
 " firmamentum " of the Latin version, and that introduces it as an 
 exact synonym for "stereoma" of the Greek Septuagint, both 
 of which mean something hard, solid, firm. But when we go 
 back to the old Hebrew of Moses, we find that the original 
 word, which, as Gaussen tells us, is seventeen times used to de- 
 note what we call the firmament, or starry heavens, has another 
 meaning besides that of hardness and solidity ; it means also 
 the expanse, the vacant place, the ether, the far-reaching re- 
 gion, or immensity. Why, then, did the Greek and Latin trans- 
 lators use only stereoma and firmamentum to describe the sky ? 
 Because, in their utter ignorance of the true astronomy, they did 
 not know as much about the nature of the sky as Moses did, or 
 rather, as that infinite intelligence which guided the pen of 
 Moses. And thus, you perceive, that with all our science, we 
 still follow these ancient versions, and thus we are constantly 
 speaking, like Addison, of the "spacious firmament on high," 
 
352 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 in a language far less philosophical than that which Moses used, 
 when he called it " rakea," the expanse, the out-spread empt^ 
 space. But we all know the sky is not hard, and does not even 
 appear hard, though we call it the firmament, or firm place. 
 Even so, let us not hold the inspired writers responsible for as- 
 serting or believing it to be hard, because their unscientific 
 translators have made them call it " stereoma " and " firmamen- 
 tum." Future ages, we trust, will not hold us responsible for 
 believing it hard, because we have been made to call it the 
 firmament. 
 
 Still further. In nothing has the triumph of modern science 
 been more signal than in its enlargement, so to speak, of all the 
 boundaries of the senses — its revelation to us, of a universe, out- 
 side of all that is seen by the naked eye, which appears abso- 
 lutely illimitable, well-nigh infinite. Whilst geology has been 
 opening to us, worlds on worlds in the cycles of the past, the 
 telescope has been disclosing worlds without number, in the un- 
 trodden fields of immensity, and the microscope bringing to 
 light new worlds of wonder, in everything around us and be- 
 neath us. On the one hand, the vast magnitudes and distances 
 of the material universe, made known by the telescope, have 
 seemed to dwarf man himself into an insect, an atom unworthy 
 of his Maker's care, much more unworthy of his love, as dis- 
 played in the gospel. But,, on the other hand, the millions of 
 worlds beneath us, as revealed by the microscope, all teeming 
 with life, have magnified man again, and raised him to his old 
 dominion, as lord of all the creatures. All that he has been 
 losing, in the scale of dignity, by the telescope, he has been 
 gaining by the microscope. And as his own intellect has been 
 the discoverer in both cases, so all that he has been losing, as 
 a mortal, he has been gaining, as an immortal, by these revela- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 353 
 
 tions. Does mortal man dwindle into comparative insignificance 
 before the vastness of the material universe, as if, at last, matter 
 had triumphed over mind ? That very triumph is itself the 
 proof of the majesty and the victory of the human mind. Be- 
 cause, it is man's mind which hath thus measured and mastered 
 a universe, that so o'er-masters him. 
 
 And does man appear to dwindle into nothing as geology 
 brings to light those vast teeming creations, and gigantic my- 
 riad forms of life that preceded him on the stage of existence ? 
 Geology herself shall reassert his dignity, for she never ceases 
 to hold him up as the grand terminal head and apex of all these 
 foregoing creations. Hugh Miller, in his last work, the " Testi- 
 mony of the Rocks," says : " The knowledge of the geologist 
 ascends no higher than man. He sees all nature in the pre- 
 Adamic past, pointing with prophetic finger towards him. The 
 long vista, opened up by his science, closes with the deputed 
 lord of creation, with man as he at present exists ; and w^hen, 
 casting himself full upon revelation, the veil is drawn aside, and 
 an infinitely grander vista stretches out before him into the future, 
 he sees man — no longer, however, the natural, but the Divine 
 man — occupying what is at once its terminal point and its 
 highest apex." 
 
 And then, after quoting two of the highest living authorities 
 on the subject, Professors Owen and Agassiz, to the effect, that 
 " man was the archetypal idea in the Divine mind," and the 
 ** end towards which all the animal creation has tended from 
 the first appearance of the first Paloeozoic fishes," he goes 
 on to remark : " These surely are extraordinary deductions. 
 ' In thy book,' says the Psalmist, ' all my members were writ- 
 ten, which, in continuance, were fashioned, when, as yet, there 
 was none of them.' And here is natural science, by the voice 
 
354: SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 of two of its most distinguished professors, saying exactly the 
 same thing." 
 
 Our latest science, then, leaves man just where she found 
 him, even where the Bible placed him at the beginning, a little 
 higher than the beasts that perish, a little lower than the an 
 gels — " the sura total of all the animals of earth," and yet the 
 image of God in the flesh. 
 
 " Distinguished link in being's endless chain, 
 Midway from nothing to the Deity, 
 A worm, a God." 
 
 How wonderful ! how profound ! how prophetic I how true 
 to science ! The Bible has' not placed man where the telescope 
 alone would have placed him, nor where the microscope alone 
 would have placed him ; but where the two together have 
 placed him, and where geology places him — at the head of the 
 visible creation, at the foot of the Divine throne. 
 
 VI. ADDITIONAL IIXUSTRATIONS. 
 
 We have said, that modern scientific discoveries have revealed 
 a range of thought, a force and beauty of expression, in the 
 Scriptures, which never had been appreciated before, and never 
 could have been fully appreciated without them. Would you 
 have a practical proof of this ? Go and read a treatise on as- 
 tronomy, or listen to a course of popular lectures on the starry 
 heavens, until conception fails, and imagination droops her 
 wing, in the attempt to grasp the grandeur of the material 
 universe : and then, when lost and bewildered by the contem- 
 plation, and without words to express your emotion, just open 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 356 
 
 the Bible at the book of Job, and read his sublime descrip- 
 tions of the manifold works of God ; and see how those grand 
 questionings and responses will have widened out to meet the 
 dimensions of your widest thoughts ; " Canst thou, by search- 
 ing, find out God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto 
 perfection ? It is as high as heaven ; what canst thou do ? 
 deeper than hell ; what canst thou know ? The measure there- 
 of is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." How 
 is it, that the words of the patriarch express our feelings, when 
 gazing on the wonders of the universe in the light of science, 
 better than we can express them ourselves ? And how is it, 
 that we can see even more force and grandeur in the patriarch's 
 words than he ever saw himself? 
 
 Or, if you please, listen to the sweet Psalmist of Israel, ex- 
 claiming, in wonder, as Jehovah telleth the number of the 
 stars, calleth them all by their names, and leadeth out their 
 hosts : " Such knowledge is too wonderful for me ; it is high, 
 I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, 
 or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up into 
 heaven, thou art there ; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou 
 art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the 
 uttermost parts of the sea : Even there shall thy hand lead me, 
 and thy right hand shall hold me." As a description of the 
 omnipresence of the Deity, is it not plain that this language as- 
 sumes a wider range, and sweeps the chords of a higher, grander 
 harmony in our hearts, than it could have done in the hearts 
 of David's contemporaries ? And yet, doubtless, it was beauti- 
 ful and sublime to them. But to us, there is a meaning in the 
 words, as much broader than the words themselves, as the uni- 
 verse of modern astronomy is broader than the little world of 
 the ancients. It is as if the new-discovered works of God had 
 
356 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 poured fresh light upon the words of God, and found tlieir own 
 grandeur all reflected back again. 
 
 Take another example from the eighth Psalm : " When I 
 consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the 
 stars, which thou hast ordained : What is man, that thou art 
 mindful of him ? and the son of man that thou visitest him ? For 
 thou hast made him a little lower than the angels : and hast 
 crowned him with glory and honor." And what is this ? It is 
 an expression of wonder at the great condescension of God in 
 his exaltation of man. It is in the form of an argument drawn 
 from the littleness and insignificance of man, as contrasted with 
 the magnitude and glory of the starry heavens. And the whole 
 force of the argument lies in the greatness of the contrast. 
 
 But if that was a wonderful contrast in David's times, what 
 is it now ? If that was an argument of power and beauty for 
 the Divine condescension, to a man looking at the heavens, by 
 night, with the naked eye, what an argument is it to one look- 
 ing at them through the telescope I Oh ! to what an immeasur- 
 able height and depth and length and breath, is the Divine con- 
 descension magnified now, in view of the littleness of man and the 
 greatness of these telescopic heavens ! " When I consider thy 
 heavens — in all their vast extent, in all their wealth of magnifi- 
 cence and glory — what is man, that Thou art mindful of him !" 
 
 Did David understand astronomy ? Did he know and appre- 
 ciate the sublime import of these words, and the full force of this 
 great argument for the condescension of God ? " The point of 
 view he thus assumes," says Gilfillan, " is inexplicable, except 
 on the sui)position of his entertaining an approximately true 
 notion of the magnitude of those starry globes. If they had 
 appeared to him only a few hundred bright spangles on the 
 black robe of night, what was there in them so to have dwarfed 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 357 
 
 the earth with its vast expanse and teeming population ?" 
 There is force in the question ; but we think there is another 
 and better explanation. 'Tis not that David understood astro- 
 nomy, even approximately ; but, that He, who inspired David's 
 mind and guided his pen, understood it, and caused him to write 
 in a language which should become more and more luminous 
 with the progress of ages. 
 
 But we may allow a skeptic here to select his own ground. 
 Either David did, or he did not understand, something of the 
 vastness of the material heavens. If he did, then he had a 
 knowledge of astronomy, utterly unknown to all the ancient 
 world besides. And how will the skeptic account for that 
 knowledge, without a Divine revelation ? But if he did not ; 
 then he spoke in a language which was as far in advance of his 
 knowledge, as the Copernican astronomy is in advance of the 
 Egyptian or Chaldean astrology. And how will the skeptic ac- 
 count for that without a divine inspiration ? To us there is but 
 one solution ; there is an intelligence in the words of the Bible, 
 higher than the words themselves, because they are God's words. 
 
 Take one more example of an earlier date. We are told 
 that the Almighty brought Abraham forth abroad and said — 
 " Look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to 
 number them ;" and he said unto him, " So shall thy seed 
 be." Again he said, " I will multiply thy seed as the stars 
 of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore." 
 
 Long afterwards, Jeremiah uses similar language, saying — 
 " As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand 
 of the sea measured ; so will I multiply the seed of David." The 
 same metaphor is used again in the book of Nehemiah and in 
 the epistle to the Hebrews ; showing that it was a favorite one 
 with the sacred writers. 
 
358 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 Now you will observe, in all these passages, that the Bible 
 speaks of the stars precisely as modern science speaks of 
 them : that is, as innumerable, multitudinous as the sands 
 of the sea-shore. But how did the sacred writers know 
 without the telescope, that the stars were numberless like 
 the grains of sand ? Would we have known it without the teles- 
 cope ? Did the world in fact know it before there was any tel- 
 escope ? The ancient catalogues of Hipparchus and Ptolemy 
 set down the whole number of the stars, at one thousand and 
 twenty-six. And our own astronomers tell us, that in the 
 clearest night, the naked eye can see only eleven hundred 
 and sixty, whilst all that are visible to one watching all night 
 at the equator, only amount to about three thousand. Are 
 we then to suppose the Almighty to promise Abraham, merely 
 that his posterity should equal in multitude, the one thousand 
 stars, more or less, which he could see and count in a clear 
 night ? If so, how would such a figure comport with the idea 
 of a great nation, in which all other nations should be blest ? 
 And if so, how could he associate this limited number of the 
 stars, with the countless sands of the sea-shore ? If his seed 
 should be like the stars and like the sands in number ; then 
 must not the stars be numberless like the sands ? Things that 
 are equal to the same you know are equal to one another. — 
 Whether Abraham drew that conclusion or not, that con- 
 clusion is legitimate. 
 
 Thus, you see, we are shut up to the necessity of either gran- 
 ting to the sacred writers a knowledge of the stars, such as the 
 telescope alone has revealed to us, or ascribing to their words 
 a higher import than they did themselves. In either case, whe- 
 ther Abraham and Jeremiah knew, by logical inference from 
 these Divine visions, and knew for the first time, that the 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 359 
 
 stars like the sands were innumerable ; or whether these words 
 of the Almighty, intentionally and prophetically comprehended 
 this idea of innumerability without their comprehending it — be it 
 either way, we do not see how any man can resist the convic- 
 tion, that the book is an inspired revelation from God. If this 
 is not a demonstration of its truth, we are at a loss to know 
 what would constitute a demonstration. If this is not a demon- 
 stration, we should like to know where the demonstration 
 fails. 
 
 Is it objected that, by a kind of optical illusion, the stars 
 appear innumerable, even to us, as they do to every casual 
 and superficial observer who has not watched them nightly ; 
 and hence it was natural for the Bible to speak of them as it 
 does of the sand, according to appearances ? The answer is, 
 that we cannot suppose Abraham or Moses to have been either a 
 casual or superficial observer. Living as they did in the age of 
 " astrologers and star-gazers and prognosticators," living so 
 much and so long in the open air, and leading a shepherd's life, 
 we cannot suppose them ignorant of that astrology which con- 
 stituted the chief study and the most ancient science of Egypt 
 and Chaldea, and indeed of the whole nomadic world. With 
 the names, places, motions and apparent numbers of the stars, 
 they must have been almost as familiar as with the sheep of 
 their flocks and the servants of their households. And yet, 
 by comparing the stars to the sands, they have indicated a 
 series, whose limit for multitude, neither the telescope nor the 
 calculus of our astronomy has yet been able to reach. 
 
 But to conclude these illustrations, is it not wonderful, infin- 
 itely wonderful, that ever since the days of Abraham, this book 
 should have spoken of the stars, in a language which, while it 
 has been more or less intelligible to all the intervening ages, is 
 
360 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 most intelligible to this age of astronomers — this age whose 
 sky-compelling telescopes, stretching away into the depths of 
 immensity, far as an angel's flight, have made all the nebulae of 
 night to swarm with new worlds, until we behold a starry uni- 
 verse upon which, if numbers can be written at all, they are 
 numbers beyond all human computation ? In view of such won- 
 drous revelations of science and the Bible, may we not with 
 reverence even apply to this subject, the words of an apostle 
 when speaking of the sufferings and glory of Christ ? That these 
 holy men of old, searched what, or what manner of time, the 
 spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified 
 beforehand of these things, and the glory that should follow. 
 In both cases, it would seem they spoke by revelation, they 
 spoke prophetically ; and they sought diligently to know, 
 without even finding out, the full extent of their own words. 
 
 Such then is the Bible in its relation to the sciences, both 
 moral and natural. We have seen how it contains all the fun- 
 damental facts and principles of Theological and Ethical sci- 
 ence. We have seen how it furnishes the best materials for all 
 Legislative and Psychological science. We have seen, also, 
 how it stands related to the modern physical sciences — silent 
 as to all their theories, adjusting itself to all their discoveries, 
 recording their phenomena as they appear to the senses, and in 
 certain pregnant expressions, seeming to anticipate many of 
 their most sublime and wonderful results. Such, and so glo- 
 rious, is the science of the Bible. 
 
 This characteristic of the Bible, has indeed attracted the 
 notice of some of our scientific writers of the very highest 
 authority, who have given illustrations of it in their pages. 
 
 Lieutenant Maury, in his popular work, '' The Physical Geo 
 graphy of the Sea," has the following passage — 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 361 
 
 " The Bible frequently makes allusion to the laws of nature, 
 their operation and effects. But such allusions are often so 
 wrapped in the folds of the peculiar and graceful drapery with 
 which its language is occasionally clothed, that the meaning, 
 though peeping out from its thin covering all the while, yet lies 
 in some sense, concealed, until the lights and revelations of 
 Bcience are thrown upon it ; then it bursts out and strikes us 
 with the more force and beauty. As our knowledge of nature 
 and her laws is increased, has our understanding of many pas- 
 sages in the Bible been improved. The Bible called the earth 
 ' the round world ;' yet for ages it was the most damnable 
 heresy, for Christian men to say the world is round : and finally 
 sailors circumnavigated the globe, proved the Bible to be right, 
 and saved Christian men of science from the stake. * Can'st 
 thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades V Astronomers of the 
 present day, if they have not answered this question, have 
 thrown so much light upon it as to show, that if ever it be 
 answered by man, he must consult the science of astronomy. 
 It has been recently all but proved, that the earth and the sun, 
 with their splendid retinue of comets, satellites and planets, are 
 all in motion around some point or centre of attraction incon- 
 ceivably remote, and that that point is in the direction of the 
 star Alcyon, one of the Pleiades. Who but the astronomer 
 then could tell their sweet influences ? And as for the general 
 system of atmospherical circulation which I have been so long 
 endeavoring to describe, the Bible tells it all in a single sen- 
 tence, ' The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about 
 uuto the north, it whirleth about continually, and the wind 
 returneth again according to his circuits !' " 
 
 To this we may also add the high authority of Professor 
 Dana, in his admirable article on " Science and the Bible" in a 
 
 16 
 
362 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 recent number of the Bibliotheca Sacra. Speaking of the 
 Mosaic account of the creation, he says, " The first thought 
 that strikes the scientific reader is the evidence of Divinity, not 
 merely in the first verse of the record, and the successive fiats, 
 but in the whole order of creation. There is so much that the 
 most recent readings of science have for the first time explained, 
 that the idea of man as the author becomes utterly incompre- 
 hensible. By proving the record true, science pronounces it 
 divine ; for who could have correctly narrated the secrets of 
 eternity but God himself." 
 
 Amongst other illustrations showing how an infinite mind 
 must have guided the pen of the sacred writer, he remarks, 
 " Man again would never have separated the creation of light 
 so far from that of the sun, to us the source of light ; neither 
 would he have conceived of the creation of the firmament, as 
 that word is usually understood, and was understood by the 
 Jews, without the stars as a part of its decoration. Moreover 
 there is a sublimity and system in the arrangement, and a far- 
 reaching prophecy, to which philosophy could not have attained, 
 however instructed." 
 
 Hugh Miller and others have spoken of the " Geologic Pro- 
 phecies," referring to those typical forms which, in an ever 
 ascending scale, ran through all the creations of animal life prior 
 to man's existence, and, as " shadows of better things to come," 
 heralded and prepared the way before him. The thought is a 
 grand one. But it is manifest, that these Geological Prophecies 
 have waited long for an interpreter. However true, or intelli- 
 gibly written upon the rocks, they have, in fact, been hidden 
 from man through all past ages, and as it were, laid by for the 
 special reading and exposition of the science of these latter 
 days. Precisely so has it been, with these other Prophecies— 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 363 
 
 * 
 
 these latent scientific prophecies or anticipations of the word 
 of God, of which wo have been speaking, which seem to have 
 been so deeply imbedded in the sacred text, that the world has 
 not seen them hitherto, nor indeed could see them now, were it 
 not that our advancing science is revealing them. The Geo- 
 logic Prophecies, though they might have been read, could not 
 be understood till the fullness of the time had come. And it is 
 only as the fullness of the time comes, in the brighter light of 
 increasing scientific knowledge, that these grand old oracles of 
 the Bible, so apparently simple but so marvellously pregnant 
 with meaning, stand forth at once cleared of all erroneous 
 human glosses, and vindicated as the inspired testimonies of 
 Jehovah. For long ages interpreted wrong, for other ages 
 perhaps not interpreted at all, they come at last to the fullness 
 of time, and find a true interpreter in a true science, and are at 
 once known and read of all men, the more sublime and beauti- 
 ful because they have been so long unrevealed. 
 
 VII. THE SAGES OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 But who, you may be ready to ask, are the sages of the 
 Bible ? We answer, all its writers ; the forty authors of its 
 sixty-six different books are its sages, its wise men, its philoso- 
 phers, although they have not boasted of the title. There is no 
 one of them who is not more worthy of the name of sage, than 
 any of the wise men of Greece, or the philosophers of Rome. 
 To have WTitten and published in Greece or Rome, any one of 
 these sixty-six treatises which make up the Bible, would have 
 immortalized Solon or Lycurgus, Aristotle or Plato, Socrates or 
 Xenophon, Seneca or Cicero, Tacitus or Pliny. And if the 
 
364^ SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 authorship of a single one of the larger books could now bo 
 traced to the greatest of the classical writers, it is but little 
 to say that it would more than double his present fame as a 
 sage and philosopher. 
 
 There is, however, a distinction here, among the sacred wri- 
 ters. Moses is the great sage of jurisprudence and legislative 
 science, standing^ in that department without a rival, at the head 
 of the list. But Paul is just as great in another department ; 
 standing as the unrivalled master of all theological learning. In 
 ethics, Solomon stands confessedly at the head, as the great moral 
 preacher and sage of the Old Testament : whilst in all that re- 
 lates to the science of the soul, including its ethics, the sayings of 
 Christ in the New Testament, reported by his followers, like 
 those of Socrates, have given us more light than all the oracles 
 of all the world besides. Tliese four, Moses, Paul, Solomon 
 and Jesus, stand respectively as the representatives of those 
 four great branches of moral science, jurisprudence, theology, 
 ethics and psychology, on which the Bible has spoken out with 
 the authoritative voice of a teacher come from God. And what 
 Milton has ascribed to them in one of these departments, is 
 true of them and of their fellow teachers, in all the rest. 
 
 " As men divinely taught, and better teaching 
 The solid rules of civil government. 
 In their majestic, unaffected style, 
 Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. 
 In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt, 
 What makes a nation happy and keeps it so." 
 
 In physical science, which, as we have seen, the Bible does 
 not profess to teach, although it has recorded facts and descrip- 
 tions of universal nature, true to life, the palm of wisdom is 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 365 
 
 divided between Job, David and Solomon. Each was a keen 
 observer of nature. Each had an eye to admire and a heart to 
 feel its grandeur and beauty. Each seems to have held daily 
 and nightly communion with it. And each has given us admir- 
 able descriptions, drawn from the scenery of the earth and hea- 
 vens. 
 
 For instance, did you ever read attentively the hundred and 
 fourth Psalm, where the writer winds up a description of univer- 
 sal nature, animate and inanimate, with the exclamation : " 
 Lord, how manifold are thy works ! in wisdom hast thou made 
 them all I" Even Humboldt, one of the least evangelical of all 
 the great names of modern science, could not fail to admire it. 
 Pronouncing it a picture of the entire Cosmos, he says : '' We 
 are astonished to find, in a lyrical poem of such a limited com- 
 pass, the whole universe — the heavens and the earth — sketched 
 with a few bold touches." 
 
 Did you ever read attentively the twenty-eighth chapter of 
 Job, where, to everything in the earth, and under the earth, 
 and above the earth, he puts that sublime question, which can 
 find no response in the universe except in God : "Whence Com- 
 eth wisdom, and where is the place of understanding ?" Read 
 it again and say, if any recorded saying of Socrates or any of 
 the Grecian sages, is half so memorable or half so graphic, as 
 the closing answer of the Almighty : " Behold I the fear of the 
 Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from evil is understand- 
 ing." 
 
 As for Solomon, he has a double title to the name of sage. 
 He was at once the great moral philosopher and the great natu- 
 ralist of bis times. Hear what the sacred historian says of him. 
 *' And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding 
 much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the 
 
366 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 sea-sliore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all 
 the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt, 
 For he was wiser than all men : and his fame was in all nations 
 round about. And he spake three thousand proverbs ; and his 
 songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the 
 cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hysop that spring- 
 eth out of the wall : he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and 
 of creeping things, and of fishes." Or, as the same things would 
 be expressed in the language of our times, he was a botanist, 
 zoologist, ornithologist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. He 
 was, however, as truly a naturalist, and a sage of learning and 
 wisdom, as he would have been with these high-sounding titles 
 to his name ; and we must not allow the simple language of the 
 Bible to detract from our estimate of the real greatness of its 
 characters. 
 
 Enough has been said to show that tlxc writers of the Bible 
 deserve the title of sage : enough also to show what sort of 
 science is in the Bible, and what is not there. Be it much, or 
 be it little, there is something else there — something nobler, 
 something holier than any human science, which has made it 
 the most attractive of all books, to the most scientific minds. 
 There is something in it which at once separates and distinguishes 
 it from every other book. For, as beautifully remarked by Dr. 
 Hamilton, " the Bible, like Tabor, is a ' mountain apart ;' 
 isolated, unique, peculiar ; and the farther up you get — the 
 more acquainted you become with human books, and the more, 
 alongside of them, you study the book of God — the more 
 amazed will you be at its outstanding elevation, its world-topping 
 preeminence." 
 
 The greatest names that modern science can boast, from 
 Bacon and Locke, Leibnitz and Newton, Pascal and Linnaeus, 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 367 
 
 to Davy and Herschel, Cuvier, Brewster and Miller, have yield- 
 ed their profoundest homage to the Bible. It has been recent- 
 ly stated, on good authority, that amongst all the scientific men 
 of our country now living, there is scarcely one of the first rank 
 who could be set down as an atheist or infidel. And on the 
 other side of the water, however it may be with the science of 
 Continental Europe, we think it will be found, that all the 
 greatest living lights of the British Isles may be fairly ranged 
 on the side of Christianity and the Bible. 
 
 As for the future, although it is the destiny of science to 
 make endless progress, while the Bible, as containing a com- 
 pleted revelation, must ever stand by its ancient landmarks, we 
 have no fear, that science and the Bible will ever clash. Our 
 confidence in their ultimate and eternal harmony is grounded 
 on the conviction, that they are ordained of God, each in its 
 proper sphere, to be a revelation of his will to man. The ex- 
 pounder of science and the expounder of the Bible ought to feel 
 that they are brothers and co-workers. The one ought to feel, 
 that he has as much at stake, in making his established facts 
 harmonize with the book of God, as the other has, in so inter- 
 preting that book as to reconcile it with the progress of science. 
 And whenever there is an apparent discrepancy, as there has 
 often been, the presumption on both sides ought to be, for it is 
 a presumption justified by all past experience, not that there is 
 a conflict of facts, but a conflict of interpretations and opinions. 
 
 We have no sympathy with those on the one side, any more 
 than with those on the other, who are accustomed to represent 
 the two great record books of God as being in conflict, or likely 
 to become so, in their established facts. There are two Testa- 
 ments in the Bible — an earlier and a later one — and we are very 
 sure that they speak the truth — the same harmonious truth, to 
 
368 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 all who will read and interpret them aright. And if God has 
 also graven another still earlier testimony in the rocks, we are 
 very sure that this also will speak the truth to all who read 
 and interpret it aright. But as fallible man may give, and 
 often has given, a wrong interpretation both to the written and 
 the rocky records, it is the great work and duty of all the 
 friends of truth on every side, to compare these records faith- 
 fully, to read them in the light of each other, and to interpret 
 and expound the one by the other, even as we do the Old Testa- 
 ment by the New, and vice versa. 
 
 The great Bacon, father of our inductive philosophy, was 
 willing to read and to recognize both books — the book of reve- 
 lation and the book of nature, as the two grand Scriptures of 
 God. But the great Bacon, in his day, had access to only one 
 Testament of the book of nature — the New Testament so to 
 speak of the living world around him. It has been reserved to 
 modern geology to bring to light an older dispensation — to un- 
 fold from the rocks and read to us what may be called the Old 
 Testament of the book of nature, "ut tanquam altera Scrip- 
 tura." 
 
 Let us then receive the records of God wherever he has 
 written them, not fearing that the great Author of nature and 
 of the Bible has contradicted himself, or that one of his books 
 can suffer damage from the reading of the other. "The two 
 records," remarks Professor Dana, " the earlier revelation and 
 the later, are one in their sublime enunciations of the history of 
 creation. There is a like grandeur in the progress of the ages. 
 They both contain conceptions infinitely beyond the reach of 
 the human intellect, and bear equal evidence of their divine 
 origin. * The grand old book of God still stands,' and this 
 old earth, the more its leaves are turned over and pondered; 
 
OF THE BIBLE. SG9 
 
 the more will it sustain, enlighten, and illustrate the sacred 
 word. The two are independent inscriptions, written in lines 
 of light by the same sun of righteousness, and the more deeply 
 they are studied and loved for their truths, the higher may we 
 rise towards the eflfalgence of their eternal source." 
 
 Such is the noble testimony of science, as expounded by one 
 of her most worthy representatives on this side of the water. 
 And most nobly does theology respond to the sentiment, from 
 the other side, by one of the most accomplished of her living 
 expounders. " Science," says Dr. McCosh, " has a foundation, 
 and so has religion ; let them unite their foundations, and the 
 basis will be broader, and there will be tvyo compartments of 
 one great fabric reared to the glory of God. Let the one be 
 the outer, and the other the inner court. In the one let all 
 look, and admire, and adore ; and in the other let those who 
 have faith kneel, and pray, and praise. Let the one be the 
 Sanctuary, where human learning may present its richest in- 
 cense as an offering to God, and the other, the Holiest of all, 
 separated from it by a veil now rent in twain, and in which on 
 a blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, we pour out the love of a recon- 
 ciled heart, and hear the oracles of the living God." 
 
 And what need we say more ? The great Newton, after 
 expounding the laws of the material universe, closed the labors 
 of his life in expounding the chronology of the book of God. 
 And how many in every age — -the masters of art and eloquence, 
 the laurel-crowned princes of science and literature — have come, 
 like him, to this book, that they might learn their last lessons 
 of celestial wisdom at the feet of Jesus ! " Newton," says 
 GilfiUan, " laid not his dying head on his Principia, but on his 
 Bible ; Cowper, not on his Task, but on his Testament : Hall, 
 not on his wide fame, but on his humble hope ; Michael AngelO; 
 
 16* 
 
370 SCIENCE AND THE SAGES 
 
 not on that pencil which alone coped with the Judgment, but 
 on that grace which for him, shore the Judgment of its terrors : 
 Coleridge, not on his limitless genius, but on the mercy of God. 
 Often must the wanderer, amid American forests, lay his head 
 upon a rude log, while above it is the abyss of the stars. Thus 
 the weary, heavy-laden, dying Christian leans upon the rugged 
 and narrow cross, but looks up, the while, to the beaming cauo 
 py of immortal life — to those things which are above." So 
 may we at last, cling to the Bible and lean upon Christ and 
 his cross, as our sublimest science. 
 
 For in whatever light we survey the subject, whether of his- 
 tory, philosophy, or experience, we feel all the force of the 
 conclusion, brought out with such power by the author of that 
 great work, " The Knowledge of God," — a work which is itself 
 a demonstration of the true science of the Bible, and an imper- 
 ishable monument to the genius and learning of our country — 
 " If these Scriptures are not the product of a superhuman 
 intelligence, it requires a superhuman intelligence to determine 
 what they are the product of." 
 
 Should all the forms that men devise 
 Assault my faith with treacherous art, 
 I'll call them vanity and lies 
 And bind the Bible to my heart. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 371 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ORIGIML CONCEPTIONS; OR, OBJECTS OF SUBLLMITY 
 AND BEAUTY, IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 The Divine Existence — The Providence of God — The Personal Character of Christ— 
 The Idea of Special Divine Influence — The Church of God— The Common Brother- 
 hood of Man — The Day of Sacred Rest — The Millennium — The Kesurection of th« 
 Dead— The Last Judgment— The Heavenly World— The Scheme of Redemption- 
 Recapitulation and Conclusion. 
 
 In order to form a proper estimate of the Bible as a book of 
 taste aud genius, we have been led to survey its literary and 
 scientific characteristics — its wide range of history and its sin- 
 gularly diversified biographical characters. The subject is not 
 yet exhausted. There is one distinct and important field which 
 has not yet fallen under our review. There is one train of 
 thought which, through all these illustrations, has been con- 
 stantly presenting itself to the mind's eye from a distance, 
 which deserves now to be brought more fully into view. It is 
 so rich in the choicest fruits of literature, so adorned with all 
 that goes to make up a landscape of surpassing glory, that it 
 may be taken as the subject of a separate investigation. It is 
 a survey of the great orginal conceptions of the Bible, regard- 
 ed simply as objects of intellectual beauty and of moral 
 grandeur, which we here propose. 
 
 Our purpose is to single out from the mass of facts and doe- 
 
372 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 trines revealed in the Bible, certain leading ideas, which every 
 where pervade the book as its own peculiar and original dis- 
 coveries ; and to look at these ideas, not now as matters of fact, 
 viewed from the stand-point of theological truth and duty, 
 but simply as matters of thought viewed from the stand-point of 
 intellectual and moral beauty — that beauty indeed which even 
 if they were false, would still belong to them, as the most won- 
 derful and original conceptions of the human mind. 
 
 To every thoughtful reader of the Bible it is apparent, that 
 there are certain great fundamental principles, or doctrines of a 
 general character, which belong so exclusively to the book, that 
 they may be called its special property, its original sterling 
 stock of thought. Though now incorporated as part and par- 
 cel of the learning of the whole civilized world, to such an 
 extent that the world often forgets from what quarter they came, 
 still these conceptions are all to be traced to the Bible as their 
 native home. For it will be found, that where the Bible has 
 borrowed one great thought from the literature of the ancient 
 world, it has loaned a thousand to that of the modern. Old 
 and familiar as they are to us, they were new when the Bible 
 struck them out. 
 
 Now, many of these great leading ideas which distinguish the 
 Bible from all other books, are, at the same time, so marked 
 with the elements of the sublime and beautiful, that they can- 
 not fail to constitute a very high attraction to those who are 
 capable of appreciating such things. Hence, among the mani- 
 fold attractions of the book of God, we would assign a place — 
 and no inferior place — to its grand conceptions or in other words 
 its objects of intellectual and moral beauty. It is our present 
 purpose to present, in connection, some of these peculiar revela- 
 tions of the Scriptures. For we think, that aside from their 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 373 
 
 higher claims as Divine eternal truths, there are to be found 
 here, even on the lower ground of classical beauty, revelations 
 of glory, and scenes of loveliness, and heights of grandeur, and 
 flashes of immortal light, far exceeding all other discoveries and 
 conceptions of human genius. So that, if a man love to dwell 
 in the regions of lofty thought, to soar into the third heaven of 
 imagination, to rise from the seen and temporal to the unseen 
 and eternal, if he have a soul, whose high conceptions may be 
 kindled and dilated by the contemplation of all that is most 
 beautiful in nature, most sublime in science, most noble in action, 
 most Godlike in holiness and virtue — this is the book for him, 
 the book that first opens a new world of wonder within us, 
 and then opens to us a clear vision into the future and eternal 
 world. 
 
 There is a voice here which seems to call from heaven, like 
 the angel of the Apocalypse, saying " Come up hither, and I 
 will show thee things to come." There were good things to be 
 found in Nazareth, notwithstanding the prejudices of the good 
 Nathaniel. But said the Master, " Thou shalt see greater 
 things than these, when thou shalt see heaven open, and the 
 angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man.'' 
 The traveller, you know, who would command a wide and glorious 
 horizon, must ascend the mountain-top : if he would enjoy a 
 vision of transcendent loveliness and grandeur, he must toil for 
 it, he must climb the very crags of the mountains ; and the 
 higher he climbs the wider will be his field of vision. Even 
 so is it in that spiritual world which the Bible reveals. Let us 
 then endeavor to ascend these glorious heights. Let us rise 
 from facts to principles, from the concrete and particular to the 
 abstract and the universal, from the liv ng historical characters 
 that everywhere adorn the inspired pages, to those grand^ 
 
374 ORIGINAL conceptions; or, 
 
 ennobling, conceptions of eternal truth, which made the men^ 
 women, and children of the Bible what they were ; which con- 
 stituted their manna from heaven — that daily ambrosial food on 
 which their immortal spirits fed even while dwelling in the 
 tabernacles of clay. 
 
 The world, it is said, is governed by ideas. Assuredly there 
 is nothing in the world more important and influential than a 
 great idea : for its destiny is to work itself out in the great 
 facts and grand events of history. A great idea, in full pos- 
 session of a single mind, for instance the idea that struggled so 
 long for birth in the mind of Columbus, is a great gain to the 
 world. How much more, when such an idea takes posses- 
 sion of the public mind of a nation, a generation or the race of 
 man I Now if it shall be shown, that the world is indebted to 
 the Bible for more of its grand, inspiring ideas — ideas having 
 power both to absorb its thought and control its destiny — than 
 to any other source, who will say, that the Bible does not there- 
 by fully vindicate its claim to supremacy, not only as man^s 
 greatest classic, but as God's own inspired oracle ? 
 
 I. — ^THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 
 
 As the first illustration of this moral sublimity let us take 
 tlie idea of God, as he is made known in the Bible ; that, is the 
 twofold idea of the Divine existence and the Divine character, 
 the conception of a personal, reigning, all-pervading Deity, the 
 omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Jehovah, creating and up- 
 holding all things by the fiat of his will and the word of his power, 
 existing in himself from eternity to eternity, without beginning 
 and without end — the infinitely wise, the infinitely good, the infin- 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITT AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 376 
 
 itely holy — " God over all, blessed forever." Although the Scrip- 
 tures have themselves made the unanswerable challenge, " Cau'st 
 thou by searching find out God? Can'st thou find out the Almighty 
 into perfection ?" still no idea can be more distinct, consistent and 
 intelligible, than that which the Scriptures have everywhere given 
 of the Divine character. Throughout the book from beginning to 
 end, it is the same sublime conception of the self existent, infini- 
 tely perfect God, as announced by Paul on Mars Hill, " God 
 that made the world and all things therein, dwelleth not in 
 temples made with hands, seeing he is Lord of all," or as pro- 
 claimed by the prophet, " Heaven is my throne and the earth 
 my footstool," or as affirmed by the Saviour, " God is a spirit, 
 and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in 
 truth." In every page, in every line, in every manifestation, it 
 is the same august and awful idea, without a likeness or a 
 counterpart in anything else on earth or in heaven, of a pure 
 personal spirit, as expressed in the creed of the church, "infinite, 
 eternal, and unchangeable in his being, power, wisdom, holi- 
 ness, justice, goodness and truth." 
 
 This, you will say, is the one, clear idea of the God of the 
 Bible — the unsearchable, the unapproachable object of the 
 homage and adoration of the whole rational and moral universe. 
 Now compare this conception of God, with any other idea of a 
 Deity, not derived from the Scriptures, which has ever ap- 
 peared in the literature of the world, ancient or modern. The 
 Koran of Mohammed is out of the question ; for w^hatever it 
 contains, either of truth or sublimity, was stolen from the Scrip- 
 tures. The North American Indians could talk of a " Great 
 Spirit ;" but perhaps with no higher conceptions, than of an 
 Indian of like passions with themselves, built on a little larger 
 scale ; and it may be, that the name itself is all that, remains to 
 
376 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 tell of those primeval revelations which their ancestors had 
 received from the Go'i of the Bible before the dispersion of the 
 race at Babel. But compare the Scriptural idea of the 
 unsearchable and ever blessed God, " the God of glory," with 
 any conception of a Deity to be found in the mythology or 
 philosophy of the classical Greeks and Romans, or in the mon- 
 uments of Chaldean and Egyptian learning, or in the religious 
 books of the modern Pagan nations : and you will find, that the 
 difference between the two, in point of sublimity alone, not to 
 say truth aud reason, is somewhat akin to that which lies 
 between the world of the ancient astrologers and the universe 
 of modern astronomy. " The Bible," says Dr. Turner, "repre- 
 sents God as no mortal genius ever could, as no human intel- 
 lect, unblest by inspiration, ever did, or can. Hell is naked 
 before him — heaven is unfolded — all things are like nothing, 
 all things are nothing, when compared with him, the infinite 
 Maker." 
 
 It is safe to say, that the God of the Bible is the profoundest, 
 sublimest, most inspiring objegt of thought which the human in- 
 tellect has ever essayed to grasp. No one thought has taken so 
 deep a hold upon the human mind : no one theme has given it 
 so much healthful exercise : no one idea has done so much 
 to enlarge its calibre, and ennoble its aspirations. One of the 
 greatest statesmen of modern times, Mr. Webster, when re- 
 quested by a friend to name what he regarded as the most irn 
 portant thought that had ever entered his mind, after a solemn 
 pause, replied : " My accountability to God." And had he 
 been asked for the sublimesjt conception of the mind, would he 
 not have answered, " God himself?" 
 
 We are all so familiar, from our childhood, with the Scriptural 
 idea of God, it has become so incorporated with the literature 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 377 
 
 of the civilized world, that we often fail to appreciate its grand' 
 eur as an original conception, and its value as the highest of all 
 scientific truths. But suppose, that while blest with the know- 
 le<:lge of all other things, we could grow up to full maturity of 
 intellect in utter ignorance of the Scriptural idea of God — sup- 
 pose, that with the mental vigor of Socrates, the learning of 
 Cicero, the taste of Addison, the moral tone and enthusiasm of 
 Burke, we should receive, for the first time and all at once, the 
 full conception of the person and character of Jehovah as re- 
 vealed in the Bible — suppose, that thus endowed and prepared, 
 we could stand where Moses stood, in the clefts of Sinai's rocks, 
 whilst the visions of uncreated glory passed by, and a voice was 
 heard proclaiming, " The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long 
 suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. " — suppose we 
 could stand where Isaiah stood, see and hear what Isaiah saw 
 and heard, when the Lord sat upon his burning throne, and the 
 Seraphim cried one to another : *' Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! is the 
 Lord of hosts : the whole earth is full of his glory I" Suppose 
 we could stand with the seer of Patmos, amid the visions and 
 trumpets and thunders of the Apocalypse, and gaze in upon the 
 choirs of angels and redeemed ones, who cease not day nor 
 night to cast their glittering crowns before the throne, and 
 cry : " Great and marvelous are thy works. Lord God Al- 
 mighty ; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints !" — 
 how would all the images of earthly grandeur dwindle into in- 
 significance, how would all our loftiest conceptions of Divinity, 
 derived from Greek and Roman classics, sink into annihilation, 
 before such a vision and such a manifestation of the one living 
 and true God of the Bible, glorious in holiness, fearful in 
 praises, doing wonders, who spake and it was done, who com- 
 manded and it stood fast, at whose presence the perpetual hills 
 
378 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 did bow, before whose glance the everlasting mountains were 
 scattered, who said, ** Let there be light : and there was light." 
 
 The Bible is not only the revealer of the unknown God to 
 man, but his grand interpreter as the God of nature. In re- 
 vealing God, it has given us the key that unlocks the profound- 
 est mysteries of creation — the clue by which to thread the 
 labyrinth of the universe — the glass through which to look from 
 nature up to nature's Author. It is only when we stand and gaze 
 upon nature with the Bible in our hands and its idea of God in 
 our understandings, that nature is capable of rising to her high- 
 est majesty as the oracle and mouth-piece of God, of kindling in 
 our souls their highest emotions of moral beauty and sublimity. 
 Without the aU pervading spiritual God of the Bible in our 
 thoughts, nature's sweetest music would lose its charm — the 
 universe its highest significance and glory. It is just when we 
 stand and gaze upon the heavens and the earth, with God's 
 word as our interpreter, that the heavens and earth shine forth 
 with their divinest lustre — all nature vocal with God, all crea- 
 tures offering praise. 
 
 Go and stand, with your open Bible, upon the Areopagus of 
 Athens, where Paul stood so long ago : in thoughtful silence, 
 look around upon the site of all that ancient greatness : look 
 upward to those still bright and glorious skies of Greece ; and 
 what conceptions of wisdom and power will all those memorable 
 scenes of nature and art convey to your mind, now, more than 
 they did to an ancient worshipper of Jupiter or Apollo ? They 
 will tell of Him, who made the worlds, " by whom, and through 
 whom, and for whom, are all things." To you that landscape 
 of exceeding beauty, so rich in the monuments of departed gen- 
 ius, with its distant classic mountains, its deep blue sea, and its 
 bright bending skies, will be telling a tale of glory, the 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 379 
 
 Grecian never learned ; for it will speak to you, no more of its 
 thirty thousand petty contending deities, but of the one living 
 and everlasting God. 
 
 Go and stand with David and Isaiah under the star-spangled 
 canopy of the night, and, as you look away to the " range of 
 planetti, suns, and adamantine spheres, wheeling unshaken 
 through ^he void immense," take up the mighty questionings of 
 inspiration : " Who bath measured the waters in the holloa of 
 his hand, iind meted out heaven with the span, and compre- 
 hended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the 
 mountains in boales and the hills in a balance ? It is He that 
 sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof 
 are as grasshoppeifs ; that stretcheth out the heavens as a cur- 
 tain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." " Of old 
 hast thou laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are 
 the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt en- 
 dure : yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment ; as a ves- 
 ture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed : But 
 thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." 
 
 Go and stand upon the heights at Niagara : look upon that 
 " matchless robe of terror and of beauty," rolling on forever, 
 and as it rolls, " notching the centuries " in the everlasting 
 rocks : listen, in awe-struck silence, to that boldest, most earn- 
 est and eloquent of all nature's orators. And what is Niagara 
 with its plimging waters and its mighty roar ? It is but the 
 oracle of God. It is but the whisper of his voice, who is re- 
 vealed in the Bible, as sitting above the water-floods forever. 
 " The voice of the Lord is upon the waters : the God of glory 
 thundereth : the Lord is upon many waters : the voice of the 
 Lord is full of majesty." 
 
 Go with your Bible and stand upon the crumbling verge of 
 
380 ORIGINAL conceptions; ok, 
 
 the volcano. Look down into its awful crater as into the open 
 ing mouth of hell ; gaze upon its fierce, surging billows of 
 liquid fire ; hear its deep muttering thunders, ominous of the 
 coming explosion ; behold its red artillery plunging and plough- 
 ing down the mountain sides, its dense volume of smoke and 
 cinders, rising up as if to extinguish the sun ! And of whom 
 do JEtna and Vesuvius speak ? What are they but the symbols 
 of His presence, and the heralds of His wrath, who is yet to 
 arise in his majesty, " whose voice shook the earth, and shall 
 once more shake not only earth, but also heaven ?" What are 
 they but premonitors of that day wherein " the heavens being 
 on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
 heat, the earth also, and all the works that are therein shall be 
 burned up." 
 
 Go once more and stand with Coleridge, at sunrise, in the 
 Alpine valley of Chamouny ; join with him in that magnificent 
 invocation to the hoary mount, " sole sovereign of the vale," to 
 rise with all its streams, and groves, and cataracts, and ice- 
 fields — 
 
 " And tell the silent sky, 
 And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 
 Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God." 
 " God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations 
 Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God ! 
 God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice I 
 Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! 
 And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, 
 And in their perilous fall shall thunder God !" 
 
 Who can stand amid scenes like these, with the Bible in big 
 hands, and not feel, that if there is moral sublimity to be found 
 on earth, it is in the book of God, it is in the thought of God ? 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 381 
 
 For what are all these outward visible forms of grandeur, but 
 the expression and the utterance of that conception of Deity 
 which the Bible has created in our minds, and which has now 
 become the leading and the largest thought of all civilized 
 nations ? And what would these types and symbols be without 
 the Bible as God's interpreter ? 
 
 II. THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 
 
 As the second illustration of intellectual and moral grandeur 
 in the Bible, let us take the doctrine of Divine Providence, 
 including as it does, the idea of God's natural and moral govern- 
 ment over the world. We might have taken his work of crea- 
 tion — the calling into being out of nothing of all worlds and 
 creatures. This is a sublime exhibition of power, and a strik- 
 ing illustration of the superiority of the Scriptures over all other 
 books ; for, it is manifest, that no other account of the origin 
 of all things, not even the " development hypothesis," is half so 
 sublime, half so philosophical, as the Mosaic account. But 
 it is more to our present purpose, to take the Scriptural idea of 
 Divine Providence, as one of those great objects of thought, or 
 fundamental facts of revelation, whose contemplation is fitted 
 to inspire our minds with sentiments of the highest sublimity 
 and beauty. A God existing from all eternity is a sublime con- 
 ception. A God creating all things out of nothing is sublime 
 and glorious. But it is a God providing and governing all 
 things in infinite wisdom and goodness, after the counsel of his 
 own will, and for the furtherance of his own glory and his chil- 
 dren's well-being, that we are to contemplate, in the Scripture doc- 
 trine of eternal providence. It is a God, not afar off, reposing in 
 
382 OEIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 the distant places of the universe, but ever present with the least ag 
 with the greatest of his creatures ; foreseeing the end from the 
 beginning, everywhere educing good out of evil ; and whilst carry- 
 ing forward the vast machinery of countless worlds of animate and 
 inanimate beings, numbering the very hairs of our heads ; not suf- 
 fering a sparrow to fall to the ground except in fulfillment of his 
 everlasting decrees ; a God whose energetic will gives force to all 
 the laws of physical nature ; whose all-inspecting government 
 extends to every inhabitant of the material and moral uni- 
 verse. 
 
 " Who sees with equal eye as God of all 
 A hero perish and a sparrow fall : 
 Atoms and systems into ruin hurled, 
 And now a bubble burst, and now a world." 
 
 This sublime idea of infinite Intelligence and Power, filling 
 the throne of the universe, governing and guiding all its vastest 
 and minutest movements — the Deity in activity — is the concep- 
 tion of Divine Providence, which is everywhere unfolded to our 
 view in the Scriptures. " Thou God seest me " — " The Lord 
 will provide " — " The heavens do rule " — " The Lord reigncth " 
 — " The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men" — this is the 
 variously expressed, but constant thought of the sacred writers. 
 The great truth is well expressed in the decree of the king of 
 Babylon : " His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his 
 dominion endureth from generation to generation : all his works 
 are truth and all his ways judgment, and those that walk in 
 pride he is able to abase." But we need not multiply quota- 
 tions. You know how full the Bible is of this doctrine. Every 
 page of the sacred oracles either afiirms or exemplifies it : 
 and every chapter of human history confirms it. The Lord sit- 
 teth in the heavens as governor among the nations. "Tha 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 383 
 
 heart of man deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his 
 steps. 
 
 Now without stopping further to elucidate this great general 
 principle of the Bible, which we call Providence, or the moral 
 government of God, may we not affirm, that as an object of 
 contemplation, it possesses the highest attributes of sublimity and 
 beauty ? Where shall we find a wider fact ? Where shall we 
 find a more glorious conception ? Where shall we find a more 
 exalted study ? What is it, but the scheme of policy on which 
 the jurisprudence of the universe is administered ? What is it, 
 but the record book on which time is ever writing the fulfilled 
 decrees of Jehovah, and turning the facts of prophecy into those 
 of history ? What is it, but one vast, unending scroll, upon 
 whose opening leaves all the high and holy intelligences of hea- 
 ven are gazing with new wonder and ever growing delight ? 
 There is something sublime in the idea of a vast empire on earth, 
 like that of ancient Rome : something grand and imposing in 
 the scheme of its policy, the sweep of its history, the vigilant 
 providence of its government, the iron rigor of its authority. 
 But what is an earthly empire with all its provisions of wisdom 
 and power, to the universal and eternal government of God ? 
 
 And yet there have been men, who, while professing admira- 
 tion for the sublime and beautiful, have looked with iudiflferenco 
 or contempt upon the Bible, as a book of no attractions. But 
 is there nothing attractive and glorious in the idea of a govern- 
 ment so general as to embrace all created beings, and so parti- 
 cular as not to overlook or neglect the lowest link in " being's 
 endless chain" — a government moving on forever in perfect 
 equity, in unjarring harmony, with irresistible power, to the 
 consummation of its august and beneficent designs ? Surely it 
 would be hard to find the dwelling-place of moral grandeur, 
 
384 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 if there be no grandeur in the idea of Divine Providence. But 
 it is far different. The most gifted miuds that have adorned 
 the annals of modern literature, have found both beauty and 
 sublimity, as well as consolation and joy, in this great scrip- 
 tural truth : and many have brought the noblest powers of 
 genius to the elucidation of its profound mysteries, as they have 
 sat at the feet of Jesus, and joined in the invocation of Milton : 
 
 " What in me is dark 
 Illumine : what is low, raise and support; 
 That to the height of this great argument, 
 I may assert eternal Providence 
 And justify the ways of God to men." 
 
 III. THE PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 liet US pass now to a third illustration, of a different order ; 
 to contemplate an object of exquisite moral beauty. It is the 
 person and character of Jesus Christ — the Scriptural conception 
 of Immanuel, as revealed in the prophets and portrayed in the 
 New Testament. If there is any one thing in the Bible, which 
 comes to the world with all the glory of a new discovery, as 
 original as it is peculiar, it is the idea of immaculate virtue, 
 as embodied in the life and character of Jesus Christ. Whether 
 we read the prophets of the Old Testament or the evangelists 
 of the New, the conception of his person and character is the 
 same, shining out with all the distinctness of a living presence. 
 No character was ever drawn in bolder, clearer lines. No per- 
 sonage in human history stands forth more prominently to every 
 eye. Our idea of Socrates or Caesar, of Napoleon or Washing- 
 ton, for distinctness of outline and vividness of impression, can- 
 not be compared with that of Jesus. It is as transparent as 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND DPJAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 385 
 
 the light ; it is as uaiqae as it is transparent ; it is as radiant 
 with moral beauty and sublimity as it is original. And we may 
 safely say, there is no one thought in the intellect of the world 
 more definite — none which it has grasped with a stronger and 
 fonder hold — than this conception of the personal character of 
 the great founder of Christianity — Jesus the Son of man, Jesus 
 the Son of God. 
 
 Accordingly we fix upon this sublime impersonation of imma- 
 culate virtue — this incarnation of Divinity in a sinless humanity 
 — this living personal character of Jesus, as one of the chief 
 attractions of the book of God. There is no such example to 
 be found elsewhere in the history of men. There is no such 
 conception, thus embodied and exemplified, in any other book 
 of human literature. And if infidelity could prove that the 
 Bible is all a fable, and religion all a dream ; that no such per- 
 son as Jesus ever lived ; that the character is not real but ficti- 
 tious — a mere creation of enthusiasm and romance : still the 
 idea remains, the conception lives and can never die : it is there 
 in the book, and it is here all over the world, bright and glori- 
 ous like the light ; and even if it were a mere creation of 
 genius, it is beyond all comparison, the most sublime and 
 beautiful creation the world ever heheld. 
 
 In Jesus Christ we see reflected, as the moon reflects the 
 sunlight, all the virtues that can be conceived of, as adorning 
 the moral character of God. In his person we see Divine glory 
 equally blended with human perfection. As we can gaze upon 
 the sunlight with unblasted vision, when it comes to us from 
 the face of the full orb of night, so may we look upon the 
 bright beams of uncreated Divinity, as they shine with softened 
 effulgence from the face of Jesus Christ. All the lights of 
 celestial virtue beam forth in his character : all the glories of 
 
 17 
 
386 OEIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, • 
 
 Divinity and humanity cluster around his person. He is at once 
 the highest model of human excellence, and the brightest mani- 
 festation of Divine perfection, which the world has ever seen 
 exemplified in a living man. Nay, more, his character is the 
 highest conception of these assembled virtues which the human 
 mind has ever attained. It is all light without a shadow — all 
 beauty without a spot — all gold without alloy — combining in 
 one the peculiar virtues of both sexes, and all the essential 
 attributes of God and man. Well might the ancient prophet 
 describe him as " Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the 
 everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace." 
 
 In the whole history of his life and character on earth, as 
 given in the New Testament, there is such a beautiful blending 
 of Divinity with humanity — such an exact equilibrium between 
 all the circumstances of humility and grandeur — that the chal- 
 lenge may be safely made, " Prove him to be a man and we 
 will prove him to be God : or prove him to be a God, and we 
 will at once prove him a man." These circumstances, which 
 furnish one of the most touching and fruitful themes of pulpit 
 eloquence have been beautifully grouped together by Maclauriu 
 and other great preachers ; but perhaps by no one more strikingly 
 than by Dr. Baker, in the following passage : 
 
 *' See him at the grave of Lazarus ! He weeps like a man ; 
 and then with authority, says, Lazarus ! come forth ! like a 
 God. Approaching the barren fig-tree, he hungers, like a man ; 
 and then, with a word, withers the fig-tree away, like a God. 
 During a raging storm on the sea of Tiberias, he lay in the 
 hinder part of the ship with his head upon a pillow — he slept 
 like a man. Being called upon, he rose and rebuked the winds 
 and the sea, like a God. Having wrought a stupendous mira- 
 cle, he goes into a mountain apart to pray, like a man, and at 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 387 
 
 the fourth watch of the night he comes to his disciples, walking 
 upon the water, like a God. As a man he pays tribute money : 
 as a God he causes a fish to bring him the tribute money. 
 Nailed to the cross he suffers like a man. And vet in the 
 midst of his sufferings he opens the gates of paradise to the 
 dying thief like a God. In yonder sepulchre, the hope of 
 Israel, wrapt in the winding sheet, lies pale and cold in death, 
 like a man. But lo I in the morning of the third day, by his 
 own immortal energies, he burst the bars of death and rose 
 triumphant, like a God. After the resurrection, he meets his 
 disciples, takes a piece of broiled fish and of honeycomb and 
 eats with them as a man. He then leads them out to Bethany 
 and blesses them, and as he blesses them ascends in a cloud of 
 radiant majesty, far above all heavens, a God confessed ! God 
 is gone up with a shout ! The Lord with the sound of a trumpet.'^ 
 On whatever side we behold him, his character is new and 
 wonderful, unlike any other in history. As the Son of the Holy 
 One, incarnate, the brightness of the Father's glory, and the 
 express image of his person, there dwells in him " all the fullness 
 of the Godhead bodily," — he is God manifest in the flesh. As 
 the son of Man, born of a woman, there cluster around his 
 character all those lineaments of grace and gentleness and sym- 
 pathy, which make him a perfect exemplar to woman and help- 
 less childhood, as he is to ripened manhood. As the Saviour 
 of the world, the Prophet, Priest and King of human redemp- 
 tion, he possesses all the beauty and attractiveness of the most 
 complete adaptation to our wants and woes, as guilty, helpless 
 sinners. As a friend, brother and Redeemer, there is found in 
 him every attribute, every qualification that the soul of man 
 needs to atone for its guilt, and satisfy its longings after life 
 and immortality. And as a man, tabernacling amongst men for 
 
388 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 a season, we behold ia his life and character all those noble 
 traits of truth, justice, honor, wisdom, courage, integrity, forti- 
 tude, self-denial, and beneficence, which have made him a model 
 of absolute perfection to all nations and generations of men. 
 
 " Few and precious are the words which the lips of wisdom 
 utter ;" but when did wisdom ever utter such words of eloquence 
 and power as fell from the lips of him, who, on the testimony of 
 his foes, " spake as never man spake !" When did majesty ever 
 lay aside its robes, and stoop from its throne with such graceful 
 condescension and winning love, as when the Son of God preached 
 the Gospel to the poor, and listened to the cry of men of low 
 estate ? When did high, heroic courage, strong in the panoply 
 of truth and duty, ever march more steadily onward to its goal, 
 despite the opposition of earth and hell, than when Jesus of Naz- 
 areth gave his life for the salvation of the lost ? When did ben- 
 eficence, like an angel of mercy descending from the skies, ever 
 go forth on such a mission of good-will to the outcast and the 
 perishing, as when this man of sorrows, who had not where to 
 lay his liead, trod the hills of Judea and the valleys of Galilee, 
 in one long weary pilgrimage, to inaugurate charity among the 
 virtues, and teach the world what no philosopher had ever 
 taught, that "it is more blessed to give than to receive V 
 And when before did our humanity ever clothe itself in such 
 habiliments of celestial love and mercy, as when the sufferer of 
 Calvary poured forth that dying prayer : " Father, forgive them 
 they know not what they do ?" 
 
 " The founder of Christianity," says Dr. J. W. Alexander, 
 " stands forth in a character absolutely original and unique. 
 The attempt was never made to trace it to any foregoing exem- 
 plar. Neither history nor fiction approaches to anything which 
 could serve even as the germ of such a description. The pic- 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 3S9 
 
 ture is intensely and sublimely moral. With a reserve almost 
 without a parallel, there is not a touch or color thrown in, to 
 gratify even what might bo considered a reasonable curiosity. 
 Hence there is not a syllable respecting the outward figure, 
 countenance or demeanor of our Lord." 
 
 Whence came this extraordinary manifestation of living 
 character in the Son of Mary ! Or if, as skepticism would 
 suggest, it be not real, whence came this sublime conception of 
 character so far surpassing the highest ideal of the poets and 
 sages of ancient literature ? Was it from heaven or of men ? 
 If from heaven, then the character was real, and the wonder is 
 explained by the Divine origin of Christianity. But if of men, 
 who shall explain the mystery ? It is abundantly manifest, that 
 until infidelity can account for the phenomenon of the character 
 of Jesus, on grounds more satisfactory than those which derive 
 it from heaven, it must stand as it always has stood, a stiong 
 and unanswerable vindication of the truth of Christianity. Says 
 Dr. R. J. Breckenridge, in his admirable discourse on the Inter- 
 nal Evidence, " I do not see but that it is far more rational to 
 admit, with all the writers of the book, that the entire concep- 
 tion they all had of the Son of God, was divinely communicated 
 to them, than to suppose that any one of them could have 
 originated and developed such a conception, much less that all 
 of them could have wrought upon that glorious composition, 
 each in a manner working out what the rest had left unfinished, 
 and that the perfect work should have been what we now behold 
 it. The entire idea of Jesus of Nazereth, taken as a whole, is 
 as much superhuman as the alleged manner of his birth ; 
 and the working out of that idea is as miraculous as the incar- 
 nation." 
 
 Is there no charm then in a character like this ? Shall men 
 
890 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 admire, and weep over, the renl or imaginary heroes of history 
 and romance, and yet find nothing beautiful in the history, 
 sublime in the virtue, and godlike in the character of Jesus of 
 Nazareth ? Has any poet or novelist ever painted an ideal of 
 such perfection, or told a story of such tender and tragic inter- 
 est ? And shall we be told, that the book which has given 
 the world this narrative, and originated this unique and bril- 
 liant conception, is not worthy to occupy the front rank of sub- 
 limity and genius in the literature of the world? Infidelity 
 itself has bowed in admiring homage before the superior lustre 
 of the life of Christ, and by the lips of Rousseau, has virtually 
 confessed that there is a Divine inspiration in the book. " It is 
 impossible," says he, " to rise from the reading of it (the Gos- 
 pel), without feeling a moral improvement. Look at the books 
 of the philosophers with all their pomp : how little they are, 
 compared with this ! Shall we say, that the history of the 
 Gospel is a pure fiction ? This is not the style of fiction ; and 
 the history of Socrates, which nobody doubts, rests upon less 
 evidence than that of Jesus Christ. And after all, this is but 
 shifting the difficulty, not answering it. The supposition that 
 several persons had united to fabricate this book is more incon- 
 ceivable than that one person should have supplied the subject 
 of it. The spirit which it breathes, the morality which it incul- 
 cates, could never have been the invention of Jewish authors : 
 and the Gospel possesses characters of truth so striking, so 
 perfectly inimitable, that the inventor would be a more aston- 
 ishing object than the hero." 
 
 But perhaps some one may say, " I do not see the fitness of 
 this high eulogy on the Gospel, in its delineation of character. 
 The character of Jesus is indeed original and beautiful, but are 
 there not also original and beautiful descriptions of character 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 391 
 
 iu Milton, in Shakspeare, in Walter Scott, and other great 
 masters of the art of writing ?" Certainly : but as the perfec- 
 tion of all art is to conceal the art by which it is done, so that 
 it shall appear to be nothing but nature itself, the wonder here 
 is, how men who had no learning, and are known to have had 
 no experience in the art of writing, could have reached its per- 
 fection so completely, as the Evangelists. The highest of all 
 attainments in the art of delineation, as a recent critic well re- 
 marks — historic, poetic and dramatic delineation — is to set the 
 character before us, without describing it at all, except by its 
 deeds — just to set it in motion and let it act ; and so speak for 
 itself, without note or comment from the writer. The easiest of 
 all modes, and the least masterly, is the modern fashion of pea- 
 painting adopted by our novelists, who compensate for deeds in 
 the hero, by their own words of description, without which we 
 should hardly know the character. The next lowest method is 
 to set the persons to talking — talking to each other iu dialogue, 
 or to themselves in soliloquy or to some imaginary third person 
 — and so revealing what is in them — what they have done or 
 can do. The highest and most difficult of all methods is that 
 of letting the outward actions of the life tell the inward story 
 of the character. And that is the one adopted by all the 
 sacred writers, especially by those who have set forth the charac- 
 ter of Jesus. Who will say it was ever surpassed, or even 
 equalled ? Whence this perfection ? The wonder is not 
 merely, how the Evangelists could invent such a character as 
 that of Jesus, but in case no original was before them, or even 
 supposing there was, how they, unlettered, unartistic Jews, 
 could describe it as they have done — by leaving it alone, to 
 live and move, and teach and pray, and die, without one word 
 of eulogy from them. 
 
392 OKIGINAL conceptions; or, 
 
 IV. THE IDEA OF SPECIAL DIVINE INFLUENCE. 
 
 Our next illustration of moral beauty, revealed in the Scrip* 
 tures, may be taken from the work ascribed to the agency of 
 the Divine Spirit in the hearts of men. No reader of the Old 
 Testament or the New can fail to see what prominence this 
 great fact everywhere holds. It is one of the widest, most 
 important, and most extraordinary facts of the book. The con- 
 ception, of a special Divine inspiration, illumination, influence, 
 agency, or whatever it may be named, is before us on every 
 page. Besides the idea of a universal Divine Providence con- 
 stantly exerting itself over the world, the Scriptures are full of 
 another grand idea of like character — even that of an influence 
 from God, direct and powerful, in the minds of men. The 
 Scriptures uniformly refer their own existence to this agency. 
 The sacred writers invariably ascribe all that is good in them- 
 selves, and all the moral good in the world, to this exalted 
 source. The doctrine of Divine Providence is not more clearly 
 revealed, than this great truth of special Divine influence. 
 There are manifold forms of it — diversities of gifts, diversities 
 of operations, differences of administrations — but in all, it is one 
 and the same agency, whether called the Spirit, or the Com- 
 forter, or the Holy Ghost, or the inspiration of the Almighty. 
 To this influence, as the fountain-head, the Bible traces all the 
 streams of Divine truth and grace and holiness that have ever 
 flowed down into our apostate world. To this influence, as the 
 efficient producing cause, the Bible refers all the phenomena of 
 moral renovation and spiritual life that have ever been exhibit- 
 ed in human character. All the inspired revelations of Divine 
 truth that make up the canon of Scripture ; all the mani- 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 393 
 
 festations of the spirit of prophecy in ancient times ; all the 
 wonderful exhibitions of spiritual power on the day of Pentecost ; 
 all the seasons of revival and all the cases of conversion 
 and reformation that have marked the history of the church ; 
 all the virtues and graces of holiness that have adorned 
 the character of the Christian in every age and nation — all 
 Divine truth, grace and holiness in the world, find their source 
 and centre in this great idea of the word of God — the influence 
 and agency of the Holy Ghost. All these worketh that one 
 and the self-same Spirit — the only true light to enlighten every 
 man that cometh into the world. 
 
 Now without stopping to debate the evidences for the reality 
 of this great doctrine, suppose we lay hold upon the bare con- 
 ception as presented in the Bible, and contemplate it simply as 
 an object of thought. Is it not manifestly one of sublimity 
 and beauty, calculated to inspire the mind of him who holds it 
 as the truth of God, with sentiments of the highest enthusiasm ? 
 We have seen the glory of Divinity as it shines in the face of 
 Immanuel. But here is a Divinity that stirs within ourselves, 
 and may shine forth in all our Christian graces. " The spirit 
 that I will give you shall be in you, and shall abide with you 
 forever." That Spirit which descended from heaven on the day 
 of Pentecost, and has filled the church with glory, shall come 
 to our relief and make his abode in our hearts. To the good 
 man, struggling against manifold temptations, what thought 
 can be more cheering, more sublime, than the inhabitation of 
 the Spirit of God ? And will the Lord indeed dwell with men ? 
 Shall these hearts be the subjects of Divine influence ? Shall 
 these bodies be the dwelling-place of the Holy One ? Yes, this 
 is the precise idea of the Spirit given in the Scriptures. " Know 
 ye not that ye are the temples of the Holy Ghost ?" Beauti- 
 
394 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 fally has it been said, that the Most High has two favorite 
 dwelling-places — the one in Heaven, the other in the contrite 
 heart. 
 
 Then let a man grasp this thought in all its fullness — let him 
 take it as he finds it in the book of God, and believe it with all 
 his heart — let him think, let him know, as he will know by an 
 inward witness, that his own heart has been the subject of this 
 mighty operation of God — let him feel that he carries about with 
 him, in his daily walk and conversation, this Divine monitor, as 
 an ever present helper, guide, comforter — and do you not see, 
 how such a man is armed for the great battle of life with more 
 than mortal armor ? how he is elevated in the scale of being by 
 the coii33;oasii3ss of such companionship with God ? how 
 this one great doctrine of Scripture has filled his mind with 
 emotions which, in their very nature, are sublime and beautiful 
 and glorious ? how by being made partaker of the Divine 
 nature, through the influence of the Spirit, he is at once allied 
 with all that is high and holy in the spiritual and eternal 
 world ! The Bible knows no such thought as the deification of 
 men, or the canonization of saints : but it gives us an infinitely 
 grander thought in this descent of the Spirit into the bosom of 
 the church — this blessed inhabitation of God in the heart of 
 every regenerate man — this Divine light shining in the midst of 
 a dark world. 
 
 What are all the apparitions and metamorphoses of gods and 
 goddesses in classical poetry, compared with this mighty in 
 dwelling of the Holy Ghost, by which a sinner like Saul of 
 Tarsus, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, is transformed 
 into an apostle of the Lamb ; by which thousands have passed 
 from spiritual darkness and death to the marvelous light of 
 God's dear children ; by which whole nations have been re- 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 395 
 
 claimed from barbarism and idolatry ; by which this sin-polluted 
 world is to be ultimately disenthralled and redeemed ? If any 
 one wishes to appreciate this thought in all its grandeur, let 
 him read such a passage as Macaulay's description of the 
 English Puritans — let him mark how the whole force of that 
 gorgeous portraiture turns upon this one sublime idea of the 
 Bible — the indwelling of the Spirit of God ; and let him re- 
 member that it is as true now of the humblest man who has 
 been converted, as it was of the Puritans. 
 
 " On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests they 
 looked down with contempt : for they esteemed themselves rich 
 in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime 
 language ; nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests 
 by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of 
 them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible im- 
 portance belonged — on whose slightest actions the spirits of 
 light and darkness looked with anxious interest — who had been 
 destined before heaven and earth were created to enjoy a feli- 
 city which should continue when heaven and earth should have 
 passed away. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed 
 to earthly causes had been ordained on his account. For his 
 sake empires had risen and flourished and decayed. For his 
 sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the 
 evangelist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been rescued 
 by no common deliverer, from the grasp of no common foe. He 
 had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the 
 blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had 
 been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had 
 arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of he? 
 expiring God." 
 
 Now it may not appear whether the eloquent essayist in this 
 
396 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OK, 
 
 passage approved, or even believed in, these high thoughts 
 and feelings of the Puritans : but it is manifest that he writes 
 as one who appreciates their unspeakable beaufj and sublimity; 
 and it is equally manifest, that all these lofty sentiments touch- 
 ing the worth and destiny of a soul redeemed, are the legitimate, 
 logical offshoots of the grand Scriptural idea of the regenera- 
 ting, sanctifying, indwelling Spirit of God. The fact may not 
 be heralded amongst the great events of human history, the 
 idea may not always find admirers in the walks of this world's 
 literature — but a soul redeemed to God, restored to spiritual 
 life, disenthralled from sin and Satan, prepared for immortal 
 glory by a special Divine Influence, must ever stand as one of 
 the most sublime and wonderful revelations of the Bible — one 
 of the most beautiful of all its conceptions, one of the most 
 blessed of all its facts. If there is grandeur in this description, 
 it is because of the unutterable grandeur of the idea which the 
 Bil^le has given to the world. 
 
 V. THE CHURCH OF GOD. 
 
 Let us pass to another illustration. It is the idea of the 
 Church or kingdom of God as revealed in the Scriptures. 
 Nothing can be more certain than that there is a church in 
 the world, that it is a Divine institution, and that the v/hole 
 conception of it originated in the Scriptures. And whether we 
 consider its origin, its design, its economy, its influence, or its 
 destination, it is wholly unlike every other institution which 
 has ever been founded amongst men. The Scriptural idea of it, 
 is that of a kingdom, visible and invisible, whose sovereign 
 lawgiver and head is Christ, or God in Christ, whose subjects 
 are gathered from all nations and generations of men, whose 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 397 
 
 history embraces the whole course of time, whose theatre of 
 actiou is first the earth and then the heavens, and whose 
 final cause is the manifestation of the Divine glory to all the 
 universe. 
 
 It is of this church that the prophet Daniel speaks, when 
 interpretmg the dream of Nebuchadnezzar — "And in the 
 days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom 
 which shall never be destroyed : and the kingdom shall not be 
 left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume 
 all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." This is the 
 " stone cut out of the mountains without hands," that should 
 break in pieces the iron and the clay, the brass, the silver and 
 the gold, till it should become a great mountain itself and fill 
 the whole earth. It is this that forms the subject of a subse- 
 quent sublime prophecy, when he says — "I saw in the night 
 visions, and behold ! one like the Son of Man came with the 
 clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they 
 brought him near before him. And there was given him do- 
 minion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations and 
 languages should serve him ; his dominion is an everlastino* 
 dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, that 
 which shall not be destroyed." This is the kingdom which the 
 apostle Paul calls the " Church of the living God, the pillar 
 and ground of the truth," and of which he speaks in another 
 place, saying — " God created all things by Jesus Christ, to 
 the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly 
 places might be known, by the church, the manifold wisdom of 
 God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ 
 Jesus our Lord." This is that kingdom of heaven, or church 
 of the Messiah, which after four tliousand years of develop- 
 ment and progress through rites and symbols, shadows and 
 
398 
 
 propliecies, was at last fully organized and inaugurated by 
 Christ himself, and placed upon a foundation of chartered right 
 and duty and privilege, on which it shall stand, until the hour of 
 its transition from earth to heaven, from the militant to the 
 triumphant state. 
 
 Such is the conception of the church as revealed in the 
 Scriptures, and in part exemplified through all past history. 
 And the question for us now is, where shall we find in history a 
 more magnificent conception ? Look for a moment at the ele- 
 ments of moral grandeur which cluster around this venerable 
 institution. 
 
 First is the element of a Divine origin. It is built upon the 
 " foundation of prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself 
 being the chief corner stone." Its origin dates from the begin- 
 ing of the human race ; its conception goes back to the eternal 
 counsels of the Divine mind. At its last great inauguration, 
 nearly two thousand years ago, its Divine founder exclaimed — 
 " Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it." The next element of grandeur is 
 its universal character. It gathers its subjects from all the 
 ranks of men — from all nations and races and generations of 
 men. Its last grand commission to its ambassadors is — " Go ye 
 into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." 
 No pent-up philosophy confined to the few — no exclusive system, 
 bounded by zones and mountains, is ever suggested by the Scrip- 
 tural idea of the church. Its provisions, its promises, its blessings 
 are as wide as the world, as bountiful as the light of day, as 
 universal as the all-surrounding air. 
 
 A third element is its irresistible moral power. Its subjects are 
 all made willing in the day of God's power : but though free and 
 voluntary, they are yet attached to their sovereign Head by 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEACTT IN THE BIBLE. 399 
 
 an allegiance which has no parallel amongst men. The wea- 
 pons of its warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty 
 through God, to the pulling down of strongholds. And they 
 are as peaceful as they are mighty. It breathes peace on earth 
 and good will to all men ; and yet its power is irresistible. The 
 sublime language of the Master w^as, " My kingdom is not of 
 this world." " Put up thy sword into its sheath, for they that 
 take the sword shall perish by the sword." With the sword 
 of the Spirit, in the simple majesty of truth, and in God's 
 great name, it goes forth to wage an unceasing, uncompromis- 
 ing, universal battle against all the powers of sin, both human 
 and infernal ; and still, in the strength of these alone, its march 
 has been onward through the fires of ten thousand persecutions, 
 conquering and to conquer. All other institutions and systems 
 and kingdoms of antiquity have perished with the men who 
 made them ; while the church of God renews her youth day 
 by day. The more she has been pressed down and trampled 
 in the dust by apostate men, and infidel nations, the more has 
 she raised her head in triumphant glory. 
 
 And still another element of sublimity clustering around the 
 idea of the church is that of duration, perpetual duration. It 
 has come down to us across the graves of all past generations 
 of men ; it shall embrace the whole onward sweep of time, till 
 time shall end ; and then its orbit is to be projected amid 
 those eternal cycles which shall map the new heavens and the 
 new earth. The language of Divine promise addressed to the 
 great Head of the Church is in such words as these — " Thy 
 throne, God, is forever and ever." " They shall fear thee as 
 long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. 
 He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass : as 
 show^ers that water the earth. In his davs shall the ri^^hteoua 
 
400 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 flourish : aud abundaiUce of peace so long as the moon 
 endureth." 
 
 Men are accustomed to speak of the dignity of history. And 
 truly there is a sublime moral grandeur in the spectacle of 
 great states and nations as recorded on the historic page. 
 You have perhaps read " Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the 
 Roman Empire," until your conceptions of human power and 
 greatness have been expanded and ennobled by the study. But 
 what is the Roman Empire, with its untold populations, its 
 arts, and its arms, its learning and its laws, its history of more 
 than twenty centuries from its origin to its downfall, compared 
 with this vast commonwealth of the saints — this universal 
 state of God — the church which at once pervades and compre- 
 hends all other states ; whose jurisdiction extends over all the 
 land and all the sea ; whose history is coeval and coextensive 
 with the race of man ; whose destiny it has been and still is 
 to shine in a dark world, like the hallowed bush of Horeb, 
 ever burning but never consumed ? Indeed, if there is an 
 object of moral grandeur in the history of the world, it is to 
 be found in the recorded and yet to be fulfilled history of the 
 church of God, as developed in the Scriptures. It is the idea 
 of Christ in history, reigning and ruling over all, till the last 
 enemy shall be put under his feet. 
 
 VI. THE COMMON BROTHERHOOD OF MAN. 
 
 The next leading idea which we select from the mass of 
 Scripture truths, as an object of moral beauty and sublimity, is 
 the doctrine of man's common brotherhood, coupled with its 
 two great essential corollaries, human equality aud liberty. 
 We believe that the world is more indebted to the Bible for 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 401 
 
 these sublime and glorious thoughts, than it has ever been will- 
 ing to acknowledge. The Bible does not more distinctly reveal 
 to us the relation in which we stand to God, as his creatures, 
 than it docs the relation in which we all stand to each other as 
 fellow creatures. It is the relation of a common brotherhood — 
 the idea of one vast family, of which God is the head and 
 Father, extending through all generations, embracing all the 
 races and nations of men. " God," says the apostle to the 
 philosophers of Athens, " hath made of one blood all nations of 
 men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath deter- 
 mined the time before appointed, and the bounds of their habi- 
 tation ; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might 
 feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every 
 one of us : for in him we live, and move, and have our bemg ; 
 as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his 
 offspring." In this sublime annunciation of truth, the doctrine 
 of man's common brotherhood is not only fully set forth, but 
 placed upon an immovable basis, even that of a Divine origin. 
 All men are brothers, because all men are children of one 
 Father. Indeed the Bible, from first to last, binds all men 
 into a common brotherhood by a double tie, and that the tie of 
 blood — the blood of creation and the blood of redemption. Of 
 one blood he hath made all nations of men : and by one blood, 
 the priceless blood of Immanuel, he hath purchased redemp- 
 tion for all. A common origin and a common salvation, implying 
 a common nature, constitute the extreme links of that chain 
 which encircles all the tribes of men, and binds them in broth- 
 erhood around the eternal throne. So that if you ask why men 
 are brothers, you have the double reason in that declaration of 
 Scripture, " There is one God, and one mediator between God 
 and men, the man Christ Jesus." 
 
402 
 
 Now this conceptioy. of the unity of the human race and con- 
 sequent brotherhood of man, belongs in a special manner to the 
 Scriptures. It is chiefly a revelation of the New Testament. 
 It never was the received doctrine of any ancient system of 
 philosophy. It has never been proclaimed on earth by any reli- 
 gion except that of the Bible. It is one of the grand original 
 discoveries of the gospel of Christ, who broke down forever the 
 old distinction between Jew and Gentile, when he said, " Go, 
 teach all nations." It has never been a favorite doctrine, either 
 with the philosophers on the one hand, or the despotic oppres- 
 sors of men on the other. Although so clearly revealed in the 
 book of God, and now so fully vindicated by the profoundest 
 researches of modern science, it has had to fight its way against 
 the continued assaults of scientific infidelity, and of baptized 
 avarice and oppression. Men wishing to grind their fellow men 
 under the iron heel of bondage, for purposes of gain or ambition, 
 have striven to prove that it can be done in the august name 
 of Christianity, and have denied that the doctrine of human 
 brotherhood can be found in all her venerable charter. Men 
 of science, on the other hand, even down to our own day, find- 
 ing the doctrine there as plainly as they find anything, have 
 admitted its existence, and then boldly joined issue on it, with 
 the avowed purpose of giving the lie to the Bible, by proving 
 the doctrine false. 
 
 But it is altogether aside from our present purpose to discuss 
 its truth. We take it as it stands in the book — as one of the 
 bold, original, magnificent conceptions of that sublime genius, 
 or that Divine intelligence, which pervades all the Scriptures. 
 Where shall we find any view of man so glorious, so august, so 
 cheering, as that which binds' all his families, all his generations, 
 in one universal brotherhood of love — one heart beating at the 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 403 
 
 centre of liuraanity, one life-blood flowing through the veins of 
 all nations, one immortal spirit bursting forth from every taber- 
 nacle of clay, fashioned after the image and likeness of God ? 
 Who does not feel, that such a view is immeasurably more sub- 
 lime and ennobling, than that which infidelity, and selfish 
 cupidity have been laboring so hard to establish in its place ? 
 
 In this doctrine of human fraternity lies the last great hope 
 of the world for universal equality and liberty. If all men of 
 all nations and races are brothers of the same great family of 
 God, as the Bible teaches, then every one ouglit to have a 
 brother's portion in the inheritance of earthly blessings, as well 
 as in the patrimony of immortality. And so, when the Bible 
 doctrine comes to be fully understood and practised — when men 
 come to understand their true relations to God and to one 
 another — when, under the peaceful influence of the cross, they 
 learn to love each other as children of one Father, and brethren 
 of one family, they must become equals in all social, political, 
 and religious rights — at least so far as equality is possible in a 
 world of diversity and imperfection. Being thus constituted 
 brothers and equals, in virtue of their common parentage in God, 
 they will all ultimately rise to the dignity of freemen, even as 
 they come to see that they have no right to degrade each other, 
 and no interest in trampling each other in the dust. The Bible 
 contemplates a period when nation shall not rise against nation, 
 and man will no more need to vindicate his own liberties at the 
 sacrifice of those of his fellow man. That consummation will 
 be realized just in proportion as this sublime doctrine of man's 
 common brotherhood takes possession of the heart of the world. 
 Equality and freedom must grow out of man's fraternity ; and 
 it is for the Gospel of love to develop them, even as it delivers 
 the world from the thralldom of sin. This is the grand Scrip- 
 
404 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OE, 
 
 tural idea of universal emancipation. If the Son shall make you 
 free, ye shall be free indeed. This is the only true theory, 
 method, and hope of human liberty and equality. The battle- 
 cry of oppressed humanity, the sublime watch-word of all human 
 progress amongst the struggling nations, is, and ever must be, 
 this divinely established trio of the word of God — Fraternity — 
 Equality — Liberty ; not in the order of infidel France and Ger- 
 many — " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," madly building 
 human liberty on a foundation of sand ; but in the order of the 
 Bible-reading, and God-fearing apostles of English and Ameri- 
 can revolutions — Fraternity first, and then Equality, and then 
 Liberty, planting itself on the Rock of Ages. When the down- 
 trodden nations of the earth shall once learn that the true inter- 
 est of man must be sought in the name of God and truth : when 
 they shall come to understand that they are all free and equal 
 because they are brothers ; and brothers because the common 
 sons of God : when they shall be able to build all their rights 
 and their hopes upon God, and to defend them with the high 
 and awful sanctions of the word of God ; then shall be realized 
 the grand Scriptural conception of the common brotherhood, 
 equality and liberty of man ; then shall be proclaimed that uni- 
 versal Jubilee of freedom which the Bible has from the begin- 
 ning recognized and preached as the inherent and Divine birth- 
 right of every nation and tribe and kindred of Adam's race : 
 then shall be brought to pass that glorious consummation of 
 universal peace, order and good will amongst men, which Chris- 
 tianity has foretold as the result of her own Divine principles, 
 which has been the theme of the earnest longings and midnight 
 meditations of the master minds of all i)ast ages ; for which the 
 martyrs of civil and religious liberty in every land have poured 
 out their life-blood on the scaffold and on the battle-field ; for 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAL'TY IN THE BIBLE. 405 
 
 which the saints of God have been praying so long ; for which 
 statesmen have so often planned, and patriots sighed in vain ; 
 and for which even now thousands of the noblest men that 
 tread the earth are suffering in the prisons of European despot- 
 ism, or wandering in exile, their desolated homes appealing to 
 heaven for justice, and their enslaved countries silently await- 
 ing the trumpet call of their resurrection morning. 
 
 In a word, the one grand inspiring thought which we seek 
 here to present, is, that the Bible is the true book of human 
 liberty, the only book of hope for liberty, equality, and frater- 
 nity amongst men. Men and nations have thus far been suc- 
 cessful in securing the prize of civil and religious freedom, for 
 themselves and their posterity, just in proportion as they have 
 stood by the book of God ; and as they have departed from it, 
 they have failed. This is the only Divine .charter on earth for 
 the rights and liberties of man. This is the only rock on which 
 he can make his stand against tyranny, temporal, spiritual, civil 
 or infernal, with success. With this book only can he know 
 his rights — and knowing, dare maintain them. And when all 
 the world shall be filled with the knowledge of this book, then 
 shall all the world be filled with moral beauty and glory, for 
 there shall be but one vast family of brothers, equals, and free- 
 men, walking in the light of the Lord. Is there any moral 
 grandeur in thoughts like these ? 'Tis the Bible that reveals it. 
 
 Vn. ^THE DAY OF SACRED REST. 
 
 As an illustration of our general subject — the moral beauty 
 and sublimity of the things revealed in the Scriptures — let us 
 now take an object somewhat different from any of those yet 
 
406 
 
 presented. It is the day of sacred rest, the Sabbath of God, 
 as it is conceived of, and described, in the Bible. It has well 
 been called the " Pearl of days" — "Heaven's antidote for the 
 curse of labor." Instituted at the creation, and enforced by the 
 high sanction of Divine example, incorporated into the memo- 
 rabilia of the Decalogue, honored by the special encomiums of 
 the prophets, and reenjoined by the great Head of the church 
 at the new dispensation, it has come down to us, with all its 
 venerable associations, and its sacred authority, as an ordinance, 
 " made for man " — an ordinance to be observed in its season to 
 the end of time. It is unlike all other long-observed divisions 
 of time. It has no natural index, like the day, the night, the 
 year, to notch its periods as they pass. It is the " day which 
 the Lord hath made." And yet it is an institution upon which 
 we behold the inscription, " antiquity, universality, perpetuity." 
 In order to obtain a full perception of the moral beauty and 
 glory of the Sabbath, we must look at it in its intention and 
 design, as developed in the Bible : for no part of the world has 
 ever yet fully realized the Scriptural conception of this day of 
 sacred rest. We must look away from the Sabbath as it is 
 now seen, in its partial observance, often shameful desecration, 
 to the Sabbath as it ought to be, and as it would be, if univer- 
 sally observed according to the letter and spirit of the com- 
 mandment. Even as it is, in the best parts of Christendom, 
 in the rural parishes of England, in the highlands of Scotland 
 and in many a quiet village of our own country, there is a 
 peaceful glory around the Sabbath, that naturally lifts the 
 thoughts to heaven. But what would it be, if the observance 
 were universal, with no discordant element of business or 
 worldly pleasure, to mar the grand idea of a world in repose, 
 worshiping at Jehovah's feet ? 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 407 
 
 The best way to get the Scriptural conception of the Sab- 
 bath fully before our minds, is to suppose first a world without 
 any Sabbath. Suppose there never had been a day of sacred 
 rest, no conception of it, no approximation to it amongst men. 
 Suppose no Sabbath sun had ever poured its peaceful, hallowed 
 light over the toiling millions of earth. Picture to yourselves, 
 not a single nation, such as France during the Reign of Terror, 
 but a world laboring on forever, with no day of repose, no 
 Sabbath of worship, no respite from work : work — work — work 
 its only life-time. Think of men, women, and children, doomed 
 to toil on, from day to day, the slaves of business, the drudges 
 of labor, the worshipers and the victims of work — unending 
 work. In the language of John Allan Quiuton, " Think of 
 labor thus going on, in one monotonous and eternal cycle — ^the 
 limbs forever on the rack, the fingers forever plying, the eye- 
 balls forever straining, the brow for ever sweating, the feet for- 
 ever plodding, the brain for ever throbbing, the shoulders for- 
 ever drooping, the loins forever aching, and the restless mind for- 
 ever scheming. Think — as your imagination beholds the 
 unvarying wheel of work, the tread-mill of labor, thus going 
 round, and round, and round, without a change, without a pause, 
 from morn to night, from moon to moon, and from year to year 
 — think if you can, of the desolations that must follow this 
 absolute reign of labor over the whole realm of time. Think 
 of the beauty it would efface ; of the merry-heartedness it 
 would extinguish ; of the giant strengths that it would tame ; 
 of the resources of nature that it would exhaust ; of the aspi- 
 rations it would crush ; of the sicknesses that it would breed; 
 of the projects it would wreck ; of the groans that it would 
 extort, of the lives that it would immolate, and of the cheerless 
 graves that it would prematurely dig 1 See them, toiling and 
 
408 OEIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 moiling, sweating and fretting, grinding and hewing, weaving 
 and spinning, strewing and gathering, sowing and reaping, 
 razing and building, digging and planting, unlading and storing 
 striving and struggling ; — in the garden and in the field, in the 
 granary and in the barn, in the factory and in the mill, in the 
 ""varehouse and in the shop, on the mountain and in the ditch, 
 on the road-side and in the wood, in the city and in the country, 
 on the sea and on the shore, on the earth and in the earth, in 
 days of brightness and days of gloom, in hours of sun and sea- 
 sons of storm, in times of trouble and times of peace, in the 
 heights of day and in the depths of night, through the savage- 
 ness of winter and through the gentleness of spring, in the 
 energy of youth and in the impotence of age, when health is 
 merrily dancing in the blood, and when disease is eating up the 
 strength, when death is in the lonely home, and when happy 
 life encircles the hearth : — thus the wheel of labor would go 
 round with the earth, and the children of industry, chained to 
 its surface, must follow its ruinous circumvolutions, till 
 exhausted by unnatural efforts, they relax their hold, drop off, 
 and suddenly disappear ! Under the vassalage of such a gigan- 
 tic oppressor as unrestricted labor, earth would rack with the 
 sufferings of her offspring, while the all-absorbing prayer of her 
 millions would be for Rest ! rest ! rest I or the quiet slumber 
 of the grave." 
 
 Now, from this fearful picture of a world without a Sabbath, 
 turn to contemplate the condition of man, when blest, not sim- 
 ply with the Sabbath as it is, but with that universal and per- 
 fect Sabbath which the Scriptures have depicted, and which is 
 yet to reign on earth. Conceive of it as described by Isaiah, 
 when men " Shall call it a delight, the holy of the Lord, hon- 
 orable •, and shall honor him, not doing their own ways, nor 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN^ THE BIBLE. 409 
 
 finding their own pleasure, nor speaking their own words.'' 
 Conceive of it, not as some pagan saturnalia, or papal holiday, 
 when man is released from toil only to run riot with feasting 
 and frolic and debauchery, but as a season when man's thoughts 
 shall be lifted to the skies, to hold communion with God. Con- 
 ceive of all nations of the earth, resting from their labors, as 
 God did when he made the world. Conceive of the whole 
 animate creation, both man and beast, reposing in calm enjoy- 
 ment after every six days' toil. Draw the picture of a world 
 at rest — a world in devotion — a world remembering the Sabbath- 
 day to keep it holy. In the eloquent words of Quinton again, 
 " Go forth at early morning, and climb the side of an upland 
 peak, contiguous to some thickly peopled city. Gaze east- 
 ward, southward, westward and northward — through the whole 
 circuit travelled by the sun — and behold the delectable repre- 
 sentation of Sabbath rest. Every sound breathes softer ; every 
 tint gleams brighter : every scene seems fresher. Cast thy 
 glance across the country — pass from field to field, from rill to 
 river, from alp to glen, from hill to valley, from grove to grove, 
 from one cluster of human dwellings to another, and read in 
 every softened feature of nature, the sweet tranquiUity of Sabbath 
 rest ! Oh, precious day ! — the workman's jubilee — the slave's 
 release — the shield of servitude — the antidote of weariness — the 
 suspension of the curse ! How it smoothes the brow of care I 
 How it brightens the countenance of gloom ! How it braces 
 the enervated limbs of labor ! How it revives the drooping 
 spirit cf despair I How it gives wings to the clogged affections 
 and aspirations to the soul I How it pours some drops of sweet- 
 ness on the bitterest lot, and sheds some gleams of sun- 
 shine athwart the saddest heart I How it lifts the groveller 
 from his low pursuits, and fills him with a noble self-respect I 
 
 18 
 
410 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OK, 
 
 How it extinguishes the jealousies and rivalries of wetk-day oc- 
 cupations, and links men's hearts in the bonds of brotherhood." 
 Such in part is the contrast, between a world without, and a 
 world with, the day of sacred rest, as drawn by the author of 
 the " Prize Essay on the Sabbath ;" and well may we too say, 
 in the words of his beautiful motto from Herbert — 
 
 " Oh, day most calm, most bright, 
 The fruit of this, the next world's bud, 
 The indorsement of supreme delight, 
 Writ by a Friend, and with his blood ; 
 The couch of time ; care's balm and bay : 
 The week were dark but for thy light ; 
 Thy torch doth show the way." 
 
 And if such be the true Scriptural conception of the Lord's 
 day — the beau-ideal of Sabbatical rest painted by the pencil 
 of inspiration — where shall we find in human literature a 
 grander, nobler, lovelier thought ? But this thought, in all its 
 length and breadth, the world owes to the book of God alone. 
 
 VIII. THE MILLENNIUM. 
 
 The next object of contemplation which we select from the 
 Scriptures, as one calculated to excite emotions of sublimity 
 and grandeur in the mind, is the Millennium or latter-day glory 
 — the future golden age — the last dispensation of the world's 
 history, supposed to be a thousand years, in which the earth 
 shall be filled with the glory of God, and all nations shall dwell 
 ifiisaiety, plenty and peace. Indeed we take here a twofold 
 lobje^tyfeifillustration — embracing two distinct and glorious con- 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 411 
 
 ceptions, which however we may survey at one view — namely 
 the couversion of the world, and the subsequent reign of right- 
 eousness upon it. 
 
 It is amongst the clearest, and certainly the most blessed 
 and joyful, of all the revelations of the book of God, that 
 there is a time coming, we cannot tell how distant nor yet 
 bow near — but a time of universal righteousness and peace and 
 good will on earth ; when the Gospel shall prevail from the 
 rising to the setting sun ; when all flesh shall see the salvation 
 of God and walk in the light of his countenance ; when there 
 shall be nothing to hurt or destroy in all his holy mountain : 
 when the waste place shall be a fruitful field, and every desert 
 shall rejoice and blossom as the rose : when Zion's walls shall 
 be salvation, her gates praise, and God her glory ; when Jew 
 and Gentile shall meet togetlier, and bond and free embrace 
 each other as brothers ; when the kingdom and the greatness 
 of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the 
 saints of the Most High ; when they shall beat their swords 
 into plough-shares and their spears into pruuing-hooks ; nation 
 shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn 
 war any more ; when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and 
 the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and 
 the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall 
 lead them ; when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
 Lord as the waters cover the sea ; when that " old serpent, 
 the Devil and Satan," Vvho has deceived the nations so lono-, 
 shall be bound a thousand years and cast into the bottomless 
 pit, and this fair planet, no longer the dwelling place of sin, 
 shall roll on amid the stars, a habitation of holiness, a paradise 
 of glory and blessedness, a " new heaven and new earth 
 wherein dwelletli righteousness." 
 
4:12 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 Such is the period which we call the Millennium or latter* 
 day glory, without being able to define when or how it will 
 begin, when or where it shall end. It is enough for us that it 
 is to be ; that its coming is amongst the sure decrees of Jeho- 
 vah ; that it is foretold and anticipated throughout the entire 
 predictions of the book of God. Such is the prospect of future 
 and ultimate glory which, from the beginning to the present 
 hour, has cheered the hopes and fired the zeal of the people of 
 God. Such is the sublime vision of her destiny, which the 
 Christian church, by the eye of faith and with the telescope of 
 Divine promise, has been able to see in the darkest hour of tri- 
 bulation, looming up grandly before her, like the orb of day 
 through the scattered mists of the morning. Such is the voice 
 O' prophecy and of hope, which she has ever heard, crying to 
 her from the future and from the heavens, saying : " Arise ! 
 shine ! for thy light is come, and the glory of God is risen upon 
 thee." It is the image of a perfect day, without a mist, with- 
 out a cloud, without a storm, a noontide of glory, a picture of 
 universal liberty, universal intelligence, universal happiness. 
 No image was ever more distinctly before the human mind, no 
 conception was ever more indelibly impressed on the heart of 
 the church, no object ever made a stronger appeal to her faith, 
 her hope, her entbusaism, than this belief, this anticipation of 
 the conversion of the world, and the final triumph of Christi- 
 anity. On the sure testimony of heaven we know, that whatever 
 disasters may betide her, whatever labors must be endured, or 
 dangers encountered, or however long the time may be delayed, 
 the day of her redemption shall come, the whole world shall 
 be converted, and Christ shall reign from sea to sea, from pole 
 to pole. 
 
 This is the idea which the Bible gives us, of the millennial 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 4:13 
 
 or latter-day glory. And who shall be able, before the time, 
 adequately to measure the moral grandeur of a thought like 
 this ? A world evangelized, a world emancipated from sin, a 
 world redeemed to God ? What vocabulary of past ages, 
 what images of human greatness shall furnish terms adequate 
 to set before us the untold magnificence of such a period, or to 
 express the full sublimity of such a conception ? And com- 
 pared with all the other works that men have done beneath the 
 sun — the victories of war, the pursuits of ambition, the achieve- 
 ments of art, the building of cities, the founding of empires, 
 the discoveries of science, how does the Missionary enterprise, 
 founded as it is upon the Divine promise of the final 
 success of the Gospel, catching enthusiasm from the sub- 
 lime conception of a world redeemed, and going forth in 
 God's great name to accomplish the work — how does the Mis- 
 sionary enterprise rise up before us in all its world-wide majesty, 
 its unutterable God-like grandeur ! But this conception from 
 first to last is derived from the Bible. 
 
 If tlie enterprise should fail at last, or success be deferred for 
 thousands of years, infidelity itself must still admit, not only 
 the existence of the thought, but the heroic daring of the pur- 
 pose, and the matchless moral sublimity of the effort, to con- 
 vert and save the world ; infidelity can never deny, whatever be 
 the issue, that the bare conception of such a work does infinite 
 honor to. that sublime intelligence which first developed it, and 
 to that generous, noble impulse, which through all ages, has been 
 yearning for its realization. If Christianity should be doomed at 
 last to die a martyr in this infidel world, as so many of her fol- 
 lowers have done, and infidelity be left alone to dig her grave 
 and write her epitaph, still the truth must stand forever con- 
 fessed, that the largest, grandest, noblest enterprise of man, was 
 
414: ORIGINAL COXCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 that which Christianitj undertook when she aimed to evange* 
 lize the world. 
 
 But no martyr's death shall be her destiny. No infidel foe 
 shall ever write her epitaph. The vigor of immortal youth is 
 ever in her footsteps. The life-blood of an infinite energy is 
 coursing through all her veins, and conquest is written with 
 God's own hand upon her brow. In the words of one of her 
 heroic sons, Sylvester Larned — " Christianity is on her march, 
 and nothing will stop it. She is moving forward ; and who- 
 ever opposes her progress will only be crushed to pieces. She 
 throws off the puny efforts of Infidelity, as the majestic lion 
 shakes from his mane the dew-drops of the morning. She asks 
 no armistice or compromise from her enemies ; if they will fall 
 into the magnificent procession she is leading, they may yet be 
 received : if not, they must abide the issue. Methinks the 
 celestial bands are at this moment waiting to welcome her ap- 
 proach to her native skies. Methinks the seventh angel has the 
 trumpet to his lips, and is preparing to sound Hallelujah I — 
 for the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our 
 Lord and His Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.'' 
 
 IX. THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 
 
 But looking still further onward in the course of -time, be- 
 yond the millennium and beyond the tomb, we behold another 
 revelation of sublimity and glory peculiar to the book of God. 
 It is the Resurrection of the dead. Through the far reach- 
 ing predictions of the Old Testament and the New, there 
 rises up, before the eye of faith, a vision of more than mortal 
 grandeur — a picture of beauty, of wonder and yet of awe-in- 
 
OBJECTS OF BCBLIMITY AND BEACTT IN THE BIBLE. 415 
 
 spiring mystery, such as no earthly pencil can ever transcribe, 
 no human imagination fully grasp. It is the vision of a resur- 
 rection morning — the idea of a world reanimated — the spectacle 
 of the buried generations of men awaking and starting forth 
 from the long sleep of the grave — " this corruptible putting on 
 incorruption and this mortal immortality." It is that which 
 Daniel beheld in his ancient night visions — " Many of them 
 that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake ; some to ever- 
 lasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And 
 they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, 
 and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever 
 and ever." It is that of which Paul writes — " Behold I show 
 you a mystery ; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be 
 changed ; in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
 trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be 
 raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." It is that of 
 which He, who is the " Resurrection and the Life," speaks — 
 ''Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in which all that 
 are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and 
 shall come forth ; they that have done good unto the resurrec- 
 tion of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection 
 of damnation." 
 
 The doctrine of a universal resurrection of the dead, is one 
 of the peculiar, distinctive, and fundamental doctrines of the 
 Bible. Though once rejected and laughed to scorn by the 
 philosophers of Greece, it is now established on as firm and broad 
 a basis, in the convictions of men, as Christianity itself. From 
 being derided at first as a fable, it has now become the loved 
 and cherished belief of the whole civilized world, giving 
 inspiration to all its hopes, diflfusing glory over all its litera- 
 ture. The immortality of the soul, does not stand upon a 
 
416 ORIGINAL conceptions; or, 
 
 stronger basis of belief, than the resurrection of the body. It 
 stands attested, first, by the sure promise of God, reiterated 
 throughout the Scriptures, and secondly by the incontrovertible 
 historical fact, that Jesus Christ arose from the dead, and be- 
 came the first fruits of them that slept. 
 
 But it is not so much the proof of the doctrine, as it is the 
 sublimity and beauty of the conception, of a general resurrec- 
 tion from the dead, that we are now concerned to notice. 
 What a compensation for all the ravages of disease, for all the 
 inroads of suffering and decay, for all the horrors of death, is 
 found in the fact, that the human body shall be raised immortal 
 and incorruptible — that the gathered trophies of the grave 
 shall be reconquered and brought back again — that death 
 shall be swallowed up in victory — that the last great enemy of 
 man shall die ! Where shall we find words, in the Bible or out 
 of it, to utter the immeasurable glory and grandeur of that 
 spectacle which the universe is yet to see, when the archangel's 
 trumpet and the voice of God shall call the slumbering nations 
 of the dead from their tombs ? If it would have been sublime 
 and glorious to stand at the grave of Lazarus — to hear the 
 summons, " Lazarus ! come forth," and to see a single man, that 
 had been dead four days, walk forth again in all the fullness of 
 life : what shall it be to stand upon the earth at the latter day, 
 to behold the countless generations of Adam, bursting all the 
 bands of death, rising into newness of life, and putting on thosa 
 forms of immortality, which soul and body shall wear forever ? 
 What imagination shall paint, what poet or prophet's pen de- 
 scribe the glories, the wonders, the brightness, the beauty, the 
 grandeur of that morning 1 when on every hill and in every 
 valley, from every mountain, rock and river, from every isle and 
 ocean, from every desert-waste and every forest solitude, and 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 417 
 
 every crowded city on earth, the dead shall live again ! the good 
 to die no more I One day — one hour shall repeople the earth 
 with all her children, and restore the ruins of thousands of 
 years I 
 
 *' See truth, love, and mercy in triumph descending, 
 And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom : 
 On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses arc blending, 
 And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb." 
 
 There is no theme which inspires the sacred writers with a 
 higher enthusiasm, than this doctrine of the resurrection. And 
 well it may. The question of the soiTowing patriarch — " If a 
 man die, shall he live again ?" is one that comes home to every 
 human heart. All that we hold dear on earth is involved in 
 that question. All that we hope for hereafter is at stake upon 
 the answer. We stand by the death-bed of our fondest friends 
 — we bid them what appears to be a last farewell — we follow 
 them to their cold and silent resting-place in the grave, as 
 others will soon follow us. " We call, but they answer not 
 again !" Bereaved, astounded, stricken nature asks, have they 
 gone forever — shall we see them no more ? Has that curiously 
 and wonderfully made body — " the human form divine," — perish- 
 ed ? That brow of beauty, " the dome of thought and palace 
 of the soul " — that eye of genius, that tongue of eloquence, 
 that form radiant with celestial fires — the hand that could 
 execute, the heart that could beat in fondness, the intellect that 
 could grasp the laws of worlds and systems, the imagination 
 that could conceive every varying aspect of beauty and gran- 
 deur, the spirit that so often aspired after God and glory — are 
 all these forever buried in the dust? No ! it cannot be ! AW 
 nature answers, No 1 The word of God, from the beginning to 
 
 IS* 
 
418 ■ ORIGINAL conceptions; or, 
 
 the end, answers No I He, who is the " Resurrection and the 
 Life," who gave his own life for the life of the world, with a 
 sublimity of utterance never before heard at the grave, answers, 
 No ! " Thy brother shall rise again." We must die — all die, 
 because Adam sinned I But since Christ has died, and risen 
 from the dead, we die only to live again. Mortality and im- 
 mortality, alike, belong to man. 
 
 " An angel's arm can't snatch him from the grave, 
 Legions of angels can't confine him there." 
 
 And yet there are men, aspiring to be called masters of taste 
 and genius, who turn away from the Scriptures, as if no beauty 
 or grandeur could be found in these Divine revelations. But if 
 the doctrine of a universal resurrection of the dead be not sub- 
 lime — as sublime as it is precious — it would be hard to tell, 
 where, in all the realms of human thought, sublimity holds her 
 dwelling-place. The real masters of taste and eloquence have 
 not thought so ; but have admired and adored, as at the feet of 
 Jesus, they have drunk in this vast and glorious conception. 
 In high and holy meditation, the author of the " Night 
 Thoughts," utters his most ecstatic strains, when, in view of the 
 resurrection of Christ, he exclaims — 
 
 " Hear, ye nations ! hear it, ye dead ! 
 He rose ! He rose ! He burst the bars of death ! 
 
 Shout Earth and Heaven ! 
 
 This sum of good to n-an : whose nature then 
 Took wing, and mounted with Him from the tomb I 
 Then, then I rose : then first humanity 
 Triumphant passed the crystal ports of light, 
 Stupendous guest ! and seized eternal youth." 
 
OBJECTS OF BUELIMITY AND Er:AUTY IN THE BIBLE. 419 
 
 X. THE LAST JUDGMENT. 
 
 Closely allied, in the Scriptures, to the conception of the 
 resurrection of the dead, and immediately consequent upon it, 
 stands another revelation of awful, unapproachable grandeur. 
 It is the idea, now accepted by all men, of a final Judgment of 
 quick and dead. " It is appointed unto men once to die, and 
 after this the Judgment." " Because he hath appointed a day, 
 in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man 
 whom he hath ordained ; whereof he hath given assurance unto 
 all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." It is call- 
 ed in Scripture, "The judgment of the great day." And it is 
 not inappropriate to apply to it two other Scriptural titles — 
 " The great day of God Almighty," " The great day of his 
 wrath." For God himself, in the person of Christ, is to sit upon 
 the throne of Judgment ; " and before him shall be gathered all 
 nations." It is the day in which justice is to be publicly exe- 
 cuted upon men and angels — the day for which all other days 
 were made, when all the inequalities of time shall be adjusted, 
 ail the mysteries of Providence cleared up — the point from 
 which' all the cycles of eternity shall take their departure. It 
 is the day which shall wind up the drama of man's terrestrial 
 existence, exhibit a God in grandeur, a world on fire, and a 
 universe assembled to behold the scene — the day which shall 
 write upon the archives of eternity, "Time gone, the righteous 
 saved, the wicked damned, and God's eternal government 
 approved." 
 
 " When shriveling Hke a parched scroll, 
 The flaming heavens together roll ; 
 When louder yet and yet more dread, 
 Swells the high trump that wakes the dead." 
 
42C OKIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 Now, you may have grown familiar with the most striking 
 illustrations of grandeur in nature, in history, in art ; you may 
 have walked amid the splendor of courts, or gazed upon the 
 dread scenery of battles, or pictured to your imagination the 
 vast array of gathering millions, all impelled by one great emo- 
 tion. But where amongst the productions of art, or the records 
 of history, or the images of nature, will you find any scene ade- 
 quate to illustrate the awful, unapproachable sublimity of the 
 judgment day ? 
 
 Suppose you could have stood upon an eminence and looked 
 down upon the armies of Xerxes, as upon one wide sea of 
 living, heaving humanity ; and reflected as he did, that in less 
 than a century, all those millions should be still and silent in 
 the dust. Suppose you could have commanded a view of Nav- 
 arino, or of Trafalgar, when the hottest vials of human wrath 
 were poured forth for the mastery of the hour ; or surveyed 
 the scene at Waterloo, where nations mingled in the strife, and 
 where the fate of Europe trembled on the point of the bayonet. 
 How would language fail to express the overwhelming emotions 
 excited by such scenes ! But what are all these to the 
 mighty gatherings, the dread issues, and the high emotions, of 
 the judgment day ! Perhaps you have gazed upon that sub- 
 lime master-piece of art, West's picture of " Death on the Pale 
 Horse," founded upon a single verse in the book of Revelation. 
 Did you mark well that fearful impersonation of irresistible 
 might and fury — that impetuous steed, trampling upon his 
 slaughtered and dying victims, manhood in its prime and woman 
 in her beauty, childhood in its innocence and decrepid old age — 
 that ghastly rider with his brow of thunder, his eye of fire, his 
 look of vengeance, his uplifted hands scattering arrows, fire- 
 brands and death, his long dark retinue of demons, gorgons 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 421 
 
 dire, and hydra-headed monsters, " fierce as ten furies, terrible 
 as hell ?" And did you not stand, mute and spell-bound before 
 the awful, mysterious grandeur of such a picture ? But what 
 is " Death on the Pale Horse," could you even face the reality, 
 compared with the scenes of the last judgment ? 
 
 You, perhaps, have read Macaulay's magnificent description 
 of that august assemblage (such as no other nation but England 
 could have produced), which sat upon the trial of "Warren 
 Hastings — when all that was dignified in high birth and official 
 station — all that was profound in legal wisdom, brilliant in wit 
 and beauty, commanding in eloquence, rich and powerful in the 
 gorgeous paraphernalia of a titled nobility — the statesmen, 
 jurists, orators, philosophers, heroes, high-born ladies, and 
 nobles of the earth — were gathered together for the hearing 
 and the adjudication of the great cause : when, before all that 
 vast, and brilliant auditory, the great orator — the expounder 
 of English law, the champion of English justice — said with 
 uplifted hand and solemn voice : *' I impeach Warren Hast- 
 ings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the 
 name of the House of Commons, whose trust he has betrayed. 
 I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient 
 honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people 
 of India, whose rights he has trampled in the dust, and whose 
 country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of 
 human nature itself ; in the name of both sexes ; in the name 
 of every age and of every rank, I impeach the common enemy 
 and oppressor of all." 
 
 Who can fail to appreciate the moral grandeur of a scene 
 like this ? Who can ^ead of it, even now, without partaking 
 somewhat of the deep and powerful emotions which filled the 
 heart of ev.ry actor and spectator on that great trial? But 
 
422 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OE, 
 
 what was that august assembly, with all its pomp and power, 
 its absorbing interest and its mighty issues, the wisdom of 
 Burke, the eloquence of Sheridan, the fate of Hastings, com- 
 pared with that day of final, irreversible decision, in which we 
 are all to stand before the judgment seat, not as spectators but 
 as actors ; when, in the presence of an assembled universe, in 
 the presence of God the judge, the accusing angel shall lift up 
 bis hand, and in the name of heaven's everlasting law, impeach 
 the sinner of high crimes and misdemeanors against the govern- 
 ment of God I when the righteous and the wicked shall part 
 to meet no more ! when, from the great tribunal, shall go forth 
 the sentence to those upon the right hand, " Come, ye blessed 
 of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
 foundation of the world," and to those upon the left, " Depart 
 from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil 
 and his angels I" when the one shall go away into everlasting 
 punishment, the other into life eternal I 
 
 It has ever seemed to us, that if there is a conception of 
 unutterable sublimity shadowed forth in the language of mor- 
 tal tongues, it is to be found in St. John's vision of the last 
 judgment — " And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat 
 on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away ; 
 and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead 
 small and great, stand before God ; and the books were opened ; 
 and another book was opened, which is the book of life ; and 
 the dead were judged out of those things which were written in 
 the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the 
 dead which were in it ; and death and hell deliverea op the 
 dead which were in them : and the} were judged, every man 
 according to their works. And death and hell were cast into 
 the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 4:23 
 
 was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake 
 of fire." Surely if there be sublimity any where, it is in the book 
 of God. 
 
 XI. THE HEAVEXLY WORLD. 
 
 Let US turn now to another object of surpassing beauty and 
 glory revealed in the Scriptures. It is the idea of Heaven — 
 the Christian Paradise — the Spiritual, Eternal world : " the 
 House of many mansions," " the City that hath foundations whose 
 maker and builder is God," the New Jerusalem above, " pre- 
 pared as a bride adorned for her husband," the high and holy 
 Mount Zion, whose streets of gold, whose gates of pearl, whose 
 walls of precious stone, " had no need of the sun, nor of the 
 moon, to shine in it : for the glory of God did lighten it, and 
 the Lamb is the light thereof." 
 
 It is not needful that we should stop to expatiate on the 
 moral beauty and sublimity of the Scriptural conception of 
 heaven. It would be a boundless theme. There is a glory 
 here too high for mortal tongues, too bright for mortal vision. 
 The very word " Heaven," wherever the Bible has been trans- 
 lated into the languages of earth, has become the highest expres- 
 sion of all that is lovely, all that is pure, all that is joyous, 
 blessed, glorious. When thought labors, and imagination 
 breaks down, when all terms of beauty are exhausted, and all 
 images of earthly grandeur fail — when the eye cannot see, nor 
 the ear hear, nor the heart conceive, and the tongue can no fur 
 ther express — we are accustomed to shadow forth all the rest 
 by one word — Heaven I The living know no sweeter phrase : 
 and when the thoughts of the dying have passed from all sub- 
 lunary things, the last inspiring word that lingers on their 
 
424: ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 Stammering tongues, is still — Heaven ! the Heaven of the Bible I 
 There is perhaps no point at which the religion of the Bible 
 more signally evinces its superiority over every thing else that 
 men have called religion, than in this sublime, and glorious 
 revelation of the heavenly world. The highest conceptions 
 which the old Greeks had of Mount Olympus or of the Elysian 
 Fields, the sensual paradise of Mohammed, the future " hunting- 
 grounds " of the Indian, the spheres and transmigrations of 
 ancient and modern paganism — how low, grovelling, and con- 
 temptible are they all, compared with the exalted spiritual hea- 
 ven of Christianity 1 
 
 " Every thing in a nation," remarks Professor Gausseu, 
 **may be measured by one standard ; the height of their hea- 
 ven. If their heaven is low, every thing here on earth feels its 
 debasing influences : every thing at once becomes more limited 
 and more grovelling ; the future becomes more circumscribed : 
 patriotism is materialized, generous traditions are engulfed, the 
 moral sense becomes effeminated, the worship of self alone is 
 exalted, and all conservative principles depart, one after ano- 
 ther." 
 
 Now it is the peculiar glory of Christianity to have revealed 
 the highest, holiest heaven which the world has ever known or 
 the mind of man conceived. Every element of moral beauty 
 and grandeur clusters around the final abode of the blessed. 
 The whole creation of God was beautiful and good, as it came 
 from his almighty hand. The primeval paradise, was doubtless 
 beautiful and glorious. The earth, when decked in its vernal 
 bloom, still retains something of its original beauty and glory, 
 notwithstanding all the desolations of sin and death. But what 
 was Eden in all its glory, what is earth at its best estate, com- 
 pared with the dwelling-place of God and glorified spirits — the 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 425 
 
 Lome of all moral, spiritual, Divine perfection ! Well may 
 we call it " the better land," and its children a " happy band." 
 How many a weary pilgrim through life's great wilderness has 
 been cheered and comforted in the prospect of reaching that 
 better land ! How many a poor tempest-tossed voyager on life's 
 great ocean, has girded himself with new strength at the 
 thought of that haven of immortal rest ! How many voices 
 of the living and the dead are ever cheering us onward to that 
 " El Dorado," of human hope— that " Ultima Thule," of perfect 
 fruition — that Canaan of all the promises ! How many a 
 mourner in Zion has caught a glimpse of that better land I 
 
 " Look up ! there hope 
 To meet again in that pure clime where blooms 
 The Tree of Life unfadingly — blest chrae ! 
 Where evermore shall re-st the true and good 
 Beneath the shadow of the central throne. 
 How calmly rest ! where every storm is hushed 
 To peace, and cloudless skies are beautified 
 With everlasting day ! soft is the light 
 That glances on their brows, and pure the gales 
 That breathe their music there — the light, the breath, 
 The melody of Heaven." 
 
 Look for a moment at the elements of moral beauty and sub- 
 limity, associated with the Scriptural representation of heaven. 
 It is a place of rest — the saint's ev.erlasting rest I And how 
 sweet is rest to the heavy-laden ! " They rest from their labors 
 and their works do follow them." There the wicked cease from 
 troubling, and the weary are evermore at rest. It is a place of 
 holiness — immaculate holiness. " There shall in no wise enter 
 into it any thing that defileth or worketh abomination or 
 makcth a lie." Its employments are all holy, its inhabitants 
 
426 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OE, 
 
 are all sinless. Who are those before the throne, clothed in 
 white raiment, having palms in their hands ? " These are they 
 that came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, 
 and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." It is a place 
 of knowledge — endless growth in the knowledge of God, his 
 attributes, his works, his ways, and all his creatures. Here we 
 see through a glass darkly ; but there face to face. Here we 
 know in part, and w^e understand in part, but there we shall 
 know even as we are known. It is a place of society — com- 
 panionship with God, with angels, with just men made perfect. 
 " And I beheld, and lo I a great multitude which no man could 
 number, of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues 
 stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with 
 white robes and palms in their hands." It is a place of joy and 
 fruition in the presence of the Lord. " And I heard the voice 
 of harpers harping with their harps ; and they sung, as it 
 were, a new song before the throne." " And there shall be no 
 more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be 
 any more pain : for the former things are passed away." 
 " The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed 
 them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of water, and 
 God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." It is a place 
 of immortal life — an endless existence, " an inheritance incor- 
 ruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." Eternity is 
 stamped upon all the joys of heaven. And what a thought of 
 grandeur is — Eternity 1 What duration lies unfolded beneath 
 its endless years ? Eternity ! without a shore, without a bound 
 — without one waning star, without one setting sun, without 
 one falling leaf ! What sights of wonder may be seen : what 
 heights of grandeur may be scaled ; what deeds of glory may 
 be done : what fields of knowledge may be scanned : what 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 427 
 
 mysteries of God and nature solved : what years of bliss enjoy- 
 ed, or nights of woe endured, during the long life-time of eter- 
 nity ! Could you take the wings of morning light and travel to 
 the utmost verge of day — to the point which no thought of 
 man or flight of angel hath ever reached — could you, from that 
 point and with that radius, walk slow paced and step by step, 
 the outer circumference of tlie universe, still you would have 
 no adequate measure of the long life-time of eternity. Even 
 then, when the weary circuit was done, and had been repeated 
 again and again — to borrow the words of another — " the clock 
 of Eternity would not have struck one !" It was a sublime 
 conception of Napoleon, when on the eve of battle at the base 
 of the Pyramids, he reminded his soldiers, that from those lofty 
 summits forty centuries looked down to behold their actions I 
 But wliat are forty centuries with all their deeds of glory, forty 
 times told, to the long life-time of eternity — " boundless, end- 
 less, and sublime," — the ocean of existence ! 
 
 " Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow, 
 Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now." 
 
 And yet men in their incredulity and folly, have asked, " Can 
 there any good thing come out of Nazareth ?" any thing noble, 
 any thing great, any thing worthy of the homage of the wise ? 
 We have only to ask, in reply, is there any thing sublime and 
 beautiful in heaven — any thing precious in the boon of immor- 
 tal life — anything grand in the universe of God ? If so, come 
 and see; it shall bo found here also, in the book of Gotl. What 
 would the world be, t%id what would life be to man, without the 
 hope of heaven ? What would man himself be without the 
 doctrine of immortality, to compensate for the desolations of 
 
428 ORIGINAL conceptions; ok, 
 
 death, and to supplement his present narrow existence ? And 
 is death an eternal sleep, alike to the wicked and the holy ? Is 
 the conception of heaven all a dream, intended to deceive us ? 
 Is there no rest for the weary but in the grave — no abode of 
 blessedness and glory for the good and true ? Take away the 
 Bible, and who shall assure us of a heaven ? Who shall tell 
 us of Elysian Fields, or classic fables, as the ground of our 
 future hopes ? Take away the Bible, and you have taken away 
 the only heaven of which we have any certain knowledge, the 
 only heaven that a good man would care to live, or dare to die 
 for. Take away the Bible, and you have robbed us of our all — 
 you have left us this feverish dream of life, you have chained 
 us to the world and sin and death — you have dug the grave of 
 all our fondest, sublimest hopes — and sent us to lie down in the 
 dust, saying to corruption — " Thou art my father j to the worm, 
 thou art my mother and my sister." 
 
 " earth ! thou beauteous form of emptiness I 
 Can'st thou presume to satisfy or calm 
 The ceaseless yearnings of the deathless soul? 
 Can'st thou presume to hold, in thy weak grasp, 
 The pi'oud aspirant to the crown of life ? 
 And who are those that love thy dust so well, 
 That they Avould riot there ! there breathe their last ! 
 There stretch themselves in everlasting sleep! 
 They raise the hand with impious scoffs and swear- — 
 The land from which they sprang is but a dream ! 
 A dream ! — By yonder clouds that catch the glow 
 Of Paradise — by yonder lights that flash 
 Upon its towers — by yonder floods that dash 
 Against its walls — by all the signs above, 
 And by the deep, low voice within — 'tis false ! 
 False ! shout the cherubim before the throne : 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 429 
 
 The demons mutter from beneath — 'lis false ! 
 The ceaseless thunder of the train of worlds 
 Proclaims it false ; and the last lingering voice 
 Of nature's dying music whispers, false." 
 
 XII. THE SCHEME OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 Take yet another, and the last illustration we shall offer ; it 
 is the Scheme of Redemption, or plan of salvation, as it stands 
 unfolded in all the Scriptures. This manifestly is the great 
 essential theme of our theology, the central truth of Christianity, 
 around which all others revolve as the planets around the sun. 
 This brings us directly to the cross — to the incarnate Deity who 
 suffered there — to the ample and amazing atonement for sin, 
 which was there made. It is not our purpose at present, how- 
 ever, in speaking of the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus, to 
 discuss its theological bearings, or to expound its saving merits ; 
 but simply to hold it up for your contemplation as an object of 
 infinite beauty and grandeur. It is the one peculiar and exalted 
 conception that runs through every chapter of the book of God, 
 and gives to all its revelations the coucinnity and compactness 
 of a perfect science. We call it the scheme of redemption, or 
 the economy of grace, or the plan of salvation, or the method 
 which God has devised, and by which he proposes to rescue the 
 guilty and lost soul. It is called in Scripture the " Way of 
 Life.'' But, by whatever name we designate it, it is a perfect 
 and Divine system — consistent in all its parts, complete in all its 
 provisions, and so distinctly drawn, in all its great outlines, 
 that, " the way-faring man, though a fool, need not err therein.'* 
 It was finished when the Son of God expired on the cross ; it 
 
430 - ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OK, 
 
 stood before the world fully revealed when the last angel of the 
 Apocalypse closed the canon of inspiration. Before its sublime 
 and glorious doctrines, all the great intellects that have adorned 
 the annals of the church — from Paul to Augustine, from Agus- 
 tine to Calvin, from Calvin to Chalmers — have bowed in pro- 
 found, admiring homage. It is a scheme of infinite wisdom 
 and infinite grace, alike worthy of God and worthy of man's 
 acceptance. It brings salvation to man, and a rich revenue of 
 glory to God. By it mercy and truth are met together, right- 
 eousness and peace have kissed each other. Into its deep 
 mysteries the angels desire to look. And in view of some of 
 its great characteristics, the apostle exclaims — " the depth of 
 the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ; how 
 unsearchable are his jugments and his ways past finding out 1" 
 
 The atonement of Christ, or the redemption of the soul from 
 Bin and death by the blood of the cross, is represented in the 
 Scriptures as a great salvation and a great mystery, as the glad 
 tidings of great joy to all nations, and the glorious gospel of the 
 grace of God. The sacred writers speak of it as the power of 
 God and the wisdom of God ; and when they desire to glory 
 in nothing save the cross of Christ, they evidently feel that their 
 doctrine is as sublime and beautiful, as it is true and precious. 
 We have only to look upon its outlines, to see the exceeding 
 glory and beauty and moral grandeur of this great salvation. 
 
 First, the scheme is all of God. — Originating in the counsels 
 of eternal wisdom, flowing from the fullness of the Father's love, 
 it was accomplished by the voluntary obedience and sacrifice of 
 the Son, and it is applied to man by the saving influences cf the 
 Holy Ghost. It is a Divine and perfect salvation. Next, its 
 adaptation to man, as a remedy, is complete and glorious. It 
 saves him when there was no arm to save him ; when he had 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AST) BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 431 
 
 no power or even purpose to save himself — saves hira from all 
 his enemies, and from his own suicidal hand. It saves him in 
 his impotence — saves him from all his w(jes — saves him notwith- 
 standing all his guilt. It is offered to him without money and 
 without price. Its conditions are the lowest and the simplest 
 that could consist with the glory of God, or the well-being of 
 his moral creatures. It is a salvation all of grace, free, sove- 
 reign, unmerited grace. Another element of moral beauty 
 and grandeur belonging to the salvation of the cross, is seen in 
 the greatness of the boon which it confers on man. It trans- 
 forms the child of woe, the slave of sin, the rebel against God, 
 into an heir of glory. It releases him from the wrath and curse 
 of a violated law ; it restores to him the lost image of his 
 Maker ; it raises him from the death of sin ; and instead of the 
 pains of hell which would have been his portion forever, it gives 
 him a title, clear and sure, to eternal life in the Paradise of 
 God. " Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed 
 on us that we should be called the sons of God." Again, the 
 exceeding glory of this salvation by the cross is exhibited in 
 yet another fact — that it binds all its subjects in willing, grate- 
 ful and eternal homage to the person of their Divine Eedeemer. 
 It thus secures, and that beyond the possibility of a failure, 
 that love to God, and to all that bear the image of God, vrhich 
 is the fulfilling of the Divine law, which, in man, is the counter- 
 part of the Divine character, and which constitutes the harmony 
 and happiness of heaven. And still farther, we behold an 
 exceeding beauty and glory in the grand ultimate design or 
 final cause of this salvation. The gospel of Christ proposes a 
 remedy for the lost — it seeks to save a multitude of souls from 
 everlasting death. That is its object — its sublime and benefi- 
 cent purpose, as it relates to man. But it has an infinitely 
 
432 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OE, 
 
 higher end and aim in relation to God. Its grand, ulterior and 
 eternal purpose, is to glorify God — to manifest to all the moral 
 intelligent universe, by the redemption of man, the wisdom, 
 grace and power of the infinitely perfect God. It seeks to 
 save man and make him holy, that he may attain the chief €nd 
 of his existence, which is " to glorify God and to enjoy him 
 forever. 
 
 Such are the essential features of the Gospel : such is the 
 sublime doctrine of salvation by grace through the death of the 
 cross. Is there nothing wonderful, nothing beautiful and god- 
 like in such a theme ? Is there nothing attractive to you in 
 the tlieory, nothing precious in the story of the cross ? Is there 
 no divinity that " stirs within," which shall win your admiring 
 and adoring love to this Divinity that shines so fully from the 
 cross ? Is it nothing to you that infinite wisdom, eternal love, 
 and almighty power have all combined to perfect a remedial 
 ystem for the salvation of our ruined race ; and that all these 
 jonceutre in the cross ? 
 
 " The world is full of proof," says Dr. Spring in his beautiful 
 book—" The Attraction of the Cross " — " The world is full of 
 proof of the intense interest with which the giddy and thought- 
 less have contemplated the cross, and the devout gloried in it. 
 No minister of the Gospel ever rehearsed the narrative without 
 a listening auditory ; no mother ever sang it over the pillow of 
 her babe without tenderness ; no child ever read it without a 
 throbbing heart. No living man ever perused it with indiffer- 
 ence ; no dying man ever listened to it without emotion. The 
 cross will be remembered when every thing else is forgotten. 
 It has intrinsic power ; and God himself has invested it with 
 attractions peculiarly its own. The Scriptures point to the 
 cross, and say, ' Behold the Lamb of God I' The most emphatic 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BKACTY IN THE BIBLE. 433 
 
 announcement they make is — ' Behold the Lamb of God that 
 taketh away the sin of the world I' The brightest and most 
 wondrous vision of John, of all he beheld on earth, when light- 
 ened by the glory of the descending angel, and of all he beheld 
 in heaven, was that of which he says — ' I beheld, and lo ! in 
 the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in 
 the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain V 
 Nothing will interest you like the cross. Nothing can do for 
 you what the cross has done." 
 
 "He that stands beneath the cross," says Dr. Thornwell, 
 " and understands the scene, dares not sin — not because there 
 is a hell beneath him, or an angry God above him, but because 
 holiness is felt to reign there — the ground on which he treads 
 is sacred — the glory of the Lord encircles him, and like Moses, 
 he must remove the shoes from his feet. The cross is a vener- 
 able spot ; I love to linger around it, not merely that I may 
 read my title to everlasting life, but that I may study the great- 
 ness of God. I use the term advisedly. God never appears to 
 be so truly great, so intensely holy, as when, from the pure 
 energy of principle, he gives himself in the person of his Son, 
 to die, rather than that his character should be impugned. 
 Who dares prevaricate with moral distinctions, and talk of 
 death as a greater evil than dishonor, when God, the Mighty 
 Maker, died rather than that truth or justice should be com- 
 promised ? Who, at the foot of Calvary, can pronounce sin to 
 be a slight evil ? Here then lies the most impressive sanction 
 of Revelation." 
 
 But let this suffice. We have been endeavoring to show 
 what conceptions of spiritual and immortal beauty, what objects 
 of intellectual and moral grandeur the book of God reveals to 
 us And surely our main proposition— that it does contain sr.ch 
 
 19 
 
4:34 
 
 things in their highest glory — is abundantly sustained. We 
 have singled out for illustration, twelve distinct examples — the 
 Divine existence, the Providence of God, the personal character 
 of Christ, the doctrine of special Divine influence, the church of 
 God, tlie common brotherhood of man, the day of sacred rest, 
 the Millennium, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, 
 the heavenly world, and the scheme of redemption. It is mani- 
 fest, that we might multiply such illustrations to almost any 
 extent. For it is the prerogative of the word of God to turn 
 every thing which it touches into gold — to invest all other things 
 with the glory of the Lord. All its revelations are either inhe- 
 rently or relatively sublime. By taking hold upon the soul, 
 upon eternity and upon God, they at once take hold upon all 
 the elements of moral beauty and grandeur. Nothing can be 
 low or insignificant, which affects the well-being of the universe, 
 which concerns the eternal destiny of man, which relates to 
 the interests of virtue, human, angelic or Divine. All the 
 revelations of the Bible therefore are either grand in themselves, 
 or they borrow grandeur from the great things with which they 
 stand connected. x\nd instead cf asking what there is in the 
 Bible entitled to the attributes of greatness, it would be far 
 more rational to ask, where else in the literature of the world, 
 we shall find any thing possessing sublimity and beauty by a 
 title like that of the Bible — a claim that shall stand good,^ 
 when this earth shall be dissolved and these heavens shall melt 
 with fervent heat. The grass withereth, the flower faileth ; 
 But the Word of the Lord abideth forever 1 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 435 
 
 Xin. — RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 We have now completed our task. We have walked about 
 Zion and marked her bulwarks. We have surveyed the glory 
 of the Outer Temple. We have endeavored to show that the 
 study of the Scriptures, as containing the finest models of taste, 
 the true elements of literature and science, and the grand 
 fundamental facts of religion, is essential to all correct educa- 
 tion in youth, all sound learning in manhood. For this purpose, 
 we have had occasion to take a wide survey of the diversified 
 characters of the book of God. We have grouped together, 
 for successive views, its notable women, its illustrious young 
 men, its inspired bards, its eloquent orators, its ancient sages ; 
 we have also gazed with rapture upon its scenes of moral 
 beauty and its themes of more than earthly grandeur. 
 
 Well then may we prize the Bible as our book of books — the 
 charter of our liberties, the oracle of our religion, the fountain 
 head of all our high civilization. The Bible indeed belongs not 
 exclusively to any one era or department of literature, but to 
 all. Having pervaded and moulded all with which it has come 
 in contact, it belongs alike to ancient and modern, to Classical 
 and Theological literature. It is in the Bible that the long 
 stream of the old Hebrew literature, flowing down like a mighty 
 river from the heights of Paradise beyond the flood, sweeping 
 across the vast plains of the oriental world, and bearing on its 
 bosom the very ark of primeval civilization, meets another 
 noble stream, both deep and broad, coming from the west — the 
 stream of classical antiquity, flowing from the steeps of Parnassus, . 
 the cool groves of Arcadia, and the temple-crowned hills of 
 Italia, bearing on its enchanted waters the immortal Argosy of 
 
4:S6 OEIGLN'AL CO^iCEFTLOSS ; OK, 
 
 Grecian and Boman genius. It is in the Bible that these twc 
 great stzeams of oriental and clasical literature meet and blend 
 thwr currents. And it is from the Bible again, after mingling 
 and purifying their waters, that thev issne and go forth to spread 
 life and beauty over the whole domain of Christendom. The 
 three great languages, which contain all the choicest treasures 
 of antiquity, are the Hebrew, Greek and Latin. These three 
 tongues were reconeiied at the cross. Two of them were 
 mother tongues of the Bible. Brought into strange but har- 
 monious union around the head of the dying Son of God, they 
 were thus consecrated to their grand mission, as it were by a 
 baptism of blood ; and from that day to this, they hare been the 
 classic repositories of all oar Christian leammg. In the Hebrew, 
 Greek and Latin of the cross, which proclaimed '* Jesu^ tht King 
 of tie Jews'" to all the world, a new era in the history of letters 
 was inaugurated — an era from which the word of the Lord 
 was to date its going forth from Jerusalem into all the lan- 
 guages of the earth, and in which it was to hold undisputed 
 supremacy orer the human mind. By these three great chan- 
 nels was an opening made for the world, into that deep mine of 
 inexhaustible treasures, out of which have been dug all the 
 richest jewels of truth and beauty that sparkle on the imperial 
 brow of modem civilization. '* The City of God," says How- 
 son, " is built at the confluence of three civilizations." 
 
 But, shall we make sure of the mam thing in this Divine 
 Book ? Shall we enter the temple, and penetrate the vail into 
 the holiest of all ? Allured by these, its lower, outward attrac- 
 tions, shall we press on to behold and to enjoy the light of its 
 inner spiritual glory ? Shall we so search as to find the pearl 
 of great price, so act as to secure the good part ? Shall we 
 so live by this light, as to possess the prize of immortal life? 
 
0E.IECT3 OF SUBLIMITY AND BSAUTY IN THE BTBLE. 437 
 
 Kepeuting of sin, obeying the Gospel, coming to God, as little 
 children, shall we exercise faith in the Son of God, and rest 
 our souls in calm unshaken confidence upon the blood of the 
 Lamb? This, after all, is the grand subject-matter of the 
 Bible — this, to each one of us, is the question of our immortality. 
 Who has not felt the need of such a Faith ? Who has not 
 longed to make sure of such a boon ? Who, under the deep 
 searchings, and earnest cravings of our immortal, yet guilty 
 nature, has not felt that the gospel of the Son of God alone 
 must make him happy, or happy he shall never be ? And who 
 from his experience of life and his certain prospect of death, will 
 not respond, as from his heart of hearts, to those yearning con- 
 victions of our common nature, which have been so beautifully 
 expressed by that eminent philosopher. Sir Humphrey Davy — " I 
 envy no quality of mind or intellect in others, not genius, power, 
 wit or fancy — ^but if I could choose what would be most delight- 
 ful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm re- 
 ligious belief to every other blessing : for it makes life a disci- 
 pline of goodness — creates new hopes when all earthly hopes 
 vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, 
 the most gorgeous of all lights ; awakens life in death, and 
 from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity ; makes 
 an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to 
 Paradise ; and, far above all combination of earthly hopes, 
 calls up the most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, 
 the gardens of the blessed, the security of everlasting joys, 
 where the sensualist and the skeptic view only gloom, decay, 
 annihilation and despair." 
 
 Shall this " firm religious faith," so desirable, so blessed, so 
 needful for us in life and in death, and to be breathed upon us 
 only by the Spirit of God in the diligent study of his word — 
 
438 ORIGINAL concp:ptions ; oe, 
 
 shall this be our portion ? Whether it will or not, depends 
 upon the use we make of that word. We are all voyagers 
 upon life's great ocean. Our sails are set for the fair havei* 
 of immortality. But many treacherous seas must be passed : 
 many hidden rocks and dangers lie along our vessel's course. 
 We have but one chart and compass which can carry us safely 
 through. It is the Bible. If we sail by it, our success will be 
 certain, our recompense glorious. If we fail, the fault must be 
 our own — the loss what tongue can tell I 
 
 " They might have understood, the bard replied: 
 They had the Bible. Hast thou ever heard 
 Of such a book ! its author God himself; 
 Its subject God and man, salvation, Ufe, 
 And death ; eternal life, eternal death ! 
 Dread words ! that have no end, no bound. 
 Most wondrous book ! bright candle of the Lord! 
 Star of eternity ! the only star. 
 By which the bark of man could navigate 
 The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 
 Securely — only star that rose on time, 
 And on its dark and troubled billows, still, 
 As generation, drifting swiftly by. 
 Succeeded generation, threw a ray 
 Of heaven's own light, and to the hills of God, 
 The eternal hills, pointed the sinner's eye." 
 
 In looking back over what has been written in these pages, 
 we cannot for a moment imagine that this unpretending volume 
 will be at all suited to the taste of the times. Few perhaps of 
 the great reading multitude will think it worth while to hear 
 what we have to say upon a subject which they suppose them- 
 selves to have mastered long ago. 'Wl^.en the Bible itself is 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 4:39 
 
 laid upon the shelf as an antiquated and useless record, fit 
 only to be read at funerals or quoted occasionally in sermons, 
 what chance has a mere book about the Bible, to gain the eye 
 of this fiction-loving generation ? The world has no lack of books 
 and no lack of readers. But the men and women of Dream- 
 land — the heroes and heroines, big and little, natural and un- 
 natural, black and white, which modern genius can make to 
 order and turn off with the regularity of a steam-mill — these 
 are the popular divinities that rule the hour. Every book- 
 store is full of them. Every magazine, almost every newspaper 
 greets its reader with a new tale of thrilling interest. Go into 
 our steamboats and railroad cars, our circulating libraries and 
 hotel reading-rooms, and you will find the people everywhere 
 reading : reading as if they were a race of students ; reading 
 as if they would read their eyes out ; reading as if life were not 
 half long enough to do all the reading. 
 
 And reading what ? Reading this mushroom, yellow literar 
 ture, these endless shilly-shally novels and novelettes, whose 
 productiveness, no longer dependent on the uncertain inspira- 
 tions of genius, reveals an order of talent that works enthrely 
 by steam power. Such is the march of mind. And such are 
 the books that are read by the million. These are the things 
 that assume to educate the young, and mould the intelligence 
 of the people ; and do it by the double process of consuming 
 the time which might be devoted to better reading, and of 
 creating a taste which utterly unfits the mind for the acquisi- 
 tion of solid and useful knowledge. 
 
 For stuff like this, the grand old book of God, whose history 
 is notched in all the centuries of the past, and linked to all the 
 destinies of the future, whose immortal words have awakened 
 the energies and expanded the intellects of million? of the 
 
440 ORIGINAL CONCEPTIONS ; OR, 
 
 mighty dead now in glory, is forgotten or contemned by the 
 aged and the young. 
 
 On trash like this, the great heart, and mind, and conscience 
 of the reading world must now be fed. These dreams of ima- 
 gination are offered as the daily food of a people's intellectual 
 and moral life. These thousand and one creations of the brain, 
 some moral, some immoral, some half and half of each, but all 
 attractive in proportion to their extravagance or their skillful 
 white-washing of some hideous form of lust or villainy — these are 
 the books that find readers everywhere, and are now shap- 
 ing the intellectual and moral' character of the people. 
 
 And what is the result of all this reading ? What is to be 
 the end of this popular education by means of a fictitious litera- 
 ture, universally diffused through the steam press ? Precisely 
 that which the Prodigal Son arrived at, when having quitted the 
 fat things of his father's house " he began to be in want, and 
 would fain have filled his belly with the husks which the swine 
 did eat." Precisely the same, save only that our modern tale 
 devourers are doing for their souls what the Prodigal only 
 thought to do for his body, but was ashamed of himself and 
 went back to his father's house. 
 
 By this we do not mean to pass sentence of condemnation 
 upon all works of imagination, nor upon all the writers of fic- 
 tion. Prose fiction as well as Poetry, holds an important place 
 in literature, and may be made a most useful medium of instruc- 
 tive, entertaining knowledge. But our censure at present lies 
 against the inordinate excess of the thing. Even a good tiling 
 does harm when it is pursued to the neglect or injury of other 
 things equally good or better. When it threatens to engulf 
 every other interest it becomes a positive evil. And this is now 
 the tendency of i)Ovel-writing as it regards the true interest of 
 
OBJECTS OF SUBLIMirr AND BEAUTY IN THE BIBLE. 44:1 
 
 our literature and of our reading public. From the excessive 
 laudation of the press, bestowing, upon every thing that can 
 wield a pen, an immortality that Walter Scott himself might 
 have coveted, one would suppose that the novel had well nigh 
 monopolized the whole market of modern genius — demanding, 
 as it seems, an amount of brains which the old Greeks and 
 Romans, in their utmost flights of fancy, never conceived of as 
 a possible thing. " I have often maintained," says John 
 Foster, "that fiction may be much more instructive than real 
 history. I think so still ; but viewing the rout of novels as 
 they are, I think they do incalculable mischief. I wish we 
 could collect all together, and make one vast fire of them. I 
 should exult to see the smoke of them ascend like that of 
 Sodom and Gomorrah ; the judgment would be as just." 
 
 But there is yet a reading public of a different order. 
 There are some that still stand by the old landmarks. There 
 is a large and respectable class who prefer fact to fiction, and 
 who will not forsake " the waters of Shiloah that go softly," 
 for the wild and turbid streams of Dreamland. To them we 
 turn. And if any thing we have written should be the means 
 of increasing their admiration for the book of God, or of in- 
 creasing their numbers, by leading the young to become Bible 
 readers, this volume will have accomplished its end. 
 
 THE END. 
 
u