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the principles of taste and beauty; and by no other medium that we are capable of conceiving, could the human heart have been more forcibly assured of the truths to which belong eternal life.

Had the Bible been without its poetical character, we should have wanted the voice of an angel to recommend it to the acceptance of mankind. Prone as we are to neglect this banquet upon which the most exalted mind may freely and fully feast, we should then. have regarded it with tenfold disdain. But such is the unlimited goodness of him who knew from the beginning what was in the heart of man, that not only the wide creation. is so designed as to accord with our views of what is magnificent and beautiful, and thus to remind us of his glory; but even the record of his immediate dealing with his rational and responsible creatures, is so filled with the true melody of language, as to harmonise with all our most tender, refined, and elevated thoughts. With our established ideas of beauty, and grace, and pathos, and sublimity, either concentrated in the minutest point, or extended to the widest range, we can derive from the Scriptures a fund of gratification not to be found

in any other memorial of past or present time. From the worm that grovels in the dust beneath our feet, to the track of leviathan in the foaming deep-from the moth that corrupts the secret treasure, to the eagle that soars above his eyry in the clouds-from the wild ass of the desert, to the lamb within the shepherd's fold-from the consuming locust, to the cattle upon a thousand hills-from the rose of Sharon, to the cedar of Lebanon-from the crystal stream gushing forth out of the flinty rock, to the wide waters of the deluge-from the barren waste, to the fruitful vineyard, and the land flowing with milk and honey-from the lonely path of the wanderer, to the gathering of a mighty multitude-from the tear that falls in secret, to the din of battle, and the shout of a triumphant host-from the solitary in the wilderness, to the satrap on his throne-from the mourner clad in sackcloth, to the prince in purple robes-from the gnawings of the worm that dieth not, to the seraphic visions of the blest-from the still small voice, to the thunders of Omnipotence-from the depths of hell, to the regions of eternal glory, there is no degree of beauty or deformity, no tendency to good or evil, no shade of darkness or gleam of light,

which does not come within the cognizance of the Holy Scriptures; and therefore there is no impression or conception of the mind that may not find a corresponding picture, no thirst for excellence that may not meet with its full supply, and no condition of humanity necessarily excluded from the unlimited scope of adaptation and of sympathy comprehended in the language and the spirit of the Bible.

How gracious then-how wonderful, and harmonious, is that majestic plan by which one ethereal principle, like an electric chain of light and life, extends through the very elements of our existence, giving music to language, elevation to thought, vitality to feeling, and intensity, and power, and beauty, and happiness, to the exercise of every faculty of the human soul!

VOL. II.

170

THE POETRY OF RELIGION.

NOR are the Holy Scriptures the utmost bound of the sphere through which poetry extends. With that religion which is the essence of the Bible, it may also be associated. The power of human intellect has never yet worked out from the principles of thought and feeling, a subject more sublime than that of an omnipotent Being presiding over a universe of his own creating. There have been adventurous spirits who have dared to sing the wonders of a world without a God, but as a proof how much they felt the want of this higher range of poetical interest, they have referred the creation and government of the external world to an ideal spirit of nature-a mysterious intelligence, single or multiplied, smiling in the sunshine, and frowning in the storm, with the mock majesty of omnipotence.

Again, the propensities of our nature-the low grovelling hopes and fears that agitate the human heart, when centred solely in what is material, without connection with, or reference to eternal mind, as subjects for the genius of the poet, are robbed of half their interest, and all their refinement; but when the feelings which form the sum of our experience are regarded as the impress of the hand of our Creator, when the motives which lead us on to action are considered as deriving their stimulus and strength from almighty power, and when the great chain of circumstances and events which influence our lives are linked in with the designs of a superintending Providence, they assume a character at once poetical and sacred, a colouring which blends the light of heaven with the shades of earth, and an importance which raises them from what is ordinary and familiar, to what is astonishing and sublime.

The most serious objection ever advanced against poetry, is that of its not necessarily constituting any part of our religion, and being in no way essential to our spiritual progress. Upon precisely the same principles it might be argued, that beauty does not necessarily form any part of utility, and that happiness is

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