the roaring billows of time thou art not ingulfed, but borne aloft to the azure of eternity. Love not pleasure ;-love God? His "Small is it that thou canst trample under foot the world with its injuries as old Greek Zeno taught thee. Thou mayst love the world with its injuries and because of its injuries. For this a greater than Zeno was needed and he too was sent. Our highest Orpheus walked in Judea eighteen hundred years ago. sphere-melody, flowing in wild, native tones, took captive the ravished souls of men; and being of a truth sphere-melody, still flows and sounds, though now with thousand-fold accompaniments and rich symphonies, through all our hearts and modulates and divinely leads them. Sweep away the illusion of time. Glance, if thou hast eyes, from the near-moving cause to the far-distant mover. Oh! could I transport thee direct from the beginnings to the endings, how were thy eye-sight unsealed and thy heart set flaming in a light sea of celestial wonder. Then sawest thou that through every star,-through every grass-blade,—and most of all, through every living soul the glory of a present God still beams :that this fair universe, were it in the meanest portion thereof, is, in very deed, the star-domed city of God!" Such, gentlemen, is the philosophy of the Scriptures ;—a complete code of practical and speculative wisdom in two little words: a philosophy, original, profound, sublime; and, at the same time clear to the common understanding, satisfactory to every uncorrupted heart. You will perceive, that I speak of this philosophy, not as a doctrine resting on the authority of Divine revelation, and recommended as such to our respect and belief. I look at it merely in its own intrinsic character, and point out to you the originality, completeness, and evident self-demonstrating truth, which distinguish it in both its parts from all the other systems which have engaged the attention of men. Let us now look for a moment at the poetry of the Bible. II. Here, gentlemen, we find ourselves at once in the midst of a new world of wonders. Poetry, in all its highest departments of sublimity, pathos, and beauty, is scattered through the pages of the sacred volume with a profusion, which we look for in vain in any other quarter. Here, too, "the highest heaven of invention," to use the language of Shakspeare, opens upon us at the very threshold. God said, let there be light, and there was light. What power of thought! What simplicity of language! The greatest critic of antiquity pronounces this passage, as I need not remind you, the finest specimen of the sublime which he had any where met with. Consider for a moment the variety and vastness of the images compressed into this little sentence;-a universe weltering in blind and formless chaos;-the breath of God moving mysteriously over the confused mass;--the word of power issuing unspoken from the depths of the Almighty mind, and followed instantaneously by the presence of the new and brilliant element. The least of these ideas would furnish a common poet with pages of rhetoric. The record of creation compresses them all into a single line. God said, let there be light, and there was light. How tame in comparison with this is even the splendid versification of the minstrel of Paradise Lost! "God said, let there be light! and forthwith light Sprang from the east, and through the azure vault Through this magnificent entrance we approach the blooming abode of our first parents. How charming, and yet how mysterious and mournful, considered merely under a poetical point of view, is this ancient eclogue! Here again how various, and yet how striking are the images and thoughts expressed in a few short paragraphs! A new race of beings, created by the will of God and formed after his image ;--their innocence and happiness;--the freshness and beauty of the garden that is given them for a residence, with its various vegetable products, including the wondrous trees of knowledge and of life;-the celestial beings, not excepting the great creating Power himself, who disdains not to visit these yet unpolluted haunts in the cool of the evening;-the mysterious principle of evil, intruding itself by stealth into this abode of bliss, and turning all its beauty into bitterness;-finally, the sad reverse ;the departure of the exiled pair, and the messenger of God stationed with his sword of flame at the gate of Eden to prevent their return. What a picture! The highest reach of the human intellect in poetry, the Paradise Lost, is, I need not say, the mere filling up of this splendid outline; -a filling up, completed, -- we might almost believe, from its perfection,-with more than ordinary aid from that Divine Spirit, which the sublime minstrel invokes with so much earnestness at the outset. "Chiefly thou, great Spirit! that dost prefer Before all places the upright heart and pure, And justify the ways of God to man." The same height of poetical excellence is sustained through every part of the Scriptures. The limits of the occasion prevent me from going into detail; nor is it necessary upon a subject so familiar to you. Let me barely recall to your remembrance the charming narrative of the life of Joseph, which combines with the strongest internal evidence of its literal truth all the interest of the most pathetic romance ;--the beautiful Pastoral of Ruth; the sublime Tragedy of Job; the splendid lyrical effusions of the earlier and later baids that are scattered like gems over the rich groundwork of the historical and prophetical books; - the treasures of thought concentrated in the Proverbs;- the impassioned tenderness that breathes through the love songs of Solomon;- finally, and above all, the magnificent productions of the "Monarch Minstrel " himself; --a collection of odes, unequalled, unapproached, I may say, even in mere literary merit, in any other language; odes before which Pindar and Horace, and the modern lyrical poets of highest fame hide their diminished heads; odes, whose essential power and beauty, no dress, however unworthy, can wholly disguise-which even in the bald imitations of the modern versifiers thrill with delight, and exalt with religious rapture every feeling heart in the whole population of Christendom. It would be impossible, as I remarked just now, to discuss, however summarily, on the present occasion, all the various topics suggested by this brilliant and extended series of literary works. In order to fix our ideas, let us, nevertheless, bring before us, for a moment, a detached passage from this grand national library,- this Encyclopedia, for such it may, in fact, be called, of Hebrew literature. Take, for example, the lament of David upon the death of Saul and Jonathan. There are few incidents in the course of human affairs more affecting than the fall of a young warrior in battle. Who among us has not felt his heart melt within him like water, at the recollection of the fate of our own Warren, cut off prematurely in the bloom of youth and beauty, on the first and last of his fields ? Jonathan was the Leloved friend of David. For Saul, to whom he was indebted, in the first instance, for his political advancement, although he had afterwards much reason to complain of the cause less jealousy and even persecution of the wayware king, he had ever cherished the sentiments of respect and gratitude, which were natural, under such circumstances, to his generous and elevated character. Their fall awakens all his feelings; and he pours them out with the pure taste and concentrated. power that belong to his style, in perhaps the most touching of all his poems. "The beauty of Israel is lain upon his high places! How are the mighty fallen! "Tell it not in Gath! Publish it not in the streets of Askelon lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. "Ye mountains of Gilboa ! let there be no dew, neither rain upon you, nor fruits for offerings! for there the sheld of the Mighty One was vilely cast away; the shield of Saul as if he had not been anointed with oil. "From the blood of the slain,—from the battle of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, the sword of Saul returned not empty. "Saul and Jonathan were loving and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles: they were stronger than lions. "Ye daughters of Israel! weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold upon your apparel! "How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! Oh, Jonathan! thou wast slain on thy high places. "I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan! very dear hast thou been unto me; thy love for me was wonderful, passing the love of woman. "How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!" III. Such, gentlemen, are the richness and value of the poetry of the Bible. I had selected one or two other passages, not inferior to that which I have recited as specimens, but the limits of the occasion compel me to omit them. Let us now, in conclusion, glance for a moment at some portions of the sacred record which belong to the department of history. Here, gentlemen, we find ourselves carried back once more to the opening passage, which I have already cited, as embodying the essence of the philosophy of the Bible, and exhibiting, at the same time, in the judgment of the most celebrated critics, the noblest example of the sublime in poetry. It is also the record of the most important facts in the history of the world. The creation from nothing of the unformed elements of the universe ;-their separation and arrangement; -the origin of man;-the introduction of the principle of evil;--its gradual prevalence throughout the extended population of the earth, and the final submersion of a guilty race under the waters of a universal deluge;-these are the grand physical and moral revolutions that occupy the first chapters of the Bible. In all this, gentlemen, there is much that transcends the bounds of human reason. The existence of a great, uncreated Mind ;—creation;- the presence of evil in a system formed and governed by Omniscient and Almighty Goodness, are facts beyond our comprehension. What then? Can we comprehend the least of the ordinary operations of nature that are going on around us? Is not the act of my own will by which I lift my arm as incomprehensible as the existence of God? Is not the articulate voice that bursts from my own lips, as great a miracle to me as the word of power that raised a universe out of nothing? We are surrounded on all sides by mystery. The dew-drop that glitters in the morning sunbeamthe animalcule floating in it, whose existence can only be detected |