This inseparable union with religion, with truth and holiness, gives to Hebrew poetry an enduring charm and undying power for good in all ages and countries. It never gets out of date, and never grows old. The dew of youth is upon it. It brings us into the immediate presence of the great Jehovah, it raises us above the miseries of earth, it dispels the clouds of darkness; it inspires, ennobles, purifies and imparts peace and joy; it gives us a foretaste of heaven itself. Ewald truly says of Hebrew poetry: "It is the interpreter of the sublimest religious ideas for all times, and herein lies its most important and imperishable value."1

In this respect the poetry of the Bible is as far above classic poetry as the Bible itself is above all other books. Homer and Virgil dwindle into insignificance as compared with David and Asaph, if we look to the moral effect upon the heart and the life

character was no common one. It was strong with all the strength of man, tender with all the tenderness of woman. Naturally brave, his courage was heightened and confirmed by that faith in God which never, in the worst extremity, forsook him. Naturally warm-hearted, his affections struck their roots deep into the innermost centre of his being. In his love for his parents, for whom he provided in his own extreme peril-in his love for his wife Michal-for his friend Jonathan, whom he loved as his own soul-for his darling Absalom, whose death almost broke his heart-even for the infant whose loss he dreaded-we see the same man, the same depth and truth, the same tenderness of personal affection. On the other hand, when stung with a sense of wrong or injustice, his sense of which was peculiarly keen, he could flash out into strong words and strong deeds. He could hate with the same fervor that he loved. Evil men and evil things, all that was at war with goodness and with God-for these he found no abhorrence too deep, scarcely any imprecations too strong. Yet he was, withal, placable and ready to forgive. He could exercise a prudent self-control, if he was occasionally impetuous. His true courtesy, his chivalrous generosity to his foes, his rare delicacy, his rare self-denial, are all traits which present themselves most forcibly as we read his history. He is the truest of heroes in the genuine elevation of his character, no less than in the extraordinary incidents of his life. Such a man cannot wear a mask in his writings. Depth, tenderness, fervor, mark all his poems."

1 Winer, too, derives from the religious character of Hebrew poetry its "sublime flight and never-dying beauty." Angus says: "The peculiar excellence of the Hebrew poetry is to be ascribed to the employment of it in the noblest service, that of religion. It presents the loftiest and most precious truths, expressed in the most appropriate language."

of the reader. The classic poets reach only a small and cultured class; but the singers of the Bible come home to men of every grade of education, every race and color, every condition of life, and every creed and sect. The Psalter is, as Luther calls it, "a manual of all the saints," where each one finds the most truthful description of his own situation, especially in seasons of affliction. It has retained its hold upon the veneration and affections of pious Jews and Christians for these three thousand years, and is even now and will ever be more extensively used as a guide of private devotion and public worship than any other book. "When Christian martyrs, and Scottish Covenanters in dens and caves of the earth, when French exiles and English fugitives in their hiding-places during the panic of revolution or of mutiny, received a special comfort from the Psalms, it was because they found themselves literally side by side with the author in the cavern of Adullam, or on the cliffs of Engedi, or beyond the Jordan, escaping from Saul or from Absalom, from the Philistines or from the Assyrians. When Burleigh or Locke seemed to find an echo in the Psalms to their own calm philosophy, it was because they were listening to the strains which had proceeded from the mouth or charmed the ear of the sagacious king or the thoughtful statesman of Judah. It has often been observed that the older we grow, the more interest the Psalms possess for us as individuals; and it may at most be said that by these multiplied associations, the older the human race grows, the more interest do they possess for mankind."1

POETIC MERIT.

In its religious character, as just described, lies the crowning excellence of the poetry of the Bible. The spiritual ideas are the main thing, and they rise in richness, purity, sublimity and universal importance immeasurably beyond the literature of all other nations of antiquity.

But as to the artistic and æsthetic form, it is altogether subordinate to the contents, and held in subserviency to the lofty aim. Moses, David, Solomon, Isaiah, and the author of the Book of

Job, possessed evidently the highest gifts of poetry, but they restrained them, lest human genius should outshine the Divine grace, or the silver picture be estimated above the golden apple. The poetry of the Bible, like the whole Bible, wears the garb of humility and condescends to men of low degree, in order to raise them up. It gives no encouragement to the idolatry of genius, and glorifies God alone. "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory" (Ps. cxv. 1).

Hence an irreligious or immoral man is apt to be repelled by the Bible; he feels himself in an uncongenial atmosphere, and is made uneasy and uncomfortable by the rebukes of sin and the praise of a holy God. He will not have this book rule over him. or disturb him in his worldly modes of thought and habits of life.

Others are unable to divest themselves of early prejudices for classical models; they esteem external polish more highly than ideas, and can enjoy no poetry which is not cast in the ancient Greek or modern mould, and moves on in the regular flow of uniform metre, stanza, and rhyme. And yet these are not esscntial to true poetry. The rhyme was unknown to Homer, Pindar, Sophocles, Virgil and Horace; it was even despised by Milton as "the invention of a barbarous age to set off wretched matter and lame metre, as the jingling sound of like endings trivial to all judicious ears and of no true musical delight." This is indeed going to the opposite extreme; for although rhyme and even metre are by no means necessary in the epos and drama, they yet belong to the perfection of some forms of lyric poetry, which is the twin sister of music.

If we study the Bible poetry on its own ground, and with unclouded eyes, we may find in it forms of beauty as high and enduring as in that of any nation ancient or modern. Even its artless simplicity and naturalness are the highest triumph of art. Simplicity always enters into good taste. Those poems and songs which are the outgushings of the heart, without any show of artificial labor, are the most popular, and never lose their hold on the heart. We feel that we could make them ourselves, and yet only a high order of genius could produce them.

Where is there a nobler ode of liberty, of national deliverance

and independence, than the Song of Moses on the overthrow of Pharaoh in the Red Sea (Ex. xv.)? Where a grander panorama of creation than in the one hundred and fourth Psalm? Where a more charming and loving pastoral than the twenty-third Psalm? Where such a high view of the dignity and destiny of man as in the eighth Psalm? Where a profounder sense of sin and Divine forgiveness than in the thirty-second and fifty-first Psalms? Where such a truthful and overpowering description of the vanity of human life and the never-changing character of the holy and just, yet merciful God, as in the ninetieth Psalm? Where have the infinite greatness and goodness of God, his holiness, righteousness, long-suffering and mercy, the wonders of His government, and the feeling of dependence on Him, of joy and peace in Him, of gratitude for His blessings, of praise of His glory, found truer and fitter embodiment than in the Psalter and the Prophets? Where will you find more sweet, tender, and delicate expression of innocent love than in the Song of Songs, which sounds like the singing of birds in sunny May from the flowery fields and the tree of life in Paradise? The Prayer of Moses (Psalm xc.) has been styled "the most sublime of human compositions, the deepest in feeling, loftiest in theologic conception, the most magnificent in its imagery." Isaiah is, in the judgment of the ablest critics, one of the greatest of poets as well as of prophets, of an elevation, a richness, a compass, a power and comfort that are unequalled. No human genius ever soared so high as this evangelist of the old dispensation. Jeremiah, the prophet of sorrow and affliction, has furnished the richest supply of the language of holy grief in seasons of public calamity and distress, from the destruction of Jerusalem down to the latest siege of Paris; and few works have done this work more effectively than his Lamentations. And what shall we say of the Book of Job, the Shakespeare in the Bible? Where are such bold and vivid descriptions of the wonders of nature, of the behemoth, the leviathan, and of the war-horse? What can be finer than Job's picture of wisdom, whose price is far above rubies? And what a wealth of comfort is in that wonderful passage, which inspired the sublimest solo in the sublimest musical composition, those words graven in the rock forever, where this patriarchal sage

and saint of the order of Melchisedec expresses his faith and hope that his "Redeemer liveth," and that the righteous shall see Him face to face.

TRIBUTES OF POETS AND SCHOLARS TO HEBREW POETRY.

The times for the depreciation of Bible poetry have passed. Many of the greatest scholars and poets, some of whom by no means in sympathy with its religious ideas, have done it full justice. I quote a few of them who represent different standpoints and nationalities.

Henry Stephens, the greatest philologist of the sixteenth century, thought that there was nothing more poetic (nointezátepov), nothing more musical (povizórepov), nothing more thrilling (γοργώτερον), nothing more full of lofty inspiration (διθυραμβικώ Tepov) than the Psalms of David.

John Milton, notwithstanding his severe classic taste, judges: "There are no songs comparable to the songs of Zion, no orations equal to those of the Prophets, and no politics like those which the Scriptures teach." And as to the Psalms, he says: "Not in their divine arguments alone, but in the very critical art of composition, the Psalms may be easily made to appear over all the kinds of lyric poesy incomparable."

Sir William Jones: "I have regularly and attentively read the Holy Scriptures, and am of the opinion that this volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more important history and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected from all other books."

Sir D. K. Sandford: "In lyric flow and fire, in crushing force and majesty, the poetry of the ancient Scriptures is the most superb that ever burnt within the breast of man."

John von Müller, the German Tacitus: "There is nothing in Greece, nothing in Rome, nothing in all the West, like David, who selected the God of Israel to sing Him in higher strains than ever praised the gods of the Gentiles."

Herder, who was at home in the literature of all ages and countries, is full of enthusiastic admiration for the pure and sublime beauties of Hebrew poetry, as may be seen on almost