departments of poetry, is itself the best standard, in literature, of true poetic taste and genius. And it seems to us that nc one, possessing a cultivated taste and a true sense of the sublime and beautiful, can ever underrate the bards of the Bible. Nor is it without a purpose that God has made so much use of poetry 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 !

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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 background, 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

made a deeper impression on man than poetry And there is nothing in religion 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. Indeed 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.

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"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 speculation in its eye-no man of genius can make it beautiful; because 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 development 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 the 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

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 hills 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 innumerable 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-"Thou 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."

Such then is the Bible; such its poetry, its religion, its anticipations! 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 Abbotsford 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.

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 Hushai, the Archite.

FROM 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 eloquence 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