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shells, in whose emptiness the most subtle infidelity may be engendered, and that, too, amid the loudest professions of a high and extraordinary faith.

We need then, with all reverence and diffidence would we say it,—a revival of religious feeling, in which there shall be prominent the ideas of law, of justice, of sin, of deep demerit, of punishment for intrinsic desert, of expiation, of redemption, of God as a sovereign lawgiver, of a divine government grounded on his own proper and eternal deity, and administered for his own eternal glory; instead of those theories of obligation, and benevolence, and happiness, and greatest amount of pleasing sensations, and utility, and enlightened self-interest, and physical consequences, &c., which are now so rife in the moral and religious world; and which might almost be supposed to retain whatever sanctions they possess, under any system of natural religion, as well as in connexion with the Gospel of Christ. We would make the charge with great diffidence, and yet it does seem to us that a chief characteristic of some former periods of religious interest in our land, has been the almost entire absence of these views of justice, and punishment, and intrinsic desert. There seemed to be little deep conviction of sin, and, of course, but little recognition of the awful doctrine of expiation with its inseparable ideas; there was an absence of Christ and the cross; there was far more of self-dedication, and self-submission, and self-resolving, than of selfabasement; there was more talk of duty and less of demerit, than would have been under a truer view of our relations to the Deity. God was regarded rather as a being to be obliged by ill-defined service, or resolutions of service, instead of an offended jndge, to whom nothing was acceptable without faith in the atoning work of Christ. Hence has come much of that restless religion, which has issued, and is yet issuing, in so many forms of radicalism-in some cases hardly to be distinguished from avowed infidelity. In the periods to which we refer, there was doubtless much good accomplished, but they have also left behind them their evil dregs, from which, in part at least, have been engendered many of these false theories of law, and ground of punishment, and physical consequence, and greatest happiness, and justice as only a modification of benevolence. Of all this kind of morals and theology, it may be said, that it makes little or no account of the "fear of God"-that principle which the Bible so solemnly declares to be "the beginning of all wisdom," and without which, therefore, every moral, or political, or religious theory, must be but as "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."

Nulla religio absque formidine. Take away this element, and the very term implies a solecism. Without it there may be a philosophy, a psychology, a theology even, as the term is understood by some; but the Scriptures, and the universal conscience

of the race, and all rites, and all modes of worship which have ever existed among mankind, most loudly testify that aside from the ideas of retributive justice, and wrath against sin, and a consequent expiation, there can be no religion. Equally important for us is the truth, that without religion there cannot be law. Both terms spring from the same radical and the same ultimate idea. Religio haeret in republica-says Cicero-It is inherent in the very idea of the State. Absque religione nulla est lex.

ARTICLE III.

SOLOMON'S SONG.

By REV. C. E. Stowe, D.D., Prof. Bib. Lit., Lane Seminary, Cincinnati.”

THERE is a Hebrew poem of singular structure, containing passages of great and unrivalled beauty, which neither distance of time, difference of manners, nor the awkwardness of incompetent and blundering translation, has been able, so far, to obscure, that they will not affect, and that very sensibly, even the dullest readers; while a poetic imagination will dwell upon them with intense delight. Most students of Hebrew literature date the origin of the poem as far back as the year 1000 B. C.—that is, several centuries anterior to Hesiod or Homer; and none pretend to made it later than 500 B. C., a century earlier than Herodotus, the father of profane history. It is the united voice of antiquity, the concurrent testimony of all generations, that the poem was written by Solomon, the wisest of oriental kings, whose reign extended from the year 1014 to 980 B. C.

Of this poem, I now propose to give a popular, but at the same time a strictly philological review; and all I ask as the basis of the examination is, that you admit, what I presume none will be disposed to deny, that it is a Hebrew poem, written in Palestine or some of the neighboring countries, some time between the years 1000 and 500 B. Č.

On reading the poem, we find in it two characters, who speak and act throughout the whole; the one a king named SHELOMOH (the Peaceful, or Prince of Peace), the other a female, who from a rustic shepherdess becomes his queen. This female bears the name SHULAMITH, which is simply the feminine of the name Shelomoh, the two having to each other the same relation as the Latin names Julius and Julia. Compare 1: 6. 3: 11. 6: 13. 8:12.

There is also throughout the whole, as in the Greek dramas, a

chorus of virgins, called daughters of Jerusalem. Compare 2: 7. 3:5. 5: 8, 9, etc.

Towards the close, two brothers of Shulamith appear and speak each once. See 8: 8, 9, compared with 1: 6.

There are other characters occasionally introduced or alluded to, as shepherds, watchmen, gardeners, etc., but they are mutes and do not speak.

Like all other ancient poems, there are no breaks, no initial letters, no marks whatever, to indicate change of scene or speakers. In detecting these changes, we must be guided altogether by the sense. There is one facility, however, in the structure of the poem, and in the peculiar character of the Hebrew language, which renders the changes as plain to the attentive reader as they could have been made by the divisions and the initial letters of the modern drama. Throughout the entire poem the speakers are one man and one woman, with only occasional remarks by the chorus of virgins. Now the Hebrew language always distinguishes the gender of the pronouns in the second person as well as the third; and it also distinguishes the gender of the verbs both in the second and third persons singular and plural. By attending to the gender of the second person of the pronouns and the verbs, we can always determine whether it is Shelomoh or Shulamith who is addressed; and the number of the first person, together with the context, will always show when the chorus of virgins is speaking.

With these observations for our guide, we will enter on the poem itself, and make a few extracts to indicate its general tone and spirit.

I. Shulamith is first introduced, expressing her ardent admiration of Shelomoh (1: 2-4.) She then turns to the daughters of Jerusalem, and deprecates their contempt for her rustic character and appearance in the following terms:

I am black yet comely,

Ye daughters of Jerusalem,
As the tents of Kedar,
As the pavilions of Shelomoh,

Eye me not because I am dark

Because the sun hath looked upon me.

My mother's sons envied me

They set me to keep the vineyards;

But my vineyard,' that which is my own,

I have not kept it.—(1: 5, 6.)

II. After this there is a dialogue between Shelomoh and Shulamith, in which the character and position of each are described.

Shul.-Tell me,

Thou whom my soul loveth,
Where feedest thou thy flock?

Her beauty. See also 8: 8, 9, 12.

Where restest thou at noon?

Why should I be as one veiled1

Among the flocks of thy companions?

Shel.-If thou knowest not,

Thou fairest of women,

Follow the footsteps of the flock.
Feed thy twin kids 2

By the shepherds' tents:

To my Pharaoh's chariot horse,

Do I compare thee, my love;

Lovely are thy cheeks with rings,
Thy neck, with chains.

Golden chains will I provide for thee,
With points of silver.

Shul.-Where the prince is on his divan,

Thither doth my perfume send its fragrance.
A cluster of myrrh is my beloved to me,
A bouquet in my bosom;

A palm cluster for the garden of Engeddi
Is my beloved to me.

Shel.-Behold, thou art fair, my love,
Behold thou art lovely;

Thine eyes are doves.4

Shul.-Beautiful art thou, my beloved,
Sacred art thou;

This green turf is our couch,5
These cedars the columns of our palace;
These cypresses its rafters ;
And I the rose of Sharon,
The anemone of the vale."

Shel.-As the anemone among thorns,7

So is my love among the daughters.

Shul. As the fruit tree among forest trees,8

So is my beloved among the sons.—(1:7—2:3)

III. During this interview, Shulamith, overcome by the strength of her emotions, falls asleep and has an ecstatic dream. Shelomoh, both at the commencement and at the close of the dream, charges the daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken her.

Shel.-I charge you, ye daughters of Jerusalem,

By the gazelles and fawns of the field,

That ye disturb her not,

That ye wake her not,

9

Till she please.

Shul.—(asleep and dreaming) The voice of my beloved,

Lo! he comes,

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3 He attracts her very perfume.

2 All the flock she has

4 Not dove's eyes, but doves-the soft, gentle, loving movement of the eyes.
They are in the field, on the green grass, among the tall cedars and spreading
6 She compares herself to the small and lowly flowers.
8 She returns it.

cypresses.
He turns her modest self-estimation to compliment.
• The verb here is feminine.

THIRD SERIES, VOL. III. NO. 2.

5

Leaping over the mountains,
Bounding over the hills.1
As a gazelle is my beloved,
As a fleeting fawn.
Lo! there he stands

Beyond the wall.

He looks through the lattice work;

He glances at the window;

My beloved speaks,

He speaks to me :
"Arise, my love,

Arise, my fair one,
Come!-

For see the winter is past,

The rain is over and gone;

The flowers are seen in the ground,

The time of song is come,

The voice of the turtle dove

Is heard in our land;

The fig tree is sweetening

Her green figs;

The blossoming vine

Sends forth its fragrance;

Arise, my love,

Arise, my fair one,

Come!

My dove is in the clefts of the rock,"
In the hiding place of the precipice.
Let me see thy form;

Let me hear thy voice;
For thy voice is sweet,

For thy form is beautiful."
Catch for me the foxes,3
The little foxes.

Which destroy the vines,

While the vineyard is in blossom.

My beloved is mine, and I am his,

He is feeding his flock among the wild flowers ;4

When the day breathes cool,

And the shadows grow long,

Return, O my beloved;

Bound like the gazelle, like the fleeting fawn,

Over the mountains which separate us.

By night upon my couch,5

I seek him whom my soul loveth;

I seek him and find him not.

1 will arise, now,

I will go around the city,

In the streets, and in the squares,

And seek him whom my soul loveth,

I seek him and find him not;

The watchmen met me,

1 Just as we see things in dreams. 2 He complains that she is inaccessible to him. She seeing him in the garden thus addresses him.

Again she sees him feeding his flocks beyond the mountains. All so perfectly dream-like. The dream takes another shape.

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