For this is the whole of man :

For God shall bring every work into judgment,

With every secret thing, whether good or evil."

Truly a grand conclusion! If his perplexed mind did not rest upon it with uniform faith, happily we may. This is "the whole of man," his whole duty, as some interpret ;—his whole happiness, as there is room to add; -his whole need and his whole capacity. It is, as some would interpret, "the duty of every man,”—it is for universal human nature, -the basis of universal and everlasting religious obligation, enlarging as man's faculties expand, and as he better knows what it is truly to fear God, and how exceeding broad the Divine commandments are, and as the vague expectation of a righteous judgment becomes better defined to the conscience, as being inward rather than outward, and as certain in the future life, if doubtful here. These are the great suggestions of natural religion, written in the heart, and retraced by Providence, and brightened again by Revelation. These are the Law and the Prophets. And these are the Gospel too.

In his very

Even in the old Preacher's perplexity, we may find solid argument to aid our Christian faith. doubts and difficulties we may see hopes. While he is looking darkly, sceptically, despondingly, upon the outward state of man in this world, we look rather at the reasoning and longing man himself, so sad and perplexed. We reason upon the reasoner. We moralize upon the moralist. We bring him, with his doctrine so unsatisfactory and his faculties so evidently unsatisfied, into Christian light and promise, to let him (as it were) review his own arguments and perhaps reverse his conclusions.

That which thinks all things vain, must have some ideal perception at any rate, more or less distinct, of

higher and better things, real or possible, by reference to which it pronounces the sentence of vanity on things actual. It must have a dim consciousness, at least, of its own superiority to those vain and fleeting things which it despises or deprecates. That is no paltry faculty which can pronounce a sentence so full of longing sorrow and disappointed capacity. The faculty which thinks all visible things vain, is not itself a vanity; its own vexation of spirit is a stern but glorious reality. Why does the caged soul thus beat against its prison bars? Why does it wish for anything different, anything better, than the vain scene about it? Why is it not pleased and satisfied to take all these things as they come, use them, leave them, or perish with them, as it may be, without longing or regret, without love or gratitude, or hate or sorrow, without glad perception of their good or painful sense of their evil or defect? How does it know, in short, that these things are vain, but by a power in itself that is glorious and immortal? Why is not the eye satisfied with its seeing, and the ear filled with what it hears? Why does the mind long for knowledge beyond its present faculty of attainment, and the heart expand its sympathies beyond its power of action? The argument is beautifully put in Mr. Mountford's Euthanasy (p. 93):

"MARKHAM. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!

"AUBIN. Perhaps so. But those words are themselves no vanity. For, when I think this world away into nothingness, then where is my soul? It is somewhere. Where is it? It is left face to face with God. This I have often felt for a moment; not more. A trance-like feeling!-the very awe of which made me remember myself, and so brought the world back again between my soul and God. What are those lines, uncle, that you quoted last night?

"M. They are Samuel Daniel's:

And so he is.

'That unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is Man!'

"A. Something like that couplet is what Coleridge has written in his biography, that we were indeed πάντα κόνις, και πάντα γέλως, και πάντα τὸ μηδέν (mere dust, mere laughter, mere nothing), if we did not feel that we were so. Vanity of vanities Coleridge would have been himself, only that he knew he was-no! he felt that he was. For, because of that very

feeling, he knew that he must himself be something better. That I am dust and laughter and nothing, how can I tell? That I am not spirit, I cannot know, but by some feeling of what spirit is; and by my having that feeling, I must be myself somewhat spiritual. It is nobly said by Jean Paul, that man would be altogether vanity, and ashes and smoke, upon earth, only that he feels as though he were so.

"M. That is well said by him.

"A. So it is. And so we will conclude, with him, at those times when the world is empty and nothing to us, that-O God! this feeling is our immortality. "M. Amen, Amen!"*

SOLOMON'S SONG.

THE first words of this book form its avowed title: THE SONG OF SONGS, WHICH IS SOLOMON'S. This may mean either "A most excellent Song by Solomon," or "A most excellent Song about Solomon."

If any serious Christian were to read this poem for the first time without being aware that it was a part of the Bible, he would certainly not for one moment regard

*Holden's Attempt to illustrate the Book of Ecclesiastes. 1822.

8vo.

Wellbeloved and Noyes, as before.

it as having any pretensions to be called a religious book. It would be to him, plainly, an amatory poem, or a series of such poems,-obscure in many parts as to the precise meaning, but having this kind of meaning and no other. Probably he might revolt from some passages, as hardly consistent with a pure modern taste, though quite accordant with delicacy when viewed as belonging to ancient, and especially to Eastern, literature.

But, because it is a part of "the Bible," its readers have thought it necessary to regard it as something altogether different from what it seems and professes to be. They have striven to make a better and higher meaning for it, instead of allowing it to express its own meaning. And the most irrational interpretations have been forced into it, in order to bring it under the desired description of a religious poem. The common idea is, that it exhibits, in a mystical or allegorical manner, the love subsisting between Jesus Christ and his Church. There is not, indeed, the slightest hint given in the poem itself of any such inner meaning being contained in it; but quite gratuitously, in order to exalt the amatory language of the Song of Solomon, the Christian Church has, for centuries, consented to lower its own standard of sentiment and imagery, as regards the most sacred things, in a degree that is quite saddening to think of. A more melancholy exhibition can hardly be imagined of the prostration of the mind before a mere idol of its own erection. The injury thus done to the general reputation of the Scriptures, and to Christian taste and sentiment, is quite incalculable, but visible on all hands.*

"This poem is generally considered as an Epithalamium composed by Solomon on his marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. And this appears to me the only point of view in which it ought to be considered. In respect to the mystical sense which it is

The wisest expounders of the Scriptures now agree to regard the Song of Solomon as nothing more nor less than a specimen of Hebrew amatory poetry;-whether a marriage-song, or a collection of detached poems on the various incidents of love, courtship and marriage, it may be extremely difficult to form a critical opinion. When we call to mind what the Old Testament really is, as before explained and thus far illustrated, book by book, that it is a collection of all the existing remains of ancient Hebrew literature in all departments, -we are quite relieved from the imagined necessity of finding a sacred meaning for its palpably secular language. The Song of Solomon, one might fancy, had been preserved for the very purpose of refuting our modern Bibliolatry, and shewing, by the extremest instance possible, that the Old Testament is thus miscellaneous in its contents and not highly sacred throughout. We are not surprised that the Jews should have had this kind of poetry, like other nations, nor that some specimens of it should have been preserved. The name of Solomon,-the representative to the Jewish mind alike of national grandeur and of national wisdom,-whether correctly attached to this book or not, has secured its preservation and the respectful regard of the Hebrew nation towards it.

supposed to contain, I must frankly acknowledge that I cannot perceive the least foundation for it. This notion, I suppose, was originally derived from the Targum, and adopted soon after by some of the Fathers, who, with more piety than judgment, thought that as St. Paul compares the union of Christ to his Church to a marriage, this poem ought also to be interpreted with reference to the same subject. But how is it consistent with this idea, that neither the name of God nor of Christ ever occurs in it?-that there is not one religious or moral sentiment to be found?-that it is not once either quoted or most distantly alluded to in any part of the sacred writings?" (Critical Remarks on the Books of Job, Proverbs, &c., by Dr. Durell, Principal of Hertford Col., Oxford, and Preb. of Canterbury, pp. 298, 299.)