Our living writers have, in general, shown a sympathy with the Hebrew genius. We speak not merely of clergymen, whose verdict might by some be called interested, and whose enthusiasm might unjustly be thought put on with their cloaks. And yet we must refer to Millman's "Fall of Jerusalem," and to Croly's magnificent "Salathiel." Keble, too, and Trench, Kingsley, William Anderson, are a few out of many names of men who, while preaching the Bible doctrine, have not forgotten its literary glories, as subjects of earnest imitation and praise. But the Levites outnumber and outshine the priests in their service to the 'bards of the Bible. Isaac Taylor's gorgeous figures are elaborately copied from those of Scripture, although they sometimes, in comparison with them, remind you of that root of which Milton speaks "The leaf was darkish, and had prickles in it, But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soil." The Eastern spirit is in them; they want only the Eastern day. Sir James Stephen has less both of the spirit and the genuine color, ardent as his love of the Hebrews is. Macaulay quotes Scripture, as Burdett, in Parliament, was wont to quote Shakspeare always with triumphant rhetorical effect, and seems once, at least, to have really loved its literature. Professor Wilson approaches more closely than any modern since Burke, to that wild prophetic movement of style and manner which the bards of Israel exhibit-nay, more nearly than even Burke, since with Wilson it is a perpetual afflatus: he is like the he-goat in Daniel, who came from the west, and touched not the ground; his "Tale of Expiation," for instance, is a current of fire. Thomas Carlyle concentrates a fury, enhanced by the same literary influences, into deeper, straiter, more molten and terrible torrents. Thomas Aird has caught the graver, calmer, and more epic character of the Historical Books, especially in his "Nebuchadnezzar," which none but one deep in Daniel could have written. From another poem of his, entitled "He rodion and Azala," we quote two etchings of prophets :— "Winged with prophetic ecstasies, behold The son of Amos, beautifully bold, Borne like the sythed wing of the eagle proud, That shears the winds, and climbs the storied cloud Aloft sublime! And through the crystaline, Glories upon its lighted head doth shine. Behold! behold, uplifted through the air, The swift Ezekiel, by his lock of hair! Near burned the Appearance, undefinedly dread, From a hint or two in Scripture, he has built up his vision of hell, in the "Devil's Dream upon Mount Acksbeck," a vision mysterious, fiery, and yet distinct, definite, and fixed as a frosted minster shining in the moonlight. But in his "Demoniac," he absolutely pierces into the past world of Palestine, and brings it up with all its throbbing life and thaumaturgic energies, its earth quaking below the footsteps, and its sky darkening above the death, of the Son of God. Of the rising poets of the day, "two will we mention dearer than the rest;" dearer, too, in part, because they have sought their inspiration at its deepest source-Bailey, of "Festus," and Yendys, of "The Roman." This is not the place to dilate on their poetic merits. We point to them now, because, in an age when so many young men and young poets are forsaking belief in the oracular and divine inspiration of the Bible, they have rallied around the old shrine, have expressed their trust in that old and blessed hope of the Gospel, and may be hailed as morning stars, prognosticating the rising of a new "day of the Lord." May their light, already brilliant and far seen, shine 66 more and more," not only into its own, but into the world's "perfect day." We have not nearly exhausted the text of this chapter, nor alluded to a tithe of the writers in this or in other lands, who have transmitted their deep impressions of Scripture poetry to others. But it may now be asked, is not all this exceedingly hopeful? What would you more? Is not the Bible now an acknowledged power? Is it not doing its work silently and effectually, through the many men of genius who are conducting its electric force? Must not its future career, therefore, be one of clear and easy triumph? So, indeed, it might at first sight appear; but there have arisen certain dark and lowering shadows in the sky, threatening to overcloud the sun-path of the Book, if not to darken it altogether; and to a calm and candid, though brief and imperfect, examination of these, we opose devoting our closing chapter. CONCLUSION. FUTURE DESTINY OF THE BIBLE. No theories, so far as we are aware, have been openly promulgated, or elaborately defended, upon exactly this question in the present day. But, from the mass of prevailing opinions on cognate topics, there exhale certain floating notions, which it may be perhaps of some importance to catch in language, and to try by analysis. Let a quiet and earnest inquirer take up a copy of the Scrip tures, and ask himself, "What is to be the future history of this book?" We suspect the following alternatives would come up before him :-It may, by the progress of science and philosophy, be exploded as a mass of impostures, myths, and lies; or it may, shorn of its fabulous rays, be reduced to its true level, as a revelation of spiritual truth; or it may, owing to its great antiquity, and the leaden mists which lie around its cradle, continue, as it is at present to many scholars and philosophers, a book of dubious authorship and truth, and may, perhaps, be thrown aside as a work for ages popular, but now obsolete, without any definite verdict having been passed upon its claims; or it may be fulfilled, certified, supplemented, and, in a great measure, superseded by a new and fuller revelation. The first of those conjectures, for we freely grant that a little of the conjectural adheres to more than one of the theories, is so gloomy, and so improbable, that we must apologize for naming, and still more for seeking to refute it. The Bible a mass of myths and impostures, alternating-as though Æsop's Fables and Munchausen's Travels were bound up together in one mon 66 strous medley, more monstrously pretending to be the Book of God! Myths, indeed, fables, stories, passages manifestly metaphorical, poetic hyperboles, and those of every sort, there are in Scripture; but they are all manifestly and by contrast so. The body of the book is either historical or doctrinal; and to "charge" figure upon figure in such a clumsy style, were no true heraldry. Jotham's story of the "trees" is a fable, but is Jotham himself? The parables of Jesus are truth-possessed fictions; but is Jesus, too, a figure of speech; or, at least, the mere Alexander Selkirk to the teeming brain of an ancient Defoe? No! the historic and didactic element in Scripture is a layer of light piercing through all the rest, and at once expounding and preserving the whole. Indeed, in the double form of Scripture, we see a pledge of its perpetuity. The figurative beauty above glorifies the truth, and the hard truth below solidifies the hovering splendor. And, besides, the question is irresistible-were the Bible such a wild, accidental, anomalous mixture, could it have produced such miracles of healing power, and have so long remained unanalyzed? Even granting that strange unassimilated elements have met together in it, have they not formed a whole so united, so well-cemented, that ages have conspired to own in it the hand of God? The difficulty of the compound was such, that it must have issued either in a disgraceful failure, or in a success, the wonder of the universe! Could it have been made by any other but a divine hand? But here a second theorist steps in, and says, "I grant the book, as a whole, true. I recognize your distinction between its myths and its histories, its figures and its doctrines; but I find in it many records, pretending to be historical, and lying mixed with the histories, which I can not believe. I meet with miracles! And these seem to me such monstrous violations of the laws of nature, so opposed to general experience, bearing such a suspicious family-likeness to the portents and prodigies found in the history of all early faiths, and encumbered in their details with such difficulties, that I am compelled to deem |