Authors of mere human gift are often surprised at their own utterances. Even while understanding their general meaning, there are certain shades, certain emphases, a prominence given by the spirit of the hour to some thoughts and words, which seem to them unaccountable, as to a dreamer his converse, or his singing, when reviewed by the light of day. How much more must the prophet, through whom passed the mighty rushing wind of the Divinity, have stared and trembled as he recalled the particulars of the passage.

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Nor was this transit of God, over the prophetic soul, silent as that of a planet. It was attended by great bodily excitement and agony. The prophets were full of the fury of the Lord. The Pythoness, panting upon her stool-Eschylus, chased before his inspiration, as before his own Furies-Michael Angelo, hewing at his Moses, till he was surrounded by a spray of stone -the Ancient Marinere, wrenched in the anguish of the delivery of his tale-give us some notion of the Hebrew prophet, with the burden of the Lord upon his heart and his eye. Strong and hardy men, they generally were; but the wind which crossed them, was a wind which could "rend rocks," and waft tongues of fire upon its wings. In apprehension of its effects, on both body and spirit, we find more than one of their number shrinking from below its power. It passed over them, notwithstanding, and, perhaps, an under-current of strength was stirred within, to sustain them in that "celestial colloquy sublime." But true inspiration does no injury, and has no drawback. Nectar has no dregs.

The prophet, thus excited and inspired, was certain to deliver himself in figurative language. All high and great thought, as we have intimated before, casts metaphor from it, as surely as substance produces shadow. The thought of the Hebrew bard had come from heaven, and must incarnate itself in earthly similitudes, or remain unuttered. Figure, in some cases a luxury, was here a necessity of speech. As this thought, besides, was destined to be coeval with earth, it must be expressed in that universal cipher which the language of

figure alone supplies. It, like sunlight, always explains and recommends itself to every one who has eyes to see. A figure on the breast of a truth, is like a flower in the hand of a friend. Hence, its language, like the language of flowers, is free of the world and of all its ages. It is fine to see the genius of poetry stooping to do the tasks of the prophetic power. Herself a "daughter of the king," she is willing to be the handmaid of her elder sister. Instead of an original, she is content to be the mere translator, into her own everlasting vernacular, of the oracles of heaven.

This singular form-its soul the truth of heaven-its body the beauty of earth-was attached, for wisest purposes, to the Jewish economy. It acted as God's spur, suspended by the side of the system, as it moved slowly forward. It gave life to many dead services; it mingled a nobler element with the blood of bulls and goats; it disturbed the dull tide of national degeneracy; it stirred, again and again, the old flames of Sinai; it re-wrote, in startling characters, the precepts of the moral law; and, in its perpetual and vivid predictions of Messiah's coming, and death, and reign, outshot by ages the testimony of types, rites, and ceremonies. It did for the law what preaching has done for the Gospel: it supplied a living sanction, a running comment, and a quickening influence. When, at times, its voice ceased, the cessation was mourned as a national loss; and we hear one of Israel's later psalmists complaining that "there is not among us a prophet more." And this not that Asaph lamented that there was none to sing the great deeds of his country, but that he mourned the decay of the piety and insight of which prophecy had been the "bright consummate flower." In truth, prophecy represented in itself the devotion, the insight, and the genius of the land, and of the period when it was poured forth.

This power was subjected to a certain culture. Schools of the prophets seem to have been first established by Samuel. The pupils were trained up in a knowledge of religion, and in habits of devotion. These schools were nurseries, and from

them God might, and did, choose, from time to time, his appointed instruments. Amos seems (vii. 14) to regard it as a thing uncommon, that though he was a prophet, he had not been trained in such seminaries. It is supposed by some, that those sons of the prophets were employed as their assistants, and stood in the relation which evangelists afterward bore to the apostles.

Lastly, This prophetic vision, centring in Christ, became clearer as he drew near. At first it is dim; the character of the person is but partially disclosed; his divinity glimmers faintly on the view, and a cloud of darkness rests on his predestined sufferings-on that perilous "bruising," by which he was to send forth judgment unto victory. Gradually, however, it brightens; the particulars of his mystic agony begin to flash on the view of the prophets, while, at the same time, his divine dignity is becoming luminously visible, and while the prospect of the triumphs, consequent on his death, is stirring their hearts to rapture; and, finally, the very date of the hour and power of darkness is recorded, the place of his birth is disclosed, and his coming to his father's temple is announced in thunder. Thus did the "spirit of prophecy" bear a growing testimony to Jesus. Thus did the long line of the prophets, like the stars of morning, shine more and more, till they yielded and melted in the Sun of Righteousness. And through this deepening and enlarging vision it was that the Jewish imagination, and the Jewish heart, were prepared for his coming. The prophets, kings though they were, over their own economy, were quite ready to surrender their scepters to a greater than they. Would that the sovereigns, statesmen, poets, and philosophers of the present age were equally ready to cast their crowns at the feet of that expected One," who shall come, will come, and will not tarry."

CHAPTER X.

ISAIAH, JEREMIAH, EZEKIEL, DANIEL.

ISAIAH.

“I FELT,” says Sir W. Herschel, “after a considerable sweep through the sky with my telescope, Sirius announcing himself from a great distance; and at length he rushed into the field of view with all the brightness of the rising sun, and I had to withdraw my eyes from the dazzling object." So have we, looking out from our "specular tower," seen from a great way off the approach of the "mighty orb of song"-the divine Isaiah-and have felt awe-struck in the path of his coming. He was a prince amid a generation of princes-a Titan among a tribe of Titans; and of all the prophets who rose on aspiring pinion to meet the Sun of Righteousness, it was his-the Evangelical Eagle-to mount highest, and to catch on his wing the richest anticipation of his rising. It was his, too, to pierce most clearly down into the abyss of the future, and become an eye-witness of the great events which were in its womb inclosed. Ho is the most eloquent, the most dramatic, the most poetic-in one word, the most complete, of the Bards of Israel. He has not the bearded majesty of Moses-the gorgeous natural description of Job--Ezekiel's rough and rapid vehemence, like a red torrent from the hills seeking the lake of Galilee in the day of storm-David's high gusts of lyric enthusiasm, dying away into the low wailings of penitential sorrow-Daniel's awful allegory-John's piled and enthroned thunders; his power is solemn, sustained-at once measured and powerful; his step moves gracefully, at the same time that it shakes the

wilderness. His imagery, it is curious to notice, amid all its profusion, is seldom snatched from the upper regions of the Ethereal from the terrible crystal, or the stones of fire-from the winged cherubim, or the eyed wheels-from the waves of the glassy sea, or the blanched locks of the Ancient of Days; but from lower, though lofty objects-from the glory of Lebanon, the excellency of Sharon, the waving forests of Carmel, the willows of Kedron, the flocks of Kedar, and the rams of Nebaioth. Once only does he pass within the vail-" in the year that King Uzziah died"-and he enters trembling, and he withdraws in haste, and he bears out, from amid the surging smoke and the tempestuous glory, but a single "live coal" from off the altar. His prophecy opens with sublime complaint; it frequently irritates into noble anger, it subdues into irony, it melts into pathos; but its general tone is that of victorious exultation. It is one long rapture. You see its author standing on an eminence, bending forward over the magnificent prospect it commands, and, with clasped hands, and streaming eyes, and eloquent sobs, indicating his excess of joy. It is true of all the prophets, that they frequently seem to see rather than foresee, but especially true of Isaiah. Not merely does his mind overleap ages, and take up centuries as a "little thing;" but his eye overleaps them too, and seem literally to see the word Cyrus inscribed on his banner-the river Euphrates turned aside the Cross, and him who bare it. We have little doubt that many of his visions became objective, and actually painted themselves on the prophet's eye. Would we had witnessed that awful eye, as it was piercing the depths of timeseeing the To Be glaring through the thin mist of the Then! How rapid are this prophet's transitions! how sudden his bursts! how startling his questions! how the page appears to live and move as you read! "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?"

"Who is this that

"Who

cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah ?” hath believed our report?" "Lift ye up a banner upon the high "Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion;

mountain !"