CHAPTER XII.

CIRCUMSTANCES MODIFYING NEW TESTAMENT
POETRY.

THE main principle of the Old Testament may be comprised in the sentence, "Fear God, and keep his commandments: this is the whole duty of man." The main principle of the New is, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." And yet, round these two simple sentences, what masses of beauty and illustration have been collected! To enforce them, what argument, what eloquence, what poetry, have been employed! Say, rather, that those truths, from their exceeding breadth, greatness, and magnetic power, have levied a tribute from multitudinous regions, and made every form of thought and composition subservient to their influence and end.

The New Testament, as well as the Old, is a poem-the Odyssey to that Iliad. And over the poetry of both, circumstances and events have exerted a modifying power. Yet it is remarkable, that in the New Testament, although events of a marvelous kind were of frequent occurrence, they are not used so frequently in a poetical way as in the Old. The highest poetry in the New Testament, is either didactic in its character, as the Sermon on the Mount, and Paul's praise of charity, or it is kindled up by visions of the future, and apparitions through the present darkness of the great white throne.

The resurrection, as connected with the doctrine of a general judgment, is the event which has most colored the poetry of the New Testament. The throne becomes a far more commanding object than even the mount that might be touched. Faint,

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in fact, is the reflection of this "Great Vision" upon the page of ancient prophecy: the trump is heard, as if from a distance; the triumph of life over death is anticipated seldom, and with little rapture. But no sooner do we reach the threshold of the new dispensation, than we meet voices from the interior of the sanctuary, proclaiming a judgment; the sign of the Son of Man is advanced above, the graves around are seen with the tombstones loosened and the turf broken, and "I shall arise" hovering in golden characters over each narrow house; the central figure bruises death under his feet, and points with a cross to the distant horizon, where life and immortality are cleaving the clouds, and coming forth with beauty and healing on their wings. Such is the prospect in our Christian sanctuary; and hence the supernatural grandeur of the strains which swell. within it. Hence the rapture of the challenge, "O death, where is thy sting?" Hence the solemnity of the assertion, "Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming when they that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man." Hence the fiery splendor of the description, "The Lord himself shall descend with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God." Hence the harping symphonies and sevenfold hallelujahs of the Apocalypse, "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God." Here, indeed, is a source of inspiration, open only to the New Testament writers. The heathens knew not of the resurrection of the dead. But Paul and John have extracted a poetry from the darkness of the grave. In heathen belief, there was, indeed, a judgment succeeding the death of the individual; but no general assemblage, no public trial, no judgment-seat, "high and lifted up," no flaming universe, and, above all, no God-man swaying the fiery storm, and, with the hand that had been nailed to the cross, opening the bocks of universal and final decision.

"Meditations among the Tombs," what a pregnant title to what a feeble book! Ah! the tombs are vaster and more numerous than Hervey dreamed. There is the churchyard among the mountains, where the "rude forefathers of the ham

let lie."

There is the crowded cemetery of the town, where silent thousands have laid themselves down to repose. There are the wastes and wildernesses of the world, where "armies whole have sunk," and where the dead have here their shroud of sand, and there their shroud of snow. There is the hollow of the earth, where Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and many besides, have been engulfed. There are the fields of battle, which have become scenes of burial, as well as of death. And there is the great ocean, which has wrapped its garment of green round many a fair and noble head, and which rolls its continual requiem of sublimity and sadness over the millions whom it has entombed. Thus does the earth, with all its continents and oceans, roll around the sun a splendid sepulcher!

Amid those dim catacombs, what victims have descended! The hero, who has coveted the dreadful distinction of entering hell, red from a thousand victories, is in the grave. The sage, who has dared to say that, if he had been consulted in the making of the universe he had made it better, is in the grave. The monarch, who has wept for more worlds to conquer and to reign over, is in the grave. The poet, who, towering above his kind, had seemed to demand a contest with superior intelligences, and sought to measure his pen against the red thunderbolts of Heaven, is in the grave. Where now the ambition of the first, the insane presumption of the second, the idle tears of the third, the idler laurels of the last? All gone, sunk, lost, drowned, in that ocean of Death, where no oar ever yet broke the perpetual silence!

But, alas! these graves are not full. In reason's ear—an ear ringing ever with strange and mystic sounds-there is heard a voice, from the thousand tombs, saying--" Yet there is room.” The churchyard among the hills has a voice, and says "There is room under the solitary birch which waves over me." The city cemetery hath a voice, and says "Crowded as I am, I can yet open a corner for thy dust; yet there is room." The field of battle says "There is room. I have earth enough to cover all my slain." The wildernesses have a voice, and say

"There is room in us-room for the travelers who explore our sands or our snows-room for the caravans that carry their merchandise across our dreadful solitudes." The depth of the ocean says "Thousands have gone down within me-nay, an entire world has become the prey of my waters, still my caverns are not crowded; yet there is room." The heart of the earth has a voice-a hollow voice—and says—“ What are Korah and his company to me? I am empty; yet there is room." Do not all the graves compose thus one melancholy chorus, and say-"Yet there is room; room for thee, thou maiden, adorned with virtue and loveliness; room for thee, thou aged man; room for thee, thou saint, as surely as there was room for thy Savior; room for thee, thou sinner, as surely as thy kindred before thee have laid themselves and their iniquities down in the dust; room for all, for all must in us at last lie down."

But is this sad cry to resound forever? No; for we are listening for a mightier voice, which is yet to pierce the cold ear of death, and drown the dull monotony of the grave. How magnificent, even were they fictitious, but how much more, as recording a fact, the words-" All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth." To what voices do the dead not listen! Music can charm the serpent, but it can not awaken the dead. The voice of an orator can rouse a nation to frenzy, but let him try his eloquence on the dead, and a hollow echo will rebuke his folly. The thunder in the heavens can appall a city, but there is one spot in it where it excites no alarm, and that spot is the tomb.

"The lark's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more arouse them from their narrow bed."

There is but one voice which the voice which shall utter the words dwell in dust; for thy dew is as earth shall cast out the dead."

dead will hear. It is that "Awake and sing, ye that the dew of herbs, and the

Was it a sublime spectacle, when, at the cry, "Lazarus, come forth," the dead man appeared at the mouth of the sepulcher,

the hue of returning life on his cheek, forming a strange contrast to his white grave-clothes? What, then, shall be said of the coming forth of innumerable Lazaruses, of the whole congregation of the dead-the hermit rising from his solitary grotto, the soldier from his field of blood, the sailor from his sea-sepulcher, the shepherd from his mountain-grave? To see —as in the season of spring, the winged verdure climbs the mountain, clothes the plain, flushes the forest, adorns the brink and the brow of the precipice-in this second spring, a torrent of life passing over the world, and living men coming forth, where all before had been silence, desolation, and death; to see the volcano disgorging the dead which were in him, and the earthquake relaxing his jaws, and giving back the dead which were in him, and the sullen tarn restoring her lawful captives, and the ocean unrolling and revealing the victims of her “innermost main," and the Seine disclosing her suicidal prey, and the wastes and wildernesses becoming unretentive of their longconcealed dead-every pore quickening into life, every grave becoming a womb. This is the spectacle of the Christian resurrection a spectacle but once to be beheld, but to be remembered forever-a spectacle which every eye shall witness—a spectacle around which a universe shall gather with emotions of uncontrollable astonishment and of fearful joy.

The New Testament stands and shines in the luster of this expectation. So important is the place of resurrection in the system, that Jesus identifies himself with it, saying "I am the resurrection and the life." And from his empty grave floods of meaning, hope, and beauty, flow forth over the New Testament page. The Lord's day, too, forms a link connecting the rising of Christ with that of his people, and is covered with the abundance both of the first-fruits and of the full harvest.

Among the incidents in the life of Christ, there are several of an intensely poetical character. We shall mention here the Transfiguration. This singular event did not take place, as commonly supposed, on Tabor. Tabor was then the seat of a Roman military fort. It took place on a high, nameless moun