stand it. This may be seen in the Sion's Sonnets of Quarles— of which take this specimen :

'My faith, not merits, hath assured Thee mine:
Thy love, not my deserts, hath made me thine
Unworthy I, whose drowsy soul rejected
Thy precious favours, and (secure) neglected
Thy glorious presence, how am I become
A Bride befitting so divine a groom?

It is no merit, no desert of mine,

Thy love, thy love alone, hath made me thine.'

And this, from the close:

'Most glorious love, and honourable Lord,

My heart's the vowed servant of thy word;

But I am weak, and as a tender vine

Shall fall, unpropt by that dear hand of thine :

Assist me, therefore, that I

may fulfil

;

What Thou command'st, and then command thy will;
O leave thy sacred Spirit in my breast,

As earnest of an everlasting rest.'

Dr. Watts also manifested the same apprehensive spiritual faculty with regard to this song of love, in some of his hymns, especially the one beginning,

'The voice of my beloved sounds
Over the rocks and rising grounds-
O'er hills of guilt and seas of grief
He leaps, He flies to my relief;—'

and in the one which begins,

'We are a garden, walled around,
Chosen, and made peculiar ground.'

A writer, already cited (Professor Stowe), points out Jonathan Edwards, 'who, although the driest and most astute of scholastic theologians, had a heart and imagination of Oriental richness and fervour.' In the account which he gives of his religious experience, he says: The whole book of Canticles used to be pleasant to me, and I used to be much in reading it about that time, and found from time to time an increased sweetness, that would carry me away in my contemplations. This I know not how to express otherwise than by a calm

delightful abstraction of the soul from all the concerns of the world; and sometimes a kind of vision, or fixed ideas and imaginations of being alone in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, sweetly conversing with Christ, and rapt and swallowed up in God. The sense I had of divine things often would, of a sudden, kindle up an ardour in my soul that I knew not how to express. While thus engaged, it seemed natural to me to sing and chaunt forth my meditations; or to speak my thoughts in solitude with a singing voice.'

The writer to whom we owe this indication, well adds: “The soft, rich, glowing, all-absorbing devotional feeling of Jonathan Edwards, would soon cure people of all their scruples in respect to the SONG OF SONGS, WHICH IS SOLOMON'S.'

Take, again, the instance of Dr. Chalmers, who, when he comes to this book in his Hora Biblica Quotidiana, at once throws himself unreservedly upon the spiritual sense of the Song, and finds in it such refreshment and enjoyment, that the few pages he allows to it form the most exclusively devotional part of his entire work. Thus he begins: 'My God, spiritualize my affections. Give me to know what it is to have the intense and passionate love of Christ. Let me find of this love that it is better than all earthly desires and gratifications. Draw me, O God, to Christ. (Song of Solomon i. 4; and John vi. 44.)

The church is black, sometimes with misfortune, as when persecuted; at others, with corruption, as when tempted. My God, have I not kept other vineyards than thine? gone over to the cause of secular interest and secular management, to the neglect of spiritualities? O may I seek first thy kingdom, and thy righteousness. Let me seek now unto it, and not turn aside from Him unto other causes that may appear cognate with his, but which, as far as they are good, are best promoted by the direct work of christianizing and spiritualizing the souls of men. Direct me aright, O God.'

What think you of a book which awakens thoughts, and exerts influences, such as these?

It will be observed that most persons who once come upon the spiritual sense, whatever view they take of that sense, fall

practically into the habit of treating it as a representation of their own soul's history, and of its intercourse with God. And this is right; for if it represents the union between the Lord and his church, every member of that church will find that it suits his case, and he has full right to take to himself what he finds suited to his wants and condition. Like the Psalms, the book belongs essentially to experimental—that is, personal— religion, and it is this which constitutes its peculiar charm; and it is thus also that, like the Psalms, it becomes no less suited to religious use and application under the new dispensation than under the old, perhaps even more suited, viewing it through Christ. Beholding Him in it, and making Him its object-He the Bridegroom, and his Church the Bride-gives to many portions of it a fulness of meaning, and a richness of significance, scarcely attainable under the more limited views that the old law allowed. 'If Solomon,' says a recent writer,1 'searched what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in him did signify, when he spake this beautiful song; it was probably revealed to him, that not unto himself, but unto us, he did minister these things. To no period do they appear so fitly to belong, as to the present dispensation.'

With a few more remarks from this pious and learned writer, we may suitably close this humble endeavour to vindicate the Song of Solomon from disesteem.

'Probably there has never been very considerable diversity of thought among really spiritual minds as to the subject of this book. Its deeply experimental character accounts for the misapprehension of the mere critic, while it finds many a response in the hearts of the faithful, who perceive in it a mirror of their varied spiritual conflicts and exercises, a rich treasure of privileges, and a spring of freshest and fullest joys. Perhaps no book in Scripture affords a more searching test of the state of the heart; or is more calculated to revive the abated ardour of the affections, and direct them to Him, on whom alone, of all other objects, love may be set without danger of excess or disproportion.

1 Meditations on the Song of Solomon. London, 1848.

'When a religious activity, and a zealous contention for certain points of truth, have outlived the early warmth of love, and the mind is busied while the heart is cold; or when anxious and restless longings, the early rising and the late repose, with only the "bread of carefulness" as the result, have been permitted to disquiet the soul,-what scripture affords a better remedy for either than this? Where is attachment to the person of Christ more commended and enforced? what other more sweetly and emphatically declares, "Lo, He giveth his beloved sleep?"

'If it be both comforting and strengthening to the believer to contemplate a picture of his failings and infirmities, drawn by Him who alone thoroughly knows their character and extent; when at the same time He reveals a love which, unquenched by many waters, tenderly wins back the spoiler of his own peace to lost yet longed-for happiness,-such a picture and such a love are exhibited in the Song of Solomon. Variableness, and more or less, of unfaithfulness, mark the path of the best and holiest of the Lord's people; but Jesus is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever; and He is.presented to us here in the exercise of unwearied grace. The bride may leave her first love; her spikenard may no longer send forth the smell thereof; she may forsake the retreats where alone her Beloved is to be found, and vainly expect to meet Him in worldly scenes, never countenanced or gladdened by his presence; the spirit of slumbering may cause her to miss many a happy season of communion; she may so act, that though ever able to say, "Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee," the reality of her love, appreciable indeed to Him who knows all things, might at times be questioned, if her outward conduct were the sole criterion. But although her course be strangely diversified by intense love and forgetfulness, faithfulness and inconstancy, she finds Him. ever unaltered, always indulgent to her failings, ever courting her love. However many her wanderings and mistakes, and however humiliating the results of her folly, He never ceases to be the admirer of her person, the sharer of her joys, the guardian of her rest. She can say, “I am my Beloved's, and my Be

loved is mine," even when she has wilfully wandered far from the lilies where He feeds.'

Thirteenth Week-Second Day.

THE CURTAINS OF SOLOMON.-SOLOMON'S SONG I. 1–6.

In its external aspect, the Song of Solomon is peculiarly rich in its allusions to regal customs, especially to such as are connected with marriage, and is replete with images of various kinds, the adequate development of which might furnish matter for an illustrative commentary, larger than the entire volume which the reader holds in his hands.

At the beginning of the poem, Shulamith is introduced expressing her ardent admiration of Shelomoh. She then turns to the daughters, and deprecates their contempt of her foreign, or else rustic, character and appearance, saying, 'I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the pavilions of Solomon.' That is, black as the Arab tents, yet comely as Solomon's royal pavilions.

The contrast here intended, clearly indicates the possession by Solomon of very rich tents, and probably of one pre-eminently magnificent state-tent, which formed a most remarkable contrast to the plain dark tents of the Arabs.

Harmer1 considers that Shelomoh had, according to the custom of the East, gone forth in much state to meet his bride on the road; which had been especially proper, if, as most suppose, this lady was the princess of Egypt. If such were the case, any one acquainted with the customs of the East, will find it probable that a proper number of tents-those of the king and the attending nobles-were set up in all the pomp of royal magnificence, at the place where he was to receive the bride. This

1 HARMER, Outlines of a Commentary on Solomon's Song, -a work much less known than his Observations on Passages of Scripture, but containing much curious matter, which it is, however, difficult to make of any use, by reason of the singularly confused arrangement.