The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1876-04-12

have only time to glance at It's peculiar
form. The responsive, or alternate repetl-
ton of the expression in a modified way,
composed what may be termed by analogy
the Strophe and anti Strophe. Through all
their writings, but especially their poetry,
there runs this characteristic parallelism, due
most probably to the fact of a duet of voices
or chOruses being engaged in its recitation.
"Then sang Deborah and Barak. The
best critics have regarded this as beauty
and an excellence, not as defect. The poe
try of the Hebrews may thus be hkened to
the double rainbow in the skies,-the second
rainbow being the reflection of the first, is
fainter, yet hardly less beautiful.
"WhO shall say how many thousands, y
exclaims Macaulay, "have been made wiser,
happier and better by those pursuits in which
Athens has taught mankind to engage; to
how many, the studies which took their rise
from her have been wealth in poverty, lib
erty in bondage, health in sickness, society
in solitude? Her power is indeed manifested
at the bar, in the Senate, in the field of bat
tie, in the schools of philosophy. But these
are not her glory. Wherever literature con.
soles sorrow or assusges pain-WhereVer it
brings gladness to eyes, which fail with wake
fulness and tears, and ache for the dark house
and the long sleep-there is exhibited in its
noblest form the immortal influence of
Athens. Now, however just to Athens
this splendid psnegyric it seems to us it is
even more true of Palestine. To her the
past, present, and future debt of humanity
is even greater. Itincludes besides what we
owe to her in the rich legacies of her letters,
her laws, her ethics, and the examples of her
history, the precious promises of our faith,
the divine consultations of revelation, the
blissful hope of Immortality beyond "the
dark house and the long Sleep" To her
the scholar is indebted for immortal poems
composed before the age of HschyluS and
SOphocles, and even before the seige of Troy;
the statesman and the legislator for an i'm
perishable code of morals, framed centuries
before the time of SolOn; the historian for
narratives of events more ancient and thrill.
ling than those recorded in the passages of
Thucydides or HerOdOtus the masses for
the Bible with its exhaustless mines of cur
rent wealth and the world for Christianity
These are the inestimabe treasures that come
to us from Palestine. 1t is remarkable that
many of them are conveyed to US through
the strains of the Hebrew lyre-through the
witchery of sOng-that poetry has been the
chosen ally and favorise handmade of rel-
gion, in order that mankind might the more
surely be pleased and attracted by the
"beauty of holiness Ours is the high
privilege, as members of this class, to derive
enjoyment and profit at the same time from
the study and appreciation of
''Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide"
ours the high privilege, and ours the adVan-
tage, under the instruction of teacher of
rare excellence, Rev. NJ. D. Hoge, D. D., ]
and with the mutual help of one anOther's
studies,
ITO read the sacred page;
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amaek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal Bard did groaning lie,
Beneath the stroke of Heavens svengiug ire;
Or 5ob's pathetic plant and wsilng cry
Or rapt Isash's wild, seraphie fire;
Or other holy seers, that tune the sacred Tyre ~
x This 6ue passage from which we have extracted
few sentences, is at the close of his essay on Nit
fords History of Greece.