The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1883-04-04
THE SONG OF SONGS.

We should be sorry to lose this love-
song from the canon. There is so much
that is beautiful in the Bible-take the
Old or the New Testament-and the
range from one form of composition to
another presents such an astonishing va
riety-that it is difficult to assign the
preference Gin literary point of view
to this or to that. We do not know any
thing in the line of narrative that COM
pares with the stories of the Old Tesla
ment or with the parallels of the New.
The story of Abraham and Lot, of Abra-
hamand Isaac, of Ishmael, of Jacob and
Rachel, Of Joseph of Samuel; of David !;
of Absalom; of Elijah and Ahab; of the
parting of Elijah and Elisha; of Elisha
and Naaman; of Ruth OF Queen Estt er
the parable of the Good Samaritan; the
parable of the Prodigal Son; that of
Dives and Lazarus; the story of Mary
and Martha and Lazarus; the narrative
of Stephens death; of Saul's journey to
Damascus; all these are simply told in a
way that is incompatible. In the de-
partment of dramatic presentation, we
doubt if anything has equalled the Book
of Job. AS composition nothing could
be holder, and yet it is thoroughly sus-
tanned in every part. In their province,
the Psalms are superior to anything in
any literature. And Isaiah and Paul
and John and the author of the Epistle
to the Hebrews have left US compositions
that are not exceeded in sublimity, or in
depth, or in eloquence, or in pathos by
anything in Greek or English authorship.
And yet as a literary gem the Song of
Solomon, which is unique in such book
as the Bible, and which startles us in
volume of Revelation, is certainly not in
ferior to any of the compositions which
we have named. In delicacy, in purity,
in genuine poetic feeling, it is like that
fresco of Gu1do's (the Aurora) in the
Rospigliosi Palace, but infinitely beyond
it as work of art. 1t is the idealisation
of human love-that human love which
might have existed in Paradise before it's
pure stream was tainted by the muddy
sediments that it encountered as it en-
tered the Valley of Death.
We publish elsewhere an article Tor an
eztract) from the Century Magazine,
which shows the drift of modern radical
criticism. The writer appreciates the
beauty and purity Of the poem, but is ut
terly dead to its spiritual meaning, and
at fault touching the plot, as to which he
follows the theory Of Ewald and Renan,
who introduce into the drama a Shepherd-
l0ver, who is the rival of Solomon, and
preferred by the Shulamite to her royal
adorer. In substance the same view is
taken by Robertson Smith in the article
on Canticles in the Encyclopedia Britain
MICA, who also puts aside (of course) the
idea of a spiritual and allegorical mean
ing to the composition. Robertson Smith
invariably takes some low and mischiev-
GUS view Of the origin and character of
every one Of the Biblical writings. The
introduction Of the Shepherd into this
epithalamium seems to us fanciful, and at
critical points las chap iii u to be ac-
complished only by violence, in order to
sustain theory. AS to the spiritual
significance Of the poem, the idea would
not have been new to Solomon. Read the
45th Psalm, described by the author Of the