Men cannot look upon the light, When it is bright in the skies, When the wind hath passed over them, and made them clear, And a golden splendour cometh from the firmament,— But with God is terrible majesty! The Almighty, we cannot find him out; He is excellent in power and justice, Perfect in righteousness, but he giveth no account of his doings. Therefore let men fear him, Whom none of the men of wisdom can behold. Then spake Jehovah to Job out of the whirlwind, and said: Who is this, that darkeneth my counsels by words without knowledge? Gird up thy loins like a man; I will ask thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, since thou hast such knowledge! Who fixed its dimensions, since thou knowest! Or who stretched out the line upon it! When the morning stars sang together, Hast thou ever commanded the morning, That they should lay hold of the ends of the earth, It is changed as wax by the seal; And all things stand forth as in rich apparel. 1 Hast thou penetrated to the springs of the sea, Declare, since thou knowest it all! Where is the way to the abode of light? And darkness, where is its dwelling place, That thou mayest lead each of them to its boundary, And know the paths to its mansion? Surely thou knowest! for thou wast then born! And the number of thy years is great! Hast thou entered the storehouses of the snow, Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, Where is the way, by which light is distributed, To satisfy the desolate and waste ground, And cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, Or loosen the bands of Orion? Canst thou lead forth Mazzaroth in its season, Or guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Hast thou appointed their dominion over the earth? So that abundance of waters will cover thee? Canst thou hunt prey for the lioness, Who provideth for the raven his food, While they wander about without food? THE WAR-HORSE. CHAPTER XXXIX. VERSES 19-25. HAST thou given the horse strength? Hast thou taught him to bound like the locust? He paweth in the valley; he exulteth in his strength, He laugheth at fear; he trembleth not, The glittering spear, and the lance. With rage and fury he devoureth the ground; And snuffeth the battle afar off; The thunder of the captains, and the shouting. TRANSLATIONS FROM THE PSALMS. PERHAPS there is no book in the sacred volume, which is so much read as the Psalms of David. The peculiar characteristics of their poetical merit have been already briefly noticed; their devotional beauty and fervour can never be felt with too much intensity, nor admired with too much veneration. The variety and contrast in the feelings of the Royal Psalmist, at different periods of his eventful life, and in different circumstances of prosperity or trial, render his productions beautifully adapted to every frame of mind, to which the believer can be subject; while the extreme tenderness and pathos of his supplications is often sufficient, one would think, to subdue and soften even the hard heart of the infidel. His compositions are a storehouse from whence almost all characters of men may derive something suitable to their own condition and peculiarities of mind. Their elevated intellectual and contemplative oharacter, and the admiration of the beauty and glory of the created universe, which they express in such inimitable language, inimitable both for its sweetness and sublimity,-will always render them delightful to the man of genius and cultivated taste; but it is their touching adaptation to all the varieties of religious feeling, which gives them such an endurable hold upon the heart. Here the grateful worshipper will find such irrepressible and ardent strains of thanksgiving, as might elevate his soul even to the holy adoration of the world above; Oh come let us sing unto the Lord! let us heartily rejoice in the Rock of our salvation.-I will sing to Jehovah as long as I live, I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.—Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! For the true penitent they afford the most humble and heartfelt expressions of sorrow for sin, and the most earnest prayers for restoration and forgiveness; Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done evil in thy sight.-Cast me not away from thy presence, and lake not thy Holy Spirit from me. For those that mourn in Zion there is consolation in the sympathy of one, whose tears were his food day and night, when God had hidden his face from him. For the bereaved there are the most instructive pictures of calm and submissive affliction; I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it. Here the desponding may learn that others have been in the com fortless gloom before them, and that to the upright there ariseth light in darkness. Here the youthful Christian finds an echo of encouragement to the energy and resolution of his hopes, and the aged and experienced one, a delightful exhibition of sure and confiding trust in the long-tried mercy of Jehovah. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.-The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; but they that fear the Lord shall not want any good thing.-Thou hast been my support from my youth; now also, when I am old and grayheaded, forsake me not. I have been young, and now am old, yet have I never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.-Happy would it be could we all realize in our own bosoms, the love, the gratitude, the penitential sorrow, the sacred confidence, and the fervent aspirations after holiness and heaven, which here so faithfully and vividly delineate the inward life of the Christian. PART OF THE 18th PSALM, COMPOSED BY DAVID ON THE OCCASION OF HIS DELIVERANCE "FROM THE HAND OF HIS ENEMIES AND FROM THE HAND OF SAUL." I WILL love thee, O Jehovah, my strength! Jehovah is my rock and my fortress, And my deliverer is my God: My rock, in Him will I trust; My shield, and the horn of my salvation: my high tower. Then was I delivered from mine enemies. The cords of death surrounded me, And the floods of wickedness made me afraid. In my distress I called upon Jehovah, And unto my God did I cry. He heard from his temple my voice, And my cry before him came into his ears. The foundations also of the mountains trembled ; And were shaken, because he was wroth. Smoke went up from his nostrils, And fire from his mouth devoured: Burning coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down ; * Hades, translated in the English Bible, Hell, signified a vast subterranean kingdom,-immense, dark, and silent; supposed to be the residence of departed spirits, immediately after death. It is not improbable that the sacred writers of the Old Testament understood by it the intermediate state of existence between death and the judgment. See their sublime poetical description of it in Isaiah, chapter xiv. the translation of which by Lowth may be found in the American First Class Book. And darkness was under his feet. Darkness of waters, and thick clouds of the skies. From the brightness before him his thick clouds passed: Hailstones and coals of fire! Jehovah also thundered in the heavens, He shot out his arrows and scattered them: The multitude of his lightnings, and discomfited them. The foundations of the earth were discovered: At thy rebuke, O Jehovah ! At the blast of the breath of thy wrath. He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy: And from those who hated me, for they were stronger than I. They fell upon me in the day of my calamity, But Jehovah was my stay. He led me out also upon a broad place: He delivered me, for he delighted in me. THE BOOK OF NATURE AND OF REVELATION. PSALM XIX. TRANSLATED BY THE REV. GEORGE R. NOYES. THE heavens declare the glory of God; The firmament sheweth forth the work of his hands. Day uttereth instruction to day, And night sheweth knowledge to night. They have no speech nor language, And their voice is not heard; Yet their sound goeth forth to all the earth, And their words to the ends of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, Which cometh forth, like a bridegroom, from his chamber, And rejoiceth, like a strong man, to run his course; He goeth forth from the extremity of heaven, And maketh his circuit to the end of it; And nothing is hid from his heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, The precepts of the Lord are sure, giving wisdom to the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart, |