Sacred to our hearths, and still more sacred in the history of our persecuted forefathers, when on moorland or mountain-side these plaintive melodies would mingle with the winds of heaven and the curlew's note in the sky-arched temple, to which lyart warriors and delicate maidens were driven forth to worship God-how dear to Scotland are her old national psalm-tunes, which, human compositions though they be, are worthy to have been wedded to the words of inspired song!

In its higher forms, music, not less than poetry, and in the same way, has been indebted to the Bible, since from it have been borrowed the subjects of the magnificent oratorios of our greatest composers. These masters of symphony could find nowhere, except in the Bible, adequate themes in which to discourse their matchless melodies. The soul of music seemed to be straitened, its voice but as a broken utterance, till at length, finding expression in Scriptural themes, and almost in the very words of Scripture, it broke forth from the lips of a Handel, a Mozart, a Haydn, and a Beethoven, into those immortal oratorios-Creation, Samson, Elijah, The Messiah, The Mount of Olives.

Now at length had the genius of music found her voice, and as she pours forth her solemn symphonies, they seem to repeat the echoes of those lyric strains which mingled with the sound of the returning waves of Egypt's divided sea; or the echoes of those sublime choral melodies which woke

the arches of Zion's temple. And while we would not be thought to approve of the sacred oratorio being employed as a means of mere amusement, yet, were fitting occasions sought-such as seasons of national thanksgiving, when the people in these lands might listen to its soul-subduing peals-few things, in our opinion, would contribute more to elevate their tastes and enliven their devotion.

There is still another branch of the arts, namely, Architecture, regarding which, in its connection with the Bible, a few words may be said. We do not assign to it a section by itself, because it can scarcely be said of it that it has borrowed its designs, as painting and sculpture have their subjects, from the Bible. There is, no doubt, to be found in the sacred writings, a description of perhaps the most stupendous and gorgeous Temple that was ever reared by the hands of man-at any rate, the most stupendous and gorgeous ever erected for the worship of the true God. Yet it can scarcely with truth be said that this Temple has served as a model, at least we are not aware of any ecclesiastical edifice having been built after its pattern. Shall we not rather suppose that, having been the only ancient temple consecrated to the worship of the true God, it was intended to be unique; and that having belonged to an economy which was to pass away, it was decreed by Providence to destruction, that no copies might be taken of it for the

temples of Christianity? Still we make no doubt that the Temple of Solomon must have given an impulse to architecture.

It would seem that the Emperor Justinian was fired with an ambition that Constantinople in its temple should rival Jerusalem; for it is recorded of him, that in his admiration of the magnificent temple of Santa Sophia, which at immense expense he had rebuilt, he exclaimed, "I have vanquished thee, O Solomon!" The boast was, no doubt, a vainglorious one, yet it shows on what the thoughts of the imperial architect had been dwelling.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BIBLE THE PROMOTER OF LITERATURE AND THE ARTS-MODERN GENERAL LITERATURE.

THIS is a wide, and also a somewhat intricate field, for the effect which the Bible has exerted on our general literature is the resultant of many complex influences which it would not be easy to specify separately, and likewise of secret influences which it were often difficult to make apparent. You can tell that the dew-drops, which moisten the breath of morning, assist to tinge the rose-bud with its blushing hues; but then these drops fell on each leaf so silently, and were so speedily absorbed by it, that they may be said to hide themselves beneath the very colors which they had helped to dye. And so it has been with the Bible in its effects on our general literature. Not with herald-sound, but silent as the dewy drops, it has insinuated itself into many pages, whose writers were scarcely aware of its presence. They breathed its spirit without knowing it, for it had folded them round as the atmospheric air, which one inhales without thinking of it.

I shall not, therefore, attempt any thing like a full enumeration of the services which the Bible

has rendered to modern literature, but will content myself with offering a few general indications.

(1.) There is the effect which the Bible has had in molding and enriching our language.

In one of his exquisite papers, Addison makes the following observation: "There is a certain coldness. and indifference in the phrases of our European languages, when they are compared with the Oriental forms of speech; and it happens very luckily that the Hebrew idioms run into the English tongue with a particular grace and beauty. Our language has received innumerable elegancies and improvements from that infusion of Hebraisms which are derived to it out of the poetical passages of Holy Writ. They give a force and energy to our expression, warm and animate our language, and convey our thoughts in more ardent and intense phrases, than any that are to be met with in our own tongue." Since Addison's time, the number of these Hebraisms imported into our language has been greatly increased, while many similar forms of expression have been imitated from them. And it is amazing how much they have helped to warm our colder northern dialect with somewhat of Oriental ardor; and without taking from its native robustness, have entwined the Saxon oak of our language with the more graceful foliation of Eastern exotics. There are current in our literature innumerable phrases of great felicity, which were