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CHAP. VII.

HOW beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! the

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joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. 5 Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple; the king is held in the galleries. How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples; And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak. 10 I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. 11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. 12 Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves. 18 The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.

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CHAP. VIII.

THAT thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please. 5 Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I raised thee up under the apple tree: there thy mother brought thee forth: there she brought thee forth that bare thee. Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

V. 6. Love is strong as death.'-As death makes the strongest body fall to the ground, so doth the love of Christ make the most active and lively sin

ner dead to his sin; and as death severs a man from his dearest and most familiar friends, thus doth the love of Christ, and His death flowing

from it, sever the heart from its most beloved sins.-Leighton.

It is no joy to a zealous lover to outlive his beloved. Such there have been, who could have chosen rather to have leaped into their friends' grave, and lain down with them in the dust, than here pass a disconsolate life without them. Let us go and die with him,' said Thomas, when Christ told them Lazarus was dead; and I am sure zealous lovers of Truth count it as melancholy living in evil times when she is fallen in the streets.'-Gurnall.

Dr. Payson's 'ruling passion was strong in death.' His love for preaching was as invincible as that of the miser for gold, who dies grasping his

treasure. Dr. Payson directed a label to be attached to his breast with the words, Remember the words which I have spoken unto you, while I was yet present with you;' that they might be read by all who came to look at his corpse, and by which, he being dead, yet spake. The same words, at the request of his people, were engraven on the plate of the coffin, and read by thousands on the day of interment.J. A. James.

The consciousness of being loved softens the keenest pang, even at the moment of parting; yea, even the eternal farewell is robbed of half of its bitterness, when uttered in accents that breathe love to the last sigh.-Addison.

7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

Love! what a volume in a word! an ocean in a tear!

A seventh heaven in a glance! a whirlwind in a sigh!

The lightning in a touch-a millennium in a moment!

Tupper.

Love makes the soul, as the lower heaven, slow in its own motion, most swift in the motion of that first which wheels it about; so the higher degree of love, the more swift. It loves the hardest tasks and greatest difficulties, where it may perform God service, either in doing, or in suffering for Him. It is strong as death, and many waters cannot quench it.' The greater the task is, the more real is the testimony and expression of love, and therefore the more acceptable to God.-Leighton.

True love can no more be diminished by showers of evil-hap, than flowers

are marred by timely rains.-Sir Philip Sidney.

Love is not to be bought-'tis of the sonl

The noblest element, the spiritbond

That links the angel with humanity. As well might'st thou attempt to purchase heaven,

To vend the stars, make traffic of the skies,

Or measure out what is immeasurable,

As count each feeling in the pulse of love,

Its height, its depth, its softness, beauty, strength,

And prize affections as thou would'st estates!

Go to! for shame! thy tongue belied thy heart.

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Swain.

We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? 9 If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver: and if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar. 1o I am a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favour. 11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he let out the vineyard unto keepers; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver. 12 My vineyard, which is mine, is before

me: thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred. 18 Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it. 14 Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.

ISAIAH I.

THE vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning

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and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

V. 2. To estrange ourselves from God is to be guilty of a new and most enormous kind of offence: it is forgetting our proper parent, the Author of our being, the very source of our existence. If you were to see a person manifest no desire for the presence of an earthly parent, you would be shocked at the spectacle, and would be ready to represent him as a prodigy of ingratitude. How much more would it affect

a well-constituted mind to behold a creature seeking estrangement from his Heavenly Parent-living in forgetfulness of Him! This would appear matter of the greatest astonishment, were men to withdraw themselves from sensible objects, and retire into their own minds, for the purpose of serious reflection. The prophet here calls upon heaven and earth to sympathize with him in this emotion.-Robt. Hall.

3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

The ingratitude of sinful men is put to shame by the conduct of the brute creation. If we do but for a few days take a little kind notice of a dog, and feed him with the refuse of our table, he will wait upon us and love to be near us; he will be eager to follow us from place to place, and when, after a short absence, we return home, will try by a thousand fond transported motions, to tell us how much he rejoices to see us again. Nay, brutes far less sagacious and apprehensive,

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have some sense of our kindness, and. express it after their way: as the blessed God condescends to observe, in this very view in which I mention it,The dull ox knoweth his owner, and the stupid ass his master's crib.' What lamentable degeneracy, therefore, is it that men do not know,-that they, who have been numbered among God's professing people, do not, and will not consider their numberless. obligations to Him!-Doddridge.

Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying. sores they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

'The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint.'-This language expresses the degenerate condition of the whole Jewish nation; and it also accurately describes the state of fallen man by nature:-sin has corrupted

and weakened all his capacities both of mind and heart : Reason, Imagination, Memory; the Affections, the Will, the Conscience, have all become more or less perverted.-Anon.

'Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

V. 8. Passing a garden of melons and cucumbers, we observed the lodge in the midst of it-a small erection of four upright poles, roofed over with branches and leaves, under the shadow

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of which a solitary person may sit and watch the garden. To this desolate condition the daughter of Zion has come, as the prophet foretold.M'Cheyne's Narrative.

Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. 10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrahı. "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. 12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? 13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14 Your new moons and

your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

V. 10-15. Service without authority provokes the question, Who hath required this at your hands?' No oblation can be received by God, which He has not required, and no obedience can be rendered to Him, which He has not commanded. 'Whatsoever is not of faith is sin,' so far as the professed worshipper is concerned; and that which is not commanded by precept, or sanctioned by authoritative precedent, enters not into the essence of allowable service. Unrequired homage cannot, of course, be an act of obedience.-Dr. Leask.

-Let us bethink ourselves, What is our life, if love run not through it? if a vein of love to God be not carried through the course of it? Alas! without this, life is but a dream, and all our religion but a fancy! What do such assemblies as these signify? What a cold, pitiful business is it, for so many of us to come together, if no love to God stir among us! We pretend to come to a God, whom we do not love! What a pitiful account can we give of our coming together, if this be all! The show and shadow of a duty! a holy flourish! and that is all!

-Howe.

put away the evil of your doings

from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; " Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.