ing and genius, it is only the expression of physical love,
like the amatory songs of Greece. To others of more piety yet equal
scholarship, like Origen, Grotius, and Bossuet, it is symbolic of the
love which exists between Christ and the Church. It seems, at least, to
be a contrast with the impure love of the heathen world. But whether it
describes the ardent affection which Solomon bore to his young Egyptian
bride; or the still more beautiful love of the innocent Shulamite
maiden for her betrothed shepherd feeding his flock among the lilies,
unseduced by all the influences of the royal court, and triumphant over
the seductions of rank and power; or whether it is the rapt soul of the
believer bursting out in holy transports of joy, like a Saint Theresa in
the anticipated union with her divine Spouse,--it is still a noble
tribute to what is most enchanting of the great certitudes on earth or
in heaven; and it is expressed in language of exquisite and incomparable
elegance. "Arise, my fair one, and come away! for the winter is past and
gone, and the flowers appear upon the earth, and the voice of the turtle
is heard in the land. Make haste, my beloved! Be thou like a roe on the
mountains of spices, for many waters cannot quench love, nor the floods
drown it; yea, were a man to offer all that he hath for it, it would be
utterly despised." How tender, how innocent, how fervent, how beautiful,
is this description of a lofty love, at rest in its happiness, in the
society of the charmer, exultant in the certainty of that glorious
sentiment which nothing can corrupt and nothing can destroy!

If this unique and beautiful Song was the work of Solomon in his early
days of innocence and piety, the book of Proverbs seems to be the result
of his profound observations when he was still uncorrupted by
prosperity, ruling his kingdom with sagacity and amazing the world with
his wisdom. How many of those acute sayings were uttered by Solomon we
know not, but probably most of them are his, collected, it is supposed,
during the reign of Hezekiah. They are written on almost every subject
pertaining to ethics, to nature, to science, and to society. Some are
allusions to God, and others to the duties between man and man. Many are
devoted to the duties of women, applicable to the sex in all times. They
are not on a level of the Psalms in piety, nor of the Prophecies in
grandeur, but they recognize the immutable principles of moral
obligation. I