the Hebrew Canon, the concise and pathetic Hosea comes next after the Canticles. In a series of unmistakeable allusions, the faithlessness of the actual Israel is put in contrast with the love of the ideal Israel. In Hosea the Song of Songs is given back in sighs.

This view of a large portion of the Old Testament makes it in the highest degree probable that when we come to a song, of which we are told that it is Solomon's, and "the most excellent of Songs,” and of which we know that it alone has been preserved out of a thousand and five, it should be intended for the Divine Song of a Divine Love.

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And this enables us to deal with one of M. Renan's principal arguments. One sole argument," says that eloquent writer, can be adduced with plausibility by those who maintain the possibility of a religion arrièrepensée in the Canticles. That is the example of the erotico-mystical poetry of India and Persia. It is quite certain that in neither country is this kind of poetry very ancient. . . . It is evident that no real likeness can be made out between the production of a mysticism which is so advanced, and a pastoral drama which has not, like the present, any religious aspect whatever. And first, if the author really had any underlying theological purpose, he would not have chosen the dramatic form. The lyrical form is the only one which suits these metaphysical debauches. Besides, what improbabilities are involved in placing a great development of transcendental theology in Judea in the tenth century before Christ! Nothing was ever so utterly alien to, and averse from mysticism, as the Hebrew, the Arabian, and the Semitic mind in general. The idea of putting the Creator into connection with the creature; the supposition that an amorous relation can exist between them; the thousand refinements of this nature, in which the mysticism of the Hindoos and that of Christians has allowed itself such unlimited license, are at the antipodes to the severe conception of the Semitic God, There is no doubt that such ideas would have passed for blasphemies in Israel. Allegories of this kind always indicate a certain necessity for concealment, a revenge on some external repression. Under the transcendental language of the Soufis; under the burning lyrical passion of Louis de Léon, under the feigned quietism of Madame Guyon, we can feel the intolerant rigour of orthodox Islamism, of the Inquisition, of Gallican Catholicism. But the history of the Jewish people-at least before the date of the prophets devoted to severe Mosaism and Pietist kings-presents no example of persecution for doctrinal reasons. .. Further, erotico-mystical poems presuppose a vast development of philosophical and theological schools around them. But no people has ever been more sober than the Hebrew people in regard to symbolism, allegories, and speculative divinity. Tracing, as they did, a line of entire and absolute separation between God and man, they rendered all familiarity, all tender sentiment, all reciprocity

1 Cf. Hos. ii. 2; Cant. iii. 4; viii. 8; Hos. ix. 14; Cant. viii. 8; Hengstenberg, Proleg. to Canticles, pp. 304, 305; Thrupp, On the Song of Solomon, p. 15; Bishop of Lincoln, Minor Prophets, pp. 1, 2.

between heaven and earth a sheer impossibility. We therefore hold it for certain that the author of the Canticles, in writing his poem, had no mystical inten tion." 2 The argument in this passage is altogether based upon the supposition that the idea of a relation between God and His people, capable of being adum. brated under the image of wedded love, is utterly foreign to the Hebrew writers. But it has been shown above that it may be found in a multitude of passages, beginning with Moses and ending with the later prophets.

2. The second proof of our interpretation is derived from the New Testament. It has, indeed, been boldly asserted that "the so-called higher sense has no support from the New Testament, and that the Song of Songs is never quoted there." Yet it is oftener referred to than any other writing in the Old Testament, with the solitary exception of the Psalms. There is one title which our blessed Lord delights to give Himself, that of the Bridegroom.3 There is one image graven upon the Church's heart, as one golden day out of all the past abides in the widow's memory, the Marriage.a But our Lord's human mind moved in the sacred circle of the Bible, and His language was impregnated with it. He drew these images from the Song of Solomon.

The stern Baptist, no teacher of a luxuriant and florid imagination, actually compresses the whole simple dramatism of the Canticles into a few brief clauses: "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice." St. Paul had the application of the Bride to the Church in his mind when he wrote in relation to that great mystery, which he referred to Christ and His Church: “not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing” (Eph. v. 27; cf. "Thou art all fair, there is no spot in thee," Cant. iv. 7).

But mainly is this constant reference to be found in the Apocalypse of St. John. We present these references in parallel columns, and they are possibly not quite complete:

Bishop Andrews gives praise to God for the abundant light of Scripture: "Blessed be Thy Name, O God, for the light which shines in upon our senses. But more blessed for another light. For the profit and experience of faithful histories; for the instruction of wise Proverbs; for the sweet solace of holy Psalms. Blessed be Thy Name for that sun which never goes down, for that light which no darkness ever overspreads." How does such a book give light? Other books contain dogmas of faith, or a heaven-given ritual, or holy examples, or precious hymns, or rules of saintly life, or moral laws, or the prophecy of forth-telling, or that of foretelling. Supposing it to be what some would have it, it is not a gentle breath of the Divine Spirit; it is a vapour from metal molten in the furnace of human passion. It is a mere opera belonging to "the fleshly school," the strain of a Hebrew Swinburne. It was not without cause that among the interpretations of Theodore of Mopsuesta, condemned by the Second Council of Constantinople, was that which made the Proverbs a mere manual of worldly experience, and the Canticles a mere idyll or canzonata.

Nor can it be said that the matter is mended by the last refinement of criticism. A fair and simple girl, persecuted by the unworthy passion of the sensual Solomon, is pounced upon and dragged to his seraglio. Through five acts the operetta tells us of her resistance, until the Shulamite finds herself in her own garden, rewarded by the voice of her faithful shepherd. And this we are told is a story worthy of the Bible, and of the books with which it is associated! "The poem is neither mystic, as the theologians would have it; nor equivocal, as Castalion believed; nor purely amatory, as Herder thought. It is moral. It is summed up in viii. 7, ‘If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.' Nothing can resist true love; the rich man who would buy it buys shame. The object of the song is not the voluptuous passion which dwells in the seraglios of the degenerate East; but true love, the inspirer of courage and sacrifice, preferring free poverty to servile opulence, fixing itself in vigorous hatred of lying and meanness, and ending by calm happiness and fidelity."

love is sensual. Part seems to be pronounced by a choir of women. The third and fourth verses suppose that he to whom they are addressed is loved by many at once. The word alamoth certainly means the occupants of the harem. It appears, then, that in these three verses we have a harem scene. Each of these women aspires to the love of a master, evidently Solomon. They express this by passionate invitations. The king hath brought me into his chambers,' must, I think, be assigned to a young girl just shut up in the harem." 2

That a poem with an introduction so odious, and of no apparent moral or religious significance, should have been exalted to a place beside Moses and the Prophets, is, surely, inconceivable.

4. To these arguments might be added the fascination which the Song has always had for devout souls. Nor is this confined to monastic precincts, and those who may be called professional mystics. We find the Canticles, indeed, to have been the favourite book of St. Bernard, who poured out the hoarded tenderness and experience of his soul in those eighty-six sermons to the brethren at Clairvaux. But it was as dear to Leighton, to Taylor, and to Bunyan, as to Bernard and Catherine of Sienna.

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"Such is the force of the religious sentiment," says M. Renan, once more, 'that it can give beauty and charm to wrong interpretations. The mystic sense is philologically false, but religiously true. The Shulamite has taken the cloister veil; under it she is fair still. How many true loves have lived upon the sweet, Vulnerasti cor meum, which the Church sings upon her festivals P3 Those litanies and hymns, entirely made up of the sad or burning images borrowed from this sacred Idyll, how many tears have they made to flow? Add that the Christian interpretation has given to the Song that transparency and delicacy which is wanting to the original." 4

The Christian refuses such poor consolation as this. If the beauty is falsely imported into the book, it does not exist for him at all.

On the whole, the interpretation of the Canticles which we call idealising seems to be involved in the reception of the book. And its sacred character is proved (1) from the use of its leading image in the Old Testament; (2) from the repeated references to it by the Baptist, by St. Paul, by St. John, and by our Lord Himself; (3) from its reception into the Sacred Canon; and (4) from its acceptance by holy and devout souls, as the food of their spiritual life.

martyrs" became emphatically in England the seed of a reformed and purified Church, the policy which drove learned and good men into banishment from their country was destined to prepare the way for a more accurate and worthy representation of Scripture truth.

With the foreigners who, compelled by a royal proclamation, left England without delay, many learned Englishmen sought refuge from the troubles of their country in flight. Some betook themselves to Strasburg, some to Frankfort-on-the-Maine, some to Zurich, and other towns in Germany and Switzerland. Our concern is with a band of exiles who left Frankfort in 1555 in consequence of dissensions respecting matters of ritual, and removed to Geneva, where Calvin, who had little liking for the English Prayer Book, exercised unbounded influence. Among these exiles were John Knox, the celebrated Scottish reformer; Miles Coverdale; Thomas Cole, said to have been Dean of Salisbury; Christopher Goodman, at one time a divinity-professor at Oxford, author of a violent treatise against "the monstrous regiment" (government) of women, afterwards a leader of the extreme Nonconformists; John Pullain, noted for his poetical powers, a translator of Ecclesiastes, Esther, and other books of Scripture into English verse; Anthony Gilby, Thomas Sampson, and William Whittingham. It is mainly with the three last named that we are here concerned. Gilby was a Cambridge scholar, Sampson and Whittingham were educated at Oxford. Of Gilby we know comparatively little, except that he was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge; that the troubles of Frankfort drove him to Geneva; and that on the accession of Elizabeth he returned to England, and received the vicarage of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. He died in 1584. Sampson was Dean of Chichester in Edward's reign. On the accession of Mary he fled to Strasburg, and afterwards joined the band of exiles at Geneva. In 1561 he became Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, but was shortly afterwards deprived of his office for nonconformity. William Whittingham was born near Durham in 1524; at the age of twentythree he was made one of the senior students of Christ Church, Oxford. When Knox left Geneva, in 1559, Whittingham was ordained his successor in the pastorate of the English church. In 1560 he returned to England, and three years later was made Dean of Durham. Whittingham was one of the translators of that metrical version of the Psalms which is known by the names of Sternhold and Hopkins, the largest contributors to the collection. He died in 1579.

In 1557 a duodecimo volume was published at Geneva, entitled "The Newe Testament of ovr Lord Iesus Christ. Conferred diligently with the Greke, and best approned translations. With the arguments, as wel before the chapters, as for euery Boke and Epistle; also diuersities of readings, and moste proffitable annotations of all harde places; wherunto is added a copious Table. At Geneva Printed by Conrad Badius. LVII." The title-page also contains a curious woodcut, representing Time raising Truth out of her grave, with

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the motto, "God by Tyme restoreth Trvth, and maketh her victoriovs." After the table of contents is given "The Epistle, declaring that Christ is the end of the law, by John Calvin." This is followed by an address to the reader, giving some account of the work. The writer uses the first person singular throughout, and clearly shows that the translation is from his own hand. Though no name is given, we can have little doubt that the work was executed by Whittingham. This might be probable in itself on account of the position held by Whittingham amongst his countrymen in Geneva, and from the association of Calvin (whose sister Whittingham had married) with this translation; but, as we shall see presently, there are other indications which point to the same conclusion. Apart from the translation and the notes, which are considered below, the chief characteristics of the book are the use of Roman type (additions and explanatory words being printed in italics) and the novel arrangement of the text. Our modern verses are here seen for the first time in an English Bible. In the Old Testament the division into short verses was ready to hand in the Hebrew Bible; through Pagninus (1528) this division became familiar to readers of Latin. In the New Testament there was no precedent of the kind. From the earliest times, however, the text had been broken up into paragraphs of various lengths, and Pagninus, for the sake of uniformity, introduced into the New Testament verses similar to those now in use, but of greater length. R. Stephens, when preparing for one of his editions of the Greek Testament, resolved on an arrangement more nearly resembling that of the Old Testament. He worked out his plan on a journey from Paris to Lyons, and the Greek Testament published in 1551 in this respect resembles our present Bibles. For the Apocryphal books this work had been accomplished a few years earlier by the same hand. The complete system of verses first met the eye of English readers in the Bible of 1560, of which we have now to speak.

Three years after the publication of the Genevan Testament an edition of the whole Bible in English was published in the same city: "The Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament. Translated according to the Ebrue and Greke, and conferred with the best translations in diuers languages. With moste profitable annotations vpon all the harde places, and other thinges of great importance as may appeare in the Epistle to the Reader." On this titlepage, also, is a woodcut, representing the passage through the Red Sea. The book is a quarto of about 600 pages, printed (like the Testament of 1557) in Roman and italic types, and furnished with "arguments," marginal references, headings of chapters, and explanatory notes. This is the first edition of the celebrated Genevan version, of which more than 130 editions were published, and which retained its popularity with the English public for nearly a hundred years.

The interesting address prefixed to the volume clearly brings out one distinction between the former publication and the present. Whereas that was clearly from