DELINEATIONS

OF

SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS.

PART I.

"Truths, of all others the most awful and interesting, are too often considered as so true that they lose all power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors." -COLERIDGE.

"Fai come quei che la cosa per nome

Apprende ben: ma la sua quiditate

Veder non puote, s'altri non la prome."

DANTE. Paradiso. Canto XX.

THE marvellous ingenuity, and the unremitting perseverance with which we

"Torture invention, each expedient tire,"

to create new wants and find out new ways of luxury and extravagance for our gratification, might almost lead us to imagine that the age

we live in is a golden age; but we well know that the voice of complaining poverty, which every where assaults our ear, would soon divest it of all claim to this brilliant distinction. We must, therefore, be satisfied to bestow upon it the more intellectual, but less substantial prerogative, of being what we believe none will dispute-a reading age. For books are now become even necessary articles of furniture, and where they are wanting, the eye, seeking in vain for the objects on which it has been accustomed to repose with complacency, refuses to be comforted, and forthwith perceives a deficiency of which the mind, indolently reposing in that lap of luxury, a modern easy chair, might have remained entirely unconscious.

As every body knows that books are written to be read, the inference is, that if books are the fashion, reading must be the fashion also; and it is only to be lamented that this prevailing propensity is so seldom directed into the right channel.

But, unfortunately, the reading public is now what the men of Athens were of old, always gaping after some "new thing;" and in their avidity to satisfy this morbid craving,

"the hungry edge of appetite" gives a zest which makes even the very worst productions go down, provided only that the imagination be sufficiently excited. We do not pretend, however, that this literary voracity is altogether undiscriminating in its choice; for we believe, on the contrary, that, as far as regards works of the imaginative class, real merit was never more thoroughly appreciated than it has been of late years. Witness the prose works of Sir Walter Scott, which have been beyond comparison more generally read, and more enthusiastically admired, than any other writings of their kind. We do not, of course, include the last feeble efforts of genius in the winter of its age; for at that desolate season, if in the natural world we happen perchance, on the barren hill or naked hedge, to spy out an isolated flower, which the hand of time has forgotten to pluck, we contemplate it with more of melancholy than of pleasure, while it serves but to remind us of all the beauty that has withered, and the fragrance that has passed away: so in these last efforts of a declining intellect, the occasional bright but transient gleam serves only to recall to our recollection the full and vigorous light

which illuminated with a glowing radiance the autumnal productions of a rich and cultivated understanding, at that period when years had only contributed to mature the judgment without impairing the imagination.

Amongst the many who have read even these his best works, numbers, it is true, have been insensible to their beauties; but then it has generally proceeded from some such hopeless defect as prevents a blind man from seeing, or ever being able to see, what is placed before him; for the mind requires an optic nerve as well as the eye, and where nature has denied the capability of receiving impressions, the wonders of genius are presented to us in vain. It is true that the mind, like the eye, must be enlightened before it can see, for it is only "in light that we can see light;" and the mind too, like the organ of natural vision, must have objects pointed out to its notice-brought, as it were, under its inspection-otherwise, from inattention, carelessness, and want of observation, it passes over much, both in nature and art, of which it has capacities to perceive the beauty and appreciate the excellence.

But with a volume of Walter Scott before

him, what man of refined mind would submit to be convicted of insensibility or inattention? Vanity and shame forbid. You therefore call into play all the taste and intelligence of which you are possessed; you put on the spectacles of attention, and sit down to your book, predetermined to appreciate and enjoy the intellectual treat. And what is the result of this co-operation and sympathy with the feelings and design of the author, but that your heart. is affected, your imagination is kindled, and your judgment led captive by the mere fictions to which the wand of the magician has given a "local habitation and a name?" Now, why cannot you take up the Bible with the same zeal and attention that you bestow upon these books of mere human invention, instead of allowing the word of God to be to you a mere dead letter-an "oft told tale vexing" occasionally on the Sunday, "the dull ear of a drowsy man," recognized only by the peculiarity of its sound, but undiscerned in the sublimity of its sense? Why cannot you take up the Scriptures as you would a new book, (for such, in fact, it is to you, both in its spirit and its import,) and be persuaded, that before you can rationally call yourself a Christian,