the Old Testament we contemplate the idea of marriage as the holy reflection of an inseparable psychic bond between two souls, a typifying prelude to the happy restorations to be effected in the reign of the Messiah."*

However, amid all the splendor and achievements of Solomon's time, the process of a slow but certain social and religious decay was at work. Indeed, the worm of disintegration found its way into the national life of the Hebrews through the practices and example of the king himself. Association with the princes of other realms, and marital relations with the court of Egypt, with Moab, Sidon, Ammon, Edom and the Hittite tribes, gradually transformed him from an ardent and heroic devotee of the Jahveh worship, into a religious liberalist of so decided a type that he even invited and tolerated the open and free re-introduction of the idolatrous worship of Chemosh and Moloch, whose degrading rites were celebrated within sight of the temple of Jehovah. Though the priesthood of Israel may thereby have been arrayed against the king, his example and instructions outweighed all their protestations. They could not stem the tide of approaching degeneracy. The old faith wavered and waned, and with it the uses of music sank to the same deplorable level. So rapid and universal, amid the increasing luxury and effeminacy of the times, was the decline of music that not many years after the close of Solomon's reign, the prophet Amos wrote: "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion! . . . . . That chant to the sound of the viol and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David. That is to say, "the same pains which David employed on music to the honor of God, they employed on their light, enervating, unmeaning music, and if they were in earnest enough, justified their inventions by the example of David. An artificial, effeminate music which should relax the soul, frittering the melody, and displacing the power and majesty of divine harmony by tricks of arts and giddy, thoughtless, † Amos 6: 1, 5.

heartless, soulless versifying would be meet company. Debased music is a mark of a nation's decay and promotes it." *

The same prophet exposed the hypocritical character of divine service in the reign of Ahaz and Manasseh: "Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols." †

A few years later Isaiah bore witness to the prostitution of music as the accompaniment of religious degeneracy: "And the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe and wine are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands." In view of the loss of the buoyant spirit of faith and the punitive devastation consequent upon Israel's apostasy, he said again: "The mirth of tabrets ceaseth; the noise of them that rejoice endeth; the joy of the harp ceaseth." §

Jeremiah, the next great prophet, was doomed to contemplate the same sad state of things. Said he: "The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music. The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning." ||

When, finally, the measure of iniquity became filled by the desecration and defilement of the temple and the institution of human sacrifices, offered on the altars of Tophet in the valley. of Hinnom, a curse which recognizes the kinship between music and religion was uttered against Israel for its abominations: "Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall be desolate." ¶

Shorn of their national glory, steeped in idolatrous iniquity and vice, dead to the inspiration and promises of the Jahveh worship, and the prey of internal dissension, the Jews were easily conquered by a foreign foe. But in the Babylonian captivity, once more reduced to servitude, they bewailed the errors of the * Pusey. Minor Prophets; Amos in loco. † Amos 5: 23. Isa. 5: 12. ¿ Isa. 24: 8. Jer. 7: 34; 25: 10.

Lam. 5: 14, 15.

past, and with tear-stained faces gazed, in imagination, upon the vanished glory of David's age and the departed splendor of Solomon's reign. Then the old longings returned to them, and they brought, as best they could, fruits meet for repentance. The ancestral Jahveh faith was reinstated in their hearts with somewhat of its former fervor, and the harmonies of the temple gave them utterance.

"By the rivers of Babylon,

There we sat down and wept,

When we remembered Zion.

Upon the willows in the midst thereof

We hanged up our harps.

*

How shall we sing the Lord's song

In a strange land?

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,

Let my right hand forget her cunning.

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

If I remember thee not;

If I prefer not Jerusalem

Above my chief joy."*

After the decree of Cyrus had gone forth permitting the return of the Hebrews, the temple destroyed by Neł uchadnezzar seventy years before was rebuilt by Zerubabbel, and the worship of Israel re-established in Jerusalem. But the reforms introduced by Ezra, the dispersion of the Jews throughout the Persian Empire and the organization of the synagogue so changed the course of later Jewish history that the ancient glory of Hebrew music was never again revived. The reading and exercise of the law in all its rigor, and strict habits of prayer as associated with the synagogue, displaced the centralized hierarchical ceremonialism of the temple. The people were trained in a hard and narrow legalism which swept away polygamy forever, and prevented the Jewish nation from being totally obliterated.

* Ps. 137.

But it froze the fountain of that poetic

Farrar, History of Interpretation, p. 54.

fervor which had given responsive echo to the Psalms of David and the Songs of Solomon.

In the second century before Christ, Antiochus Epiphanes overran Cole-Syria, Palestine and Egypt. In consequence thereof, the temple services at Jerusalem were suspended for three years, and the statue of Jupiter Olympus was erected in the Holy Places. But Lysias, a leading general under Antiochus, having been defeated by the Maccabees, retreated to Antioch to reorganize his army. In the mean time an examination of the temple disclosed the ruin that had been wrought within its sacred precincts. The altar was desecrated; the gates were burned; the spot on which it stood was covered with grass, and the tents of the priests had rotted to the ground. At sight of this devastation the victors tore their mantles, wept aloud, fell upon their faces, blew trumpets and cried to heaven. But, at the instance of Judas, the holy places were purified by priests who had observed the law. Every vestige of heathen uncleanness and abomination was removed. Early on the following day a sacrifice of burnt-offering once more fulfilled the provisions of the law of Moses, and was celebrated with songs, pipes, harps and cymbals.* Thus the temple received a re-dedication to the worship of Jahveh. In connection with this service is found the last trace of music under the Old Covenant.

For nearly two hundred years of impotent effort to throw off the Roman yoke and call back an ancient independence, the muse of sacred song was hushed. The religion of the Old Testament, in Rabbinic form, had reached a lasting limit. When the Saviour of the world stood face to face with the appointed ordeal of His sacrifice, He ate the paschal meal with His disciples, and closed it with the institution of the sacrament of Holy Communion. Then they sang a hymn, and went out to the Mount of Olives.

*1 Mac. 4: 54.

13

IV.

C. E. SMITH ON THE APOCALYPSE.

BY REV. W. M. REILY, PH.D.

"Increase of knowledge awaits posterity. Hereafter much that is now despised will become a foundation for further building; much that is now accepted will become antiquated; many a proof, which now avails only for the few, will be found superfluous. If, in the meantime, those who love the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, find in this book (his Erklärte Offenbarung) any trace of truth, let them with me praise God's name, and for their own sake as well as mine, let them help me to pray for a supply for all my deficiencies out of His abundance who is full of grace and truth. Such a supply will be further granted to all who, in connection with earnest prayer, patient meditation and careful consideration, shall test what is here presented; shall advance it, aided by higher illumination and more accurate information, to a greater degree of maturity; and shall, in faith, patience and perseverance, make of it its intended use,

"Kloster Denkendorf, am Tage des Herrn, den 4. Sept., 1740."

J. A. BENGEL.

pen

THE work before us is entitled "THE WORLD LIGHTED, A study in the Apocalypse." All that we know of the author is what we have gathered up from the book, including the information. given on the title page, that he is the writer of another on "The Baptism of Fire." Our attention was drawn to it by two highly flattering notices-one apparently from the of Dr. Harper in the O. & N. T. Student, the other from The Independent. These notices of themselves were sufficient to awaken our curiosity. Could any light be thrown upon this wonderful production, which in all ages has been regarded as the Great Enigma of bibical study? We had very distinct reminiscence of allusions to it in a certain series of articles in this Review, which we were never able to dismiss from our