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abundant passages in the Psalms, so clear in their meaning, so connected in themselves, that no translation can disguise them. Yet, of another large portion, is it not true that they are viewed by many of those who habitually read them as mere strings of pious apothegms, without connection or purpose? In this light our two compilers, at least, seem to have regarded them. Let us take the 29th Psalm as a specimen. We will borrow the commentary upon it from an "Essay on the Literary Attractions of the Bible," by Rev. James Hamilton, London."

"There is no phenomenon in nature so awful as a thunderstorm, and almost every poet, from Homer and Virgil to Dante and Milton, has described it. In the Bible, too, we have, in the 29th Psalm, a description of a thunder-storm, which, rising from the Mediterranean, and travelling by Lebanon and along the inland mountains, reaches Jerusalem, and sends the people into the temple porticos for refuge. And besides those touches of terror, in which the geographical progress of the tornado is described, it derives a sacred vitality from the presence of Jehovah in each successive peal. The voice of the Lord is on the sea, the God of glory thundereth; the Lord is on the mighty sea. The voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars, yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire [lightnings]; the voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; yea, the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. In his temple doth every one speak of his glory. The Lord sitteth upon the water-flood; [and now the sun shines out again;] the Lord will give his people the blessing of peace.""

Now let us see how our compilers have dealt with this psalm. Mr. Clarke omits all those verses which describe the origin and progress of the storm, except one, and in that one the allusion to the Mediterranean is lost by a faulty translation, "is upon many waters," - rendered in the above extract "mighty sea"; in King's Chapel prayer-book, "thundereth over the great waters." Mr. Clarke omits the verses which trace the progress of the storm over Lebanon and the wilderness at its base, the out-flashing lightning and the breaking of the cedars, the awestruck group in the temple, and the water-flood, caused by the torrents, that, rushing from the hills, fill the

* Published as a tract by the American Tract Society, 1850.

ravines around the holy city. In fact, he retains only those which convey an indefinite impression of power and majesty, but suggest no particular manifestation of those qualities. Mr. Waterston treats it in the same

manner.

The treatment of the 42d Psalm will also show the effect of the expunging and reconstructing process. Of this psalm Dr. Noyes says, "For beauty of imagery, depth and naturalness of religious feeling, and the very striking manner in which the voice of religion in the poet's inmost soul is heard in the refrains, stilling the tempest of anxiety and grief, this psalm is so admirable, that it probably has no superior in any language." It is the utterance of the feelings of a pious worshipper of the only true God, when, in exile and among the enemies of his religion, he pours out his regrets for the privileges of religious worship, from which he is debarred. It must be remembered that the Jews attached an importance to the place of worship,-"to pay their vows in Jerusalem," almost beyond the conception of Christians at the present day.

Let us conceive of a well-nurtured youth, from some New England village, an adventurer in California, and, sick of the ribaldry and license of the present scene and companions, perhaps on some unnoticed and unhonored Sunday, in the solitude of his tent, giving utterance to his feelings in words like these:

"As the hart panteth for the water-brooks, so longeth my soul for thee, O God!

My soul is athirst for God; yea, even for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God [in his sanctuary]? "My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is now thy God?

"When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in grief; how I once walked with the multitude to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with the multitude that kept holyday.

"Why art thou so full of heaviness, O my soul? and why art thou so disquieted within me?

"Put thy trust in God, for I will yet give him thanks for the help of his countenance.

"Once the Lord granted his loving-kindness in the daytime; and in the night-season did I sing unto him, and made my prayer unto the God of my life.

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"Now I say unto the God of my strength, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I thus heavily, while the enemy oppresseth

me?

"Why art thou so cast down, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted within me? O, put thy trust in God, for I will yet thank him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God." - King's Chapel Liturgy, p. 318.

Let us see how this psalm is treated in the books. before us. In Mr. Waterston's (Selection 28), the third and fourth verses, which explain the cause of the poet's sadness, are omitted, and we are left to imagine such cause as we please. Several other verses are omitted, and, to make out the suitable length for a "Selection," it is pieced out with a portion of the 46th Psalm, the tenor of which may be judged of by the title which Noyes gives it, "Thanksgiving for victory over enemies, and trust in God as a national refuge and defence." Mr. Clarke treats the psalm in the same manner, except that he prints it by itself, and does not amalgamate it with any other. Mr. Sears (Day VIII., Evening), seeing no beauty in the allusion to the hart panting for the water-brooks, leaves out that verse, and begins with the second. He leaves out the third and fourth, and then brings in the refrain, "Why art thou so full of heaviness, O my soul," &c.; and no sooner has he finished this, than, omitting the intervening strophe, he gives it again, so that the fifth and sixth verses are a repetition of the third and fourth. Of the 104th Psalm, the author of the "Pleasures of Hope" says, "The impression of that exquisite ode dilates the heart with a pleasure too instinctive and simple to be described." Mr. Clarke gives the whole of it. In the third verse there are two errors of grammar, which he has made by changing the pronoun "his" to "thy." Mr. Waterston does nearly the same, but avoids the grammatical error. Both retain a mistranslation of the fourth verse, which is corrected in the King's Chapel Liturgy.

Mr. Sears seems not to have esteemed this "exquisite ode" so highly as Mr. Campbell. He gives but eight verses of the thirty-five of which it is composed, and has not been so careful in his excisions as to avoid ugly chasms. For instance, in the fourth verse he tells us, "He maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming VOL. XLIX. - 4TH S. VOL. XIV. NO. II.

24

fire"; and in the next we read, " At thy rebuke they flee; at the voice of thy thunder they are afraid." This seems strange to be said of angels, but the next verse and the following do not clear up the difficulty. "They go up as high as the hills, and down to the valleys beneath. Thou hast set them their bounds that they shall not pass, neither turn again to cover the earth." All which the Psalmist applied to the waters, not to the angels. But Mr. Sears has left out the verses which show the change of subject.

The 50th Psalm is ascribed to Asaph. "It is enough," says Dr. Noyes, "to place him in the number of poets of the very first order." "The author was," says Eichhorn, "one of those ancient wise men who felt the insufficiency of external religious usages, and urged the necessity of cultivating virtue and purity of mind." It commences with a "sublime theophany," in which Jehovah is announced as speaking from Zion, his chosen seat, while heaven and earth are called to witness, and the host of worshippers is addressed:

"The Lord, even the most mighty God, hath spoken, and called the world, from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.

"Gather my servants together unto me, those who have made a covenant with me with sacrifice.'

"And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge himself."

The worthlessness of mere sacrifices is then declared :—

"I will take no bullock out of thine house, nor he-goat out of thy fold; for all the beasts of the forest are mine, and so are the cattle upon a thousand hills."

Reproof is then dealt out to the moral offender, who hopes to hide his guilt under a parade of religious obser

vances:

"Unto the ungodly saith God, 'Why dost thou preach my laws, and take my covenant in thy mouth, whereas thou hatest instruction, and hast cast my words behind thee?""

Then follows the conclusion:

"Whoso offereth me thanks and praise, he honoreth me; and to him who ordereth his conversation right will I show the salvation of God."

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This psalm, so grand in its conception, so poetic in its composition, so elevated in its philosophy, not only in advance of the Jewish mind of old time, but adequate to the Christian mind of our day, is cut down one half by Mr. Clarke, left out altogether by Mr. Waterston, and reduced to three verses by Mr. Sears, which are used as an introduction to the next psalm, a penitential one of David, supposed to refer to the matter of Uriah.

One more specimen, and we have done. From the 19th Psalm, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork," Mr. Sears omits all the portion relating to the wonders of the heavens, and begins his extract with the seventh verse, "The law of the Lord is an undefiled law," &c. He omits the verse which contains the petition, " O, cleanse thou me from my secret faults," but gives the next, " Keep thy servant also from presumptuous sins," &c. Surely no sin can be more "presumptuous" than thus to play strip and waste with compositions, which for thirty centuries have been held divine by all believing minds, and whose inspiration even infidels admit.

These instances are, perhaps, enough to show how perilous it is to meddle with other men's compositions, in hopes of mending them, when it is altogether uncertain whether we have entered into the design of the author, or partake of his spirit. It strikes us as strange, that men of piety, taste, and intelligence should have allowed themselves to recompose, as it were, these sacred poems. To expunge is, perhaps, allowable, yet manifestly even this process requires care and caution; but to wed together, in the same "Selection," the accents of grief and joy, triumph and despair, youth and age, epochs separated by centuries, without any sign or intimation of change of subject, is a course of proceeding which, if applied to modern poetry, would excite only ridicule and disgust.

In most departments of their service-books, all these gentlemen have freely used the materials, and followed the model, of the Book of Common Prayer; but in one, they have all, excepting Mr. Sears, stopped short. We refer to the "Christian Year," the arrangement by which each season, as it returns, is made to remind us of the event in the history of our faith which took place at