be in their arrangements so as to conduce to this high end! The subject-matter of painting should not be so treated as to convey the impression that the artistic or technical beauty alone is to be the object of the arrangement, but so that the intended impression should be best made upon the mind. We cannot be reckless of the effect of the sensual suggestion made by a profane representation, or of the inappropriateness of placing the figure of the Preacher of repentance by the side of the daughter of a Bacchanalian revel, each form of which is suggestive of evil and temptation to an impure and tempted nature. It would not

be difficult for any one to see that this would violate the high intention of art, and make the Bezaleels and Aholiabs of each day priests of Beelzebub instead of architects of the tabernacle.

We sometimes see the walls of rooms hung with such representations as shock the least sensitive and delicate mind, and yet within and under the influence of those walls are growing up children and youths whose eyes dwell upon and memories brood over those forms to a degree we cannot estimate. Such subjects pander to the craving of our sinful nature and become

the key which opens the door of the heart letting out the ghastly troops of lusts and impurities. True; we do not know or notice at the time the harm which is doing or the treasurings of evil storing up in these garners, because no mind is so reserved as that of youth, and so little inclined to betray the inmost emotions of the soul. The best thing for us to do is to look back to the days of our own childhood and see what the impression was then made upon our own minds by similar objects, and we shall then be able to appreciate better the risk we run for others.

No. If in heaven all that has been lovely here will be again the object of our delight, only purified, sanctified, and made immortal, at least let us allow those fleeting beauties which are the foreshadowing and anticipations of that great future,-to guide us to it and prepare us for it, and not to become direct hindrances to our reaching our great reward. The earth and all in it is a Sacrament. The last thing a Christian should do, should be to make its external form the outward sign of evil instead of good.

LXXVI.

THE SONG OF SOLOMON.

JESUS SEEN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

CANTICLES I. 1.

"THE SONG OF SONGS, WHICH IS SOLOMON'S."

1. IN dwelling on the characters of the Old Testament it is natural to consider the Song of Songs; not that it bears very immediately on the mind of its writer when considered with regard to his peculiar turn and disposition, but that the principle which underlies it underlies so much of the Old Testament Scripture, and is the true key to so many of its thoughts and expressions the anticipation of the personal love of JESUs and the devotion of His Church to Him: I do not mean that the several writers were directly conscious of that vast power of af

fection which they were suggesting; or had seen, except in the faintest vision of the future, the matchless Form they describe. They saw Him, though not nigh; they beheld Him, but not then; they perceived the dim outline of a figure advancing from the mist, and as it took clearer and keener shape they described it with closer and keener accuracy.

In fact without this view of the Old Testament it loses four-fifths of its power to a Christian student. It may express in exquisite simplicity the tales of the elder world; it may be a record of the state of religious belief or knowledge in the earliest ages: it may be to us the roll-call of those who loved God through knowledge and means far inferior to our own, and stand out as the picture gallery of the people of God from the beginning of the world: nevertheless all this falls far short of the object we have in view as Christians. We want to discover in it the expectation of CHRIST, the shadow He cast before Him in His Advent. We want to see the yearning which mankind felt for His approach-the vacuum which only He could fill. We want to understand Him better by scanning those features which are given in outline through typical tale and pro