words: "Fear God and keep his
commandments."[377]

The Book of Ecclesiastes teaches a great truth in an unexampled strain of
pathetic eloquence. It teaches what a black scepticism descends on the
wisest, most fortunate, most favored of mankind, when he looks only to
this world and its joys. It could, however, only have been written by one
who had gone through this dreadful experience. The intellect alone never
sounded such depths as these. Moreover, it could hardly have been written
unless in a time when such scepticism prevailed, nor by one who, having
lived it all, had not also lived _through_ it all, and found the cure for
this misery in pure unselfish obedience to truth and right. It seems,
therefore, like a Book of Confessions, or the Record of an Experience,
and as such well deserves its place in the Bible and Jewish literature.

The Book of Job is a still more wonderful production, but in a wholly
different tone. It is full of manly faith in truth and right. It has no
jot of scepticism in it. It is a noble protest against all hypocrisies and
all shams. Job does not know why he is afflicted, but he will never
confess that he is a sinner till he sees it. The Pharisaic friends tell
him his sufferings are judgments for his sins, and advise him to admit it
to be so. But Job refuses, and declares he will utter no "words of wind"
to the Almighty. The grandest thought is here expressed in the noblest
language which the human tongue has ever uttered.

Sec. 6. The Prophets; or, Judaism as the Hope of a spiritual and universal
Kingdom of God.

Before we proceed to examine the prophetic writings of the Old Testament,
it is desirable to make some remarks upon prophecy in general, and on the
character of the Hebrew prophets.

Prophecy in general is a modification of inspiration. Inspiration is
sight, or rather it is insight. _All_ our knowledge comes to us through
the intellectual power which may be called sight, which is of two
kinds,--the sight of external things, or outsight; and the sight of
internal things, which is insight, or intuition. The senses constitute the
organization by which we see external things; consciousness is the
organization by which we perceive internal things. Now the organs of sense
are the same in kind, but differ in degree in all men. All human beings,
as such, have the power of perceiving an external world, by means of the
five senses. But though all have these five senses, all do not per