Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/36

 lead the way (as it has so often done) into pantheistic mysticism, the worshipper is quickly reminded of his individual frailty—his dependence and his unworthiness. A structure, simple in its principle, and in its intention, may be traced throughout these Scriptures as a method that is always adhered to, whatever those diversities of style may be which attach to the writer—whether it be Moses, or David, or one of the later prophets.

The reading and hearing of the Old Testament from the earliest childhood—at home and in church—in these Bible-reading lands, has brought us to imagine that the belief of the Personality of God—God, the Creator, the Father of Spirits—is a belief which all men, unless argued out of it by sophistry, would accept spontaneously. These early and continuous lessons in Bible learning have imbued our minds with the conception of the Infinite Being—the Creator of all things, who, in making man in His own likeness, has opened for us a ground of intercourse—warranting, on our part, the assurance that He with whom we have to do is conscious as we are conscious, and that—so far as the finite may resemble the Infinite, He is, as we are—is one with us, is communionable, and is open to a correspondence which is properly likened to that of a father with his children.

But now, whether we look abroad in antiquity—Asiatic and European—or look to the now prevalent beliefs of eastern races, or look near at hand to recent