Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/80

 an Oriental Iliad, or Odyssey, or Æneid. To have done this would have been to introduce among their people an element of confusion and of ambiguity, which would have interfered with the purpose of the separation of this race from all other races.

And yet this is not all that should be said; and the second reason would be by itself sufficient in solving the problem; and, not less than the first, is it conclusively demonstrative of the Divine origination of these writings. Because they are Inspired——and teach the things of God, and enjoin the worship of God, therefore do the writers abstain from themes which give licence to the worship of man:—they take no account of heroes; and yet it was not so that an ambitious poet, who might be thirsting for the applause of his countrymen, could find no subject in the national history adapted to his purpose. Why not, in this manner, undertake to immortalize Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon? Why not? It was because the Hebrew Scriptures, dictated from above, are constantly and sternly truthful;—and they are so whether the great men of the Hebrew polity were as faultless as national fondness would have painted them; or were indeed as faulty as men at the best ever are.

It has been the ambition—and a noble ambition, of the most highly gifted minds, in every cultured people, to give expression to a perfect ideal of humanity—to picture a godlike virtue, wisdom, valour, self-control, and temperance, according to the na-