bellows to represent the whirlwind; mystic, vast, inaudible, it passes
before the imagination of the Jew, and its office is done. The Jew would
be shocked to see his God in a human form; such a thing pleased the
Greek. The source of the difference is to be sought in the theology of
the two nations. The theological development of the Jews was very
complete,--that of the Greeks unfinished.

Yet the Jews were very deficient in art, and the Greeks perfect; both
failed in humanity. The Greeks had more ideality than the Jews; but
their ideality was very intense; it was continually, so to speak,
running aground; it must see its conceptions embodied; and more,--when
they were embodied, Pygmalion-like, it must seek to imbue them with
motion and sensibility. The conception of the Jews was more vague,
perhaps, but equally affecting; they were satisfied with carrying in
their minds the faint outline of the sublime, without seeking to chisel
it into dimension and tangibility. They cherished in their bosoms their
sacred ideal, and worshipped from far the greatness of the majesty that
shaded their imaginations. Hence we look to Athens for art, to Palestine
for ethics; the one produces rhetoricians,--the other, prophets.

So, we see, the theologico-dramatic forms of the two nations--and there
were no other--are different. The one pleases the prurient eye,--the
other gratifies the longing soul; the one amuses,--the other inspires;
the one is a hollow pageant of divine things,--the other is a glad,
solemn intimation from the unutterable heart of the universe.

The Song of Solomon, that stumbling-block of criticism and pill of
faith, a recent writer regards as a parable in the form of a drama, in
which the bride is considered as representing true religion, the royal
lover as the Jewish people, and the younger sister as the Gospel