trumpet. In the midst of the congregated nation, supported by a varied
instrumental accompaniment, with the smoke of the well-fed altar surging
into the skies, the chorus took up the song which had been prepared to
their hand,--one group calling out, "Who shall ascend into the hill of
the Lord?"--the other pealing their answer, "He that hath clean hands
and a pure heart." Meanwhile, they dance before the Lord,--that is, we
suppose, preserving with their feet the unities of the music.

It was during a melodrama like this, in the midst of its exciting
grandeur and all-pervading transport, executed at the Feast of
Tabernacles, in the open area of the Temple, when the Jews were wont to
pour upon the altar water taken from the pool of Siloam, chanting at the
same time the twelfth chapter of Isaiah, and one division of the chorus
had just sung the words,--

"With joy we draw water from the wells of salvation,"

and before the other had replied,--it was at this moment, that Christ,
as Dr. Furness very reasonably conjectures, took up the response in his
own person, and overwhelmed attention by that memorable declaration, "If
any man thirst, let him come to me and drink; and from within him shall
flow rivers of living water."

It is what we may term the dramatic proprieties that give to many of the
Psalms, in the language of a recent commentator, "a greater degree of
fitness, spirit, and grandeur"; and they impart to the history of David
a certain decorousness of illustration and perspicuity of feature which
it would not otherwise possess. They would produce upon it the same
result as is achieved by the sister arts on this and other portions of
the sacred volume, without marring the text or doing violence to truth.