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iniquity, to prompt them to righteousness, and to be a witness against them—prophetic and admonitory—till the end of time. About 1500 years afterwards, she presents herself to our view in the interesting capacity of an attendant on the Redeemer of the world, in the great tragic scene of the New Testament.[1]
Fair offspring of the skies, the Muse of Israel, ordained to be the companion of prophets and preachers, bore in her countenance and character evidence of an origin divine. Emanating from the smile of Deity and blooming with celestial grace, She abhorred carnal pleasure and its soul-destroying abominations. No low desires, no vile affections found a place in her bosom. Clothed with majesty and glowing with inspiration, her thoughts were chaste, her aspirations were hallowing, and her words, sparkling like the dew drops of the morning with the loveliness of virtue in ten thousand forms, inspired heavenly sentiments and formed the soul for the life and the felicity of angels. Her brow, cheering as the day spring, was adorned with the diadem of truth, and her countenance, roseate in smiles like the blushing morn, was resplendent with illumination, as when, putting the clarion to her lips to lead the way on the burst of the celestial choir, she sent forth echoing and re-echoing throughout new made worlds the first electrifying note on the vast and silent expanse of ethereal, illimitable space, and sang with the morning stars of creation, amidst the joyful shouts of seraphic hosts, the wonders of Almighty power. Regardless of earth and its low-born gratifications, she had no affection for any thing beneath the skies, excepting so far as it led to scenes and joys beyond. No subject could interest her but that of the divine glory and man's salvation, which, inseparably connected by the decree of Him whose goings forth were from eternity, never ceased to be her theme, whether rejoicing at the formation of a new world in Eden, or weeping over a fallen one in Gethsemane. Her steps were radiant with light, darkness fled at her approach, her eyes beamed with tenderness on the penitent, the sound of her voice made the guilty tremble, and the tempter stood abashed before her or slinked away from her presence. She never stooped to folly; she never smiled on sin. Her doctrines were pure as the stream from the crystal fount, and salutary as the balm of Gilead. Nothing that dropped from her lips could defile; and the happiness she imparted was life-giving, unalloyed, and lasting as immortality. Deeply is it to be lamented that of all her daughters among the heathen, not one escaped the contamination of a fallen world but that of Ossian, the despised and neglected Muse of Caledonia. It would there-
- ↑ Matthew, xxvi. 30; Mark, xiv. 26.
