most precious possession of every pious soul. Here lies the cause of that vivid, life-like personification to which the prophet subjects the people of Israel, putting words upon their lips expressing a mode of feeling such as, strictly speaking, only an individual can experience. It is his own heart that the prophet has put into the body of Israel. The construction is in the plural, but the spirit is in the singular, and it needs only to be translated back into the singular, to render it a most appropriate speech for every believer in addressing Jehovah: "Come and let us return unto Jehovah; for He hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten and He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live before Him. And let us know, let us follow on to know Jehovah: His going forth is sure as the morning; and He will come unto us as the rain, as the latter rain that watereth the earth." And thus the prophet, and through him doubtless others, had the wonderful experience that the God of Israel could give Himself to a single person with the same individual interest and undivided devotion, as if that person were the only one to whom His favor extended. This is necessary to complete the fruition of God. Every child of God, no matter how broad his vision and enlarged his sympathies, is conscious of carrying within himself a private sanctuary, an inner guest-chamber of the heart, where he desires to be at times alone with God and have his Savior to himself. So instinctive and irrepressible is the craving
