Christian faith to waive its claim to a symbol so well adapted to its ends. " Nothing in nature," says Emerson, " is exhausted in its first use. . . . When a thing has served an end to the utter- most, it is wholly new for an ulterior service." Air is given us to breathe, but who shall blame us if we also frame it into words that shall be airy servitors of the soul ? Love is admirable for its own sake, but why should not a perfect human affection be to us a parable of the Love transcendent and immanent of which it is a manifestation ? Whoso has felt the Spirit of the Highest should be quick to discern His presence and token in every lovely thing.^
The text, then, taken as the human analogy of a love that is Divine, suggests
I. The Ideal Shepherd of Men. II. The Soul's Longing for Fellowship with Him.
I.
The Shepherd.
1, The most mysterious figure in the Canticle is that of the Shepherd. He does not make his appearance through the whole course of the drama except in the trances of the Shulammite ; and when in the last act he comes forward for one moment in company with her, it is only to ask her for a song, to hear her voice ; then he vanishes. The dwelling-place of this mysterious being is no less aerial than himself. We must look for him amidst the " gardens of balsam," the " fields of lilies," and the spiced mountains. And his character is ideal as well as his dwelling- place. He has all the attributes that constitute perfection in the opinion of the Hebrews: perfect beauty, boundless liberty, absolute wisdom. It is through these qualities that he eclipses in the eyes of the Shulammite even the magnificence of Solomon ; 80 much so, that one may truly say that " the Shulammite loves in her shepherd the ideal and the prototype of her people."
But if we recognize this ideal character of the shepherd, we are compelled to go one step further. The Israelite ideal is not a mere idea ; it is a living, a Divine Being. It is Jehovah Himself, the Being whose Name signifies not only " He who is," but " He who shall he," Jehovah manifesting Himself in this lower world, in order
' H. Falconer, The Maid of Shiilam, 30.
SONG OF SONGS i. 7 449
to realize in it the absolute good ; it is God emerging from His condition of transcendence (as Elohim, or El-Shaddai), to draw near to the world, to unite Himself ever more closely with humanity, to make His appearance at last in person, in a human form, on the scene of history. This was the living ideal of the Israelitish consciousness, which it has pursued without inter- mission through all its trials, and which it can never give up without self-contradiction. This is the Shulammite's beloved one. He it is who pastures His flock in the ethereal regions above these gross realities of terrestrial existence in which His loved one is still living ; He it is who descends from time to time from these heights, and in prophetic visions appears to her who has given Him her heart ; taking her, as it were, by surprise ; He it is who loves her with a holy and austere love, offering her nothing for the gratification of the senses, but giving Himself to her with the most entire devotion ; He it is who in return for His infinite condescension asks no more of her than the sound of her voice, the worship of the heart inspired by love.
^ The benediction pronounced by Jacob on Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, is perhaps the finest ever uttered by dying lips. Jacob puts into it his most thankful and joyful thoughts about God. He invokes Him as the God who has shepherded himself all his life long — the God of providence ; as the Angel who has redeemed him from all evil — the God of grace ; and he prays Him who has been all this and done all this to bless the lads. Jacob's Shepherd, who has been tending and leading and feeding him so long, will do just the same for the lambs of His flock. Our English Version misses something of the beauty of Jacob's words. The translation " who hath fed me " is too meagre. We need to say, "who hath shepherded me." The same word is the keynote of the finest of all the Psalms : " The Lord is my shepherd." It is a beautiful metaphor, which comes with an exquisite pathos and a profound significance from the lips of a dying shepherd. The poets of a later age could only echo his words : " Give ear, 0 Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock," All the tender grace of the Old Testament religion is found in this lovely conception. It was not one man or two, but a whole nation that learned to believe in God as a Shepherd : " We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture." No other ancient nation ever expected from God such loving care and unerring guidance, no other nation ever promised such meek