PS. CXIX.-SONG OF SOL. — 30
466 SPRING-TIME
hope come. Nature, quickened in Christ out of her long winter sleep, shall move to him across those ages of separation which sin has made, his true bride, speaking to his heart the music of a long-forgotten language, waking in him the buried instincts of love, calling him to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense.^
^ In the Eesurrection, Giotto has combined two subjects. On one side we have the white-robed Angels seated on the red porphyry tomb, with the soldiers, sunk in deep slumber at their feet. On the other, the risen Lord, bearing the flag of victory in His hand, is in the act of uttering the words " Noli me tangere " to the Magdalen, who, wrapt in her crimson mantle, falls at his feet, exclaiming, " Eabboni ! " — Master. No master of later times ever painted so touching and beautiful a Magdalen as this one with the yearning eyes and the passion of love and rapture in her outstretched arms. And while the trees behind the sepulchre are bare and withered, here the fig and olive of the garden have burst into leaf and the little birds carol on the grassy slopes. The winter is past, the rain over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing of birds is come.^
^ There is a very beautiful monument by Chantrey in Lichfield Cathedral ; it is called the snowdrop monument. It is of marble, and commemorates two little girls who died. The monument represents them lying asleep with their arms about one another, and in the hand of the younger there is a bunch of snowdrops — the snowdrops of promise, the snowdrops which in this instance are intended to tell of the new life that those who die wake into, and of God's summer land, where there is no death.^
^ A little poem of the spring which has come down to us from the Eoman Empire shows us by contrast what the world without Christ was. The first stanza tells us that " sharp winter is loosed by the breath of the spring in the west." The second gives a picture of mingled mirth and toil, as it might be seen in any village among the Sabaan Hills, and the third speaks of the joy which every one feels in such a scene. Then, like a thunderclap in a clear blue sky, the whole thing changes with a suddenness that makes the reader shudder. " Pale death comes impartially to the cot of the poor and the palace of the king. In a moment you will be in night, in the shades, and in the narrow house of Pluto." Oh ! that sad pagan world, clutching feverishly at the
»T. Gurney, The Living Lord, 189.
* Julia Cartvvright, The Painters of Florence, 30.
•J. Eames, The Shattered Temple, 176.
SONG OF SONGS ii. 11-13 467
joys of wine and love because death is close at hand, always draw- ing nearer — death and forgetfulness ! It is precisely the same note that was struck more than a thousand years afterwards by the Persian poet, Omar Khayyam :
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears To-day of past Eegrets and Future Fears:
To-morrow ! — Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years. A Moment's Halt — a momentary taste Of Being from the Well amid the Waste —
And Lo ! the phantom Caravan has reach'd The Nothing it set out from — Oh, make haste!
How quickly that which Horace recommended, and recom- mended with perfect innocence, and apparently with reason, leads to satiety and sickness of spirit. And so the age of Augustus passed into the age of Nero and Petronius.
On that hard Pagan world disgust and secret loathing fell; Deep weariness and sated lust made human life a hell.
It was in that old Pagan world, with its disgust and despair, that the light of Christ shone. Jesus came into the world just about the time that Horace was writing his poems, and when He came a breath of hope shivered throughout the world. A light broke in upon human life, a possibility dawned which apparently man had never taken into account before.^
* R. F. Horton, in The British Congregationalist, May 18, 1911.
In Praise of Love.
f*?
Literature.
Falconer (H.), The Maid of Shulam, 87.
Godet (G.), Biblical Studies : Old Testament, 245.
Jerdan (C), For the Lambs of the Flock, 373.
Kuyper (A.), The Gift of the Holy Spirit, 427.
Lepper (C. W.), The Bridegroom and His Bride, 237.
Little (W. J. K.), The Outlook of the Soul, 313.
McClieyne (R. M.), Memoir and Remains, 339.
Marston (A. W.), Joined to the Lord, 158.
Smith (D.), Christian Counsel, 141.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vii. (1861), No. 364
Vaughan (J.), Sermons in Christ Church, Brighton, 1. 134.
Christian Commonwealth, xxxiii. (1912), 113 (R. J. Campbell).
f79
In Praise of Love.
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm:
For love is strong as death ;
Jealousy is cruel as the grave :
The flashes thereof are flashes of fire,
A very flame of the Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love.
Neither can the floods drown it :
If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,