men as beautiful, majestic, or even as" comely" (ch. liii. 2). But at his second coming it will be different.. St. John the Divine describes him as he saw him in vision: "In the midst of the seven candlesticks was one like unto the Son of man, clothed with n c:i.rment down to the feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and hi~ hairs were v.·hite like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and hie feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth i.n his strength" (Rev. i. 13-16). The description in Canticles is cast in a more terrene mould, but equally indicates a more than earthly beauty: "My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers; his lips like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. Bis hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet : yea, he is altogether lovely" (Cant. v. 10-16). The following adaptation by Dr. Pusey of the words of an ancient writer says all that can be said by unassisted human pen on a topic transcending man's power of thought or speech: "If we could ascend from the most beautiful form which the soul could here imagine, to the least glorious body of the beatified, on and on through the countless thousands of glorious bodies, compared wherewith heaven would be dark, and the sun lose its shining; and, yet more, from the most beautiful deified soul, as visible here, to the beauty of the disembodied soul, whose image would scarce be recognized . . . yea, let the God-enlightened soul go on a.nd on, through all those choirs of the heavenly hierarchies, clad with the raiment of Divinity, from choir to choir, from hierarchy to hierarchy, admiring the order and beauty and harmony of the house of God; yea, let it, aided by Divine grace and light, ascend even higher, and reach the bound and term of all created beauty,-yet it must know that the Divine power and wisdom could create other creatures, far more perfect and beautiful than all which he hath hitherto created. Nay, let the highest of all the seraphs sum in one all the beauty by nature and grace and glory of all creatures, yet could it not be satisfied with that beauty, but must, because it was not satisfied with it, conceive some higher beauty. Were God forthwith, at every moment, to create that higher beauty at its wi8h, it could still con- ceive something beyond; for not being God, its beauty could not satisfy its conception. So let him still, and in hundred thousand, hundred thousand thousand years with swiftest flight of understanding, multiply continually those degrees of beauty, so that each fresh degree should ever double that preceding, and the Divine power should, with like swiftness, concur in creating that beauty, as in the beginning he said, 'Let there be liaht and there was light;' after all these millions of years he would be again at the t:~cr, and there would be no comparison between it and the Divine beauty of Je&us C~ist, God and Man. For it is the bliss of the finite not to reach the Infinite" (PU11ey, • Minor Prophets,' p. 562).
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vere. 1-6.-Jelwvah a Refuge. It is" Israel's extremity, but God's opportunity." Iletribution is about to fall on Assyria; salvation a.nd every resource is to be found in Jehovah. I. W oE TO .ABsYRIA. This land appears under the image of a rapacious spoiler. The time is about 11.c. 700, and the allu.sion is to Sennacherib and his army, who had advanced on a plundering and destroying course. The tables are to be turned, and the greedy conqueror (cf. 2 Kings xviii. 14, 15) was to become the object of other's greed in turn. Whether the words imply a complaint of unprovoked aggression and of perfidy is not clear. But to the prophetic eye in every age it is clear that empires founded upon force, fraud, and rapacity cannot endure; that they who take the sword will perish by the 11word. It was the ~te of .Assyria to fall beueath the llllghtier powers of Media and l311bylo~ CH, xxxm. 1-24.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 545