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back to Sheol," . But most resembling it is Prov. xiv, 32: "The wicked is driven away (7) in his wickedness, while the righteous hath hope in, his death." It is the same image Psa. xxxv, 5: "Their way shall be dark, and the angel of the Lord pursuing," . So also Job xviii, 18, "They drive him (rendered, he is driven) from light to darkness, ; they chase him, ", out of the world." This thought, too, sheds a gloomy light on the terrific passage just preceding, xviii, 11: "On all sides they frighten him with terrors; they start him to his feet." The subject of these masculine verbs may be the feminine, but it is more expressively, as well as more grammatically, these unnamed ones that we elsewhere find. This is made almost certain by the close, verse 14, where the whole of this fearful power is expressed collectively by the feminine (neuter) pronoun 733 7¬¬n, “it drives him (makes him descend) to the King of Terrors." Why this dread title, unless there is reference to some post-mortem fear? Thus Jarchi explains verse 11; the terrors, , are the , the devils, and 3, the king of the devils; which was also the early interpretation of the Chaldee Targum.* In other places, too, Job seems to ascribe his sufferings to invisible tormentors whom he will not name. Thus, xvii, 12, "They make night my day;" or still more strikingly, vii, 3, "Nights of sorrow they appoint unto me," . The intensely active, or piel, form of this verb, is the furthest removed from any deponent or impersonal sense; and if impersonal, or a vailing of the agent, then the question returns, Why so here?

baba, verse 14, is

Under this peculiar idiom, of the unmentioned agent, would we bring the present passage. The ellipsis may be filled with the word worms, but the strong and unusual idiom would seem. to point to something still more fearful, of which the speaker would avoid the express mention, even as the Greeks shuddered to speak the real name of the Epivées, or Furies. In other words, may we not regard Job as having in mind here his hidden enemies, the fiends, or the ministers of Satan? It was their

*For a beautiful example of the other form of this idiom see Isaiah lx, 11: , rendered, "Thy gates are open continually." Literally, "They keep open thy gates forever, day and night." The unmentioned agents, thus left to the imagination, are the glorious warders of the New Jerusalem.

work, this utter destruction of his poor body. Its decomposition in the grave was only the consummation of this diabolical achievement. Their Chief had threatened it. He had challenged God to this issue. He had predicted Job's failure. "Skin for skin," body for body, that is, everything, will a man give for the preservation of his worldly life. Does not, then, dramatic propriety require that we should connect this scene in the exordium with Job's Enivíkov, or monumental song of victory? Let them destroy it, break it up, lay it wholly in ruins; they have not conquered yet. "Out of my flesh shall I see God;" "I shall be satisfied when I behold his face in righteousness."

"Out of my flesh shall I see God." The rendering, "in my flesh," cannot be justified. It is a negative expression,

-would be pure nega לא בשר orאין בשר .or rather a privative

tions, like our word incorporeal, or the Greek dowμatos, ãσapкos, that which never had a body or was incapable of having a body. On the other hand, an, with a privative, would correspond to ἐκτὸς του σώματος, 2 Cor. xii, 2; or ἐκ του σώματος, 2 Cor. v, 6, 8, which is the opposite of iv oúuari in the same passage. It would hence mean one who had been stripped of the body, or gone out of the body, as Paul, 2 Cor. xii, 2: "Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell."

"Out of my flesh shall I see God." This "seeing God" must be interpreted of appearing in the divine presence, accompanied by some unusual sense of it, rather than of a visual objective beholding of Him whom Scripture represents as "dwelling in light unapproachable." 1 Tim. i, 16. God's presence in the soul, and the soul's presence to God; in their highest and most intense spirituality, may they not be one and the same thing? "I shall behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness," or, "when thine image awakes." May we not approach the ineffable idea by regarding these as the divine and human aspects of the same blissful subjective state? Compare Psalm xvii, 15 with the inverse construction, Psalm xi, 7: "His countenance doth behold the upright." The key passage is the formula of blessing, Num. vi, 26: "The Lord make his face to shine upon you." Compare Psalm lxxxix, 6; cxl, 15; xxvi, 8; above all, Psalm iv, 7: "Lift thou upon us, Lord, the light of thy countenance." Long familiarity with FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XV.-26

the devotional style of the Scriptures makes us insensible to the wonderful beauty that is in these words. The origin of language so peculiar to the Bible, and so unknown to all other religions, may be found in the commandment, Exod. xxiii, 17, that "three times in the year the children of Israel should appear before God." The verb is 7, passive in form, but either passive or deponent in meaning. It may grammatically mean to see God, or to be seen of him. So the Niphal infinitive of this verb of vision nis, contracted for nis, expresses both ideas as denoting mutual or reciprocal action, like the Greek wp0ŋ. It is as though the vivid consciousness of actually being in the immediate divine presence were in some sense, and that a most important sense, a beholding, a "knowing as we are known," or more truly, a knowing as being known.

"Mine eye shall see him a stranger now no more." Gesenius well gives it here, oculi mei videbunt et non tanquam adversarium; Umbreit, in the same way, doch nicht als Gegner. This corresponds well to the true interpretation of in the previous member of the parallelism: "for me," on my side; the wrath all gone, the face no longer averted, even all seeming opposition done away forever.

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"Within me faints my longing soul.” The verb n here must have the same sense as in Psalm lxxxiv, 3; ¬ пbb, "Longs my soul, yea, faints." The order of the senses are, completion, exhaustion, fainting, overpowering desire. As the Greeks say, οἴχομαι — καρδία οἴχεται -" My heart is gone.” So the Vulgate, deficit anima mea. The reins are so called from the same root, as being the supposed seat of this affection. The intensity of feeling denoted in this play of words cannot be better given than by a similar repetition in the line of a well known hymn:

I am longing, O I'm longing for the sight.

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So Ewald, O ich vergehe; I am lost in the overpowering vision. It is a spiritual beholding; it belongs at all events to a different state of being than the present life. The whole context of this remarkable passage, the solemn earnestness of its style, the mournful sublimity of its monumental aspect, its dramatic. consistency, are all in harmony with such a conclusion. To one who views it from such a stand-point, the wonder is that even the coldest critic should ever have adopted any other opinion.

ART. III.-THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

THE thirteen colonies which were converted into states by the Revolution occupied only a narrow strip of land along the Atlantic, and the people had not yet even looked over the Alleghanies into that wide and fertile valley through which sweeps the ever-rolling tide of the Father of Waters. But the return of peace, and with it the establishment of our independence, brought a flood of immigration from the old world, which soon began to crowd through the mountain passes and make enterprising excursions into the rich slopes beyond. But still the idea of our future greatness, if it dawned at all, dawned only on the loftiest minds. The Pacific was a far-off sea, and a vast unexplored region stretched darkly between.

The coast of California and Oregon had been seen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and some general idea of its geography, and of the character of its savage inhabitants, existed; but it was not till Captain Robert Gray, of Boston, entered the Columbia River, in 1792, and baptized it with the name of his ship, that any interest was attached to this distant region. On his return he gave a glowing account of his discoveries, and especially of the majestic river which he had in part explored, which awakened a desire in many of our people that the vast region stretching westward from the United States to the wide waters of the Pacific might become our property.

The comprehensive mind of Jefferson caught strongly at this idea; and after his accession to the presidency he organized an expedition, which, under the guidance of Captains Lewis and Clark, crossed the mountains in 1804 and 1805, and made the explorations and discoveries with which their names have since been connected. These discoveries furnished grounds for the claim which our government made to the country, and under which they continued to hold it. It was under this claim that the Missouri Fur Company sent out trappers and traders in 1808, and that John Jacob Astor, in 1811, as the leading mind of the American Fur Company, established a trading post at Astoria, near the mouth of the Columbia.

But the territory was also claimed by Great Britain; and the

North-west Fur Company and the Hudson's Bay Fur Company, both British organizations, kept trappers and traders there, and had a post at Fort Vancouver, above Astoria, on the Columbia. As yet, however, the country was of too little value to make these conflicting claims of much consequence. In 1839, emigration began to flow toward Oregon from the states, increasing gradually, till in 1845 it reached several hundreds. Meantime, the importance of the country to our government began to be understood, and negotiations were opened for establishing our claims and settling the line of boundary between us and Great Britain. For some time the dispute wore a threatening aspect, and the people were clamorous for "fifty-four-forty or fight;" but in this case, as in many others, "discretion" was found to be "the better part of valor," and the line was finally fixed, in 1846; at 49° north latitude, giving us the undisputed title to the whole country through to the Pacific, between that line and the domains of Mexico.

The war with Mexico, which so illustrated the energy and power of our government, ended in the cession of California at the treaty of peace in February, 1848; and the gold discoveries, which took place in the same month, attracted adventurers, miners, and traders from the states in unprecedented numbers, so that the newly-acquired territory was soon swarming with population, and the quiet and saintly bay of Francisco was unexpectedly fretted with the meddlesome wheels of the busy steamship, and the "white wings" and crooked ways of com

merce.

But the project of a railroad from the states on the Atlantic to our possessions on the Pacific did not wait for these stirring events. Our dispute with Great Britain in regard to boundary was not yet settled when, in 1846, Asa Whitney began to proclaim the feasibility and great prospective advantages of a road across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. He contended that such a road would not only develop our resources and populate our Pacific possessions, but would change the trade of the world, as it would be the most direct route to the East Indies, and would make New York, instead of London, the distributor of the world's wealth.

But besides showing the feasibility and advantages of such a road, he brought forward a well-matured plan for its construc

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