Thus in his chapter on "the glory of Christ in the mysterious constitution of his person," Owen quotes this passage, and adds: "The Lord Christ is pleased sometimes to withdraw himself from the spiritual experience of believers, as unto any refreshing sense of his love, or the fresh communications of consolatory graces. Those who never had experience of any such thing, who never had any refreshing communion with him, cannot be sensible of his absence; they never were so of his presence. But those whom he hath visited, to whom he hath given of his loves, with whom he hath made his abode, whom he hath refreshed, relieved, and comforted, in whom he hath lived in the power of his grace, they know what it is to be forsaken by him, though but for a moment. And their trouble is increased, when they seek him with diligence in the wonted ways of obtaining his presence, and cannot find him. Our duty in this case is, to persevere in our inquiries after him, in prayer, meditation, mourning, reading, and hearing of the word, in all ordinances of divine worship, private and public, in diligent obedience, until we find him, or he return unto us, as in former days."

VER. 2.-I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my. soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

"The broad ways" seem to mean the broad open places at the gates of oriental cities, where the inhabitants were accustomed to assemble for public business. Not only in the streets, but in these public places, did the spouse seek her beloved. All the difficulties of

this passage vanish when the Song is taken as an allegory for illustrating the love of the saint towards Christ. The heart warmed with thoughts of him, like a spring, boiling or bubbling up with deep emotions, Ps. xlv. 1, impels us to seek him in the way of self-denial. Time was when Jesus was sacrificed to the pursuit of worldly enjoyments, and pleasures of sense; now every thing else is left, even sleep itself sacrificed, for finding the presence of Jesus. This verse is another way of setting forth the state of heart expressed in Ps. lxiii. 1, 2, and in Job xxiii. 8-10; more fully in the forty-second Psalm. This state is different from that noticed in chap. v. 3. The latter is a condition of spiritual sluggishness arising from absence of the Holy Spirit; here the affections are alive, the heart warm by the action of grace; but a sense of the presence of Christ is wanting. In such times of desertion and trial the soul seeks him with great earnestness; periods of conflict, peril, and sorrow, when we feel our best resolutions are nothing before the power of the devil, when the passions of the soul will struggle as though they would burst the cords of the heart asunder; and the fury with which they roll round through the chambers of the soul, reminds us of Virgil's description of the fury of the winds in the cavern of Æolus:

"Where struggling winds and roaring storms he rules
With sway imperial; curbs with prison, chains.
Impetuous rage they round their mountain-cave:
Did he not check their wrath, forth would they burst;
Land, sea and heav'n in a wild tempest sweep,
Uptorn from their foundations, through the air."

Even more terrible than these, were the elements which burst so suddenly on the patriarch Job, and buried him under the ruin of his property, his family, his bodily comfort, his friendships, and his spiritual peace. In his passage onward to heaven, every believer has to pass through the valley of the shadow of death; some find it darker and more terrible than others, and have to encounter at its entrance Satan in fiercer mood.

There are times of outward desolation and inward trial, when we say with Jacob, "All these things are against me;" and cry with the Psalmist, "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts, all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me." The most painful part of these struggles arises from the fiery darts of the devil. They seem at times to fall almost like hail; and attack is succeeded by attack, as though he was determined to weary us out by the very continuance of his assaults. Even struggling hard, with desperate determination, we may find ourselves giving ground; like Christian, we may be almost spent, almost pressed to death, so as to despair of life, and notwithstanding all we can do, be wounded in the head, hand, and foot; may get a dreadful fall; yet is his grace made sufficient for us. No battle can be so terrible as that which the believer does thus sustain against the powers of darkness. With thankfulness do we find hour after hour, and day after day, passing by, and our position yet held against this surging host of deadly foes. Now and then will there be a lull in the conflict, and grace will refresh us with cordials from heaven; but the battle

SONG OF SOLOMON.

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will cease only with the setting of the sun, when around us gathers the nightfall of the grave. But though it be a hard fought day, the sun, like that of Waterloo, will go down on victory. Bunyan understood the spiritual conflict, and has in a few words sketched it with marvellous vigour and truth. When the world see the saint thus enduring "a great fight of afflictions;" see him under fire in the heat of the battle; they, and too often nominal Christians with them, are ready to judge hastily; to censure him for his conduct; to impute to his own love of sin wounds he has got in his desperate and uncompromising resistance against sin; and congratulate themselves on being perhaps better than he, because they have escaped wounds incurred by him, when, had they been exposed, in conflicts through which he has passed, their courage might have failed, and their souls perished. Every believer who knows his own heart, will adopt the words of Mr. Great-heart concerning Christian's conflict with Apollyon: “No disparagement to Christian, more than to any others whose hap and lot it was. But we will leave the good man, he is at rest, he also had a brave victory over his enemy: let Him grant that dwelleth above, that we fare not worse, when we come to be tried, than he."

"Through all stations human life abounds
With mysteries;-for, if Faith were left untried,
How could the might, that lurks within her, then
Be shown? her glorious excellence—that ranks
Among the first of powers and virtues-proved?"

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COMMENTARY ON THE

So necessary are conflicts for ripening the excellences of character, and attaining noble rewards and enduring fame, that poetry has made the illustration of this the theme of some of its noblest efforts. Such is the tenor of Spenser's Faery Queen. And in the poem of King Arthur, "The hero thus purified and enlightened by sorrow, is ready to seek the sword, the possession of which confers immortal renown, and could not be won unless by a champion, who, through resistance of strong temptations, had been proved to possess noble moral endowments. The shield is next to be won by heroic valour shown in desperate combat against appalling enemies; not by the valour of the knight, but by the moral greatness of the man; not by warlike deeds, but by resistance to strong temptations, and by clear perception of the relative importance of conflicting duties."* Thus the Scriptures, "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." Jas. i. 12.

VER. 3.-The watchmen that go about the city found me, to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

The loneliness and gloom of the spouse wandering at night through the streets, deserted by all save the watchmen, sets forth the darkness and desolation of the soul searching for Christ in these times of desertion and trial. The final state of the Church in glory

* King Arthur, by Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. Ed. Rev. No. 181.