luminaries, were counted illustrative of the same memorial. The times, too, when the light of the new moon appeared, reflecting the splendour of the sun, were all of interest to them in a typical point of view. Hence the careful adaptation of their feasts, to the periods when there were new exhibitions, as it were, of light in the heavens; and the appearance of that light was always hailed with joy.

So intimately united, indeed, were the ideas of joy and light together, in their minds, that almost all the words in their language expressive of joy and gladness, were from the same roots with the words expressive of the emanation or bursting forth of light. The very stringed instruments they employed had names derived from the same source. The word which signifies PRAISE, means also to shoot forth like the beams of the sun! and their sacred dance, in which joy and triumph were more rapturously expressed than in any other of their observances, was ordered so as to bear a marked allusion to the springing forth of light. Thus when they 'praised him in the dance,' they praised him by a figure which had an express reference to that time when the lame man should leap like an hart ;' and when they 'praised him on an instrument of six strings,' they praised him on a figurative emblem, as its name implied, of the resurrection. Thus we find even the music of the Old Testament was figurative; and instruments introduced, not merely to assist the voices of the congregation, but

to preach, by signs, the hope of that time, 'when mourning shall be turned into dancing, and sackcloth into gladness.'

Although the meaning of all the splendid figurative applications of light, under the Old Testament, will only be fully understood at the morning without clouds,' when they of the city shall spring up like the grass of the earth;' yet a wonderful key was given to them when John the Baptist came, like the morning star, prefacing the appearance of the full orb of day. These manifestations 'gave the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins, through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the DAY SPRING from on high hath visited us: to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the region and shadow of death: to guide our feet into the way of peace.'

Slightly as we have touched this most rich and interesting part of the Jewish Economy, or the spirit of it as developed in the New Testament, we have, we trust, adduced enough to prove, that so copious a use of the figure of light, in a ritual, in poetry, and in prophecy proceeding directly from heaven, and verified by God himself visiting man on the earth,—so apt an emblem, capable of such varied, such inexhaustible applications, could not have existed, if it had not been PREPARED by Divine Wisdom, for this purpose, when the ordinances of heaven were established. And, we may add, as the intimate connection between the language they used, and a figure so variously and effectively intro

duced, subsisted from the first, and lay at the very root and origin of the sacred speech,-so we are warranted in considering, that, from Adam to Christ, the same figure was illustrative of the same hope, and would preach the Gospel as intelligibly to Noah as it did to David.

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CHAPTER XIV.

THE BRANCH.

A PASSAGE, quoted in the preceding chapter, is accompanied by a marginal reading, in the English translation of the Bible, which will account for what may at first appear, from the title of this chapter, a sudden transition from one subject to another of a very different nature. The passage referred to, is from the words of Zecharias; who, in anticipating the coming of the Messiah, says, 'whereby the day spring from on high hath visited us.' The margin, instead of day spring, renders it 'THE BRANCH.' This choice between two words, apparently so dissimilar, arises from a peculiarity in the sacred language, briefly adverted to in a former chapter, to which, and some of its applications, we must now

revert.

It was then noticed, that the elements of language sprung from verbs, expressive of the great operations of nature; and that, when it was desired to represent, hieroglyphically, such operations, some object or objects in nature were chosen, the properties, or appearances, or names of which, identified

them in some manner or other with the action, or thing, which was to be represented or explained. Thus, although the springing forth of light could not be represented, there were natural objects which shot forth like the light, and they seem to have been chosen to represent it. We do not mean to affirm that this was the only reason for such objects being chosen; it might have been owing to something, in the name or nature of them, connected with some power or property in the language, now unknown to us; but, from whatever cause it arose, there were certain natural objects chosen, to represent the emanation of light, and, hence, naturally, to symbolize that of which light itself was a figure.

Amongst the objects chosen to symbolize light and its antetypes, those most frequently used were branches of trees and shrubs; (which, as well as the light, were said to spring;) rods or staffs formed of those branches; and horns, probably from their springing or shooting forth like branches.

Respect seems to have been had to the nature or appearances of the trees, from which the branches were taken, according to the doctrine to be taught, the feeling or emotion to be described. Those which drooped or bent towards the earth, were used as emblems of death or sorrow-of darkness or hiding of the light: those which shot upwards, of joy and life. There was also, as already frequently noticed, something in their names, and qualities as expressed by these names, which in some way, inexplicable to us, but evidently well understood by the