We believe we have rendered this singular passage with such fairness that the reader may be enabled to form some idea of its splendour. When it was repeated to Robert Hall, he pronounced it one of the finest allegories in the language. When Christmas Evans was on a visit to Dr. Raffles, the Doctor recited to him his own version, and, apparently with some amazement, said, “Did you actually say all that?” “Oh, yes,” said Christmas, “I did say all that, but I could never have put it into such English.” And this we are greatly disposed to regard as impairing the bold grandeur and strength of the piece; any rendering of it into English must, as it seems to us, add to its prettiness, and therefore divest it of its power.
Probably to the same period of the preacher’s history belongs another sermon, which has always seemed to us a piece of undoubted greatness. It is upon the same subject, the Crucifixion of Christ. We should think that its delivery would, at any time, from such lips as his, produce equally pathetic emotions. The allegory is not so sustained, but it is still full of allegorical allusions derived from Scriptural expression.
“It is generally admitted that the twenty-second Psalm has particular reference to Christ. This is evident from His own appropriation of the first verse upon the cross: ‘My God! my God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ The title of that Psalm is ‘_Aijeleth Shahar_,’ which signifies ‘A Hart, or the Hind of the Morning.’ The striking metaphors which it contains are descriptive of Messiah’s peculiar sufferings. He is the Hart, or the Hind of the Morning, hunted by the Black Prince, with his hell-hounds—by Satan, and all his allies. The ‘dogs,’ the ‘lions,’ the ‘unicorns,’ and the ‘strong bulls of Bashan,’ with their devouring teeth, and their terrible horns, pursued Him from Bethlehem to Calvary. They beset Him in the manger, gnashed upon Him in the garden, and well-nigh tore Him to pieces upon the cross. And still they persecute Him in His cause, and in the persons and interests of His people.
“The faith of the Church anticipated the coming of Christ, ‘like a roe or a young hart,’ with the dawn of the day promised in Eden; and we hear her exclaiming in the Canticles—‘The voice of my beloved! behold, He cometh, leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills!’ She heard Him announce His advent in the promise, ‘Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God!’ and with prophetic eye, saw Him leaping from the mountains of eternity to the mountains of time, and skipping from hill to hill throughout the land of Palestine, going about doing good. In the various types and shadows of the law, she beheld Him ‘standing by the wall, looking forth at the windows, showing Himself through the lattice;’ and then she sang—‘Until the day break and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like the roe or the young hart upon the mountains of Bether!’ Bloody sacrifices revealed Him to her view, going down to the ‘vineyards of red wine;’ whence she traced Him to the meadows of Gospel ordinances, where ‘He feedeth among the lilies’—to ‘the gardens of cucumbers,’ and ‘the beds of spices;’ and then she sang to Him again—‘Make haste’—or, flee away—‘my beloved! be thou like the roe or the young hart among the mountains of spices.’