150 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



Priests and Levites opening the ode with an in- 

 troduction declarative of the subject ; and some- 

 times closing tfce whole with a solemn admonition. 

 Sometimes Jehovah himself speaks ; and Christ, 

 in his incarnate state, is personated either as a 

 priest, or as a king, or sometimes as a conqueror ; 

 and in those psalms in which he is introduced in 

 this latter character, the resemblance is very re- 

 markable to the warrior on the white horse in 

 the book of Revelations. 



" If this idea were kept in the mind," continued 

 my uncle, " it would greatly conduce to the right 

 understanding of the psalms ; and any reader, of 

 ordinary penetration, would easily perceive to 

 what speakers the different parts of the dialogue 

 belonged." 



My uncle read to us, as an example, the 

 twenty-fourth psalm, from Bishop Horsley's 

 translation. " It opens," he says, " with a 

 chorus, proclaiming the divinity of Jehovah, the 

 creator and Lord of the universe. It then de- 

 scribes in questions and answers, sung by different 

 voices, the sort of righteousness which consists 

 not in ceremonial observances, but in clean hands 

 and a pure heart. And the song concludes with 

 a prediction of the Messiah, under the image of 

 the entry of Jehovah into his temple." 



Chorus. 



]. To Jehovah belongeth the earth and all that therein is. 

 The world and its inhabitants. 



