ON THE MANUSCRIPTS OF GOD 



"Und es wallet siedet und brauset und zischt, 

 Wie wenn Wasser mit Feuer sich mengt." 



The plenary inspiration of the water- 

 spirit is almost as unmistakable in single 

 words of every language, as etymologists 

 long ago discovered. Minnehaha, Shenan- 

 doah, Oscawana, Musketaquit, Thalatta, 

 Weiden-Bach, and our own word, brook, 

 could never have been the names of rocks 

 or mountains. Even more striking than the 

 water-conferred music and limpidity of 

 single words are the poetic clarity and 

 beauty of almost every figure of speech in 

 which water is the basis of the simile. The 

 Bible is especially rich in tropes from this 

 source: "Thy judgments are a great deep" 

 and "Deep calleth to deep," sang David; 

 and again, "All thy waves and thy billows 

 are gone over me," and "All my springs are 

 in thee." 



Isaiah also abounds in matchless figures 

 of the same kind: "Then had thy peace been 

 as a river"; "When thou passest through 

 the waters, I will be with thee." 



Nearly all the poets and prophets of the 



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