46 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY 



labour 01 man, are also introduced ; the corn, the cheerful 

 vine, and the olive garden. The heavenly bodies complete 

 this picture of nature. "The Lord appointed the moon 

 for seasons, and the sun knoweth the term of his course. 

 He bringeth darkness, and it is night, wherein the wild 

 beasts roam. The young lions roar after their prey, and 

 seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth and they get 

 them away together, and lay them down in their dens :" and 

 then " man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour 

 until the evening." "We are astonished to see, within the 

 compass of a poem of such small dimension, the universe, 

 the heavens and the earth, thus drawn with a few grand 

 strokes. The moving life of the elements is here placed in 

 opposition to the quiet laborious life of man, from the 

 rising of the sun, to the evening when his daily work is 

 done. This contrast, the generality in the conception of 

 the mutual influence of phenomena, the glance reverting 

 to the omnipresent invisible Power, which can renew the 

 face of the earth, or, cause the creature to return again to 

 the dust, give to the whole a character of solemnity and 

 sublimity rather than of warmth and softness. 



Similar views of the Cosmos present themselves to us 

 repeatedly in the Psalms (7), (as in the 65th, v. 7 14, 

 and in the 74th, 15 17), and with perhaps most fulness 

 in the ancient, though not premosaic, book of Job. The 

 meteorological processes taking place in the canopy of 

 the clouds, the formation and dissolution of vapour as the 

 wind changes its direction, the play of colours, the produc- 

 tion of hail, and the rolling thunder, are described with the 

 most graphic individuality ; many questions are also pro- 

 posed, which our modern physical science enables us indeed 



