SOLOMON'S CHARGE.

"I CHARGE you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake my love, till he please*." The artist has differed in his view of the passage from the generality of commentators, who consider this verse to be spoken by the bridegroom, while in the picture the interlocutor is the bride. There is, however, a doubt which is the speaker here, and therefore the artist may possibly be right in his view of the subject. The bridegroom is represented as being asleep under a temporary awning spread by the hand of his love. She is cautioning two shepherdesses, who approach, not to disturb her beloved. The upraised hand and depressed body express her anxiety for the repose of him in whom her whole soul is centred. This portion of the Bible has presented great difficulties to expositors, but it is now pretty generally agreed that Solomon's song is an allegory, in which a spiritual marriage between the Redeemer and his church is expressed. "Seven nights and seven days are distinctly marked in this song, because weddings among the Hebrews were celebrated seven days; and it relates poetically the transactions of these seven days. The Hebrews apprehending it might be understood grossly, forbad the reading of it by any person before the age of forty." (See Calmet, article Canticles). We may take the allegorical signification of the spouse's charge to be a caution from the church to her disciples not to interrupt that tranquillity which the bridegroom desires to enjoy in the love of his bride, the church, the blessings of that union which he has established between himself and her, being "quietness and assurance for ever." Where there exists in the soul a sincere love for Him who laid down His own life for the salvation of sinners, there will be an anxiety to manifest that love by holding His wishes sacred, and by "endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." The picture gives a very striking symbolical lesson of the love due from us to our Redeemer, and of the manner in which it behoves us to express that love.