“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world,” has the lyre been consecrated to the service of religion--has religious poetry been the most beautiful and touching, as well as the most lofty and sublime of all poetry. As Dr. Caunter well observes, “The noblest epics which have elicited the poetic genius of different countries, have been based upon subjects either immediately connected with, or remotely allied to, religion. The authors of the Mahabarat and the Ramayana, two Hindoo epics of high celebrity and extraordinary magnitude, extending each to several hundred thousand lines, of the Iliad and the Odyssey, of the Inferno, of the Jerusalem Delivered, of the Paradise Lost and Regained, have, either directly or consequentially, all made the Deity and His illimitable perfections the subjects of their immortal song.” And so it is; every true poet is essentially a religious poet; his religion may not be Christianity, his views of the divine nature and attributes may be distorted, and he may be altogether ignorant of the great truths of scripture revelation, yet there will ever be in minds of the greatest reach and capacity, a striving after that which is good and holy, and a knowledge, approximating to the truth, of the relationship between the Creator and the created; for “Spontaneously to God will tend the soul, Like the magnetic needle to the pole.” Would that all whose “tranced hands have woke the lyre,” and chanted such strains as the world would not willingly let die, had had such clear views of the nature of the obligation which lay on them to dedicate their powers to the service of true religion, as our own Milton, who commenced his immortal epic thus:-- “And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all temples, the upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know’st: Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast abyss, And mad’st it pregnant. What in me is dark Illumine; what is low, raise and support; That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men.” Would that all could bear some such testimony to the truth as it is in Jesus, and exclaim with him-- “O, unexampled Love! Love no where to be found less than Divine! Hail, Son of God, Saviour of men, Thy Name Shall be the copious matter of my song Henceforth, and never shall my harp Thy praise Forget, nor from Thy Father’s praise disjoin.” A similar spirit of fervent piety animated the breast of the Italian poet Lorenzo de Medici, who made this solemn request at the footstool of the Almighty, previous to entering on the composition of a poem:--