father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house;” Micah. vii. 2–6.[65] This passage, which was frequently appropriated by our Saviour when on earth, as describing the effects of his Mission upon the wicked, to whom the Gospel is the savour of death unto death, (Matt. x. 21, 35, 36; Luke xii. 53 and xxi. 16,) was eminently descriptive of the _Iron or Monarchal age_, from its beginning to its end, Hesiod, Micah and Ezekiel, as well as all the prophets, being Judges; (Ezek. xxii. 6–13; and 29–31). The Poet’s description of envy is strikingly just, and is manifested in a powerful degree in every unregenerate human heart; and to their shame be it said, it is not completely rooted out of the hearts even of Christians, till death has done its part: see the confession and exclamation of Paul, and the pointed description of James, to which the heart of every one must fully respond: Rom. 18–25; James iv. 1–5. The idea of the flight of Modesty and Virtue to heaven, leaving nothing but sorrows behind them, is also conceived in the finest vein of true poetry, which is always correct in its descriptions; nor is there any remedy for the evil until (as the Poet perhaps said, had we his works entire,) the return of the _Golden age_, when earth shall be as heaven. With regard to the _Sixth age_, it is true, as Dr. Hales remarks, that Hesiod does not expressly announce that it shall succeed the _Iron age_, nor that it should be a state of _regeneration_ or a revival of the _Golden age_; but his language strongly implies that it would be superior to the _Fifth age_, inasmuch as he earnestly expresses his wish that it had been his lot to have lived after the latter, in the words ἤ ἔπειτα γενέσθαι. Moreover, in his address to his brother Persa, we find a description of the happy effects which would result from doing justice, extending from v. 225 to v. 237; and this description corresponds exactly to the language used by the poets of the succeeding age, in describing the return of the _Golden age_ at the close of the _Sixth_: thus, “But they who grant strict justice to strangers and citizens, and depart not in the least from equity, shall have a flourishing city, and flourishing people within its walls; and peace, the nurse of the young, shall dwell in the land; and Jupiter who sees afar, shall never bring upon them the horrors of war; neither shall famine or destruction annoy men strictly just; to them also the earth shall bring forth plenteous subsistence; and on the mountains, the pines shall produce apples at the top, and honey at the middle; and the fleece-bearing sheep shall be laden with wool; and wives shall give birth to children like their parents; and they shall flourish among the good with perpetual bloom; and there shall be no need of navigation; for the fertile ground shall produce all manner of fruit.”