prominent perfections, consists." The chief peculiarities of style in the second part stand in close relation to the subject, and the disposition of mind thereby called forth. The Prophet, as a rule, does not address the mass of the people, but the election (ἐκλογή); nor the sinful congregation of the Lord in the present time, but that of the future, purified by the judgments of the Lord, the seed and germ of which were the election of the Present. It is to the congregation of brethren that he addresses _Comfort_. The beginning: "Comfort ye, Comfort ye, Zion," contains the keynote and principal subject. It is from this that the gentle, tender, soft character of the style is to be accounted for, as well as the frequent repetitions;--the comforting love follows, step by step, the grief which is indefatigable in its repetitions. [Pg 195] From this circumstance is to be explained the habit of adding several epithets to the name of God; these are as many shields which are held up against despair, as many bulwarks against the things in sight, by which every thought of redemption was cut off Where God is the sole help, every thing must be tried to make the Congregation feel what they have in Him. A series of single phrases which several times recur _verbatim_, _e.g._, "I am the Lord, and none else, I do not give mine honour to any other, I am the first and the last," are easily accounted for by the Prophet's endeavour and anxiety to impress upon the desponding minds truths, which they were only too apt to forget. If other linguistic peculiarities occur, which cannot be explained from the subject, it must be considered that the second part is not by any means a collection of single prophecies, but a closely connected whole, which, as such, must necessarily have its own peculiar _usus loquendi_, a number of constantly recurring characteristic peculiarities. The character of unity must necessarily be expressed in language and style also. The fact, however, that, notwithstanding the difference of style betwixt the first and second parts, the second part has a great number of characteristic peculiarities of language and style in common with the first part (a fact which cannot be otherwise, if Isaiah was the author of both), was first very thoroughly demonstrated by _Kleinert_, while _Küper_ and _Caspari_ have been the first conclusively to prove, that the second part was known and made use of by those prophets who prophesied between the time of Isaiah and that of "the great unknown."