In considering the views of Nature presented by Hebrew poetry, it is not to the account of the creation in Genesis that we turn, but to the many passages in the Psalms, the Prophets, and the Book of Job, in which the aspects of the outward world, as they appeared to those old seers, are delineated. Humboldt and many others have remarked that the description by the Hebrew Poets of the material world everywhere reflects their faith in the unity of God, and in his immediate presence in all creation. The world is described, not so much in detail, but as a whole, in its vast expanses and great movements; or, if individual objects are dwelt on, as in the Book of Job, it is as the visible witnesses to the transcendent power of the Invisible One. Nature is nowhere spoken of as an independent and self-subsistent power, but rather as the outer chamber of an Unseen Presence—a garment, a veil, which the Eternal One is ever ready to break through. These characteristics, which pervade the entire poetry of the Old Testament, are perhaps nowhere seen so condensed as in that crowning hymn of the visible creation, the 104th Psalm. This Psalm presents, as has often been remarked, a picture of the entire Universe, which for completeness, for breadth, and for grandeur, is unequaled in any other literature. Where else, in human language, shall we find the whole Universe, the heavens and the earth, and the ongoings of man in the midst of them, sketched, as here, in a “few bold strokes”?— “The Lord covereth himself with light as with a garment. He hath stretched the heavens like a canopy. He laid the foundation of the round world that it should not be removed forever. The waters springing in the mountains descend into the valleys, unto the places which the Lord hath appointed for them, that they may never pass the bounds which He hath set them. He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills, to give drink to every beast of the field, for the wild asses to quench their thirst.... Beside them the birds of the air sing among the branches.” The fruits of the field, too, are there; grass and green herb; the labors of man, wine and oil of olive; all the creatures, the conies, the wild goats, the lions roaring after their prey, and seeking their meat from God. There, too, is the great and wide sea, and the wondrous creatures it contains, and the heavenly bodies are rounding in the whole. And then that touching contrast between the moving life of the elements and the quiet yet laborious life of man, encompassed by these vast movements,—“Man goeth forth unto his work and his labor until the evening.” And all this picture of the Universe contained within thirty-five short verses! Besides this, the special Psalm of the visible creation, there is the 65th Psalm, and many another passage in the Psalms, which describe so touchingly the way in which God deals with the earth through natural processes.