The faith of the church anticipated the coming of Christ, “like a roe or a young hart,” with the dawn of the day promised in Eden; and we hear her exclaiming in the Canticles—“The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills!” She heard him announce his advent in the promise—“Lo, I come to do thy will, O God!” and with prophetic eye, saw him leaping from the mountains of eternity to the mountains of time, and skipping from hill to hill throughout the land of Palestine, going about doing good. In the various types and shadows of the law, she beheld him “standing by the wall, looking forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice;” and then she sung—“Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like the roe or the young hart upon the mountains of Bether!” Bloody sacrifices revealed him to her view, going down to the “vineyards of red wine;” whence she traced him to the meadows of gospel ordinances, where “he feedeth among the lilies”—to “the gardens of cucumbers,” and “the beds of spices;” and then she sung to him again—“Make haste”—or, flee away—“my beloved! be thou like the roe or the young hart upon the mountains of spices!” Thus she longed to see him, first “on the mountain of Bether,” and then “on the mountain of spices.” On both mountains she saw him eighteen hundred years ago, and on both she may still trace the footsteps of his majesty and his mercy. The former he hath tracked with his own blood, and his path upon the latter is redolent of frankincense and myrrh. Bether signifies division. This is the craggy mountain of Calvary; whither the “Hind of the morning” fled, followed by all the wild beasts of the forest, and the hunting-dogs of hell; summoned to the pursuit, and urged on, by the prince of perdition; till the victim, in his agony, sweat great drops of blood—where he was terribly crushed between the cliffs, and dreadfully mangled by sharp and ragged rocks—where he was seized by Death, the great greyhound of the bottomless pit—whence he leaped the precipice, without breaking a bone; and sunk in the dead sea, sunk to its utmost depth, and saw no corruption.