But human nature, in every stage of its development and every variety of its operation, is as distinctly pronounced on the pages of Scripture as in the scenes of the dramatist. Of Shakespeare it is said, "He turned the globe round for his amusement, and surveyed the generations of men, and the individuals as they passed, with their different concerns, passions, follies, vices, virtues, actions, and motives." He has been called the "thousand-minded," the "oceanic soul." The Bible creates the world and peoples it, and gives us a profound and universal insight into all its concerns. Another peculiarity of Shakspeare is his self-forgetfulness. In reading what is written, you do not think of him, but of his productions. "The perfect absence of himself from his own pages makes it difficult for us to conceive of a human being having written them." This remark applies with obvious force to the Bible. The authors of the several books do not thrust themselves upon your notice, or interfere with your meditations on what they have written; indeed, to such an extent is this self-abeyance maintained, that it is impossible, at this period of time, to determine who are the authors of some of the books. The narrative of events proceeds, for the most part, as if the author had never existed. How _naïvely_ and perspicuously everything is told, without the colouring of prejudice, or an infusion of egotism on the part of the writer! Coleridge says, Shakspeare gives us no moral highwaymen, no sentimental thieves and rat-catchers, no interesting villains, no amiable adulteresses. The Bible even goes farther than this, and is faithful to the foibles and imperfections of its favorite characters, and describes a rebellious Moses, a perjured David, a treacherous Peter. "In nothing does Shakspeare so deeply and divinely touch the heart of humanity as in the representation of woman." We have the grandeur of Portia, the sprightliness of Rosalind, the passion of Juliet, the delicacy of Ophelia, the mournful dignity of Hermione, the filial affection of Cordelia. How shall we describe the Pythian greatness of Miriam, the cheerful hospitality of Sarah, the heroism of Rahab, the industry of Dorcas, the devotion of Mary? And we might set off Lady Macbeth with Jezebel, and Cleopatra with Delilah. But the Bible, it may be said, so far as the subject before us is concerned, is chiefly historical, while Shakspeare is purely dramatic. The one is description,--the other action; the one relates to events,--the other to feelings; the department of the one is the general course of human affairs,--that of the other, the narrower circle of individual experience; the field of the one is that which the eye of philosophy may embrace,--while that of the other is what the human frame may portray.