“In what part of the Hebrew Bible can we find any composition of an analogous nature? All—every Psalm, every piece of history, every part of prophecy—has a religious aspect, and (the book of Esther perhaps excepted) is filled with theocratic views of things. How came there here to be such a solitary exception, so contrary to the genius and nature of the whole Bible? It is passing strange, if real amatory Idyls are mingled with so much, all of which is of a serious and religious nature. If the author viewed his composition as being of an amatory nature, would he have sought a place for it among the sacred books? And subsequent redactors or editors—would they have ranked it here, in case they had regarded it in the same light? I can scarcely deem it credible. So different was the reverence of the Jews for their Scriptures from any mere approbation of an amatory poem as such, that I must believe that the insertion of Canticles among the canonical books, was the result of a full persuasion of its spiritual import. Had the case stood otherwise, why did they not introduce other secular books, as well as this, into the canon?” [143] Granting that the design of the book was simply to describe love, we deny that it would have been deemed unworthy of a place in the sacred canon. Why should the pleasures of chaste love be considered less worthy of record in the sacred books, than the sorrow for bereaved friendship, in 2 Sam. i. 17, &c.? “To those,” says Dr. Mason Good, a defender of the allegorical interpretation, “who disbelieve the existence of such an allegory they (the amorets) still afford a happy example of the pleasures of holy and virtuous love; they inculcate, beyond the power of didactic poetry, the tenderness which the husband should manifest for his wife, and the deference, modesty, and fidelity with which his affection should be returned; and, considered even in this sense alone, they are fully entitled to the honour of constituting a part of the sacred Scriptures.” [144] “Why should a passion,” remarks another allegorical interpreter, “so strong, so universal, so essential to happiness—to the very existence of the human race, be denied a place in a Revelation from God to man? As a matter of fact, has it not a place in every part of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation? God is the author of the human constitution as well as of the Bible; and he has in all respects adapted his revelation to the nature of the beings for whom it was designed. It would be strange indeed, if one of the most important and never absent phenomena in the moral and physical creation of men should never be noticed in a revelation to him from his Creator. If the viciousness and licentiousness of men have loaded this subject with vile and filthy associations in vile and filthy minds, this is not the fault of God or of his revelation. The vine will not be destroyed, nor the grapes annihilated, because wicked men make themselves beasts with wine.” [145]