Christ in the Song Author:James Kennedy Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE in. Our Lord's Complexion. " My Beloved is white and ruddy." TVEEPING in view that the two leading charac- -l ters in this poem are Christ and his... more » people, either individually or collectively considered, the peace-giver and the peace-receiver, the reconciler and the reconciled, it will be noticed that they are always represented, from the intimate and close relation they sustain, and the frequent intercourse they hold, as being so fully acquainted with every particular of each other's character and appearance, that much of the song consists in personal description and mutual praise. And, though, when answering the call for more full and perfect knowledge of the beloved from the more immature members, called daughters of Jerusalem, the reconciled one was passing through a period of sorrow, darkness, and distress, yet in the reply that follows she is able from past experience, from heart and memory, to give a most magnificent description of his person and offices, his excellence and beauty. Reserving what we have to say of the term, "my beloved," till we come to explain the sixteenth verse, we shall take the twelve particulars, strictly descriptive, in their order. And of the whole series it may be remarked that, as poetry has been called " thought materialized, orthought incarnate,"—the loftiest mental conceptions, in drapery borrowed from human or earthly things, — so all spiritual conceptions of God and of heavenly realities can only reach us as they put on an earthly and fleshly garb. And therefore, to reveal himself to our apprehension, God has seen fit to clothe himself with particulars of description, borrowed from human personality, that we may more fully realize some just conception of what he is as we approach him. The most perfect example of this we have ...« less