Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

The final predictions of this Pro-
phet are well known for their power-
ful and lofty threatenings of national
ruin. Yet the condition of his coun-
try at the moment, was unquestionably
the last which could have justified any
human conjecture of its dissolution by
Divine vengeance. The people had
but lately rebuilt their Temple, had
conformed to the renewed law of their
fathers, had received the recovered
Scriptures, and had commenced a
new and purified polity. That there
were remnants of the habits and cor-
ruptions of Babylonish life among
them, is obvious from his rebukes,
and those of Zechariah and Ezra. But
those were slight stains, and the error
which was predicted as the final source
of their ruin—a ruin, too, at the dis-
tance of four hundred years—was of
a wholly opposite character,—the na-
tional disdain of contact with the Gen-
tile world, the national pride in the
exclusiveness of their religion, and the
national vindictiveness against that
Mightiest of all Teachers, and Su-
preme of all Sovereigns, who came to
announce the admission of mankind
into the privileges of Israel. Inde-
pendently of our direct knowledge of
the universal inspiration of Scripture,
this utter dissimilarity to human con-
clusions must make us feel that this
awful denouncement of the matured
vices of a land, then in their first pe-
riod of regeneration, was the work
of a knowledge above man. Malachi
is said to have died young, after as-
sisting the members of the Great Sy-
nagogue in the re-establishment of
the law of the nation.

“ The day cometh that shall burn
as an oven ; and all the proud, yea, and
all that do wickedly, shall be stubble.

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“ But unto you that fear my name
shall the Sun of Righteousness arise.

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“ And ye shall tread down the
wicked ; for they shall be ashes under
the soles of your feet, in the day that
I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts.

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“ Behold I will send you Elijah
the Prophet, before the coming of the
great and dreadful day of the Lord.”