The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

198 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH
they are, acquire a fresh meaning when read in this
association—the hnes
—
" Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings
It is the Lord who rises
"With healing in His wings.
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul, again,
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain."
We may thank the Calvinistic poet for here touching
on another side of the subject. He reminds us that
it is God who brings about the unexpected joy of
renewed trust in His unfaiHng mercy. The sorrowful
soul is, consciously or unconsciously, visited by the
Holy Spirit, and the effect of contact with the Divine
is that scales fall from the eyes of the surprised
sufferer. If it is right to say that one portion of
Scripture is more inspired than another we must feel
that there is more Divine hght in the second part of
this elegy than in the first. It is this surprising light
from Heaven that ultimately accounts for the sudden
revolution in the feelings of the poet.
In his new consciousness of the love of God the
elegist is first struck by its amazing persistence. Pro-
bably we should follow the Targum and the Syriac
version in rendering the twenty-second verse thus
"The Lord's mercies, verily they cease not," etc.
instead of the usual English rendering
"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed," etc.
There are two reasons for this emendation. First,
the momentary transition to the plural *' we " is harsh
and improbable. It is true the author makes a some-
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