Alexandria Gazette

From Blackwood's Magazine.
MALACHI.

The final predictions of this Prophet are well known for their powerful and lofty threatenings of national ruin. Yet the condition of his country 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 corruptions of Babylonish life among them is obvious from his rebukes, and those of Zachariah 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 distance of four hundred years—was of a wholly opposite character,—the national disdain of contact with the Gentile world, the national pride in the exclusiveness of their religion, and the national vindictiveness against that mightiest of all Teachers, and Supreme of all Sovereigns, who came to announce the admission of mankind into the privileges of Israel. Independently of our direct knowledge of the universal inspiration of Scripture, this utter dissimilarity to human conclusions must make us feel that this awful denunciation of the matured vices of a land, the pin their first period of regeneration, was the work of a knowledge above man. Malachi is said to have died young, after assisting the members of the Great Synagogue 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.

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

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

Behold I will send you Elijah the Prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord."
MALACHI, ch. iv.

A sound on the rampart,
A sound at the gate,
I hear the roused lioness
Howl to her mate.
In the thicket at midnight.
They roar for the prey
That shall glut their red jaws
At the rising of day.
For wrath is descending
On Zion's proud tower:
It shall come like a cloud.
It shall wrap like a shroud,
Till, like Sodom, she sleeps
In a sulphurous shower.
For behold! the day cometh,
When all shall be aflame;
When Zion! the sackcloth
Shall cover thy name;
When thy bark o'er the billows
Of death shall be driven.
When thy tree by the lightnings
From earth shall be riven;
When the oven, upkindled
By mortal, shall burn;
And like chaff thou shalt glow
In that furnace of woe;
And, dust as thou wert,
Thou to dust shall return.
'Tis the darkness of darkness,
The midnight of soul!
No moon on the depths
Of that midnight shall roll.
No starlight shall pierce
Through that life-chilling haze;
No torch from the roof
Of the temple shall blaze.
But when Israel is buried
In final despair.
From a height o'er all height,
God of God, Light of Light,
Her sun shall arise—
Her great Sovereign be there!
Then the sparkles of flame,
From his chariot-wheels hurl'd
Shall smite the crown'd brow
Of the God of this world!
Then captive of ages!
The trumpet shall thrill
From the lips of the seraph
On Zion's sweet hill.
For, vestured in glory.
Thy monarch shall come,
And from dungeon and cave
Shall ascend the pale slave,
Lost Judah shall rise
Like the soul from the tomb!
Who rushes from Heaven?
The angel of wrath;
The whirlwind his wing,
And the lightning his path.
His hand is uplifted,
It carries a sword:
'Tis ELIJAH! he heralds
The march of his Lord!
Sun, sink in eclipse!
Earth, earth, shalt thou stand,
When the cherubim wings
Bear the King of thy kings?
Wo, wo, to the ocean,
Wo, wo, to the land!
'Tis the day long foretold,
'Tis the judgment begun;
Gird thy sword thou most mighty!
Thy triumph is won,
The idol shall burn
In his own gory shrine;
Then daughter of anguish
Thy dayspring shall shine!
From proud Zion, thy vale
With the olive shall bloom,
And the musk-rose distill
Its sweet dews on thy hill;
For earth is restored.
The great Kingdom is come!