is given as a token of general affliction. In Jeremiah the term occurs repeatedly as applied to rejoicing: “the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bride, and the voice of the bridegroom.” And again, in another chapter, in a most beautiful passage, giving a prophetic picture of a land in utter desolation: “I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness; the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride; the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle.” None but a very gloomy, or a very presumptuous mind, would take upon itself to say, that in either of these instances, anything unbecoming, or evil, is implied by the words mirth and merry; to most persons the impression would be of an opposite character; seemly gayety and cheerfulness would be the idea suggested. In the translation of the Psalms as contained in the Prayer Book, the word merry is used on one occasion in a very exalted connection; the 47th Psalm is held to have been written either on the removal of the ark to Mount Zion, by King David, or a few years later, on its final progress from the Tabernacle to the Temple of Solomon. The fifth verse is thus translated: “God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trump.” Here we have the word applied to religious joy upon a signal occasion. It is also remarkable that this Psalm is one of those appointed for public worship on Ascension-Day, from the application of this same verse to the Ascension of our Lord; and shall we, then, object to employing the same word in connection with the Nativity? In the translation of the Holy Bible, made a century later, the same verse is rendered as follows: “God is gone up with a shout; the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.”
