pressions, their lowliness its pains. Wherefore has the Lord made such a separation between you and them-on what account this difference? Inquire of the Lord listen, wonder, submit yourselves in silence. Are you always right? Have they not sometimes cause to complain? Have they no well-grounded objections, no just remonstrances to make before God and betore man? Have you fulfilled to them all righteousness, all justice, all love? Have you done all for them due from you for their faithful services, their good intentions, their contentment in their station? Inquire into your habits of life, the whole tenor of your actions: inquire of God, and "forbear threatening." Remember that you also have a Master in heaven; "for he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant (1 Cor. vii. 22). What this means, we see in John xiii. 13. Here are earthly lords, bound by the same law, the same duty of service, of obedience, of fidelity, of humility and love: their Lord was the highest of all lords, wise, glo and mistresses. Paul, however, speaks also to those who have received the Christian calling. But the Christian who has servants or subjects under him, and knows the heart of man, particularly his own heart, would exclaim to the man of God: "O Paul, think also of us who are called lords and rulers in the world; remind us, exhort us, warn us, correct us, punish us; bow down with the word of God our haughty arrogance; direct our walk and goings; sanctify en tirely our wills; humble us; make us meek and lowly in our own eyes, submissively obedient to our heavenly Lord and Master." Yes, ruling, commanding, has its danger for all ranks: it leads our humility, our patience, our benevolence, our love, and even our justice and rectitude, the tranquil peace of our souls, into many dangerous and pressing temptations. O, my head, how high-my heart, how proud-my soul, how vain art thou, and how unquiet and unblessed in thyself. What unsettles, what agitates, what disturbs thee? Lord, forgive: I forgot what thou art, what I am, what thou becamest. Have mercy upon me. "And, ye masters," says the apostle, "do therious, almighty, and thought it not robbery to be same things unto them." If they are obedient in all things, render to them a fair recompence in all things: if they do it with holy fear and trembling, shew them the consideration, the kindness, which is due to them for the love of Christ: if they do it in singleness of heart, as unto Christ, let them richly experience that trust, that honest confidence becoming the followers of Christ, and also his servants: if they do it not with eye-service, as menpleasers, treat them with openness and love, as the friends of Christ, acting towards them as souls entrusted to your care, for whom you must be responsible; doing in all things the will of God from the heart. If they serve you with willingness, because they serve unto the Lord, and not unto man alone, then do not regard them according to the flesh (2 Cor. v. 16), but recognise in them the Lord, and his dearly purchased souls, who are sacred and dear unto him, his friends, his brethren, also his fellow-heirs. If they do not act thus, point out to them as Christians in what they fail; that they should submit themselves because it is God's ordinance, be obedient because God has directed it. Let them feel that in their calling there is something holy, in their station a certain dignity, in their service a certain charm. Constrain them to honour you, if they are not willing: oblige them to be ashamed, and to love you, if they have denied you their love: "forbear threatening." equal with God: "Yet he came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Phil. ii. 6; Matt. xx. 28); and he hung for them upon the cross, and bore for them all their offences; and he bears them, masters as well as servants, with all their sins, in great mercy still. And he said, in the fulness of meekness and humility, "With the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again" (Luke vi. 38). O Lord of all, great and glorious, if thou dealt with us as strictly, as unmercifully as we often do with others, how many masters, how many mistresses could stand in thy sight? Thy reward is with thee, thy judgment is sure (Rev. xxii. 12). The Israelites were, under the old covenant, particularly commanded to shew justice and kindness to the servants of their own people. This we may see in many passages of the Old Testament. "And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant; but as a hired servant and as a sojourner he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee" (Lev. xxv. 39, 40). "And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy flour, and out of thy wine-press of that wherewith the Lord There was in former times occasion enough for thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto threatening, and in our days good servants are not him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a numerous. The ignorant, the ill-behaved, the de- bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy ceitful and unfaithful, are much more plentiful. God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee Yet should this surprise us? Is it as easy for this thing to-day" (Deut. xv. 13-15); and them in their days of youth, as for us, to become many others to the same purport. Now, however, refined, well-informed, gentle, and good Christians? "ye are not under the law, but under grace" You would see in your servants many virtues and (Rom. vi. 14). Knowing that your Master is perfections; but ask yourself, would you, in such also in heaven, neither is there respect of persons a condition, be useful and valuable without fault? with him" (Deut. x. 17; 1 Sam. xvi. 7; Job Forbear threatening:" only love improves, only xxxiv. 19; Acts x. 34; Rom. ii. 11; Col. iii. forbearance reconciles. Endurance, patience un-25). How easily is this forgotten! It is dander persecutions, tend to soften and reform the souls under your care, and to lead them to God and heaven. Severity never does it: "forbear threatening." Their station is not without its difficulties: their poverty has its hardships, their subjection its op 66 gerous to be high by birth, or celebrated for high talents or actions. When a man is born and elevated in a high station, he hardly knows his own nature or that of others: he perceives not that he demands too much, desires too much, carries himself too high; that he often bears himself too haughtily, and mortifies and deeply wounds the feelings of those about him, without knowing or intending it; but nevertheless he is not without blame he has a monitor within. In a word, servants and masters, maids and mistresses, should live and serve one another in the fear of God; for every believer, be he who he may, is loved and honoured by Jesus; and, if I offend those whom Jesus loves and honours, then the fear of God dwelleth not in me. This Christ taught when on earth: "He that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth" (Luke xxii. 26, 27). ON THE HYSSOP OF SCRIPTURE: Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, THE first mention of hyssop in the Old Testament is immediately previous to the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt, and at the first in stitution of the passover, when Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them: "And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side-posts with the blood that is in the bason" (Exodus xii. 22). From this passage it is evident that the plant must have been indigenous in Lower Egypt, and that it must have been sufficiently large and leafy to be fit for sprinkling the door-posts as directed. 3. The next passage where hyssop is mentioned in chronological order is in the beautiful psalm of Wash David, where the royal penitent says: me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin:" "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" (Ps. li. 2, 7). This expression is considered by bishop Horne (and also by others), in his commentary on the Psalms, to refer to the rite described in the above passages, as the ceremony of sprinkling the unclean person with a bunch of "hyssop," dipped in the "water of separation." But, though the passage no doubt has a figurative signification, yet, with all due deference to such high authorities, the mode of expression is so direct, as to appear to me as if the hyssop itself did possess, or was supposed to have, some cleansing properties. If so, such might have led originally to its selection for the different ceremonies of purification; or such properties may have been ascribed to it in later ages, in consequence of its having been employed in such ceremonies. At all events, if the plant which we suppose to be the hyssop of scripture can bear this signification, it will not be less appropriate. 4. The next notice of hyssop is in 1 Kings iv. 33, where, in the account of the wisdom of Solomon, it is said: "And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes." In this passage we find that the plant which is alluded to by the name of esob, must also have grown upon a wall, though not necessarily so to the exclusion of all other situations. Some commentators have inferred that the plant alluded to must have been one of the smallest, to contrast well with the cedar of Lebanon, and thus show the extent of the knowledge and wisdom of Solomon. But nothing of this kind appears in the text. 2. The next notices of the hyssop are in Leviticus and in Numbers; which books having been written by Moses, indicate that the substances which he directs to be employed for sacrificial 5. The last passage which we have to adduce purposes must have been procurable in the situa- occurs in the New Testament, where, in the crucitions where the Israelites wandered, that is, in fixion of our Saviour, the evangelist John relates: the countries between Lower Egypt and Palestine. "Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: Thus, in the ceremony practised in declaring lepers and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it to be clean, the priest is directed "to take for him upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth" (xix. 29). that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, This passage has elicited the remarks of various and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop" (Levit. critics, and inferences have been drawn respecting xiv. 4). These are again all mentioned both in the nature of the plant, from the use to which it verse 6 and in verse 52. So in Numbers xix. 6, was applied. Others have observed, that the in the ceremony of burning the heifer and pre-evangelists Matthew and Mark, in relating the paring the water of separation, the directions are: And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer;" and, in verse 18, that "a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there," &c. Here we again see that the hyssop must have been large enough to be suitable for the purposes of sprinkling; that it must have been procurable on the outskirts of Palestine, probably in the plain of Moab. It is to this passage that the apostle alludes in Hebrews ix. 19: For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves, and of goats, with water and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people." same circumstance, make no mention of the hyssop, but state that the sponge was put upon a reed, and given him to drink. The deductions which we may legitimately draw from the above passage are, that the hyssop was a plant of Judea, found, indeed, in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and that it seems to have been used as a stick, to which the sponge was fixed. If the plant which I suppose to be hyssop is calculated to answer this purpose, it will likewise answer for the elucidation of the parallel passages in the other evangelists. The Hebrew name esobh, written also esob and esof, also by some azub, Celsius derives from a Hebrew root. The Greek he also derives from the Hebrew name. But I cannot help thinking that the similarity in the sound of the two names is accidental, and has distracted the attention from other plants, to one which does not answer to all that is required. But it is quite possible that the name hyssop may in later times have been applied to the same plant, which at a certain period was indicated by the term esob or esof. The several plants which have been considered by different authors to be the hyssop of scripture, are enumerated by Celsius under eighteen different heads. 1. Adiantum capillus veneris, or maiden-hair; a native of south Europe and of the east. 2. Asplenium ruta muraria, L., or wall-rue, formerly called salva vitæ, or salvia vitæ, common in the fissures of rocks in Europe. Both of these are of the class of ferns. 3. Tremellius considers polytrichum commune, or common hair-moss, found both in Asia and Europe, to be the plant. 4. Ovid. Montalbanus conceives that esob is the small plant called klosterhysops in German; the alsine pusilla, graminea, flore tetrapetalo, of Tournefort, sagina procumbens, L., or procumbent pearl-wort; a native of Europe in sterile and moist fields, of the natural family of caryophylleæ. Of the tribe of composite, and genus artemisia, two species have been thought to be hyssop. 5. Abreta or abrotonum. This is the artemisia abrotonum, L., or southern-wood; a native of the south of Europe and of Asia Minor. 6. Artemisia pontica (including probably also A. Judaica); a native of the south of Europe, Syria, and central Asia. The majority of plants which have been adduced as the hyssop of scripture belong to the natural family of labiata, of which many species are known for their uses in seasoning food, as thyme, sage, savory, marjoram, and mint; while others, as lavender and rosemary, are more celebrated for their uses as perfumes. The several plants of the family of labiate which have been adduced by different authors, are as follow: 7. Prosper Alpinus figures a plant he describes as plantam nobillissimam, having grown it from seeds obtained from Crete, and origano oniti (potmarjoram). 8. Some of the Hebrews call a plant esob javan, of which the leaves resemble the plant called zatar. The Arabic name is probably a corruption of stochas, which is lavandula stæchas, L.; a plant found in the Mediterranean region. 9. Rosmarinus officinalis, or common rosemary, a native of the Mediterranean region, and which may perhaps be found in Palestine. Some of the older authors have selected this plant because, being a shrubby species, a stick might easily be obtained, to which the sponge dipped in vinegar could have been tied. It is suitable also for sprinkling. 10. Origanum majorana. It is doubtful whether this be not origanum onites. 11. Mentha, or a species of mint, is adduced in the Ethiopic version. 12. Mentha pulegium, another species of the same genus. 13. Teucrium polium, or teucrium pseudohyssopum; a native of the Mediterranean region, and found by Bové in the desert of Sinai. 14. Thymus serpyllum, or common thyme, widely diffused in mountainous situations in Europe and northern Asia. 15. In the Arabic version of the books of Moses, | esob is translated by satur or zatur of the Arabs, considered by them synonymous with origanum heracleoticum, L., of the Greeks; but several dif ferent species or varieties are included under the Arabic name satur, which it is needless here to inquire into, as they are all similar in nature and properties. Some other names, as, 16, hyssopus cochaliensis, and 17, marum a bum, are adduced by Celsius. The only plant which remains of those adduced by Celsius is, 18, the common or garden hyssop, hyssopus officinalis of botanists, which is supported by Celsius himself. It has had the greatest number of suffrages, apparently from the similarity of name. This may or may not be accidental. The account given of the hyssop by Dioscorides is so imperfect, that we have no points of comparison given in the article on this plant. But, in describing origanum heracleoticum, the leaves are described as being similar to those of hyssop, but that its umbel is not rotate, as if he wished to indicate that such was the inflorescence of the hyssop. He also mentions that there are two kinds, one mountain, and the other garden, hyssop, and that the best is produced in Cilicia: Pliny adds, in Pamphylia and Smyrna. The Arab authors also mention two kinds, the mountain and the garden. In the Talmud authors, that which is found in the desert is distinguished from the garden kind. ; The modern hyssop (hyssopus officinalis, L.) belongs to a genus of which itself is the only species. It is a perennial plant, usually very smooth (but a variety is described by De Candolle, which he calls H. canescens, from its being covered with short rigid hairs). The root throws up several leafy stems, which are woody at the base, diffuse, and much branched. The branches are from one to two feet in length. The leaves are opposite, sessile, rather thick in texture, narrow, linear, lanceolate, in one variety elliptical; margins very entire, flat, or subrevolute; green on both sides below, one-nerved; held up to the light and looked at with a magnifying glass, they seem to be obscurely dotted. The flowers, of a bluish or reddish colour, are arranged along one side of the stem in closely approximated whorls in a terminal spike. The floral leaves are similar to those of the stem, but smaller. Bracts lanceolate, linear, acute. The calyx is tubular, fifteen-nerved, with five equal teeth, with the throat naked. The corolla, of a reddish-purple colour, with its tube equalling the calyx, is bilabiate, with its upper lip erect, flat, and emarginate; the lower one spreading and trifid, middle lobe largest; stamens four, exserted, didynamous, diverging; the lower ones the longest; anthers two-celled; cells linear, divaricate; style nearly equally bifid at the apex; lobes subulate, with the stigmas at the apex. The four achenia (or seeds with their coverings) ovoid, three-cornered, compressed, and rather smooth. M. Bové mentions a hyssopus within three leagues of Jerusalem, and the rosemary. I myself have obtained it, and the specimens have been examined by Mr. Bentham, from Kanum and the Ganthung Pass in Kunawur, a tract along the Sutledge on the northern face of the Himalayan mountains, and which may be considered a part of Tibet. The hyssop is remarkable for its fragrant and aromatic properties; hence its employment as a condiment and a sweet herb, and as a moderate excitant in medicine: to it, however, many other virtues were formerly ascribed. The plants adduced by the latest writers are phytolacca decandra, by Mr. Kitto in the "Pictorial Bible" in Exod. xii. 22: "The hyssop of the sacred scriptures has opened a wide field for conjecture; but in no instance has any plant been suggested, that, at the same time, had a sufficient length of stem to answer the purpose of a wand or pole, and such detergent or cleansing properties as to render it a fit emblem for purification." Rosenmüller says, the Hebrew word esobh does not denote our hyssop, but an aromatic plant resembling it, the wild marjoram, which the Germans call dosten or wohlgemuth, the Arabs zater, and the Greeks origanon. Dr. Robinson, in the ascent of Jebel Musa by himself and Mr. Smith, says: "In all this part of the mountains were great quantities of the fragrant plant ja'deh, which the monks call hyssop" Bibl. Res. i. 157); and, on the ascent of St. Catherine, "The ja'deh or hyssop was here in great plenty; and especially the fragrant za'ter, a species of thyme-thymus serpyllum of Forskal" (p. 162). Lady Calcott suggests that the nyssop of aspersion was hyssop tied to a stick of cedar. Winer admits the same plant as Rosenmüller, but considers that several plants were included under the name esobh; and concludes his observations on ysop by saying: "We must, however, wait for more accurate observations upon the species of hyssop and origanum indigenous in Western Asia, before the meaning of the Hebrew esobh can be finally settled" (Biblisches Real Wörterbuch, ii. 820). Having suspected the existence of a plant distinct from the hyssop, I was led to what appears to me its discovery, by a passage from Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, quoted by Mr. Kitto, in his work entitled, "The Physical Geography and Natural History of the Holy Land," p. 252, among trees and shrubs known only by native names and imperfect descriptions: "The aszef is spoken of this month by Burckhardt, while travelling in the Sinai Peninsula. On noticing its presence in Wady Kheysey, he describes it as a tree which he had already seen in several other wadies. It springs from the fissures in the rocks, and its crooked stem creeps up the mountain side like a parasitical plant. According to the Arabs, it produces a fruit of the size of the walnut, of a blackish colour, and very sweet to the taste. The bark of the tree is white, and the branches are thickly covered with small thorns: the leaves are heart-shaped, and of the same shade of green as those of the oak" (Syria, pp. 536, 537). DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE AMONGST THE PEOPLE. THE diffusion of knowledge amongst the people must be eminently useful as a means of expanding and elevating their minds; not rendering them (as some have feared) dissatisfied with the lot which divine Providence has assigned them, but showing them that in every grade and portion of society intellectual acquirements and mental pleasures are within their reach. Give the people a taste for scientific knowledge, and you diminish their desire for the coarser pleasures of sense. Bring the mechanic to the lecture-room, and you keep him from the tavern. Teach him to exercise his mind on chemistry, geology, or mathematics, and you open up to him a new world of pure and satisfying enjoyment, from which he will look down on his former habits and pursuits with a sense of honest pride and honest self-gratulation. And if, by diffusing knowledge amongst the people, we shall every now and then remove the scales from the mental eye of some master-spirit, who, unconscious of his own powers, was letting his mind go to rust amidst sordid pleasures and vulgar companionships; if we shall give him such a glimpse of the world of science as shall stimulate his soul to pant after its attainments, and shall show him that he possesses within his own breast a mine of boundless wealth, which he has only to explore to become rich indeed; and if such a one shall come forth from his native obscurity a Ferguson, to reveal the wonders of the firmament-a Murray, to give a new impulse to the study of languages a Hogg, to break the slumbers of his country's lyre-a Davy, to raise chemistry from childhood to maturity-or a Kemp, to build a matchless monument to native genius, where is the man who would grudge him his laurels, or conceive that they detracted one leaf from his own? Besides, by diffusing knowledge through any grade of society, we shall thereby constrain the other grades to acquire it also. If the tradesman study science, so of necessity will the gentleman: if the labourer becomes enlightened, so of course must the squire. The lever, which we employ to raise a mass of rock, touches only the lower stratum; but, while it lifts that, it lifts all above it too. Education is a moral lever, and a strong one. Apply it to the lower masses of society, and you elevate them; and, by a process as unerring as it may at first be imperceptible, it will impart its powerful and irresistible momentum to every grade above them -to the highest in the scale. It is related of Archimedes that, in descanting on the powers of the lever, he said, "Give me one long enough, and a fulcrum to rest it on, and I will move the world." He knew not that the time was coming when his idea would be realized. Knowledge is the lever the wise Syracusan desiderated, the human mind is its fulcrum: slowly but surely it is now moving the world. Education has got an impulse which nothing can arrest; and it well becomes the patriot, it well becomes the statesman, to see that it takes a safe and a virtuous direction. And here I trust that I shall be permitted to allude to a fear which has sometimes been expressed by very well-meaning persons, lest the teaching of certain branches of physical science to the people should tend to shake their belief in the great truths of revelation. As an individual very far from indifferent to such matters, allow me to say that I have no such fear. If the great Author of nature be (as I firmly believe) the author of the bible too, if he be in his own nature immutable and eternal truth, and if truth can never be inconsistent with itself, then any discrepancy which we perceive between science and religion must arise, not from the amount, but from the imperfection of our knowledge. If a science in its infancy exhibit certain disclosures which appear inconsistent with the | powers unimpaired to the last, let him go on sacred records, as the science advances the incon- adding knowledge to knowledge all the while, gruity diminishes: as it approaches to perfection, and he will confess at the close that he has yet there is still less contrariety; and, when our know- much to learn. For myself, in looking forward ledge of it becomes complete, as in some cases it to that world of light to which I firmly believe has done, the discoveries which seemed at variance that I am hastening, one great cause of my joyful with our most cherished belief are found most anticipation is, that the knowledge which I have beautifully to correspond with, and to add new acquired here will still be on the increase; that, lustre to its page. As a Christian, then, as well in proportion as my capacity for acquirement as a patriot, I bid God-speed to the diffusion of shall expand, the sources of acquirement shall exknowledge. Enlighten the mind of man as far pand along with it; that, as countless ages roll over you are capable of enlightening it. Knowledge me, I shall still be growing in intelligence, ever is a thing of which you can never give him too approaching but never reaching to the fulness of much. You may give him more food than he is him whose knowledge is as boundless as his able to devour: you may give him more raiment power, and whose wisdom and whose holiness are than he is able to put on you may give him alike ineffable.-Speech of Dr. Huie, in the more wealth than he is able to enjoy ; but you Hopetoun Rooms, Edinburgh, Oct. 16, 1844*. can never give him more knowledge than he is able to receive. Let him live to the utmost limit of human existence, let him preserve his mental The above is not extracted from the public newspapers, but was transmitted to the editors by Dr. Huie. THE PARTHENON. "As in some drooping form and time-worn face O'er mouldering fragments of its prostrate gods, OXFORD PRIZE POEMS, 1811. "YE men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious," was the declaration of that faithful and fearless apostle, whose "spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry." And to a truly Christian mind it is indeed most distressing to reflect, that those nations which at one time ranked the highest in civilization-the works of which are now extant as monuments of their taste, their intellectuality, their greatness-were all living without God and without hope in the world. Man by wisdom knows not God. This is a humiliating truth, manifested as clearly in the magnificent ruins of the moulder ing temple, as in the rude carved block of the semibrutish savage. It matters not where we search for evidence of the utter natural ignorance of man-in Greece or in Australia, in Ceylon or Labrador. The idolatry is in one case perhaps less hideously revolting; but it is not the less humiliating to the pride of man that, professing themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and fourfooted beasts and creeping things. The Parthenon, or temple of Minerva, at Athens, erected B.C. 448, is situated on the Acropolis, and has always been considered one of the most perfect specimens of Grecian Doric architecture. It was constructed of white marble, about 218 feet in length and 98 in breadth, having on every side an ascent of five steps. The portico running round the whole building is supported by channelled Doric pillars. Historical figures of exquisite workmanship adorned various portions of the exterior, but are all fallen down. Those on the pediment in front of the building, represented, according to Pausanias, the birth of Minerva; those on |