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nauseous and strong; here they are soft; whereas in the north, and other parts, they are hard of digestion. Hence they cannot in any place be eaten with less prejudice and more satisfaction than in Egypt. They eat them roasted; also made into a soup, which, says HASSELQUIST, I think one of the best dishes I ever ate.

992.

Voy. pp. 255, 290.

The Egyptians have been bantered for making onions one of their sacred emblems: but the wonder ceases, upon cutting up a common onion transversly or across, where we find the involucra equal in number to the greater spheres in our system; reckoning from the sun at the centre; for by that division the Antients represented the courses of the planetary orbs. (Bp. HORNE's Hutchinson, p. 126.) -Hence, perhaps, originated the term Eonion (in botany), and the English word onion, from on an age, or complete revolution of a planetary orb.

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989. [Matt. xiv. 17.] Pompions are prepared for eating in various ways. The Indians of America boil them whole, or roast them in ashes, and then either eat them, or go to sell them, thus prepared in the towns; and they have indeed, says KALM, a very fine flavor, when roasted. The French and English slice them, he adds, and put the slices before the fire to roast: when they are roasted, they generally put sugar on the pulp.

See Pinkerton's Coll. part liv. p. 686.

990. [Num. xi. 5.] Onions never can be sufficiently recommended; they possess more nourishment than perhaps any other vegetable. It is a well known fact, that a Highlander, with a few raw onions in his pocket, and a crust of bread, or a bit of cake, can work or travel to an almost incredible extent, for two or three days together, without any other sort of food whatever. The French are aware of this; the soup à l'onion is now universally in use after all violent exertions, as the best of all restoratives.

991.

Sir JOHN SINCLAIR'S Code of Health, vol. i. p. 393.

Whoever has tasted onions in Egypt, must allow that none can be had better in any part of the world. Here they are sweet, in other countries they are

993.

It seems not very natural to understand the word (John xxi. 9), opsarion (Grk.), as signifying fish. It signifies some other kind of provision, of the delicious sort, to be eaten with bread. PARKHURST'S Greek Lexicon.

994. James and John were fishermen, with Zebedee their father. They never ate either fish or flesh. -St. James (Minor) observed the laws of the Nazarite from his birth; eating nothing that had had life, or drinking any thing capable of intoxicating. CALMET'S Dictionary

TITHES.

995. [Deut. xiv. 22, 28, 29.] Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates: And the Levite (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee), and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which fied; that the LORD thy GOD may bless thee in all the work are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisof thine hand which thou doest.

see,

Tithes were thus ordered originally, we

for the maintenance of the Poor, as well as Churchmen ; but these "feeders of the flock," in the selfish days of Christian degeneracy, seizing all the Tithes for their own use, have left the poor to be maintained out of the remaining nine-tenths of the produce! -Even this is not the worst. "Since the grant of tithes in England, which was by our Saxon ancestors, an immense property has been vested in the Church, in trust for the benefit of the poor-the revenue from these church

lands, as they are now called, they have also taken to their own use, in violation of a trust the most sacred that can well be imagined. These lands are now (1815) in such a state of improvement, that if they were applied for the purpose they were originally designed, there would be no occasion for either Tithes or Poor-rates."

996.

WHITE.

The Church both by the Doctrine of Fathers, and the Canons of Councils constantly maintains; First, that the Clergy are not Proprietors, but barely Stewards of the Benefices they enjoy; having them for no other eud, but for their own necessary, frugal subsistence, and the relief of the poor.

Secondly, that a Clergyman using his Benefice for his own indulgence, or the enriching of his own family, is guilty of sacrilege, and is a robber and murderer of the poor.

Thirdly, that if a Clergyman has a reasonable subsistence of his own, and is not in the state of the poor, that then let his Benefice be what it will, he has no right to use any part of it for himself, nor for his kindred, unless they be fit to be considered amongst the Poor that are to be relieved by the Church.

Fourthly, that every Bishop and Clergyman is to live in an humble, lowly, frugal, outward state of life; seeking for no honor or dignity in the world, but that which arises from the distinction and lustre of his virtues.

Fifthly, that a Beneficed Clergyman using the goods of the Church for his own indulgence, or raising fortunes for his children, is sacrilegious, and a robber of the poor.

Sixthly, that every Clergyman is to die out of the Church as poor as he entered it.

Seventhly, that a Clergyman dying, cannot leave or bequeath any thing to his children or friends, but barely that which he had independently of the Church.

Whatever changes have been made in the nature and tenure of the goods and revenues of the Church, or however they have been variously divided among Ecclesiastics, yet this has remained always unchangeable and undeniable, that a Clergyman was no Proprietor of his Benefice; and that he could only take so much of it to his own use, as was necessary for his subsistence, and then the remainder, be it what it would, belonged to the Poor.

Rev. WM. LAW's Appeal, p. 299.

997. [Num. xviii. 26.] The Levites were to gather in the tithes from the people, and to allot a tenth part of them to the priests. These allowed the high-priest a proportion of it suitable to bis dignity, and divided the rest among themselves. Univer. Hist. vol. x. p. 439.

998. [Num. xviii. 24.] CAMDEN tells us, that in the year of our LORD 636, England was divided by Honorius, archbishop of Canterbury, into 2984 parishes. The Lateran council compelled every man to pay tithes to his-parish

priest; before that time men paid them to whom they pleased; since then, few, if they could be excused, would care to pay them at all. Observations on Popular Antiq.p.268.

999.

The origin of Tithes in England was in the year 854, when king Ethelwolph, one of the most weak and bigoted of our Saxon Kings, made this important donation to the Church. The Ecclesiastics, in those days of ignorance, however little versed in the Scriptures, had been able to discover that the Priests under the Jewish Law possessed a tenth of all the produce of the Land; and forgetting what they themselves taught, that the moral part only of that law was obligatory on Christians, they insisted that this donation was a perpetual property, conferred by heaven on those who officiated at the Altar.

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1001. [Num. xxi. 9.] And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived.

The classic reader will here (Num. xxi. 9) recollect Esculapius' staff entwisted with a serpent, the acknowledged emblem of the healing power, accompanied sometimes with the motto SOTER, Saviour. He will discover also, by the following extract, the reason of such representation; the poisonless serpent having, it seems, a peculiar degree of the healing power in itself." Near the village of Sassa, about eight miles from Bracciano, is a little cave called Grotta del Serpi, or the Grotto of Serpents, which, says KIRCHER, is large enough to contain two persons, and is perforated with several fistular apertures, almost like a sieve; out of which, at the beginning of the spring, issue a vast number of snakes of various colors, but not endowed with any particular poisonous quality. In this cave persons afflicted with elephantiasis, leprosy, palsy, gout, &c. are exposed naked; where a perspiration being raised by the warmth of the subterraneous steams, and the serpents clinging all round them, licking and sucking the parts affected, they are freed from their vicous humors, and by continuing this practice for some time, the distemper is entirely removed. It is said that this cave was accidentally discovered by a leper,

who was going from Rome to some baths thereabouts, and being benighted, happened to creep into it for a lodging. Finding it very warm, he pulled off his clothes, and being weary and sleepy, had the good fortune not to feel the serpents about him till they had wrought his cure. Kircher visited the grotto himself, found it warm, and heard a hissing noise in the holes; and though he did not see the serpents, it not being the season of their creeping out, he saw several of their exuviæ in the grotto, and abundance of them hanging on a neighbouring clm. (SMITH's Wonders of Nature and Art.)-(Were onions, which are still more famous for their medicinal property of extracting virulent or poisonous qualities, considered sacred in Egypt on that very account?) As to the brazen serpent erected by Moses, where did it stand? Was it placed immediately under the appearance of the Divine Glory in the pillar of the cloud? And did it act thus as an intermediate conductor of healing virtue from that Glory? See Wisdom xvi. 4-12. As the antient Talismans were figures of the heavenly signs, constellations, or planets, engraven on stone or metal, and supposed to have the power of drawing down the influence of their respective celestial bodies; some Rabbins allusively maintain, that this brazen serpent was a talisman in bringing down a divine virtue from Jehovah. SMITH'S Wonders of Nature and Art, vol. ii. p. 68.

1002. It is known by experience that copper (which produces sulphur), as well as iron, has the property of attracting thunder, which is necessary to the purification of the air in the heats of Summer. Amidst the noise of thunder, because surrounded with the electric fluid, light, God promulgated his law to his chosen people from Mount Sinai.

See St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. i. pp. 107, 203.

BALAAM'S VISION.

1003. [Num. xxiv. 4.] It was the opinion of Pythagoras that vision is caused by particles continually flying from the surface of bodies, and entering the pupil of the eye; but Empedocles and Plato, as also Heliodorus Larisscus, supposed that the cause of vision is something emitted from the eye, in which respect, says Heliodorus, it resembles the sun; visual rays and solar rays being reflected in the same manner. (PRIESTLEY'S Hist. of Vision, pp. 1, 15.)-The former is natural vision; the latter spiritual.

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(to the eye) from visible objects, he supposed that there were exceptions to this rule; and he took it for granted, that the eyes of cats had the power of emitting light. He also thought that some men might see in the same manner. Ibid. p. 125.

1005. [Num. xxii. 20-35.] All that is written, from the 20th to the 35th verse of the 22d chapter of Numbers, is to be understood as an admonitory lesson given to Balaam in vision by night.

1006. [Num. xxiv. 3. The man whose eyes are shut, has said] It is a well attested fact, that a young ecclesiastic, who was a somnambulist, could, in his sleep, write, and even correct his sermons by interlineation. His eyes, at such times, were observed to be shut so that he could not see naturally, what he were then writing.

1007.

See ADAIR'S Essay on Diet and Regimen, p. 75.

A very ingenious and elegant young lady, with light eyes and hair, about the age of seventeen, in other respects well, was often seized with this very wonderful malady of reverie, Num. xxiv. 3, 4. It always began suddenly, and was at first manifest by the look of her eyes and countenance, which seemed to express attention. Then she conversed aloud with imaginary persons with her eyes open, aud could not for about an hour be brought to attend to the stimulus of external objects by any kind of violence, which it was proper to use. These conversations were quite consistent, and we could understand, says DARWIN, what she supposed her imaginary companions to answer, by the continuation of her part of the discourse. Sometimes she was angry, at other times shewed much wit and vivacity, but was most frequently inclined to melancholy. Yet it is evident, she was not sensible, all this time, of seeing or hearing any person about her. And when the paroxysm was over, she could never recollect a single idea of what had passed in it.

Zoonomia, vol. i. sect. xix. 2.

1008. [1 Sam. iii. 1.] By open visions are meant visions, or sights, of those things which really exist in the other life, and which are nothing else but real things, which may be seen by the eyes of the spirit, not by the eyes of the body; and which appear to a man when his interior sight is opened by the LORD, that is, by the sight of his spirit, into which also he comes, when being separated from the body he passes into the other life for man is spirit clothed with body. Such were the visions of the prophets. Rev. xxii. 8.

SWEDENBORG' Arcana, n. 1970.

CONSUMING FIRE.

1009. [Deut. iv. 24.] The LORD thy GOD is a consuming fire. Take a small stick of deal, or other wood, the size of a goose quill, and hold it horizontally and steadily in the flame of a candle above the wick, without touching it, but in the body of the flame. The wood will first be inflamed, and burn beyond the edge of the flame of the candle, perhaps a quarter of an inch. When the flame of the wood goes out, it will leave a red coal at the end of the stick, part of which will be in the flame of the candle, and part out in the air. In a minute or two you will perceive the coal in the air diminish gradually, so as to form a neck; while the part in the flame continues of its first size, and at length the neck being quite consumed it drops off; and by rolling it between your fingers when extinguished, you will find it still a solid coal.

See No. 776. Dr. FRANKLIN's Philosoph. and Miscellaneous Papers, p. 74.

1010. [Exod. xxiv. 17.] The effects of the burning phosphorus (Sec Exod. xxxiv. 30), which is a chemical preparation made of saud and urine, are very surprising.-A piece of it rubbed between two papers takes fire instantaneously, but if a person be not careful in the management of it, he is in danger of burning his fingers; and it penetrates deeper into the flesh than common fire. M. Cassini happening to press a piece in a cloth between his fingers, the cloth took fire; he endeavoured to extinguish it with his foot; but his shoe caught the flame, and he was forced to put it out with a brassruler, which shot forth rays in the dark for two months after. SMITH'S Wonders of Nature and Art, vol. ii. p. 30, Note.

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1012. [Exod. xxxii. 20.] And Moses took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.

Stahl and other chemists have shewn that it is possible to make gold potable, but we have no reason to conclude that Moses either used the process of Stahl, or any other chemical means for effecting the purpose intended; there not being the least intimation given of the gold having

been dissolved, chemically speaking, in water. It was stamped and ground, or, as the Arabic and Syriac versions have it, filed into a fine dust, and thrown into the river of which the children of Israel used to drink part of the gold would remain, notwithstanding its greater specific gravity, suspended for a time (as happens in the washing of copper and lead ores) and might be swallowed in drinking the water; the rest would sink to the bottom, or be carried away by the flux of the stream. WATSON'S Chem. vol. i. p. 12.

1013. [Deut. ix. 21.] Sulphur, combined with an alkali (into what was called liver of sulphur) unites with gold very readily. Nay, so intimate is their union, that the gold, by means thereof, becomes soluble in water; and (so dissolved and combined) will pass through the pores of brown paper without suffering any decomposition.

MACQUER'S Chem. chap. vii. sect. 1.

HUMAN HAPPINESS.

1014. [Deut. xxx. 19.] I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.

To change the mind, inclinations, or affections, of a free agent by infinite power, or force, to make him love another, he did not, or does not love, after a fair trial, is almost a contradiction in terms. And if it were possible that a free agent, who preferred any thing to the enjoyment of the vision &c. of the ELAHIM, could be in heaven, it would endeavour to desert, to enjoy the thing it had preferred, and if it could not desert, it would even there be miserable.

1015.

HUTCHINSON'S Data in Christianity, p. 20.

Every one would pursue his own interest, if he knew what it was; and, in fact, every one does pursue it, but the generality totally mistake it. No man would choose riches before happiness, power before quiet, or fame before safety, if he knew the true value of each: no man would prefer the transitory and worthless enjoyment of this world to the permanent and sublime felicity of a better, if he had a clear prospect of them both; but we see the former through a mist, which always magnifies, and the latter appears to be at so great a distance, that we scarce see it at all; and therefore it makes little impression on our senses, and has as little influence on our conduct.

JENYNS' Works, vol. iv. p. 276.

1016. [Deut. xxx. 14.) It was not nature, as is commonly believed, which first pointed out GOD to Man; but it is a sense of the DEITY in Man, which first indicated to him the order of nature. The Savages are religious, long before they are Naturalists.

St. PIERRE'S Studies of Nature, vol. ii. p. 95.

1017. [Deut. xxx. 19.] During influx, there is a perpetual endeavour to do evil from the hells on one part, and a perpetual endeavour to do good from the LORD on the other. By these endeavours, opposite to each other, every man is kept constantly in equilibrium, free to turn himself in what direction he pleases. The endeavour or conatus from hell, is no other than the perversion into evil of the good proceeding from the Lord.

SWEDENBORG'S Arcana, n. 6477.

1018. [Deut. xxx. 20. The LORD is thy life, and the length of thy days.] This is true not only as to Man's present and eternal existence, but even as to his temporary duration in the womb. Heat of Climate has a sensible effect on the expansion of all plants and the gestation of all animals, the Human Race excepted. Thus, in the Antilles, the hatching of a hen's egg, and the bursting of an orange-seed, require only twenty-three days. Pliny observes that in Italy hens hatch in nineteen days in Summer, and in twenty-five in Winter. But, in every country, white women and negresses go with child nine months, as in Europe. This demonstrates that Man is not subjected to physical influx, as the inferior animals.

See St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. i. p. 299.

RAHAB THE HOSTESS.

1019. [Joshua ii. 1.] And the spies went to Jericho and came into a harlot's house, named Rahab, and lodged there. Most of the Eastern cities, says FORBES, contain one caravansary at least, for the reception of straugers; smaller places, called choultries, are erected by charitable persons, or munificent princes, in forests, plains, and deserts, for the accommodation of travellers. Near them is generally a well, and a cistern for the cattle; a Brahmin or Fakeer often resides there to furnish the pilgrim with food, and the few necessaries he may stand in need of. -Beautifully does Sir William Jones describe such an act of beneficence in an Arabian female :—

To cheer with sweet repast the fainting guest,
To lull the weary on the couch of rest;

To warm the traveller, numb'd with winter's cold,
The young to cherish, to support the old ;
The sad to comfort, and the weak protect,
The poor to shelter, and the lost direct;
These are Selima's cares, her glorious task,
Can heaven a nobler give, or mortals ask?
When chill'd with fear, the trembling pilgrim roves
Through pathless deserts, and through tangled groves,
Where mantling darkness spreads her dragon wing,
And birds of death their fatal dirges sing;
While vapors pale, a dreadful glimmering cast,
And thrilling horror howls in every blast;
She cheers his gloom with streams of bursting light-
By day a sun, a beaming moon by night!

Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. p. 250.

When benighted in dreary solitude, travellers in India were thus certain, within a moderate distance, to find one of these buildings appropriated for their accommodation, and were often supplied with the necessaries of life gratis. Ibid. vol. iii. p. 122.

1020. Among the Indians of North America, there is in every village a vacant dwelling called the strangers' house. Hither the traveller is led by two old men, who procure him victuals and skins to repose on, exacting nothing for the entertainment. (Dr. FRANKLIN.) —On this account, tithes were taken for strangers, as well as for the Levites, the fatherless, and widows.

1021.

In some of the inns or chaturams of Mysore, provisions are sold; in others, they are distributed gratis, at least to Brahmins or other religious mendicants, as is the case in the choultaries of Bengal.

Within forty or fifty miles of Madras such useful buildings are very common, and have been erected and endowed by the rich native merchants of that flourishing city.

In these caravansarai on the road the traveller is received gratis, and may remain as long as he pleases. In the cities he pays a trifle; but, unlike those on the road which are open, the rooms of the latter have locks on the doors, for the maintenance of which the charge is made. They are, bowever, entirely destitute of furniture.

1022.

BUCHANAN, in Pinkerton, part xxiii. p. 579. -vol. viii. p. 775.—vol. ix, p. 39.

At even, the spies retired to a certain Inn, kept by Rahab, that was near to`the wall, whither they went to eat their supper (and lodge for the night). (JOSEPH. Antiq. b. v. ch. i. § 2.) —The taverns in India are beautiful edifices, raised by charitable contributions, and not unfrequently by the benevolence of some wealthy individual, for the use of travellers; as hospitality, so rare among us Europeans, forms, among the Orientals, a point of religion, and is one of the chief virtues by which they are distinguished from all other nations. In those Iuns travellers sleep on mats, which are wove generally of palm leaves. People pay nothing for the good entertainment which they there BARTOLOMEO, by Johnston, pp. 68, 69, 287.

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