4928. [Mark x. 25.] There was in the Temple at Jerusalem a small window called the Needle's-eye, which is probably here alluded to.

See No. 4751.

See Month. Mag. for March 1810, p. 137.

4929. [-42 45.] In tracing the different kinds of human Dominion, as approved or condemned in the Scriptures, we find there were two sorts; the one proceeding from love towards the neighbour, the other from the love of self. That towards the neighbour prevails among those who live separated into houses, families and nations; this from the love of self, among those who dwell together in society. Among those who live separated into houses, families and nations, he has the dominion who is the Father of the nation; under him are the fathers of families, and under these the fathers of each house. He is called the Father of the nation or Patriarch, from whom the families are derived, and from the families the houses. But all those have their dominion from a love like that of a father towards his children, while he teaches them how they ought to live, is beneficent towards them, and as far as he is able, communicates to them from his owat store. It never enters the mind of such a one to subjugate a people to himself as subjects, or as slaves: he desires that none should obey him but as sons obey their fathers As this paternal affection is known to increase in descending, a father of a nation acts from a more interior love than the father himself from whom sons proximately spring.

But dom nion from the love of self, being the opposite to that from a love towards the neighbour, commenced when man alienated himself from the LORD; for so far as a man does not love and worship the LORD, so far he loves and worships himself: he so far also loves the world more than heaven. Then, from a necessary regard to security, nations with families and their houses consociated together unitedly; and entered into governments under various forms. This love of self increasing, evils of every kind increased equally; as enmities, envyings, hatreds, revenges, deceits, and cruelties against all who opposed themselves. Such also is the quality of this love, that so far as its reins are relaxed, it hurries away the person under its influence into the extravagance of wishing to have dominion over the whole world, and to possess all the good things on earth. This now is the dominion of selflove from which the dominion arising from a love towards the neighbour differs as widely as heaven from hell.

SWEDENBORG, Arcana, n. 10814.

educated them in the genuine bonds of fraternity - fraternity consisting not in name, but in reality."

There should be no slavery at one end of the chain of society, and no despotism at the other.

DARWIN'S Zoonomia, vol. ii. p. 670.

The equal lot of the Scotch clergy binds them to their people, and invigorates every duty towards those to whom they consider themselves connected for life. This equal lot may perhaps blunt the ambition after some of the more specious accomplishments; but makes more than amends by sharpening the attention to those concerns which end not with this being. PINKERTON'S Coll. part x. p. 271.

4932. [ 13.] In Judea the harvest began at the Passover, when this tree which had leaves, might regularly be expected to be of the early sort, and to have fruit; as the fruit always precedes the leaves of the fig-tree. Those who cannot easily be convinced that the tree should have figs ou it at the time of the Passover (when summer is nigh), may consult Julian the Apostate Ep. xxiv. p. 392; who observes, that the fig-trees of Damascus, particularly, bore figs all the year round; the last year's fruit remaining while that of the next succeeded. About Naples they have figs twice a year, in August or September, and about May; the latter is expressly called fico di pascha, the Pass over fig.

See No. 4765.

See HOLDSWORTH, or VIRG. Georg i. pp. 149, 150. Also Bib. Research vol. i. p. 105.

crop ripens in its season, under the line. There one crop is put forth in the latter end of March, and is ripened in July or August; another in September, which frequently hangs on till the next season, but none of them come to their full size: most of them are blasted in the winter, and those which escape are not ripe till the next season. Whether that crop which answers these come all to perfection in Judea in their season, and before the next crop be put forth, is uncertain. As however this tree puts forth its fruit with its leaves; if it bear at all, when it has leaves, it will have fruit, whether ripe or not. And if it had no fruit when it had leaves, it could have none at the time or season when figs were to be ripe which was the state of this tree, when examined by our Saviour.

See HUTCHINSON's Trinity of the Gentiles, p. 260.

nished at the full effect of that sentence, He went with them, filled with admiration at what they had seen, into the temple; and after having silenced the cavils of the chief priests and elders, delivered the three parables contained in Matt. xxi. 28. — xxii. to verse 14. Now, in these circumstances, what impressions may we reasonably imagine to have been made on the minds of the disciples, when they heard their Master deliver these parables with an awful diguity, and even severity of manner? especially when they heard him apply the first in these words: Verily, I say to you, the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before you, &c. &c. In like manner, the second parable concluded thus: Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of heaven shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the FRUITS thereof, &c. And in the third parable are these words: But when the King heard thereof he was wroth, and SENT FORTH HIS ARMIES, AND DESTROYED When the disciples heard such things, could they doubt one moment, whether what they had seen in the morning bore a relation to what they now heard? Or, whether the miraculous withering of the fig-tree were intended to exhibit before-hand a divine attestation of the denunciations suggested in these parables.

THOSE MURDERERS,

AND BURNT UP THEIR CITY.

Theological Repository, vol. i. p. 382. Verse 23.] See Acis x. 11- 16.

4937. [21.] In order to see this miracle in its proper light, we must consider it in connexion with the discourses our Lord soon after delivered in the temple. Jesus, knowing what important and awful truths he had to deliver to the people assembled there, and desirous to impress them deeply on the minds of his own disciples in particular; first, in the way of giving a prophetic sign, pronounced a sentence of destruction on the barren fig-tree. Next morning, after the disciples had beheld and been asto

by all the affinities of material objects throughout creation: Quæ sunt eadem unitertio, sunt eadem inter se.

See LAVOISIER's Chemistry, chap. x.

4942. [Mark xii. 42.] A mite, leptes, was in value half the kodrans, which see Matt. v. 26. x. 29.

4943. [Mark xiii. 1.] The stones used in building the battlements or additional wall to support the precipice of Mount Moriah, on which the Temple was erected, were each forty cubits in length, fourteen in breadth, and eight in thickness. Wonders of Nature and Art, vol. i. p. 58, note. These stones, says JOSEPHUS, were white and strong, fifty feet long, twenty four broad, and sixteen in thickness. Antiq. b. xv. ch. xi.

Among the ruins of Balbec, nothing is more astonishing than the enormous stones which compose its sloping wall. To the west, the second layer is formed of stones which are from twenty-eight to thirty-five feet long, by about nine in height. Over this layer, at the north-west angle, there are three stones, which alone occupy a space of one hundred seventy-five feet and a half: the first, fifty-eight feet seven inches; the second, fifty-eight feet eleven; the third, exactly fifty-eight feet: and each of these is twelve feet thick. The stones are all of a white granite, with large shining flakes, like gypse. There is a quarry of this kind of stone under the whole city, and in the adjacent mountains, which is open in several places; and, among others, on the right, as we approach the city, there is still lying there a stone, hewn on three sides, which is sixty-nine feet two inches long, twenty feet ten inches broad, and thirteen feet three inches in thickness. See No. 4802, &c.

4944.

VOLNEY'S Trav. vol. ii. p. 241.

In Egypt, the chapels of Sais and Butos are formed each of one single stone several millions of pounds in weight: cut from the rocks of the Elephantine, they have been transported to the distance of six hundred miles. Month. Mag. for March, p. 143.

4950. [Mark xiv. 3.] The Nardus Indica, or Spikenard, has a strong aromatic odor, residing principally in the lower parts of the stalks and leaves where they unite to the roots.— The Phenicians collected large quantities of it and myrrh, as

4952. [25.] The yayin of the Hebrews, the oinos of the Greeks, and vinum of the antient Romans, meant simply the expressed juice of the grape, sometimes drunk just after it was expressed (Gen. xl. 11), while its natural sweetness remained; and then termed mustum: at other times, after fermentation, which process rendered it fit for keeping, without getting acid or unhealthy, then called onios, and vinum. By the antient Hebrews, I believe, it was chiefly drunk in its first, or simple state; hence it was termed among them peree haggephen, the fruit of the vine, and by our Lord in the Syriac, his vernacular language, yalda dagephetha, the young or son † of the vine, very properly translated by the Evangelist genema tes ampelou (Grk.), the offspring or produce of the vine.

Dr. A. CLARKE, on the Eucharist, p. 62. This expressed juice of the grape, was the blood used in sacrifices, particularly at the feast of the passover. · "The wine-press was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the wine-press." Rev. xiv. 20.

See No. 957, 4848.

4953. [30. Before the cock crow twice] Or a second time in a second night; — this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. Matt. xxvi. 34.

As the people of the East have no clocks, the several parts of the day and of the night, which are eight in all, are given

+ Hence that calumny imputed to Christians of killing infants in their assemblies, and drinking their blood!

4955. [32. Gethsemane] So called probably from the Hebrew gath hashemon, the oil press. For, as the mount had its name from the quantity of olive-trees that grew on it, it is probable, that this garden, which was at the foot of it, had a press in it; and this reconciles the other evangelists, of whom Matthew (xxvi. 30) and Luke (xxii. 39) mention only the mount, and John (xviii. 1) the garden. Ibid. vol. 1. p. 371.

4960. [Mark xv. 33.] On Friday the 10th of January, 1812, every shop in London was lighted up at mid-day, in consequence of a dismal and unprecedented darkness. The windows of private houses were shut; and candles were used in every frequented apartment. The Royal Exchange was, at one o'clock, the seat of silence and solitude! At Mark-lane no business was done! The alleys and narrow streets in the City, the lamps not having been lighted, were darker than at mdnight,

See No. 4870.

Public Prints.

4963. [Mark xvi. 18.] The Psylli, a people of Africa, who live altogether upon venomous aliment, are said to suck out poison from persons infected, without any injury to themselves. (Sir KENELM DIGBY.) The vegetable poisons, like the animal ones, produce more sudden and dangerous effects, when instilled into a wound, than when taken into the stomach; whence the families of Marsi and Psilli, in antient Rome, sucked the poison without injury out of wounds made by vipers, and were supposed to be endued with supernatural powers for this purpose. By the experiments related by Beccaria, it appears that four or five times the quantity, taken by the mouth, had about equal effects with that infused into a wound.