function is far more pleasant than to regard them as referring only to foreign people and communities with whom we have no personal concern. The man is a gainer, at all events, who sees himself in the nation that is to be solaced and enriched; he is a gainer, at the same time when, seeing himself in it, he learns that God is not to be trifled with. There is no objection to the connecting of certain prophecies, etc., with certain nations, if by so doing any practical good is to be got out of it. But I have yet to learn why I should leave all the promises of restoration as a perquisite to "the Jews;" and I have yet to learn that I shall realize the solemn as well as sweet personal use which Scripture universally is intended to serve, by handing over the "curses" and the ugly words to the particular creed or ism I do not happen to belong to.

Thus regarded, the place held in Scripture by the vine would seem to be accounted for. The allegories, the parables, the prophecies, must assuredly have Truth and its vicissitudes for their pivot; and as formulas of this nature can only be established upon the basis of an original harmony between the objective and the spiritual, they appear to declare sufficiently what the vine has been appointed to signify in the language of nature. No other plant is known to exist which would at all points serve so fittingly for the purposes to which it is figuratively applied. It cannot have been by accident either that the Hebrews dwelt in "a land of vines," where the spiritual lessons of which their country was to become the scene had so plentiful a supply of the living symbol.

The history of the vine, like that of the fig, is lost upon the horizon of the remotest past. The oldest literature in the world, and the oldest monuments in the world, alike deal with it as something long since familiar, an inheritance from days yet older. Among the drawings upon the walls of the tombs in ancient Egypt are representatives of every circumstance connected with its culture, which was evidently conducted with the greatest care; the treading of the grapes is also pictured, and the storing of the wine in jars. Homer, when he bestows epithets upon cities of renown, and wishes to make them appear enviable and joyous, employs the epithets àμeλóes and Toλvσrápidos, literally, "rich-in-vines" and "possessed of many πολυστάφυλος, clusters of grapes;" the same poet introduces the vine upon the shield of Achilles; and in every other classic author we find some allusion that declares the primeval fame. In Scripture, although the first tree man made useful to himself was the fig, and although the

first that appeared in sight after the subsidence of the waters was the olive, the first that was planted with a view to consuming the produce was the vine. Noah seems to have come direct, as it were, from the sublime covenant of the rainbow, when he " began to be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard." That the birth-place of a plant so venerable should long have been inquired for, and that many countries should have been honoured with it, no one feeling certain, is another illustration of the profound antiquity of man's acquaintance with it. Men have always been fond of assigning special localities to events and beginnings they regard with admiration. Hence, after many conjectures, it came to be believed that the birth-place so interesting to establish was the hilly district on the southern borders of the Caspian Sea, in latitude 37°. But it is now tolerably well determined that the vine was in all likelihood wild originally throughout the tract which stretches from the hills in question to the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and eastwards through Khorassan and Cabul, to the base of the Himalayahs. At the present day, in the Caucasus of Cashmere, it climbs to the tops of the tallest trees. That the seemingly wild vines now existing in those regions are the absolute descendants or posterity of the primeval plants does not by any means follow. It is quite as likely that the original form of the vine may have become extinct, and that the present so-called wild vines are waifs of cultivation, just as by the waysides, and in other refuges for the destitute in our own country, there may constantly be found relics of ancient orchards and ancient agriculture. It would seem to have been this outcast vine which the Greeks intended in their aurelos dȧypia, and the Romans in their Labrusca, and the flowers of which, by the Greeks called oiváren, were gathered and dried for use as a flavouring agent, with regard particularly to honey and oil. Unhappily, in modern times, the name of Labrusca has been given to a North American species of Vitis, of course in no way really meriting the appellation, and with the inevitable consequence of confusion.

When, in 2 Kings iv. 39, we have mention of "a wild vine," and when, in Isaiah v. 2, 4, we have the expression "wild grapes," there seems at first sight an indication that the genuine Vitis vinifera was indigenous to the Holy Land, existing there just as wild raspberries and wild currants do in England, where the Rubus Idæus and the Ribes rubrum are occupants not only of the gardens but of the woods and hedgerows. But the allusions in question involve no reference

whatever to the grape-vine; they apply to totally different things, and that the words stand as they do in the A. V. is a great pity. "Vine" is merely a form of the word "bine," the substantive of the verb "to bind," and applies to any plant whatever, of any class or order, that is of limp and climbing habit, whether it mount, like the hop, by spiral twisting of the stems; or by means of the "little strong embrace of tendrils, as in the bryony; or by means of palmate suckers, as in the Virginian creeper. In North America "bine" always has this sense, and in England we acknowledge it in "bindweed" and "woodbine." In Kent and Worcestershire the people speak of the "bines" of the hops. The grape-producing plant is properly the "grape-vine," and it is simply because this last is the vine. par excellence that in England the appellation of vine has become limited or absolute. The Hebrews had a term which was precisely equivalent, namely, gephen, the complete name of the grape-vine being gephen-hay-yayin. In 1 Kings iv. 39, however, the expression is gephen-sadeh, and this, as we shall see by and by, denotes the colocynth-vine-a very different thing from a wild Vitis vinifera. Gephensadeh is probably the same as gephen-sedom, the "vine of Sodom" of Deut. xxxii. 32, as will also be noticed in due course. As for the "wild grapes" of Isaiah v. 2, 4, the word in the Hebrew, so far from being that which denotes the fruit of the Vitis vinifera, in any state or condition, is beushim, the plural of besha, which in Job xxxi. 40 is by the A. V. translated "cockle." "Let choach grow instead of wheat, and besha instead of barley." There is no direct evidence, but the allusion is probably to the fruit of the Solanum nigrum, or common garden nightshade, a disagreeable cosmopolitan weed, the black berries of which are sufficiently like wretched grapes to give point to the comparison. In colour and form they are almost identical with the Uve Corinthiacæ, those celebrated little grapes which, when dried, become the "currants" we import from the Morea.

In Egypt, though the cultivation was so ancient, the vine, as in Palestine, was almost certainly an introduced or exotic plant, and the culture, though wide, was by no means universal. In the portions of the country which were then, as now, overflowed annually by the Nile, it was probably seen but seldom, or not at all. The districts devoted to it were those which still constitute Egypt proper, or the long green strip of land which forms the valley of that famous river, and in these probably it was co-extensive with the national power. That the vine was familiar to the people of Egypt generally, may be

concluded from the narrative in Genesis xl., when Pharaoh's chief butler saw in vision "a vine with three branches," Joseph acting as interpreter of the dream. Whether the grapes were as fine and good we have now no means of ascertaining; it would seem that they were inferior to those of Palestine; and the bunches of fruit would appear to have been smaller, for when the spies who visited Eshcol carried back specimens of the products of the Promised Land, the cluster of grapes was borne "on a staff between two." Here, however, we must

be careful not to suppose more than is really meant. There is no need to exaggerate in the way that has often been done in pictures. We are not told that the famous bunch actually required for its conveyance the physical strength of the two men who bore it homewards. They slung it, in all likelihood, not because of its weight, but to prevent damage and bruising, simply anticipating the precautions of exhibitors at modern fruit-shows. That Eshcol produced bunches of immense size is no doubt true. And that Syria in general excelled Egypt in regard to its grapes may be inferred perhaps from the classical writers, who praise the fruit of Sarepta, Libanus, Ascalon, and Tyre. Geographically, Eshcol is arrived at soon after leaving Hebron for Jerusalem. To-day the vine has in Palestine, as in Persia, the look of an aboriginal. Upon Hermon "young vine-shoots depend from every rock, and climb up the rough stone-heaps."

(To be continued.)

SHORT LESSONS FOR SIMPLE MINDS.-No. VI.

Psalm cxxii. 1.

DAVID, in this psalm, expresses the joy which we should all feel at entering the house of the Lord. The appointment of one day out of seven, in which we may rest, after six days of toil, is an invaluable blessing to our weary minds and bodies. The cares and troubles which have harassed us through the week are put aside, and the joyful privilege of worshipping Him from whom proceed all our worldly comforts, as well as all our spiritual blessings, is granted to us. It is then that we can sit down and read those loving words, "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." How sweet the thought of rest is, especially when we turn our attention to our own hearts, and find that from them had proceeded so many of the anxieties and troubles which the past week

had brought us. We had not committed our way unto the Lord as we should have done. Instead of trying to remember that His watchful eye is always over us, and that He is only waiting for us to pray for His guidance that He may grant it, we have hurried through our day's work, satisfied with having perhaps asked Him, in a careless way, to be with us through the day, and defend and protect us, but not having endeavoured to realise the answer to our prayer, by waiting upon Him in our hearts, "lifting them up to the Lord," as the Psalmist expresses it, and letting Him fill them with that knowledge and love of goodness and truth which we required for the right performance of our duties.

Thoughts such as these, and others equally important, are brought before our minds when we "enter the house of the Lord" in a right spirit. But it is evident from the succeeding verses that not merely the building, which we are accustomed to call "the Lord's house," is meant, but the Church which makes that building what it is. That must first find its place in our hearts. In answer to the question, Isaiah lxvi. 1, 2, "Where is the place of my rest?" the Lord answers, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word." To feel that we have nothing but sin that we can call our own, is to be poor indeed, and such a conviction must bring with it a contrite spirit. A feeling how unspeakably small the return we have made for the innumerable blessings we have received may well work in us true contrition for our past sins, and a trembling at the judgments which are denounced in God's Word upon the rebellious and impenitent. But to those who thus tremble, the Lord promises that He "will appear to their joy," and in speaking of Jerusalem, that Church which must dwell in every Christian, and be at the same time their dwelling-place, He says, "I will extend peace to her like a river." Let it be our resolve, then, that our feet shall stand within the gates of Jerusalem." We have before considered the signification of the feet in the regenerate life. "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." The gates of any city are outside of it, so the gates of Jerusalem are those truths which relate to the outward life; if we obey them, our feet are within the boundary line of the Church, and as it is one with the New Jerusalem which descended out of heaven from God, "there shall in nowise enter into it anything that defileth, neither worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." M.