there did grace much more abound. || part of the burdensome work of their See MOSES, Exod. v. and xiv. and xvi. and xxi. Psal. lxxviii. and cvi. MURRAIN; a kind of pestilence that killed a great many of the Egyptian cattle, Exod. ix. 3. Psal. Ixxviii. 50. MUSE; to think; to consider, Psal. cxliii. 5. charge, by the tabernacle and ark being fixed in a place, David, before his death, distributed the 4000 sacred singers into 24 classes, who should serve at the temple in their turns. The three chief musicians were Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun. The four sons of Asaph, six of Jeduthun, and 14 of Heman, were constituted the chiefs of the 24 classes. It is proba ble, that they all, or most of them, attended at the solemn festivals. They were thus arranged: the Gershonites on the south of the brazen altar; the Merarites on the north; and the Kohathites between them, possibly on the east and west of it, 1 Chron. xxv. The Jews, or their singers, were mocked with their sacred songs at Babylon, Psal. cxxxvii. 2. Two hundred singing men and women return with Zerubbabel, Ezra ii. 65. From the Heathens the Jews adopted music into their funeral rites, Matth. ix. 23. Their NEGINOTH, or stringed instruments were the psaltery and harp; to which may perhaps be added, the shes minith, shushan, or shushanim, and the alamoth, and dulcimer, and sackbut : and the HEHILOTH, or wind instruments, were the organ, cornet, flute, pipe, and trumpet: their DRUM instruments were timbrels, cymbals, and bells.* MUSIC, is of a very ancient origin. Tubal, a descendant of Cain, long before the flood, taught men to play on the harp and organ. Laban complained that Jacob deprived him of an opportunity of sending off his daughters with music, Gen. iv. 21. and xxxi. 27. The ancient Hebrews had a very great taste for music: when they had passed the Red sea, both men and women sung their respective hymns to the praise of God, their miraculous deliverer, Exod. xv. Silver trumpets were divinely ordered from the Chaldean captivity along ed to be made for sounding over their sacrifices, especially at solemn feasts, Numb. x. With music Jephthah's daughter welcomed him home from his victory, Judg. xi. 35; and with music the Hebrew women welcomed David back from the slaughter of Goliath, 1 Sam. xviii. 6. David himself was an excellent musician, and it seems had plenty of singing men and singing women in his court, 1 Sam. xvi. and 2 Sam. vi. and xix. 21. Solomon had them perhaps in far greater number, Eccl. ii. 8. In the time of Jeroboam the son of Joash, the Israelites valued themselves upon * In Luke xv. 24. musick and dancing inventing new musical instruments, are said to have been a part of the enter Amos vi. 5. At his idolatrous festi-tainment on the joyful occasion of the proval, Nebuchadnezzar had a large concert of music; and music was the ordinary recreation of the Median king, Dan. iii. and vi. 18. The temple-music makes the chief figure in scripture. David, in his own time, composed a variety of pslams, and caused his skilful players set them to music, as appears by their inscriptions to Jeduthun, Asaph, or the sons of Korah, Chron. xv. and xvi. As now the Levites were eased of a great digal's return to his father. This expression, however, does not denote the dancing of the family and guests, but that of a company of persons hired for that very purpose. Major Rooke, in his travels from India through Arabia Felix, relates an occurance, which will illustrate this part of the parable. " Hadje Cassim," says he, "who is a Turk, and one of the richest merchants in Cairo, had interceded on my behalf with Ibraham Bey, at the instance of his son, who had been on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and came in the same ship with me. The father in celebration of his son's MUSTER; to array, to put an MUST, denotes that a thing is necessary, either as an event to be ful-army into proper rank and order, 2 filled for answering the predictions, purposes, or ends of God, Acts i. 16. John iii. 7. Matth. xviii. 7. Rev. xx. 3; or as a duty to be done, 2 Tim. ii. 6. Kings xxv. 19. The Lord mustereth the host; by his providence he collects, and ranks into order, the armies which execute his vengeance, Isa. xiii. 4. MUTTER; to speak softly. It seems wizards muttered and peeped to their familiar spirits, Isa. viii. 19. MUTUAL; belonging to both parties, Rom. i. 12. MUZZLE; to put any thing in or on the mouth of a beast, to restrain it from eating, Deut. xxv. 4. MYRA; a city of Lycia, where Paul embarked in an Alexandrian MUSTARD; a plant whose flower consists of four leaves, and is formed like a cross. The pistil arises from the cup, and finally becomes a long pod, divided by an intermediate membrane, into two cells containing roundish seeds. The pod also usually terminates in a fungose horn, with some seeds in it. There are 11 or 12 kinds of mustard. The seeds are of a hot, sharp, and biting taste. The mus-ship bound for Rome, Acts xxvii. 5. tard in Canaan grew much larger than ours. The Jewish Talmud mentions a stalk of it that was sufficient to bear a man climbing up on it, and another whose principal branch bore three barrels of mustard seed. Our Saviour represents its stem as growing to the height of a tree, sufficient to lodge birds among its branches. The kingdom of heaven is compared to it, to represent what is the small beginning, and yet the wonderful increase of the gospel church, and of the work of grace in men's hearts, Matth. xiii. 31.* return, gave a most magnificent fete on the evening of the day of my captivity, and as soon as I was released, sent to invite me to partake of it, and I accordingly went. His company was very numerous, consisting of three or four hundred Turks, who were all setting on sophas and benches smoking their long pipes. The room, in which they were assembled, was a spacious and lofty hall, in the centre of which was a band of musick, composed of five Turkish instruments and some vocal performers: as there were no ladies in the assembly, you may suppose it was not the most lively party in the world, but being new to me, was for that reason entertaining." Burder's Oriental Customs. A grain of mustard seed-is the least of all seeds. This expression will not seem strange, says Sir Thomas Browne, if we Whether he founded a church here, we are uncertain; but from the fourth to the ninth century, when the Saracens seized it, there were bishops in this place. MYRRH; a kind of gum issuing from the trunk and larger branches of the myrrh-tree, which is common in Arabia, Egypt, and Abyssinia. Sometimes it issues spontaneously; but chiefly flows out by means of incision. The incisions are made twice a-year, and the gum or rosin is received on rush mats spread below. It comes to Europe in loose grains, from the size of a pepper-corn to that of a walnut, but mostly about the size of pease or horsebeans, and but seldom roundish. Myrrh is of a reddish brown colour, with somewhat of a mixture of yellow. It is dissolvable in common water, recollect, that the mustard seed, though it be not simply and in itself the smallest of seeds, yet may be very well believed to be the smallest of such as are apt to grow into a ligneous substance, and become a kind of tree. Besides, the parable may not be grounded upon generals, that apply to any or every grain of mustard, but may point at such a peculiar grain as from its fertile spirit, and other concurrent advantages, has the success to become arboreous.Like a grain of mustard seed was then be. come proverbial for expressing a small quantity. and its purest pieces are somewhat || tle-trees, with a man among them, iii. 16. Eph. v. 32. They are the 4 |