universe, find their continued cause in the existence of the other. The spiritual and natural universes, therefore, are co-existent.

Such is the first great truth which a legitimate extension of the principle of continuity teaches to those who can hear it, and ratifies to those already believing it-the existence of a spiritual universe. This is the last step which, according to Professors B. Stewart and P. G. Tait, modern science, to complete herself, ought to have taken, but which she failed to take, returning into herself and becoming essentially materialistic-a mere salt pillar, in fact, instead of a redeemed, glorified woman.

(2.) We must pass to a second extension of continuity in the same direction, that of causes. If continuity is physical only, what of the existence of God? Our position is, that as a first extension led us to a spiritual universe, a further extension leads us to God.

We start now with the existence of a spiritual universe, and ask to what it leads us. Some of you may unthinkingly answer, " To another spiritual universe;" but would not that answer be as much beside the mark as the materialist's, who thinks continuity satisfied by a succession of material universes? Consider now that what we have reached is not a universe of effects but the universe of causes, and must you not reflect that that fact throws a flood of light on the matter? If we have actually reached the universe of causes, would it not be self-stultifying to go searching again for causes, for further causes other than a first? Clearly there can be no further causes to find other than a first. Why then the need for ultimately landing in a first? Because continuity demands that having reached causes, and being logically unable to go further in that direction, these causes shall be gathered up and traced to one common origin or source; such common origin is necessarily the true Beginning or Primal Being. But why must these causes be gathered up into one origin? For the plain reason that if they were not so existence would stop short in a meaningless jag of loose and broken ends, and continuity would hang suspended in mid-air, like a caterpillar swinging its head from a leaf, and seeking in vain to cross the space to the next. Continuity can only be satisfied when the essential unity of the causes is made known, and when they are finally resolved into One Eternal Primal Being, the source of, and possessing, those powers of Will and Reason manifested in the universe produced by Him.

But if we have thus to come at length to a First Cause, why might He not produce the material universe directly without a spiritual

H

universe between? Pardoning the circular logic for the sake of the truth, I answer, Because a source of power can only effect results by specializing its activities, and the specialized activities of the Primal Power constitute the universe of causes. Without such specialized causes then, or spiritual universe, no material universe could result.

In brief, let us see the relation of the whole. Continuity demands a causal universe, the antecedent and co-existent of the material; but a universe of causes cannot itself be derived from another universe, for that would be causes producing themselves, and continuity demands the mutual relation of these in a common origin or being, the First or Supreme, of which power they are but the various specialized forms or expressions. And here continuity leaves the mind, which cannot but seek a Primal Cause, satisfied at length in the satisfaction of its deepest needs, spiritual and rational.

The question here discussed has been differently answered by two authorities. Herbert Spencer declares the cause of this material universe to be the Primal Cause; the Professors already named declare it to be an unseen universe. Why this difference? The Professors seek the immediate logical issue of continuity, find it in an unseen universe, and push their conclusions no further. Spencer is only content with the last or ultimate answer of the mind, and cares for nothing between. Both are right; and their statements are harmonized in the one I have now given you.

We conclude our talk at this point for the present. Other questions will engage us, but none so abstract and patience-craving as these. If of this you are glad, I confess freely that I am not sorry.

THOMAS CHILD.

SCRIPTURE BOTANY.

(LEO GRINDON.)

THE HYSSOP.

Hyssop is an abridgment of the Latin Hyssopus, which word represents the Greek voowTos, and was copied therefrom; the Greek one coming in turn from the Hebrew ésób, after the manner of many other Oriental names of natural objects. What plant êsôb originally denoted has been, however, from the earliest times, a matter of uncertainty, not to say of dispute. The attributes and characteristics connected with it in Scripture, partly in the Old Testament, partly in the New, so far

There is no

from being apparent in any particular species, seem to indicate very plainly that the allusions are to two different things. reason why the name should not have been borne by two different plants; contrariwise there are good reasons for believing in a dual signification. For convenience sake this may at all events be assumed, and when all that bears on the question has been brought to the front, the student can form his own independent opinion. The attributes may be grouped under the respective heads of the Mosaic hyssop and Solomon's hyssop.

(1.) The Mosaic hyssop (Origanum sp., Nat. Ord. Labiata).

The first mention of the êsôb occurs in Exodus xii. 22, where it is directed that, as one of the preliminaries to the passover, a bunch of the plant so called shall be dipped in the blood of the paschal lamb, and the lintels of the Israelites' houses then be struck with it. "Ye shall take a bunch of êsôb, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side-posts with the blood." Secondly, in Lev. xiv. 4-7, it is mentioned in connection with certain ceremonies of cleansing and purification appointed with regard to lepers— "Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and êsôb. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water. As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the êsôb, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water: and he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field." In nearly the same terms the priest is further instructed to employ the cedar wood, the êsôb, and the scarlet, when about to sprinkle the blood on the lepers' houses. Thirdly, we have êsôb mentioned in Numbers xix., in connection with the ordinances of purification after touching a dead body. In some convenient spot beyond the boundaries of the encampment (the scene being the wilderness, and the period that of the wanderings) the carcase of a red heifer was to be burned, and while in course of being consumed, cedar wood, and êsôb, and scarlet were to be cast into the fire. The ashes, placed in water from a running stream, constituted it "water of separation," and this being sprinkled on the unclean person, his uncleanness was "separated" from him. A supply of these ashes was always kept in store, but always" without" or beyond the boundaries of the encampment. In

what way the three articles were combined there is no evidence to show. A rod of the so-called cedar wood, whatever it was, probably served as the foundation, the plant and the scarlet thread being attached to it, the one perhaps by means of the other.

Obviously it is in reference to these remarkable injunctions, and the spiritual ideas of which the ceremonies were representative, that David exclaims, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean" (Ps. li. 7), and that St. Paul says, in Heb. ix. 19, "For when Moses had spoken .. he took... hyssop and sprinkled the people." It is satisfactory to receive the proof which the apostle here supplies of the identity of the Greek word voowTos and the Hebrew ésôb. Whether St. Paul had a distinct botanical idea of the plant intended by Moses may nevertheless be questioned. He simply cited a fact which he found recorded in sacred history, and adopted voowos from the Septuagint, which for its own part had been satisfied with copying the Hebrew a very different thing from translating.

In the most solemn narrative ever written we again have this word лσшπоs. St. John, in his account of the Crucifixion, says, "After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. And there was set a vessel full of vinegar; and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth" (xix. 28, 29). The "vinegar" was probably the common wine which constituted part of the daily rations of the Roman soldiery. This thin, sour wine, the drink of the poorer classes of the inhabitants of ancient Palestine, is called "vinegar" also in the Book of Ruth, ii. 14, and elsewhere.

A plant that shall serve the purpose of an aspergillus, as employed in the Levitical ceremonies, must needs be twiggy and leafy, and more or less downy and hairy, so as to catch up fluid readily and to allow of its easy dislodgment. That a plant which possessed aromatic qualities in addition, and which would thus be considered more or less sanative and medicinal, would be the most likely to be selected for dedication to the sacred purposes of cleansing and purifying, is extremely probable; and on these two grounds it may be considered quite likely that the Mosaic êsôb was an aromatic labiate,—such a one as the plant which bears the name of hyssop at the present day, the Hyssopus officinalis of botanists. But that this particular labiate, the hyssop of modern botany, was the êsôb of the Hebrews, there is no ground for supposing. The Hyssopus officinalis belongs emphatically to Europe, and though extending into the region of the Caucasus, does

not occur so far south-east as the region of Palestine, much less in the peninsula of Sinai.1 To the Hebrews it was probably quite unknown, since it was Asia which sent plants westward, and not Europe which in the early days sent plants eastward.

Looking for such light as may be thrown upon the matter by the ancient classical writers, in Dioscorides, A.D. 60, we find the name of vσowTos applied to two species of the labiate family; and if there could be any certainty that either of them coincided with the voσwTOS of the Septuagint and of St Paul, perhaps it might be allowed to be the same also as the êsôb of the Mosaic ritual. The likeliest of Dioscorides two kinds of ύσσωπος is the one he terms the ὀρεινη, which was a species of the genus called by modern botanists Origanum. Several of this genus are indigenous to South-western Asia. The general complexion of the plants is well set forth in the common garden marjoram; also in that beautiful ruby-tinted English wildflower, the Origanum vulgare, only that the eastern plants are much more downy than either of the familiar ones.

Some degree of significance may perhaps pertain to the fact that one of these pretty and scented Origanums appears in classical fable as a plant famed for its miraculous powers of healing. There is no need to suppose direct derivation of the belief from a Hebrew source; it may have come through some wandering tradition. Cicero, in his treatise on the nature of the gods, speaks of the care taken by brute creatures, under the guidance of their divinely-implanted instinct, to protect themselves from injury, their circumspection while feeding, and their resources when hurt. "In Crete," he tells us, "the wild goats, when wounded by poisoned arrows, seek an herb called dictamnus, after tasting which, the arrows drop from their bodies." 2 Virgil takes up the story when describing the grievous condition of Eneas, wounded on the field of battle, and unable to extract the arrow. Iapyx, his physician, is preparing a fomentation, when Venus, the hero's parent-goddess, "deeply affected by the undeserved suffering of her son, crops from Cretan Ida a stalk of dittany, with downy leaves, and dressed with purple flowers." This being placed in the bowl of medicine, confers on it a divinely-magical power, and now the wound, on being fomented, immediately heals. That these curious pagan stories had a purely pagan origin is incredible. So much that

1 See Bentham's Labiata, p. 356; Lecoq's Etudes sur la Geographie Botanique

de l'Europe, etc.; Nyman's Sylloge Flora Europœ.

2 Lib. ii., near the end. For further particulars, see Pliny, lib. xiv. cap. 8.