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or twenty feet, with a perfectly straight tapering stem, which is smooth and polished, of a bright ash color, resembling leaf silver. Its top, formed of very large lobe-sinuate leaves, is perfectly spherical. Its ripe and green fruit, of the size, and in the form, of a pear, are beautifully arranged round about the stem or trunk, from the lowermost leaves, where the ripe fruit are, and upwards almost to the top. It is always green, ornamented at once with flowers and fruit, which like figs come out singly from the trunk or stem. It is certainly the most beautiful of vegetable productions.

BARTRAM'S Trav. pp. 113, 127.

4088. [Jer. x. 9.] Spain was the antient country of silver; and thence it is probable that the Phenicians drew their silver at and before the time of Moses. Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. iii. p. 480.

4089. [Jer. xi. 12.] The Mexicans had their chief Priest, whose habit was a crown of rich feathers on his head, pendants of gold, with green stones at his ears, and under his lip an azure stone: The priests' office was to burn incense before their idol every morning, noontide, evening, and at midnight, for then with trumpets and cornets they sounded a long time, which done, they burned the incense in censers with great reverence; and on festival days they preached to the people. The revenues of the priests were great; the temples, in state, magnificence, and wealth, exceeded ours. The priests were all anointed, and wore their hair long, for they never cut it.

See Exod. xxx. 7, 8.

ALEXR. ROSS' View of all Religions, p. 72.

4090. [ 16.] Trees were the temples of deities; and, according to antient custom, the simple country-folk, even at this day, dedicate some prime tree to God (also to Liberty).

PLINY, Nat. Hist. xii. 1. See also DIODO

RUS Siculus, xv. 50. QUINTUS CURTIUS, iv. 7. and the 17th Book of STRABO'S Geography.

4191. [Jer. xii. 9.] My heritage is to me as the ravenous hyena. The ravenous beasts are round about it. See Essay for a New Translation, part ii. p. 54.

4092. [Jer. xiii. 23.] It is incontrovertible, that by the term Ethiopians, the Antients meant to represent a people of black complexion, thick lips, and woolly hair. Yet these, however degraded now in the idea of Europeans, were, if we may believe antient Authors, the first learned nation. "The Ethiopians conceive themselves," says DIODORUS, Lib. iii, "to be of greater antiquity than any other nation and it is probable that, born under the sun's path, its warmth may have ripened them earlier than other men. They suppose themselves also to be the inventors of divine worship, of festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and every other religious practice. They affirm that the Egyptians are one of their colonies, and that the Delta, which was formerly sea, became land by the conglomaration of the earth of the higher country, which was washed down by the Nile. They have, like the Egyptians, two species of letters, hieroglyphics and the alphabet; but among the Egyptians the first was known only to the priests, and by them transmitted from father to son, whereas both species are common among the EthiopiAgain: "The Ethiopians," says LUCIAN, p. 985, were the first who invented the science of the stars, and gave names to the planets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptive of the qualities which they conceived them to possess; and it was from them that this art passed, still in an imperfect state, to the Egyptians." VOLNEY professes to entertain a similar opinion, founded upon the black complexion of the Sphinx, and the antique images of Thebais, which, it seems, have all the same characteristic. And Mr. BRUCE has offered a multitude of analogous facts.

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4094.

Professor KANT of Konigsberg.

As the scales of our body lying over each other, so as to be three deep, are the cause of the skin appearing white; for diaphanous particles laid upon each other, and not too close, make a white; for which reason we see that paper, spittle, beaten glass, and snow, are white: so the scales of our mouth, larger than those on the body, but thinner, and lying but a little over the sides of each other, suffer the redness (or blackness) of the flesh and blood to appear through them, and for this cause the lips and mouth are red (in whites, but black in negroes).

Phil. Trans. R. S. vol. iii. p. 43.

These scales on the body I judged (says LEUWENHOEK) so minute, that a sand might cover 200 or more of them. They lay one over another as those of fish: they were fivesided, and I could plainly perceive a border or line about them. I guessed they were about 25 times broader than thick; they lay three double, for there was not above one-third of each visible. The scales of fish lie after the same manner, only they never shed their scales, and our skin peels often, sometimes 1000 scales and more, together in a flake. Phil. Trans. R. S. vol. iii. p. 504.

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absorbs the rays of light, is thought to be the cause of their blackness.

TELLIAMED, p. 255.

The brute (or untilled) soil of the earth, in general, is white to the North, and dark-coloured to the South, in order to reflect the heat in the first case, and to absorb it in the second. St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. ii. p. 194.

4099. [Jer. xiii. 23.] The descendants of Europeans settled in India assume the black tint after the lapse of some generations. This is evidently perceptible in the posterity of the Moguls; tribes derived from the extremity of Asia, whose name signifies Whites, and who are at this day as black as the uations which they have conquered. (St. PIERRE'S Studies of Nature, vol. i. p. 288.) — When first born, their color differs but little from ours.

They acquire their jetty hue gradually, on being exposed to the air and sun; as in the vegetable creation the tender blade, en first peeping above ground, turns from white to a pale greenish color, and afterwards to a deeper green. WELD's Travels in N. America, vol. ii.

4100.

pp. 225, 226.

The child of a negro or Maur (not of the long-, straight-haired American Indian), by a white woman or European, is born black, and vice versa.

SWEDENBORG, on Divine Providence, n. 277.

The American Indians look on a Negro as an animal inferior to the human species. It would not be possible to affront an Indian more, than by telling him that he resembles a negro; or that he has negro blood in his veins.

4101.

WELD'S Travels in N. America, vol. ii. p. 274.

In the year 1814, was living in the neighbourhood of Highgate a married woman, aged 35, the whole of whose body, except the face, was exactly divided by a straight line into white and black. The right side, arm, and leg were black, and subject to eruptions; and the left side, arm, and leg, altogether white: this distinction luckily terminated at the neck, which, with her face, was white. She had then two children, who possessed none of her peculiarities.

Month. Mag. for July 1814, p. 495.

4102. [Jer. xiii. 23.] A man's peculiarity of character and constitution is never destroyed. His hereditary propensities are, however, softened and shaded by what is good and true from the Lord, as black with white. These opposite colors are indeed variously at opered by the rays of light,

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4109. [Jer. xix. 9. And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege &c.] That is, they shall feed on that milk, forced from the breasts of males and females, which, if left in the breasts, would turn into the real flesh of its producers. See No. 2255, 2413.

4110. [Jer. xx. 2.] A stocks with five holes, through two of which the feet, through other two the hands, and through the fifth the head, of the prisoner was put, and kept in this unnatural position, which must have proved a torture truly insupportable.

See Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. iii. p. 443. In China, the Kan-ghe, or wooden ruff, used in punishing theft, is a kind of portable pillory, consisting of two pieces of wood, hollowed in the middle, so as to fit the neck of the offender, and of such a breadth, that the wearer can neither see his own feet, nor put his hand to his mouth; so that he must be beholden to some other person for his food. It is made heavier or lighter, according to the nature of the crime, or the favor of the mandarin: the lightest are about 40 or 50, and some of them even 200, pounds weight, and so troublesome and grievous to the person, that many of them, through pain, hunger, want of sleep, &c. die under it. — The place where the offender is condemned to wear it, is commonly at the gate of some temple, some public square, or such parts of the city as are most frequented. See Gen. xl. 19.

Modern Univer. Hist. vol. viii. p. 174.

4111. [Jer. xxi. 7.] See No. 819.

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4114. [Jer. xxiii. 23, 24.] All the fallacies, which prevail with the wicked and with the simple, arise from appearances confirmed. The heavens appear distinct from each other the highest or third, above the second; and this, above the first. They are not really distant one from another; yet they appear so. The Lord being equally present with those of the lowest heaven, as with those in the third or highest ; that which causes the appearance of distance is in the subjects, the angels: pot in the Lord. SWEDENBORG, on Divine Love, nn. 108, 110.

vene were called Habesh, a number of district nations meeting in one place, Scripture has given them a name which, though it has been ill translated, is precisely Convenæ, both in the Ethiopic and Hebrew. They were convened, yet separate nations, who, though met and settled together, did not mingle. The inhabitants then who possessed Abyssinia, from its southern boundary to the tropic of Cancer, or frontiers of Egypt, were the Cushites, or polished people living in towns, first Troglodytes, having their habitations in caves. The next were the shepherds; after these were the nations who, as we apprehend, came from Palestine -Amhara, Agow of Damot, Agow of Tehèra, and BRUCE'S Trav. vol. ii. p. 404.

Gafat.

-4115. [Jer. xxv. 1.] Though the fourth year of Jehoiakim, when Nebuchadnezzar was by his father taken into partnership of the empire, is here accounted the first year of his reign; yet according to the Babylonian computation his reign is not reckoned to begin tili his father's death, which happened two years after. As both these computations are found in should observe further, that the Chaldean Scripture, we astronomers counted the reigns of their kings by the years of Nabonassar, beginning with the month Thoth; while the Jews counted the reigns of their kings by the years of Moses, beginning with the month Nisan; so that if any king began his reign but a few days before the first of the month Nisan, those few days were reckoned a whole year, and the beginning of this month was accounted the beginning of his second year.

4116. [

See Sir ISAAC NEWTON's Chron. p. 296.

10.] When the fruit of the cinnamon-tree

is boiled in water, it diffuses an oil, which coagulates, and grows hard like tallow, by slow degrees as the water cools. The candles which are made of this oil are so exceedingly white and beautiful, that the natives of Ceylon reserve them for the king's use.

Nat. Delin. vol. i. p. 284.

The natives of Guzerat never barn candles, and in the inland districts, where the cocoa-nut does not thrive, large tracts are set apart for the seeds from which they extract oil : those in the greatest esteem are the gingeli or sesamum; and the erinda ricinus Palma-christi. - The consumption of vegetable oils for many millions of lamps which are lighted every night, for anointing the body, for culinary purposes, and religious ceremonies, is very great throughout the whole of India, where, says FORBES, I believe animal oil is never used.

Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 407.

4117. [20. All the mingled people] These Con

4118. [Jer. xxix. 18.] The Jews, from the peculiarity of their laws and civil polity, could in their own country be kept in subordination by no foreign power; they were therefore, every time they were conquered, necessarily removed or transplanted by their enemies. For a similar reason, in the year 796, Charlemagne transplanted the Saxons from their own country, to oblige them to remain faithful to him, into different parts of his kingdom, either Flanders or the country of the Helvetians. Their own country was repeopled by the Adrites, a Selavonian nation. (See KENAULT abrege Chronol, de l' Histoire de France, tom. i. p. 65.) — Aud it was the policy of Abbas the First, who ascended the throne of Persia in 1585, to transplant the inhabitants of conquered places from one country to another, with a view not only to prevent any danger from their disaffection, but likewise of depopulating the countries exposed to an enemy. HANWAY'S Revolutions of Persia, 164.

vol. iii.

p.

4119. [Jer. xxxi. 15.] It hence appears, that, as Jacob's Church where he officiated had been called after the name of his wife Rachel in her life time, its name continued after her decease when this lamentation and weeping took place in the congregation for the imagined loss of Rachel's chilIn the dren, Joseph and Benjamin; see Gen. xlii. 36. same way as certain Churches in our day, dedicated to St. Anne or St. Mary, retain the name under every successive change of Minister and congregation.

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4121. [Jer. xxxi. 27.] The natural mind, or animal nature within us, is by Heathen philosophers branded with such names as - the horse, because it is headstrong and runs away with the man, or rather with the spirit which ought to have the governing of the reins; the beast in us, because the animal or sensitive soul is supposed common to us with brutes; the woman or child in us, because the passions and affections of women and children are commonly stronger, and their reason weaker than in men.

4122.

Bp. BROWNE'S Procedure of the Understanding, p. 375.

33, 34.] All the great duties of piety and justice are written upon our hearts, and every man feels a secret obligation to them in his own conscience, which checks and restrains him from doing contrary to them, and gives him peace and satisfaction in the discharge of his duty. The general consent of mankind in this apprehension that there is a GOD, must in all reason be ascribed to some more certain and universal cause than fear or tradition or statepolicy; viz. to this, that God himself hath wrought this image of himself upon the mind of man, and SO woven it into the very frame of his being, that (like Phidias's picture in Minerva's shield) it can never totally be defaced, without the ruin of human nature.

See No. 1116.

TILLOTSON.

great and the learned do so. Their letters folded, are an inch in breadth, and the leaves are pasted together at one end. They cannot seal them, for wax is so soft in hot countries, that it cannot retain an impression,

NIEBUHR, vol. ii. p. 261.

4124. [Jer. xxxii. 15.] The identical vineyards shall be possessed again; that is, after the 70 years' captivity.Mr. Miller, in his Gardener's Dictionary, tell us that the vineyards in some parts of Italy will hold good above 300 years, accounting those of 100 years as young vines. Pliny mentions a Vine-tree, that was 600 years old in his time. (See SPEECHLY, on the Vine, p. 248.) — In France, at Cahors, many vineyards are more than two hundred years old. YOUNG'S Travels in France, Pinkerton's Coll. part xvi. p. 442.

4125. [Jer. xxxiii. 13.] Sir JOHN CHARDIN supposes the telling of the flocks was for the purpose of paying tribute, it being the custom in the East to count the flocks, in order to take the third of the increase of young ones for the king. See Harmer, vol. ii. p. 284.

4123. [Jer. xxxii. 14.] Dust, bones, bran, cinders, scraps of earthenware, the hairs of a cow's tail, the seed of the cotton plant; all these things being put into an earthen pot filled to the brim, a man must privately bury on the confines of his own boundary; and there preserve stones also, or bricks, or sea sand any of these three things may be buried by way of landmark of the limits; for all these things, on remaining a long time in the ground, are not liable to rot, or become putrid: any other thing also, which will remain a long time in the ground, without becoming rotten or putrid, may be buried for the same purpose. Those persons who by any of these methods can shew the line of their boundaries, shall acquaint their sons with the respective landmarks of those boundaries; and in the same manner, those sons also shall explain the signs of the limits to their children.

Gentoo Law of boundaries.

After a contract is made, it is kept by the party himself, not the notary; and they cause a copy to be made, signed by the notary alone, which is shewn on proper occasions, and never exhibit the other.

Sir JOHN CHARDIN.

They sign their letters with a sort of cypher, to prevent the possibility of counterfeiting their signature; at least, the

4126. [Jer. xxxiv. 19. All the people of the land passed betweeen the parts of the calf] On these occasions the sacrificial vine branch, value a calf or bull, a lamb or ram, a kid or goat, was split up the middle from the bottom to the top. When those sides had bled or discharged their juice, they were placed parallel; and the covenanting parties, entering at opposite ends, and meeting in the centre, ate and drank together of the sacramental flesh and blood, and thus ratified their mutual engagements.

See No. 1656.

4127. [Jer. xxxv. 5, 6.] These Rechabites were an Arabian family, that had come into Palestine with the Israelites, at least eight hundred years before the time of Jeremiah; and still, it seems, sacredly adhered to the injunction of their ancestor Jonadab, not to drink wine. Now, as Jeremiah lived twelve hundred years before Mahomet gave himself out for a prophet, it is an undeniable consequence, that the custom or precept, that prohibited wine in Arabia, is at least

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