that just before he was put on the cross, that is, when they had brought him to the place of execution, they gave him to drink "wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not." And then after relating the particulars of the crucifixion, informs us, that just before he expired, "they filled a sponge full of vinegar and gave him to drink." (ver. 36.) Thus they twice offered him to drink; the first time, just before he was put on the cross; and the second time, just before he expired: six hours elapsing between the two offers. This second or last offer of a drink, is recorded by Matthew and Mark, as having been presented to him in "a sponge filled with vinegar, and put on a reed." (Matt. xxvii. 48; Mark xv. 36.) Luke does not say in what way the drink was offered to him; but John says 66 they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth." (John, xix. 29.) The elevated position of Christ on the cross, rendered some means of reaching his mouth, necessary. The question then is, how came John so capable of specifying the kind of reed, or that which was attached to the top of the reed, to support the sponge? This we learn by the unpremeditated account John gives us in another part of the chapter, of Christ's speaking to him, (while on the cross,) which necessarily implies, that John must have been close to the cross; which also most satisfactorily accounts for John's being able to recite many particulars of the crucifixion, which the other Apostles were incapable of doing, they having all deserted him and fled. See Hyssop. Piercing.

VOLTAIRE. This notorious infidel endured horrors on his death-bed never to be expressed. His associates have endeavoured to conceal the fact; but the evidence is too strong to be refuted. Like Herod, who was

smitten by an angel whilst receiving undue homage from men; so, immediately after his return from the theatre, in which he had been inhaling the incense of adulation, from a silly populace, he felt that the stroke of death had arrested him. Immediately his friends crowded around him, and his brethren of the Illuminati exhorted him to die like a hero. In spite of their admonitions, he sent for the curé of St. Gervais; and, after confession, signed in the presence of the Abbe Mignot (his nephew) and of the Marquis de Villervielle, (one of the Illuminati,) his recantation of his former principles. After this visit the curé was no more allowed to see him. His former friends having obtained possession of his house, interdicted all access unto him. It has, however, crept out, by means of the nurse who attended him, that he died in unutterable agony of mind. D'Alambert, Diderot, and about twenty others, who beset his apartment, never approached him without receiving some bitter execration. Often he would curse them and exclaim, "Retire! it is you who have brought me to my present state. Be gone! I could have done without you all; but you could not exist without me! And what a wretched glory you have procured me!" He was heard in anguish and in dread, alternately supplicating or blaspheming that God, against whom he had conspired. He would cry out in plaintive accents, "Oh, Christ! Oh, Jesus Christ!" and then complain that he was abandoned by God and man. His physicians, particularly Doctor Tronchin, calling in to administer relief, thunderstruck retired. His associates would, no doubt, willingly have suppressed these facts; but it was in vain. Then Mareschal de Richelieu fled from his bedside, declaring it would be a sight too terrible to be endured; and Doctor Tronchin observed, that the

furies of Orestes could give but a faint idea of those of Voltaire.

The reader will find a full account of this transaction, and of the awfully horrid death of this wretched man, in the Abbé Barmel's History of Jacobinism.

Of this man Cowper writes:

"The Frenchman, first in literary fame,

(Mention him if you please. Voltaire?-the same.)
With spirit, genius, eloquence, supplied,

Lived long, wrote much, laughed heartily, and died;
The scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew
Bon mots to gall the Christian and the Jew;
An infidel in health, but what when sick?
Oh-THEN, a text would touch him to the quick."

W.

WARS. God never sanctioned, much less authorised war, to gratify the ambition, revenge, or pride of man; the great and principal causes, of all human wars. But God made use of the Jews (as His rod), as He does of the elements of nature, to chastise the violators of His authority, and of His laws. He chose the Jews, not because they were better, or greater than other nations: He knew they were a stiff necked people; but because he had favour (mercy) towards them. Moreover, the iniquity of those nations which he destroyed had arrived at such a degree, that the very earth was ready to vomit them forth. Levit. xviii. 1, 2, 3, 4; Deut. vii. 11, 12, ix. 1. 6; Amos iii. 1; Rom. i. 18. 32. Upon the principle of cutting off a diseased limb to save the whole body, the extirpation of those nations for the good of unborn millions, was indispensably necessary. See Cruelties. Jews.

WEEK. The division of time by the ancients, into days, can easily be accounted for, by the diurnal revolution of the earth on its axis-into months, by the course of the moon round the earth-and into years, by the course of the earth round the sun. But what led the Hebrews, the Chinese, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Northern Barbarians, to divide time into weeks? It may safely be replied, no circumstance or appearance in the earth or in the skies, could have induced them to make this arbitrary arrangement! No multiplication of, or division into years, months, or days, into any equal parts, can account for it. The only satisfactory reason for those nations having done so, is, that they acted in obedience to the command of the Creator. (Gen. ii. 2, 3). This is one additional proof of the antiquity of the book of Genesis-of its existence prior to the existence of either Hebrew, Chinese, Greek or Roman, properly so called. See Antiquity. Hindoo.

WHALE. The original word translated "whale," has been also applied to a great fish of the shark kind. And in the Old Testament it is not even called a whale but "a great fish," (Jonah, i. 17.) It is a well attested fact, that many of the shark species, are not only of such a size and form as to be able, without any miracle, to swallow a man whole, but also that men have been found entire in their stomachs. Mr. Rae Wilson, the day after a violent storm, exactly in the same portion of the sea where the ship with Jonah encountered the tempest, observed several great fishes, some of which could not be less than sixty feet! Moreover, when the mouth of the Balona Mysticetus or great common whale is open, it presents a cavity capable of containing a merchant ship's jolly boat full of men, being six or eight feet wide,

ten or twelve feet high, and fifteen or sixteen feet long! (Scoresby's Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i. p. 455). The original word for belly signifies also cavity or a space. Now here was quite space or room enough for Jonah without his having actually reached the stomach of the fish. See Day and Night.

WIDOWS. It is related in Matt. iv. 25, that many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, &c. A superficial observer may, on reading the history of this transaction, as recorded in 1 Kings, xviii. 1, suppose that the famine lasted only three years; but there is no reason whatever for the idea. "The word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year!” Third year of what? Of the famine? The Bible does not say so. It was the third year of Elijah's sojourning with the widow of Sarepta. (1 Kings, xvii. 9.) Moreover he had spent some time previously to this, during the commencement of the famine, at the brook Cherith. (ver. 3.) The Lord Jesus Christ, in Matthew, as well as James, chap. v. 14, says the famine lasted three years and six months, and no other part of the Bible says directly how long it lasted; but inferentially intimates by the above circumstances, that it lasted upwards of three years. There is, then, no contradiction whatever.

WIFE. Whenever a man behaved improperly. to a maid, he was compelled to make her his wife: hence the vast number of wives, which it is said some men had. Exodus, xxii. 16. If such were now the law in Christendom, prostitution would be materially checked, licentiousness curbed, and the unfortunate and unprotected