example, of Lycium, Zizyphus, and Paliurus, and, in parts, even of Acacia. What relation this vast abundance of Palestine thorns, what relation the existence in the world anywhere of prickly plants, especially such as are inimical to agriculture, may bear to the fulfilment of the ancient intimation to mankind by Jehovah, "Thorns and thistles shall it produce unto thee," is, of course, purely matter of conjecture. Probably those solemn words apply in no degree to the world's natural or organic vegetation. Most likely they have reference purely to moral thorns, which are far more terrible than any that grow on plants, though the latter are fit emblems of them in the wounds they inflict upon the body. Thorns are probably a part of the primary nature of plants. They often confer great beauty, as in the case of the cultivated species of Chamæpeuce, which are cherished in gardens purely for the sake of the charm given by the long rows and interlacement of their ivory prickles. So, too, with many plants of the Cactus family, which, denuded of their beautiful spinous vestures, would become dull and unattractive. Thorns, in a word, would seem to be inevitable to plants, especially when growing under climatal conditions like those of Palestine. We have no reason to suppose that the Chamæpeuce and the Cactaceae were created subsequently to "the Fall" and "the Expulsion," whatever those words may mean. They are plants quite as "worthy of Paradise" as any of those enumerated by Milton. Thorn and thistle, bramble and brier, as employed in to-day's English colloquial, have definite meanings. We are not to suppose that they possess the same in the Authorized Version. "The milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale," holds its name only by modern limitation. Thistle also, as used in the Authorized Version, is not to be taken in the modern restricted sense, though the plants we call thistles at the present day were very likely included in some of the twenty ancient Hebrew appellations. They were unquestionably observed by the primeval poets, for Theocritus refers to the flying about of the white pappus, employing it very happily as an image of the coquettishness of Galatea-" She runs hither and thither like the dried-up down of the thistle. If you love her, she flies you; if you love her not, she pursues" (vi. 15-17). Perhaps it is the very same which is referred to under the name of gulgal in Isaiah xvii. 13: "They shall flee like the gulgal before the whirlwind ;" and again in Ps. lxxxiii. 13, "As the gulgal before the wind." "Bramble" is now restricted to the hedgerow species of Rubus or blackberry; but although Rubi of several species occur in the south-west of Asia, no species is alluded to in Scripture by a name that can be unhesitatingly translated "bramble." Boissier mentions the common Rubus fruticosus as an inhabitant of Syria and Palestine (Flora Orient. ii. 695), and Mr. Tristram says that the blackberry is as common in many parts of Palestine as it is in England. Possibly, therefore, the fruticosus may be one of the Old Testament thorns, but more than this cannot even be surmised. The Greek name applied to the bramble, Baros, would seem to have designated not only one or other of the Rubi, but also the wild rose, the "dog-rose" of our own colloquial, for Theocritus (v. 92, 93) says that the flowers of the Baros are not to compare with those of the genuine rose. The dog-rose is the plant one would most naturally understand by the Authorized Version "brier," a word more familiar yet in sweet-brier; "but there is not a shadow of proof 66 that the Hebrew and Greek names so translated in the Authorized Version apply definitely to any species of the genus Rosa. The Hebrew and Greek words translated in the Authorized Version by these four terms, thorn, thistle, bramble, and brier, are, in all likelihood, as said above, collective or general terms, though quite possibly they may also have had particular applications not now discoverable. To sort the meanings is impossible. By mentioning the writers who employ them, and the places in which they occur, some idea may be formed, however, of their position in the language. Four of the Hebrew words occur only in the Prophet Isaiah, and may perhaps be no more than poetical synonymes. A curious parallel is offered in Milton, who uses hæmony, euphrasy, and perhaps one or two other names not met with elsewhere in English verse. The Isaiah terms are (in the singular) shait or shaith, in the Authorized Version always rendered "thorns;" 1 shamir, which is coupled with shait in all these passages, and is always translated "briers," occurring also, with the same rendering, in ch. xxxii. 13. Thirdly, we have sirpad, which occurs only in ch. lv. 13,2 “Instead of the sirpad shall come up the myrtle ;" and, fourthly, naatzutz, which occurs in the plural in ch. vii. 19, and in the singular in ch. lv. 13. In not one, perhaps, of these various passages is there any absolute necessity, after all, for understanding a thorny plant to be intended. Any kind of useless and detrimental weed, the concomitant of indolence, degradation, or destitution, would suit the context, and the same remark may be made of all the others. The Hebrew words of most frequent recurrence which are usually 1 Chaps. v. 6; vii. 23-25; ix. 18; x. 17; xxvii. 4. Shamir also occurs as a topographical name in Joshua xv. 48, and Judges x. 12, just as to-day we have Thornbury and Thornycroft. understood to denote thorny weeds are, in the singular, choach and kotz. The first is translated "thistle" in 2 Kings xiv. 9, repeated in 2 Chron. xxv. 18, also in Job xxxi. 40, where it seems to denote a corn-field weed-"Let choach grow instead of wheat." In other places it is translated thorn, bramble, and thicket. This is quite sufficient to prove either that, in the opinion of the translators, the word applied variously, or else that they were undecided as to the meaning. The allusions in Job xli. 2, and Amos iv. 2, would seem to point to the great spines of some species of Crataegus. Kotz, the other frequent word, is in the Authorized Version usually rendered thorns. Under this head falls the announcement to our first parents in Gen. iii. 18, "Kotz and dardar shall it bring forth unto thee." It occurs also in Isaiah xxxii. 13, and in ten or eleven other places.2 The words which occur but once, or in only a few places, sometimes in the singular, sometimes in the plural, are as follow: Atad, translated "bramble" in the famous apologue addressed by Jotham to the men of Shechem, Judges ix., and "thorns" in Ps. lviii. 9. In Gen. 1. 11 it appears as a topographical name, "the threshingfloor of Atad." Something available as fuel would seem to be rather particularly intended. Barkanim is found only in Judges viii. 7 and 16, where it is rendered briers. The use to which these barkanim are said to have been put was that of a scourge for the princes of Succoth. We may therefore conjecture some shrubby and ligneous plant to be denoted. Dean Stanley says they were "the thorny branches of the acacia groves of their own valley." The companion word in these two verses, in the Authorized Version rendered "thorns," is the above-mentioned kotzim. Chedek is met with twice, and evidently applies to a shrub that could be employed for making fences. "The way of the slothful is as a hedge of chedek" (Prov. xv. 19). "The best of them" (i.e. of the cruel and unjust) "is as a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge" (Micah vii. 4). Dardar owes its particular interest to the fact of its being coupled with kotz in the so-called original "curse," Gen. iii. 18. In the one only other place of its occurrence, Hosea x. 8, the association is repeated, and in a similar prophecy, "The kotz and the dardar shall 1 e.g., 1 Sam. xiii. 6; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11; Prov. xxvi. 9; Isa. xxxiv. 13; Hosea ix. 6; Cant. ii. 2- "The lily among thorns." 2e.g., Judges viii. 7, 16; Hosea x. 8—“The kotz and the dardar;” Ezek. xxviii. 24; Exod. xxii. 6; 2 Sam. xxiii. 6; Ps. cxviii. 12; Isa. xxxiii. 12; Jer. iv. 3, xii. 13. come up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us.” Sic, siccim, siccoth, appear to refer to some plant large enough, like chedek, to be employed for hedges, or tall enough to be touched by the face when walking. In Numbers xxxiii. 55 it is said of those who cause distress, "They shall be siccim-pricks—in your eyes, and tzinnim-thorns-in your sides." In Joshua xxiii. 13 it occurs again with tzinnim, in similar use, "They shall be scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes." In Lam. iii. 7 it supplies the idea of a hedge. In Job xli. 7, in the description of leviathan, the Authorized Version translates siccoth, the feminine plural, by "barbed irons," apparently because such instruments were modelled after some of the larger and stronger kind of tree-thorns. We have already had a congenerous use of the word choach. Sillon is a term used only by Ezekiel, in the beautiful promise of the restoration of the Church: "There shall no more be a sillon-a pricking brier-unto the house of Israel; nor any kotz-grieving thorn-of all that are round about them." In the same prophet (ii. 6), sillon is coupled with sarab, both words in the plural, the latter again peculiar to Ezekiel, and the Authorized Version translating "briers and thorns." Sirim, siroth, plurals of sir, occur in the prophetical books, and in Eccles. vii. 6, "As the crackling of sirim under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool." In Isa. xxxiv. 13, the Authorized Version translates similarly, "Sirim-thorns-shall come up in her palaces." So in Hosea ix. 6, "Thorns-sirim-shall be in their tabernacles." Sirim occurs also in Hosea ii. 6, Nahum i. 10, and Amɔs iv. 2, where it is translated fish-hooks. Tzin, or tzeenah, with the plurals, occurs both as mentioned under sic, similarly in Job v. 5, and in the metaphorical sense of hooks in Amos iv. 2. In the New Testament these thorny plants are called aκavoa, Tρißolo, and ẞarol, the first most assuredly a collective term, and the second and third by no means limited to a single species of plant, though quite likely to have been sometimes specialized, as aκavoa was in the narrative of the Crucifixion. Aκavoα and тpißolo are the words employed in the celebrated question recorded in Matthew vii. 16, "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" In the parallel passage in Luke vi. 44 it is said that men do not gather figs from aκavea, nor of a Baros do they gather grapes, the Authorized Version rendering Baros by "bramble bush." In the parable of the sower the evangelists agree in saying that some of the corn fell among akava (Matt. xiii. 7, 22; Mark iv. 7, 18; Luke viii. 7,14). As employed by our Lord in the question, “Do men gather grapes,” etc., akava and Tpißolot would seem to have been a sort of conventional phrase, since the words reappear in Heb. vi. 8. "The earth .. which beareth thorns and briers-aкavoα and Tpißoλo-is rejected." Great pains have been taken to ascertain the original application of τριβολος. The Septuagint uses it as the equivalent of no fewer than three of the Hebrew terms, namely, barkanim, dardar, and tzin, though the usage in this version is not uniform. In secular Greek it was applied to the little weed now called by botanists Tribulus terrestris, figured in the Flora Græca, iv. 372, also, it would seem, to the Fagonia Cretica. The Tribulus and the Fagonia are excessively annoying to the feet, the hard fruits being covered with spines. Their offensive character suggested the ancient military instrument called the calcitrapa or caltrops, a ball with spikes, to be thrown in the way of cavalry. In the old Saxon version of the New Testament, the Tpißolos of Matt. vii. 16 is rendered hiopon, the hip-tree or dog-rose. Were there any proof that pißolos could legitimately be thus translated, greater weight would perhaps be given to the antithesis, for men would never look for figs upon an herbaceous thistle-head, whereas they might readily deceive themselves over the young fruits of the wild rose, which really resemble young figs. Wiclif follows this old rendering in his breris, or briers, the superseding of which by "thistles" in the Authorized Version was quite unnecessary. THE NETTLE (Urtica sp., Nat. Ord. Urticaceae).-Nettles have from time immemorial been associated with pain and vexation. They are identified also with ruin and desolation, indolence and dismal corners. Theocritus makes sleeping among nettles a severe punishment (vii. 110). They are cosmopolitan weeds, and though, like thistles, of considerable interest and beauty as regards detail of minute anatomy, perhaps the most undesirable plants yet known to mankind. They are distinctly mentioned in Scripture upon three separate occasions, under the Hebrew name of kimôsh or kimmôsh, in the plural kimmeshonim. First, in the Book of Proverbs :-" I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding. And lo, it was all grown over with charullim, and nettles had covered the face thereof" (xxiv. 30, 31). Then in Isa. xxxiv. 13 :—" Sirim shall come up in her palaces, nettles and choach in the fortresses thereof." Thirdly, in Hos. ix. 6, again as the result of impiety, and as a picture of moral waste, the most dreadful of all:-"Nettles shall possess them; choach shall be in their tabernacles." In the Authorized Version the word is introduced also in R |