them. There are many traces of it with regard to other temples and among other nations. It comes before us, indeed, chiefly in the form of the votaries kneeling and kissing the threshold, in adoration or reverence. But this implies the not treading on it; for votaries do not tread beneath their feet that which they thus venerate. The allusions to this in the Roman poets are well known. The early Christians adopted this custom of kissing the threshold, in regard to churches particularly venerated. It is indeed still in use among Roman Catholics; and old Christopher Ness remarks, "Tis pity such reverencing of the thresholds of temples should be found as among Pagans, so among Papagans also, who kiss the threshold of St Peter's Church at Rome to this day.'

This ancient reverence for the threshold was not limited to temples. A sort of superstitious regard for the threshold generally may be detected among many nations. The threshold was sacred to Vesta among the Romans, who held this deity in so much respect, that a bride, in entering for the first time the house of her husband, was not allowed to touch the threshold of the door;1 and we learn from Tibullus,2 that it was regarded as a very ill omen for a person to strike his foot against the threshold on quitting his house in the morning.

In the modern East, the indications of the same custom are abundant. The Persians, in particular, treat with great respect the thresholds of certain mosques, in which the remains of their holy men are deposited. They are usually covered with plates of silver; and to tread upon them is a crime not to be expiated but by severe penalties. Thus, immediately below the sixth distich, inscribed over the gate of the famous mausoleum at Kom, are the words: Happy and glorious is the believer, who through reverence shall prostrate himself with his head on the threshold of this gate, in doing which he will imitate the sun and the moon.' In fact, before they venture to cross such thresholds, they kneel down and kiss them; and in passing over, are most careful not to touch them with any part of their feet or their raiment. This feeling is in a measure extended to 1 LUCAN, lib. ii. 359. 2 TIBULLUS, lib. i. Eleg. iii.

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the palaces of kings, and in a lesser degree to the thresholds. of private mansions. In writing to a prince, it is usual to say: 'Let me make the dust of your threshold into Surmeh (collyrium) for my eyelids;' and Chardin relates, that in his time. the threshold of the royal palace at Ispahan was one large stone of green porphyry, on which no one was allowed to tread.

Ashdod, to which the ark of the Lord was taken, was one of the five royal cities of Philistia. It stood on a low rounded hill, with the great fertile plain stretching out eastward from its base to the mountains of Judah; while on the west it looked over a broad belt of sandy downs to the bright waters of the Mediterranean. The temple of Dagon crowned the summit; and the worshippers of the 'Fish-god-emblem apparently of maritime wealth and prosperity -could see the wide and fair dominions of their deity. Ashdod ·was captured by the victorious Jews during the wars of the Maccabees, and the temple of Dagon laid in ruins. Though mentioned in New Testament history under its Greek name Azotus, it never recovered its prosperity; and now it is a mere village of mud hovels, without a trace of ancient greatness, save a few broken columns and hewn stones strewn among its terraced vineyards.

It is worthy of note, with regard to the image of Dagon, that Layard, in his Nineveh and its Remains, describes a bas-relief from Khorsabad, in which a figure is represented in the sea, with the head of a man and the body of a fish. It is surrounded by a variety of marine animals. Layard supposes that the bas-relief represents the capture of the towns of Philistia, and especially Ashdod, by the Assyrian king Sargon; and if so, there can hardly be a doubt that the principal figure upon it is the fish-god Dagon.

Twenty-ninth Week-Third Day.

TELESMS.-I SAMUEL VI. I-5.

THE men of Ashdod, although impressed by the discomfiture of their idol, were not thereby moved to any immediate action with respect to the ark of Israel. Their obdurate determination still to retain this glorious monument of their triumph, drew

down upon them further judgments to constrain them to render to Jehovah the glory which was his due. Men are most keenly sensible of the evils which touch their skin and their flesh. They were therefore smitten with a painful and grievous disease, the nature of which is not well determined, but which is supposed to have been the hemorrhoids or piles, which seems to have been in many cases fatal. This they rightly ascribed to the wrath of the God whose ark they detained; but instead of seeing at once that their best course was to restore it to the Israelites, their reluctance to part with it induced them to try the experiment of removing it to another of their cities-to Gath, in the hope that as the judgment was confined to Ashdod and its neighbourhood, the indignation which had gone forth might be only against that particular place. The people of Gath seem to have placed it in the open fields; if, indeed, it had not been removed to the open ground of Ashdod immediately after the judgment on Dagon, as they might naturally after that apprehend special judgment upon any building in which it was contained. This inference is built upon the language of the text (in the original), that the ark 'abode in the field of the Philistines seven months.' The reason indeed is not conclusive, seeing that the word 'field' may be understood generally of 'land' or 'country,' and is here so understood by our translators. A probability in favour of that opinion is, that the next judgment was upon the fields—the produce of the ground being destroyed by immense swarms of field mice-if this were not indeed simultaneous with the 'emerods,' for by that grievous disease the men of Gath also were smitten, as soon as the ark of God arrived. This could not be borne; and the ark was removed to another town called Ekron. But the people there positively refused to receive it. Their language bore most emphatic testimony to the effect which had been produced: "They have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people.' This brought matters to a crisis: the 'lords' or magistrates of the five cities constituting this state-as well those that had not been visited by the ark as those that had-came together in counsel to determine

the course which was to be taken. The conclusion reluctantly reached was to send the ark back to the Israelites with all becoming observances, and not without such offerings as might, it was hoped, avert from themselves the wrath under which they so long had suffered. These were five golden mice, one for each of the Philistine cities; and five golden emerods, as symbolical of the afflictions they had endured, and in recognition that they came from Jehovah, and that He alone could remove them.

This offering, so remarkable in our view, but so familiar to the ideas of the ancients and of the modern Orientals, does in various points well merit more attention than our limits allow us to bestow upon it.

It appears to us that these articles are to be regarded not merely as votive or trespass offerings, but as telesms (talismans), specially formed under astrological calculations, to counteract the plagues with which they were visited, unless the effect were neutralized by the continued implacability of Israel's offended God; and we have little doubt that this course was suggested by the astrologers, who would not fail to be consulted on the occasion, as the best that, under the circumstances, could be adopted. The general reader can have little idea of the extent to which notions of this sort, founded on astronomical combinations, pervaded the ancient mind, and were prevalent even in Europe until a comparatively recent period. Indeed, they are not wholly extinct among ourselves even now. We are not sure of being successful in making the principles and the practical jargon of this branch of science, falsely so called,' intelligible to the reader, rendered, as its peculiar terms must be, out of the Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin languages into our own.

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It is, then, held that the forms of things here below correspond with the like forms of things above, and that the celestial forms have a ruling influence upon the sublunary. example, the scorpion and the serpent in the heavens have an influence upon those on the earth. The wise, therefore, it is stated, carefully observing when a planet entered into any of

these forms or signs, placed the planet on the horoscope, and engraved the form upon a stone; adding what else might be necessary to fit it for preservation or for destruction, according to the purpose of the operation. The telesm, thus rendered efficient for good or for evil, was then completed. A great authority on these subjects, Alí Ibn Rodoan, illustrates this by an anecdote of a Saracen's servant, who had been stung by a scorpion, but was instantly cured by his master with a telesm, which had the figure of a scorpion engraven on it. In explanation of this, the Saracen said that the figure was cut when the moon was in the sign scorpio, and that the sign was in one of the four angles.

A man of note in this kind of lore was Apollonius Tyaneus, who was reported to have wrought such extraordinary effects by his skill in this branch of occult science, that there were not wanting among the enemies of Christianity those who dared to compare the wonders wrought, or pretended to be wrought, by him, with the miracles of Christ himself; and there were even those who gave the preference to the pagan philosopher, an enormity justly denounced by Eusebius of Pamphylia. But it is well to notice a few of the deeds of this man which bear upon the subject, and tend to illustrate the ideas concerning it which prevailed. His deeds were such, in truth, as in their day excited the doubt and perplexity of even orthodox believers, who, although they were unable to account for them, supposed that this wonderful man had, by means of his telesms, stilled the waves of the sea and the raging of the winds, and had protected countries from destructive vermin and the incursions of wild beasts. Take the following from an ancient author, cited by Joannes Antiochenus Melala, in the tenth book of his Chronographia. The original is in Greek, which may be thus translated: In the reign of Domitian, flourished the most learned Apollonius Tyaneus, who won for himself a great name by travelling about and making telesms in all the places to which he came, for cities and for the countries to which they belonged. From Rome he went to Byzantium, and entering into that city (now more happily