It is specially so in Arabia at the present time. It was eaten either by itself or with some other article of diet, like it the natural produce of the land. Jonathan is described by Samuel as finding honey dropping from the trees in the forest near Bethaven, and eating it. When David fled from Absalom, Shobi, Machir, and Barzillai brought "honey, butter, sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat" (2 Sam. xvii. 29). Milk and honey are very frequently spoken of as eaten together. It was also used with articles. prepared with olive oil. In Luke xxiv. 41, 42, when Jesus met with his disciples after his resurrection, he partook of honey and fish:— "While they believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and of an honey-comb. And he took it, and did eat before them.” Here honey is associated with locusts. The desert region on the west of Jordan and the Dead Sea in which John spent his time, preparatory to his public ministry in a more populous neighbourhood, was just such a place as would supply him with "locusts and wild honey."

"Locusts," Gr. acrides, Heb. arbeh; see under Deut. xxviii. 38. The conceit that the locusts eaten by John were the fruit of the Khārub tree need only be referred to; see under Luke xv. 16. It has given the name, "St. John's bread, ""Johannisbrod" of the Germans, to the fruit of the Ceratonia siliqua, the tree whose husks are named in the parable of the prodigal son. The locusts which formed part of the food of the second Elijah were the insects properly so named-the acrides of the Greek naturalists. Even at the present time they are eaten by the dwellers in the Arabian Desert. At an earlier period in the history of eastern nations they appear to have been much more common, as an article of diet, than they now are see under Nah. iii. 15-17. They were named in the Mosaic arrangements regarding food as "flying creeping things" which might be eaten (Levit. xi. 21, 22).

Classical students are familiar with the stories told by ancient writers of the Acridophagi or locust-eaters, an Ethiopian tribe said to have lived almost entirely on this insect; thereby, it was alleged, shortening their lives, and all becoming afflicted with that most loathsome of all diseases, phthiriasis-the malady which cut off the two Herods. Burckhardt says:"All the Bedawîn of Arabia, and the inhabitants of towns in Nejd and Hedjaz, are accustomed to eat locusts." "I have seen," says another, "at Medina and Tayf locust shops, where these animals were sold by measure." "When sprinkled with salt," says Shaw, "and fried, they are not unlike in taste to our fresh water cray-fish."

The influence of the religious revival which came with the ministry of John, spread to classes which might have been held little likely to come under it. Leading Pharisees and Sadducees even "came to his baptism." These he addressed in such forcible and uncompromising words as "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Their influence on others was like the poison of the viper (echidna) on those bitten by it. In the latter case, the poison speedily corrupted the blood and hastened on death; in the former case, the hypocrisy and formalism of the Pharisee, and the open atheism of the Sadducee, shed their baneful influences into the moral nature of others, and led them away from the knowledge of the living and the true God. John met both in a spirit which showed he had not much reliance on their show of zeal. They were at once put to the test:

Bring forth fruits meet for repentance." Nothing short of this would do, and they had little time. They were as the tree which had stood for ages, planted in the old soil of gracious promises which they had not appropriated, and watered by privileges which had long ceased to be channels of spiritual life and blessing. But the day was at hand when all this would be violently brought to an end:-" And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire" (ver. 10). They are then pointed to Jesus, who had come regarding Israel as the harvest gathered from among the nations. The wheat and the chaff were still mixed up, but he was to separate them :— "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (ver. 12). While the Baptist's voice thus rung in the ears of men, as he ministered at Bethabara on the east of the Jordan (John i. 28), Jesus was on his way from Galilee to meet him :-"Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (ver. 13–17).

"Dove," Heb. yōnah, Gr. peristera-see under Levit. i. 14; Ps. lv. 6; Song ii. 14; Nah. ii. 7. The dove is introduced here as an emblem

of the Holy Ghost. The same transaction is referred to by the other three evangelists. The dove was early taken as a symbol. In Leviticus it is represented as a type of the Messiah, in some of the most precious aspects of his work as our substitute. It has become more or less linked up with all Christian poetry and art, as the emblem of the Spirit, of meekness, of gentleness, and of quiet submission. On some of the old Gothic baptismal fonts it is introduced with the salamander, as the signs of the truth brought out in verse 12-" He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

Chapter iv. 18.-"Sea of Galilee," named also "Lake of Gennesaret," and "Sea of Tiberias." "The first full view of it," says Dr. Stanley, as it is approached by the regular road, is on the descent through the hills whose summits from the boundary of the plain of Hâttîn, and which on the other side slope abruptly down to the lake itself, as it lies a thousand feet below the level of the country. It is a monument, if any, when recollections of the past disarm any attempts to criticise the details of the actual scene. Yet whether it be tame and poor, as some travellers say, or eminently beautiful, as others, there is no doubt that it has a character of its own which shall here be, if possible, described. It is about thirteen miles long, and in its broadest parts six miles wide, that is, about the same length as our own Windermere, but of a considerably greater breadth. In the clearness of the eastern atmosphere, it looks much smaller than it is. From no point on the western side can it be seen completely from end to end; the promontory under which Tiberias stands cutting off the southern, as the promontory over the plain of Gennesaret the northern extremity; so that the form which it presents is generally that of an oval. But that which makes it unlike any of our English lakes is the deep depression, which gives it something of the strange, unnatural character that belongs in a still greater degree to the Dead Sea, and in some degree to all lakes of volcanic origin, such as those of Alba, Nemi, and Avernus. The hills on the eastern side partake of the horizontal outline which belongs to the whole eastern barrier of the Jordan valley. But the western mountains, especially those at the northern end, are varied in form, the long curve of Tabor, with the horned platform of Hâttîn, and with the jagged summits of Safed, standing out from the offshoots of Lebanon. Their appearance, even in the view from the west, where alone they are usually seen, presents a complication of striking features such as is hardly elsewhere visible in Palestine; and this must be still more the case, in the aspect which they present to a spectator on the opposite

eastern shore, now for the most part entirely unfrequented. This plain is the land of Gennesaret,' identified by its agreement with the graphic though somewhat exaggerated description which Josephus gives of the country of Gennesar.' No less than four springs pour forth their almost full-grown rivers through the plain; the richness of the soil displays itself in magnificent corn fields; whilst along the shore rises a thick jungle of thorn and oleander, abounding in birds of brilliant colours and various forms. The whole impression even now recalls the image of the valley of the Nile; and thus the Jews of old were not unnaturally led, in those days of fanciful similitudes, to look on one of these fertilizing streams as a vein of the Nile, abounding even in the same fish, and producing the same effects on its banks. This 'paradise' or 'garden' of Northern Palestine (so we may best interpret the meaning of its name) is doubtless a close likeness of what the 'vale of Siddim' was, where stood the five cities when Lot saw that it was 'well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.'

"This contrast with the present aspect of its sister lake on the south, gives to the natural features of the sea of Galilee a peculiar interest. If the southern lake is the Sea of Death, the northern is emphatically the Sea of Life. And it is still by nature what it was at the time of the Christian era by art also. With that turn for magnificent buildings which so distinguished his family, and which perhaps had been encouraged in himself by the sight of the splendid Roman villas along the shores of the Lucrine lake, where most of his own early life had been spent, the younger Herod and his brother Philip built two stately cities, called after the names of the Emperor Tiberius and the Princess Julia, daughter of Augustus. The first, 'Tiberias,' was near the warm spring at the southern extremity; the second, 'Julias,' by the entrance of the Jordan at the northern extremity; and these, with the surrounding edifices, must have given to the lake the beauty which we are accustomed to consider as peculiar to the shores of Como and England. But the chief centre of activity was to be found in the little plain just described, crowded with towns and villages. Nor was the life confined to the land. The lake, probably from the numerous streams, including the Jordan itself, which discharge their produce into its waters, abounds in fish of all kinds, which there increase and multiply, as certainly as in the Salt Sea they are cast up dead upon the shore."

"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to