in the present day) a pointed structure; but it has gradually acquired its present signification by one of those changes in language which are continually going on in every living spoken tongue.

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In conclusion, then, I commend to you the substitution of the definite word "prove" or "try" for the ambiguous one, "tempt," in the translation relating to the lawyers and their questions contained in Matthew and Luke; that of teacher" for master in the same narratives, and in the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, related in the 3rd Chapter of John's Gospel; and also the change of "a pinnacle" into "the wing of the temple," as bringing out the real meaning of the events more correctly, and removing incorrect impressions which are attached to the present translation in the authorised version.

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In the discussion Rabbi Prag said:

"The Hebrew equivalent for Tespάw is MD, and in expressing the actions to try, to tempt, to prove, also to make experiments, to experience (derived from the Greek Tepάw), is found in no other form of conjugation but in the piel (intensive, causative), viz., b.

"This verb evidently belongs to that defective class which drop the first radical letter in conjugation (D), and of which the piel and the niphal have an equal construction.

may therefore be rendered in the simple passive [niphal], he was tempted, as well as in the intensive active [piel], he has tempted. Instances of this kind are of frequent occurrence in the Hebrew Scriptures, e.g., (Isaiah iii. 5) may be rendered, they shall oppress one another,' as well as they shall be oppressed by one another;' ? (1 Kings ix. 11) is active (piel), whilst ? (Exod. xxv. 28, and 2 Kings xx. 17) is passive (niphal). By this it is suggested that the word in the passage, and God tempted Abraham' (Gen. xxii. 1), may have an objective meaning, conveying to us not

that God led Abraham into temptation-far be it from the Allwise to tempt frail humanity—but that a command of such a nature, viz., to sacrifice an only son, would, to an ordinary man, be a trial of faith, an incentive to disobedience, a temptation. D in this form occurs only once more in the Hebrew Scriptures (1 Samuel xxii. 39); the passage, ‘he had not proved it,' would be more correctly rendered, he had no experience with it.'

"In Deuteronomy vii. 19, and xxix. 3, we read, 'the great temptations which thine eyes have seen,' etc. What the temptations were to which the sacred writer alludes is nowhere explained; but on rendering the term nibe, experiments, instead of temptations, the meaning of these passages will be fully understood. The proper version of them would be the following: The great experiments which thine eyes have seen [the experiences thou hast gained]by signs and wonders of the mighty hand and outstretched arm,' etc.

"Men tempting God, as, 'you shall not tempt the Lord your God' (Deut. vi. 16), 'when your fathers tempted me (Psalm xcv. 9), means disbelief, making experiments, and requiring proofs of God's presence and power, wisdom and goodness. Men try God when they expose themselves to danger, waiting for a miraculous interposition of Providence, as well as when they sin with boldness, disbelieving in the Omniscience of God. The sense of the verse, Ps. xcv. 9, would be, your fathers tempted me, made experiments with me, though they had experience of me by seeing my works.' (Compare Psalm 1xx. and Malachi iii. 15.)”

THE LEVANTINE PLAGUE-PAST AND

PRESENT.

BY FRANCIS IMLACH, M.D.

RECENT events have reminded us that Plague, the Black Death, the Great Mortality, is a thing of the present as well as of the past. For the last few years it has spread over Persia in epidemic proportions, and in January of this year, if not before, overleaped its Persian bounds and invaded both shores of the lower Volga. Isolated cases have occurred extensively throughout Russia, and it is said to have appeared even in St. Petersburg. When, therefore, we learn that the ice broke up in the middle of March, and that ships from the Baltic, laden with rags, have actually reached British seaports, we may well fear that the Plague may be for us a thing of the immediate future. A fever is not to be feared merely from the gravity of the symptoms it produces in the individual, but also from the rapidity and certainty with which it extends from one individual to another, from house to house, in spite of all precautions, so that a single case may be the sure sign of the death of perhaps half the inhabitants of a town. A study of it, as it appears in the individual, its symptoms and their treatment, are for the physician; but its reappearance from time to time, and extension from place to place, in short, its history, is matter of interest for all. And my purpose, accordingly, is to give a brief sketch of the chief European epidemics of this one great and worst form of fever. I must, indeed, admit it to be a picture of shadow without light, a monotone of misery without hope, and only to be justified by the immediate need

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of the lesson it may teach. The tragedy is coming, must we be unwilling actors?

We first hear of the plague in 430 B.C., and it may be safely said that any other time and any other place might have been doubly stricken with less consequence to mankind. Athens was in her glory. The thirty years' truce had just closed. Another town would have grown rich by commerce, Athens grew rich from within her walls, and the culture of such men as Pindar, Æschilus, Sophocles, and Phidias has made her famous through all ages.

But misfortune came upon her. Just a year before, the great Peloponnesian war had commenced. The inhabitants of Attica, leaving land and cattle to their fate, fled into the city, finding shelter in the towers and recesses of the city walls, in sheds, cabins, tents, or even tubs. Athens might

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withstand the opposed forces, but this crowding with her dependents made her receptive to a mightier fate. Plague, some time back, had started out of Ethiopia, passed thence into Egypt and Lybia, and overrun Persia. It was carried along the coast line of the Mediterranean, and finally began to do its worst in Athens, in the beginning of April. the Peireus it passed into the city, and spread throughout its inhabitants. The seizures were sudden, and almost all the sufferers perished, after deplorable agonies, on the seventh or ninth day. Priests tried charms and incantations; physicians tried bonfires, and their more ordinary arts; but all without avail. The people lost hope, and the dead and dying lay uncared for, piled one upon another, in close-packed crowds, in the public roads, the temples, and the houses. "In some cases, the bearers of a body, passing by a funeral pile on which another body was burning, would put their own there to be burnt also; or, perhaps, if the pile was prepared ready for a body not yet arrived, would deposit their own upon it, set fire to the pile, and then depart." All