There is this peculiarity in substances and fluids which possess any bitter property, that the bitterness is not immediately perceptible. In certain medicines, for instance, the draught is not disagreeable at the first, but somewhat pleasant, and yet presently an acrid bitterness becomes perceptible. To such fluids we may compare many human actions, which are agreeable and pleasant to those who do them, but after they are completed there is a keen perception of bitterness and disappointment. The Jews were placed in a land flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands; they were sustained with abundance of corn and wine; and these bounteous gifts were to be perpetual, if they observed all the commandments of the LORD to do them. But unhappily for them, they “walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them." They delighted in the licentious practices of idolatry, because in them the natural man was gratified. They loved not the service of God, though it was one of perfect freedom. But the pleasures they preferred were mingled with wormwood. This they perceived not until they had drunk deep of the cup of pleasure. Then they found those joys were transient; then they found the blessings which God had granted them were to be withdrawn, and they themselves to be removed from the land into which they had been so marvellously brought. "Therefore saith the LORD...I will feed ....this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink;" Jer. ix. 15. Even the prophets of the LORD prophesied "falsely, and the priests bore rule by their means; and the people loved to have it so ;"

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Jer. v. 31. And the LORD said, "I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria.... therefore....I will feed them with wormwood;" Jer. xxiii. 13, 15.

The prophet Jeremiah, in his Lamentations, uses wormwood, to convey an image of the deep affliction which the faithful people of God are made to bear in the trials of their faith. They are often constrained to say, "He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath made me drunken with wormwood;" Lam. iii. 15; yet they resign themselves to the will of God, knowing, in their deepest misery, that "it is of the LORD's mercies they are not consumed;" they have "heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the LORD," that it is to purify His people; and they rejoice in being allowed to hope that they may be of the number of those who, having come out of great tribulation," and "washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," shall be permitted to day and night in His temple" for ever.

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The prophet Amos, v. 7; vi. 12, speaks of false judgments as wormwood. "Ye turn judgment to wormwood." "Ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock" (Laanahwormwood)." They who were appointed to administer justice, "afflicted the just; they took bribes, and turned aside the poor from their right, in the gate," where causes were tried. The source of justice, whence should flow peace and harmony, was thus polluted. The oppressed, and they who suffered wrong at the hands of their neighbours, looked in vain for help. If they thought of the judge, as the friend who was to defend the fatherless and the widow from him who was

too strong for them, it was with bitterness of heart. The theory of a judge who judged righteous judgment was sweet as honey, but the fact, that their judges turned aside the poor from his right, was bitter as wormwood.

In the Apocalypse, Rev. viii. 11, the name of wormwood is given to a star, which is there represented as falling from heaven upon the rivers and fountains, and changing one-third part of them into wormwood. This star is commonly understood to indicate the Arian heresy, with which Satan. at a very early period in the history of the Church, attempted to impregnate the pure stream of Divine truth; and this too by means of some whose duty it was to preserve its integrity, but who thus became manifest as the ministers of Satan, "transformed as the ministers of righteousness."

THE COTTON-PLANT.

Karpas; Heb. Gossypium; L. Le cotonnier; Fr.
Katoen; Dutch. Cotone; Ital. Algodon;
Chloptscha taja bumaga; Russ.

Die baumwolle; Ger.
Sp. Kopa; Indian.

THE word Cotton is nowhere found in the authorized translation of the Holy Scriptures. There is, however, no doubt that the word "green" in the Book of Esther i. €, should have been "cotton;" "white cotton and blue, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble."

The Cotton-plant may not have been indigenous to Palestine, but there can be no doubt that it was cultivated there. The Jews during their captivity in Babylon, would doubtless become accustomed to its use, and would desire to cultivate for themselves a plant which yielded a material of such value for the manufacture of articles of dress. They would therefore on their return to the Holy Land take with them the means of doing so; and that they were to some extent successful in its cultivation is evident, since we find it described by Pausanias as of a yellower tinge than the cotton of Egypt and other countries. Hence it may also be inferred that they grew a quantity sufficient to enable them to export it as an article of commerce.

We are disposed to think indeed that the Jews cultivated cotton long before the captivity. We learn from Pliny that, in Upper Egypt, on the borders of

Arabia, there grew a shrub named Xylon, or Gossypion, the fruit of which yielded soft white wool. This wool was manufactured into a fabric of which the garments of Egyptian priests were made. It was in this part of Egypt, where the Cotton-plant grew, that the Israelites dwelt before the Exodus. Why then should they not import the plant from Egypt? for it is equally probable that it was indigenous to Egypt as to India.

The Cotton-plant (Gossypium herbaceum) is cultivated in various parts of Egypt and Palestine, and in many other warm climates. The seeds are sown in rows three feet apart, and two feet apart in the lines; the season depending upon the climate. In some countries it blossoms in May, in others from July to September. Its flower is large and yellow, and the fruit is a nut of about the size of our walnut. The down which we call cotton, lines the inside of these nuts or capsules, which are collected by hand as they ripen. The shrub reaches the height of about three feet, and throws out branches. The stem is round and smooth and somewhat ligneous in the hot season.

The cotton shrub deserves our special notice as being the source of great wealth to our native land; and not only so, but as yielding a material of which articles of dress are manufactured at so cheap a rate, that in no country are the inhabitants so well clad at so small a cost.

When most of the pods are expanded, the vegetable wool is picked, and then, by means of a machine called a gin, it is cleared from the seeds. After having been separated from the seeds, the cotton is picked by hand and cleansed from small particles of pods or other