in peoples enterting theme views of religion. They were in the habit of making libations & breaking the vessel to be used no more of the upation of usefulness with the life This calms to have been the vins of Mary when she brate the Alabaster box of ointment. a poured it on Lands head. as recorded by Mark XIV. 3. anomtry his body for the burying. This vessel used for common purpose. The breaki was emblematic dis stations of soul breaking soul a body. Psalm lxix. 21, and in accordance with custom, the soldiers offered to Jesus; but instead of, as usual, putting some narcotic drug into it to allay pain, the malice of his enemies induced them to add to His sufferings by putting gall therein. Thus did it behove Him to fulfil every tittle of the law and custom, and as He tasted death for every man, so had He to submit to a forced compliance with a custom rather more heathen than Jewish-nay, seemingly forbidden by their law. So "when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink." This was no part of the Jewish law which He came to fulfil; He therefore declined any more than the taste thereof. Cups were also used for divining. We read in Mark v. 5, how the maniac whom our Lord healed was one whose frenzy had led him to imitate these Baal-worshippers, if he were not one previously, abiding "in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones (flints)." The pebble, too, which seems to be an invariable product of these long-barrows, is not without its superstitious and mythological value. "The white stone spoken of in Rev. ii. 17 is such an one," says Mr. Burder, "as was used in popular judicature, or in elections, the custom being to give the votes in either of these by such stones. These were either white or black; the white was a token of absolution or approbation, the black of condemnation or rejection. Ovid expressly mentions this custom : "Mos erat antiquus, niveis atrisque lapillis k Oriental Customs, vol. i. p. 392. 1 Metamorphoses, lib. xv. 1. 42. The white stone had probably here fallen upon the victim as a signal of election, who in those times was only too happy to be selected to be offered in sacrifice, and would perhaps have been as little disposed to be liberated as the Indian Suttee from the funeral pile of her husband. The perforated stone entrances to the sepulchral chambers also had their peculiar uses. These entrances, called by antiquaries Tolmen or Dolmen, are supposed to have been used for drawing the victims through. In Eastern countries penitents still crawl through places of this sort. At Malabar Point there was a very celebrated one, through which, says Mrs. Ellwood", "penitents squeezed themselves, in order to attain the remission of their sins." n Borlase mentions a sacred stone in Cornwall called the Tolmen, or Hole-stone. This stone is of great size, and rests upon the points of two others. This historian observes that many Druidical mysteries were practised at stones so placed, and that persons passing under them and through the opening between m Journey to the East, ii. 90. " Hist. Cornwall. Iney ༦ called Dolmens in France & Spans Til-Hole or Hollow Meon Stone. Mr. Herschell the Converted few in his little work called Visit to my Fatherland" describes Rachels tombe into which the Mahommedaus allowed to enter, but are not the Jews. He "There is a hole in the wall at which they bray so that by Ridleytt. Herschell London 1845 |