tine, remain to this day. The inhabitants of that "good land," literally sang from the top of the rock when it flowed with the blood of the grape and poured them “out rivers of oil."k

The ground, as in our own country, was broken up with the plough. The Syrian plough, which was probably used in all the regions around, is a very simple frame, and commonly so light, that a man of moderate strength might carry it in one hand.m Volney states that in Syria, it is often nothing else than the branch of a tree, cut below a bifurcation and used without wheels. It is drawn by asses and cows, seldom by oxen." And Dr. Russel informs us, the plowing of Syria is performed often by a little cow, at most with two, and sometimes only by an ass. In Persia it is for the most part drawn by one ox only, and not unfrequently even by an ass, although it is more ponderous than in Palestine. With such an imperfect instrument, the Syrian husbundman can do little more than scratch the surface of his field, or clear away the stones or weeds that encumber it, and prevent the seed from reaching the soil. The ploughshare is a "piece of iron, broad, but not large, which tips the end of the shaft." So much does it resemble the short

* Maundrell's Journey, p. 101. Isa. xlii, 11. Job ix, 6. See also Pococke's Trav. vol. ii, part i, p. 42. Richardson's Trav. vol. ii, p. 226, 348, Buckingham's Trav. in Palestine, vol. i, p. 268. 1 See on this part of the subject vol. i, p. 439. m Russel's Hist. of Aleppo, vol. i, p. 73.

n Trav. vol. ii, p. 273.

• Hist. of Aleppo, vol. i, p. 73.

▸ Morier's Trav. vol. i, p. 60. Adam's Roman Antiquities, p. 537.— In Egypt they plough with two oxen: the plough is remarkably slight, and has only one handle, which the ploughman holds with one hand, and carries a long stick in the other. Richardson's Trav. vol. ii, p. 197.

sword used by the ancient warriors, that it may, with very little trouble, be converted into that deadly weapon; and when the work of destruction is over, reduced again into its former shape, and applied to the purposes of agricul ture. In allusion to the first operation, the prophet Joel summons the nations to leave their peaceful employments in the cultiuated field, and buckle on their armour: "Beat your plough-shares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears." This beautiful image, the prophet Isaiah has reversed, and applied to the establishment of that profound and lasting peace which is to bless the Church of Christ in the latter days: " And they shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. "r In similar strains the Roman poets sang:

"squalent abductis arva colonis, Et curvæ rigidum falces conflantur in ensem," "Sarcula cessabunt; versique in pila ligones; Factaque de rastri pondere cassis erat."

Geor. i, 1, 506.

Ovid. Fast. i, 1. 697.

The plough used in Syria, is so light and simple in its construction, that the husbandman is under the necessity of guiding it with great care, bending over it, and loading it with his own weight, else the share would glide along the surface without making any incision. His mind should be wholly intent on his work, at once to press the plough into the ground, and direct it in a straight line. "Let the ploughman,” said Hesiod, "attend to his charge, and look before him; not turn aside to look on his associates, but make straight furrows, and have his mind attentive to his work." And Pliny: "Unless the plough9 Joel iii, 10. r Isa. ii, 4. • Hesiod Opera et Dies. 1. 444, 445.

man stoop forward" to press his plough into the soil, and conduct it properly, "he will turn it aside."" To such careful and incessant exertion, our Lord alludes in that declaration: "No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven.”▾

The cattle are stimulated with a goad, which, in Syria, is seven or eight feet in length, armed with a sharp point of iron at one end, and at the other, with a plate of the same metal, shaped like a caulking chissel. One attendant only is necessary for each plough, as he who guides it with one hand, spurs the oxen with the point of the goad, and clears the earth with the plough-share, by its spaded heel, with the other." Stubborn and refractory oxen often resisted the goad and kicked it with their feet. Eschylus alludes to this occurrence in the following line:

Προς κεντρα μη λακτίζε, μη πησας μογης. In Agamemnone, 1. 620. "Kick not against the iron points, lest thou suffer pain.' Terence makes the same allusion in his Phormion:

"Nam quæ inscitia est

Adversum stimulum calces."

Act. i, scen. 2.

"For what ignorance is it to kick against the point?" This proverbial saying, the glorified Redeemer was pleased to use in his address to Saul on the road to Damascus: "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."

The furrows are extremely shallow, but so remarkably straight, although of great length, that one would imagine they had used a line in tracing them. This allusion seems to be involved in the Psalmist's complaint: "The ploughers ploughed upon my back, and made long their furrows."y

The plough was sometimes used in measuring land, by the Greeks and orientals; for Homer, speaking of contending chiefs, has this expression:

Αλλ' ότι δη ο απεην, όσσον τ' επιουρα πέλονται

Ημιονων.

Iliad, lib. x, 1. 351.

"But when they were now so distant from each other, as the furrows of two teams of mules." To explain the comparison, it is necessary to state, that the Grecians did not plough in the manner now in use. They first broke up the ground with oxen," and then ploughed it more lightly with mules. When they employed two ploughs in a field, they measured the space they could plough in a day; and at the two ends of that space set their ploughs, which ceeded towards each other.

a

pro

This intermediate space was proportion for two ploughs

constantly fixed, but less in of oxen than for two of mules, because oxen are slower, and the toil more in a field that has not yet been turned up; whereas mules are naturally swifter, and make greater speed in a ground that has already had the first ploughing. We discover a trace of the same custom in the first book of Samuel, where the historian, describing the va lorous exploit of Jonathan, observes; "And that first slaughter which Jonathan and his armour-bearer made, was about twenty men, within as it were a half acre of land which a yoke of oxen might plough.

After the operation of ploughing was finished, they were under the necessity of breaking the clods in clayey soils, and levelling the surface. This treatment, Virgil recommends to the cultivators of the age in which he flourished. He too, said the didactic bard, greatly improves the lands, who breaks the sluggish clods with har

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rows, and drags osier hurdles over them; and he also, who after the plain has once been torn, again breaks through the land that raises up its ridges, turning the plough across, and vexes it with frequent exercise, and rules his lands imperiously. It was in the same way that the Israelitish husbandman subdued the stubborn soil of his native land. "Doth the ploughman plough all day," rather, plough continually, said Isaiah, "doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face of it, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat, and the appointed barley and the rye, in their place ?" And shall the God of wisdom be always uttering his judgments, and warning his people; shall he be always proceeding with his work, and never bring it to a conclusion? No: He will at length execute his threatenings, and correct them for their sins; but not with indiscriminate severity; he will punish them in wisdom, and in proportion to their strength, not that they may be destroyed, but reclaimed from their vicious courses.

"For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him." That we owe the knowledge of agriculture, the most useful, and the most necessary of all human sciences, to the suggestion of heaven, is a sentiment which has been entertained by all nations. Virgil ascribes it to the divine intelligence, that mortals exchanged Chaonian maste, for fattening ears of corn, and mingled draughts of achelous with the invented juice of grape :

the

❝ vestro munere tellus Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit arista, Poculaque inventis Acheloïa miscuit uvis."

W

Georg. lib. i, 1. 94.

Geor. lib. i, 1. 7.

* Isa. xxviii, 24.