between Paul and James in the matter of a sinner's justification. If we have succeeded in showing this, nearly everything is gained; the objection of the infidel is satisfactorily met; the doubts of the critics respecting the Epistle of James, arising from this source, are seen to be unfounded; the error of those who join their own works, moral or evangelical, along with the Saviour's propitiatory sacrifice, as the ground of acquittal from condemnation, is seen in its true light; and the refuge of the thorough legalist, who supposes himself to be taking James as his guide, is exposed and shown to be false.

We may advance, however, a step or two further. Not only is there the absence of all contradiction between Paul and Jameswe may discover actual and exact agreement. We are not aware, indeed, that it can be shown from James' Epistle that he teaches anything directly about justification in the Pauline sense. Some have laboured to show that he does by implication, and, from the connection between verses 22 and 23, we ourselves believe in the correctness of that position. We are willing, however, for the sake of argument, to take the ground that he is silent upon the subject, as, from the foregoing examination, we are warranted in saying that he does not teach a contrary doctrine: and the calm and legitimate conclusion is, to take silence as agreement.

Whilst in this way we are justified in affirming that James agrees with Paul, we are still more so in saying that Paul agrees with James. We are just to remember that what James urged upon his Christian readers was to abound in works of faith and labours of love, so as to obtain God's approval and testimony. Every one familiar with the Epistles of Paul must be aware how prominently he kept the same thing, in the spirit of it if not in the same form, before the minds of believers. We need only remind the reader of the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans; and in Rom. xii. 1, 2, he says, 'I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.' ́And in Heb. xiii. 20, 21, he says, 'The God of peace. ... make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight.' Thus does Paul most perfectly agree with James.

ON

ON THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE MUSTARD

TREE OF SCRIPTURE.a

By J. FORBES ROYLE, M.D., F.R.S., L.S. & G.S., &c.,

Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, King's College, London.

NUMEROUS attempts have at different times been made by a variety of authors to identify the two plants which in the authorised version of the Scriptures are translated Mustard Tree and Hyssop. That these attempts have not been so satisfactory to others as to set the questions at rest, is evident from fresh plants being continually adduced, even in recent works, as possessed of the requisite characteristics. It may be inferred that these do not appear, to the author of this paper, to have been more successful than preceding endeavours, from his making a fresh, and which to many will appear a presumptuous, attempt to determine what has baffled so many able inquirers. Few fields, however, are so barren, even after they seem to have been cleared by the most skilful reapers, as not to yield some grains to the careful gleaner. So, continued attention to any one pursuit never fails to throw light, not only on itself, but also on other and what at first appear but remotely connected subjects. Thus it has been in the study of ancient, for the purpose of elucidating modern Materia Medica, and of both in connection with the botany of the East, that I have been led to conclusions, which seem to elucidate some of the disputed points of Biblical botany.

b

As this may require explanation, I may here mention, what I have elsewhere related, that my attention was first directed to the identification of the natural products mentioned in ancient authors, in consequence of having, in 1825, while in medical charge of the station of Saharunpore, and of the Honourable East India Company's Botanic Garden there, been requested by the Medical Board of Bengal to investigate the medicinal plants and drugs of India. This was for the purpose of ascertaining how far the

a From the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. XV., November, 1844. Reprinted by permission of the Author, and of the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society. This valuable contribution to Biblical botany has been revised by the Author, who has also added some new information in the notes. We have been favoured with permission to reprint the companion paper on the Hyssop, and hope to produce it in the next number of the Journal.

b Proceedings of the Royal Asiatic Society, 19th March, 1836.

public service might be supplied with medicines grown in India, instead of these being nearly all imported from foreign countries. In endeavouring to effect this important object, my attention was in the first place directed to making_myself acquainted with the different drugs, which the natives of India are themselves in the habit of employing as medicines. For this purpose I found it absolutely necessary to examine the things themselves, as well as to ascertain the names by which they were commonly known. I soon found that in this inquiry it was necessary to become acquainted with the written works in the possession of the natives of India, as well as with their personal and traditional information. 1 therefore caused the works on Materia Medica to be collated by competent Hakíms and Moonshees, among whom I would mention, as my principal assistants, Sheikh Nam Dar, commonly called Nanoo, the head medical assistant in the Civil Hospital of Saharunpore, and Murdan Aly, the chief plant collector, and keeper of the Herbarium in the Saharunpore Botanic Garden. By them the arrangement of these works, according to the Arabic alphabet, was persevered in; but the substances mentioned in each were arranged under the three heads of the Animal, the Vegetable, and Mineral Kingdoms. The works which were collated extend from A.D. 1392 to 1769, the first having been written shortly after the close of the classic age of the school of Bagdad. The Persian writers constantly follow the authors of this school. Al Buetar or Ibn Buetar, frequently quoted by Bochart in his Geographia Sacra, is the last of the distinguished Arabs, and he died in 1248. The first translation into Arabic from the Greek and Sanskrit having been made about A.D. 748, during the Kaliphat of AlMansur, was just five hundred years before the death of Ibn Buetar. During this period lived Haly Abbas, Mesue, Serapion, Rhazes, and Avicenna.

These Arab authors were indebted for much of their information

respecting drugs to Dioscorides. But to his description the

Ikhtiarat Buddee, who completed his work in 770 of the Hejira, or A.D. 1392. He is said to be the first who wrote on Medicine in the Persian language.—Tohfetal-Moomineen, written in A.D. 1669, by Meer Mohummud Moomin; a native of Tinkaboon, in Dailim, near the southern shores of the Caspian Sea.-Ulfaz Udwiyeh, compiled by the physician of the Emperor Shah Jehan; translated into English by Mr. Gladwin, and printed in 1793. This is useful, as giving the synonymes in Arabic, Persian, and Hindooee, in the Persian character. -Mukhzunal-Udwiyeh, or Storehouse of Medicines, written A.D. 1769, and printed at Hoogly, in 1824. The Taleef Shereef, translated from the Persian by Superintending Surgeon Playfair, and published in Calcutta in 1833, has been referred to in a few instances. Since my return to this country in 1832, having obtained copies of the Latin editions of Mesue, Serapion, Rhazes, and Avicenna, I have in many instances collated them with my manuscript catalogue.

a The work of Ibn Buetar has been translated into German by Santheimer.

Persians

Persians have fortunately appended the Asiatic synonymes, and have given some account of Indian products not mentioned in the works of the Arabs. I myself made a catalogue (still in manuscript) of the whole of these, in which, after the most usually received, that is, the Arabic names, I inserted the several synonymes in Persian and Hindee, as well as in metamorphosed Greek. I obtained the articles, and traced them to the countries whence they were said to be derived, as well as to the animals and plants which were said to produce them. I also made notes of any remarkable characteristics, as well as of the medical uses to which they were applied.

Being without any suitable library for such investigations, and able only to obtain a small copy of Dioscorides (12mo. Parisiis, 1549), I was in most cases obliged to depend upon myself, for the identification of the several substances. The results of many of these investigations are briefly recorded in the observations on the history and uses of the different natural families of plants in my Illustrations of the Botany, &c., of the Himalayan Mountains. I also made use of these materials in my Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine,f in tracing different Indian products from the works of the Arabs into those of the Greeks, even up to the time of Hippocrates. I inferred that tropical products could only travel from South to North; and that the Hindoos must have ascertained their properties, and used them as medicines, before they became sufficiently famous to be observed and recorded by the Greeks. Having thus traced many of these eastern products to the works of almost contemporary authors, I was led to conclude, that many of them must be the same as those mentioned in the Bible, especially as there is often considerable resemblance between the Arabic and Hebrew names; as, for instance :

Some, again, would appear to have an Indian origin; as, for instance, Ahalim, translated aloes wood, which is, with very little doubt, the same as the Malayan Agila, or eagle wood, famed in

Illustrations of the Botany and other Branches of the Natural History of the Himalayan Mountains, and of the Flora of Cashmere, by J. Forbes Royle, M.D., F.R.S., &c. 2 vols. imp. 4to. with plates.

Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, by the same. 8vo. 1837.

ancient

ancient as in modern times. So karpas, occurring in Esther i. 6, is translated green in the English Bible; but being placed between the words which signify the colours white and blue, it would naturally appear to be the thing coloured, which was, no doubt, cotton, karpas, from the Sanskrit karpasa, now in Hindee karpas and kapas. And, it is further said, in the description of the court of the garden of the King's palace at Susa, that these white and blue hangings were fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble. Of this we have a vivid representation in what may every day be seen in India, especially in the Hall of Audience at Delhi, where huge padded curtains, called purdahs (and usually in stripes of white and red, or blue and white), may be seen suspended from the tops of slender pillars. For this purpose, indeed, the rows of pillars in front of the principal ruins of Persepolis appear to have been intended.

While residing in, and becoming acquainted with the manners of the East, I had often, in reading the Scriptures, been struck by the brevity and force with which the sacred penmen, in describing what was then before them, give a graphic picture of the living manners of the day. In the absence of medals, monuments, and inscriptions, and where the mouldered ruins of mighty cities allow us with difficulty to trace out even their sites, we are presented with the astonishing spectacle, that manners, which in Europe are fleeting and changeable as the wind, in the East give living representations of those which characterised the residents of the very same regions more than three thousand years ago. So conspicuously is this the case, that works have been written describing the manners, customs, and other characteristics of the East, for the express purpose of elucidating obscure passages in the Scriptures, as Roberts' Oriental Illustrations of the Sacred Scriptures. Some again, as Dr. Taylor in his Illustrations of the Bible from the Monuments of Egypt; and the Athenæum, Nos. 507, 508, and 509, have had recourse to the works of Rosellini, Champollion, Wilkinson, and others, on Egyptian antiquities, as revealing most minute particulars of the public and private life of the Egyptians, and thus affording important because undesigned confirmations of the historical veracity of the Old Testament.'

It is hardly necessary to mention how the geography of Palestine and of the other countries which were the scenes of the transactions described in Scripture, has in like manner been minutely examined for the purpose of illustrating the Scriptures, and from the earliest times. And yet even in this department, from the more careful researches, assisted by the knowledge of Arabic of Mr. Eli Smith, unexpected discoveries have been made by Messrs. Robinson and Smith in their most interesting and instructive