CKUCIFEROUS TRIBE 75 



Old writers had the highest opinion of its invigorating powers. The seeds 

 were recommended to be mixed with gum arabic and rose-water, and taken 

 before meals by those Avho had little appetite, or a weak digestion. "Let 

 old men and women," says one of the herbalists, " take much of this medicine, 

 and they will cither give mc thanks, or show manifest ingratitude." Its 

 outward application was to produce marvellous relief to various pains, to 

 take off" the blackness of bruises, to cure the tooth-ache, and even to " help 

 the falling ofT of the hair." 



The young plants of the Common Mustard are good for salad, and are 

 often raised in gardens to be eaten with cress. The Germans call this plant 

 Senf. It is the Scnqm of the Italians ; the Mostaro of the Spaniards ; and 

 the Mosterd of the Dutch. 



The seeds of the Mustard are remarkable for the rapidity of their deve- 

 lopment — a quality well known to children, who watch with eagerness for 

 the first seed-leaves which emerge from the soil so soon after they have sown 

 the seeds in their little gardens ; and it has been jocosely said, that a salad 

 might be grown while a joint of meat was being roasted. Professor Burnett, 

 remarking on the tenacity of life of these seeds, says that when a crop of 

 Mustard has once been seeded, self-sown stragglers will come up for a century 

 afterwards. Their rapidity of growth is greatly accelerated by certain con- 

 ditions of the atmosphere. Mr. Pine, in a paper read to the Electrical 

 Society, brings many cases to prove that luxuriance of vegetation is in 

 proportion to the positive state of the air and the negative state of the soil. 

 Thus, a drooping narcissus, being removed into a room, the atmosphere of 

 ^vhich was continually surcharged with electricity from a machine often used 

 for electrical purposes, revived, and attained the gigantic height of thirty-six 

 inches. Mustarcl-seed, in a pot, the soil of which was negatively electrical, 

 vegetated with greater vigour than when in a positive soil, and much greater 

 than when the seed was in its ordinary condition. 



The little mustard-seed has an interesting association, from having l^een 

 more than once referred to l)y our Saviour ; and ' small as a grain of 

 mustard-seed ' was probably a common comparison with the Jews. The 

 plants of Scripture, like those of the classical writers, have been the objects 

 of much careful investigation, and, doubtless, many have been identified by 

 the researches of late years. We owe much to Dr. Royle in this matter ; 

 and in a paper read before the Royal Asiatic Society, in 1844-, this botanist, 

 after showing the unsuitability of various plants hitherto supposed to be the 

 Sinapi of the New Testament, concluded that the true Mustard-tree is the 

 Khardal of the Arabs. This word is, in the Arabic language, synonymous 

 with our Mustard, and the tree thus named is abundant on the banks of the 

 Jordan and the Sea of Tiberias, and is there used for the mustard of the 

 table. It is the Salvadora persica of the botanist, and is a tree with numerous 

 l)ranches, among which the birds of the air may take shelter, while its seed 

 is so small, as well to symbolize that little germ of faith to which our Saviour 

 referred, in answer to that piuyer so needful for us all, which came at that 

 time from the lips of His disciples, " Lord, increase our faith !" and which 

 He elsewhere compared to the grain sown in the ground, which increased to 

 the great tree. 



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