GRAIN. 235 



grinding was usually performed in the morning at day-break, the 

 sound of the females at the hand-mill was heard all over the city, 

 which often awoke their more indolent masters. The Scriptures 



mention the want of this noise as a mark of desolation in Jer. XXY, 

 10, and Rev. xviii. 22. There was a humane law, that 'no man 

 shall take the nether or upper mill-stone in pledge, ibr he taketh a 

 man's life in pledge,' Deut. xxiv. 6. He could not grind his daily 

 bread without it. 



The late editor of Calmet has some valuable remarks upon the 

 adoption of grain as a symbol of a future state : we need no apology 

 for offering the result of his inquiries to our readers. 



The close of life at mature age is compared to a shock of corn 

 fully ripe: 'Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full nge, like as a 

 shock of corn cometh in (to the garner) in its season,' Job v. 26. 

 See also Gen. xxv. 8, and Job xlii. 17. 



Our Lord compares himsulf to a corn of wheat falling into the 

 ground, but afterwards producing much fruit (John xii. 24); and 

 the prophet Hosea (xiv. 7,) speaks of 'growing as the vine, and re- 

 viving as the corn.' In fact, the return of vegetation, in the spring 

 of the year, has been adopted very generally, as an expressive sym- 

 bol of a resurrection. The apostle Paul uses this very simile, in 

 reference to a renewed life ; ' The sower sows a bare naked 

 grain of corn, of whatever kind it be, as wheat, or some other 

 grain, but after a proper time it rises to light, clothed with verdure ; 

 clothed also with a husk and other appurtenances, according to the 

 nature which God has appointed to that species of seed ; analo- 

 gous to this is the resurrection of the body,' &c. 1 Cor. xv. 37. Now 

 if this comparison were in use among the ancients, (and a gem of 

 Mountfagon delares its antiquity) it could hardly be unknown to 

 the Corinthians, in their learned and polite city, the 'Eye of 



