274 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



and their present flourishing branches be also cut down. To in- 

 spire the Gentile Christians with humility, he concludes with as- 

 suring them that the Jewish nation, though they had experienced 

 this severity ot God, as he calls it, were not totally forsaken of the 

 Almighty : that the branches, though cut down, and robbed of 

 their ancient honors, were not abandoned to perish ; when the Jews 

 returned from their infidelity they would be ingrafted ; an Omnip- 

 otent hand was still able to reinsert them into their original stock. 



From I Kings vi. 23, tt seq. we learn, that olive wood was used 

 in the building of* the temple, and that, too, in some of its most 

 tasteful and decorative parts. It seems still to be regarded as 'a 

 fancy wood' in the East, for Lady Mary Wortley Montague states, 

 that she found the winter apartments of the Rahya's palace, at 

 Adrianople, wainscotted with inlaid work of mother of pearl, ivory 

 of different colors, and olive wood, like the littie boxes brought 

 thence. 



THE POMEGRANATE. 



THE Pomegraaate, ripens in Barbary, in the month of August. 

 It was formerly one of the most delicate fruits of tho East (Numb. 

 xiii. 23; eh. xx. 5; Deut. viii. 8; Cant. iv. 13); the orange, the 

 apricot, the peach, and the nectarine, not havjng made their pro- 

 gress so early to the westward. The following is Dr. Woodville's 

 description of the tree. 



* It rises several feet in height, is covered with a brownish bark, 

 and divided into many small branches, which are armed with 

 spines; the leaves are oblong, or lance-shaped, pointed, veined, of 

 a deep green color, and placed upon short foot-stalks ; the flowers 

 are large, of a rich scarlet color, and stand at the end of the young 

 branches. The fruit is about the size of an orange, and crowned 

 with the fine teeth of the calyx : the rind is thick and tough, exter- 

 nally reddish, internally yellowish, filled with a red succulent pulp, 

 contained in transparent cellular membranes, and included in nine 

 cells, within which numerous oblong angular seeds are also lodged,, 

 This shrubby tree is a native of Spain, Italy, Barbary, &c. Some 

 of them rise to the height of eighteen or twenty feet.' 



The pomegranate is chiefly valued for its fruit, which has the 

 general qualities of other summer fruits, allaying heat and quench- 

 ing thirst. The high estimation in which it was held by the peo- 

 ple of Israel may be inferred from its being one of the three kinds 

 of fruit brought by the spies from Eshol to Moses and the congre- 

 gation in wilderness (Numb. xiii. 23, chap. xx. 5), and from its be- 

 ing specified by that rebellious people as one of the greatest luxu- 

 ries which they enjoyed in Egypt, and the want of which they felt 

 so severely in the sandy desert. The pomegranate, classed by 



