tS9 



MESSENGER. 



METACENTRE. 



590 



mesoxalic acid is obtained by treating the mesoxalate of lead or baryta 

 with dilute sulphuric acid. 



The properties of the solution thus obtained are, that it is very 

 acid, reddens vegetable colours, crystallises, and produces, when 

 saturated with ammonia, as alloxanie acid does, white precipitates in 

 the salts of lead, lime, baryta, and strontia. These precipitates are 

 soluble in acids and in a large quantity of water. A solution of 

 mesoxalie acid may be boiled and evaporated without decomposing. 



The distinguishing character of this acid is the mode in which it 

 acts on the salts of silver. AVhen a salt of silver is added to 

 mesoxalate of ammonia, a yellow precipitate is formed, which becomes 

 black, and is reduced with effervescence when the mixture is gently 

 heated 



MESSENGER. [BANKRUPT.] 



MESSENGERS AT ARMS are the officers who execute the writs 

 issuing from the superior courts in Scotland. The duty of executing 

 these appears to have rested with the Lyon King at Arms, aided by the 

 heralds or other assistants. To this day the court of the Lord Lyon 

 has authority to admit to the office of messenger at arms, and to 

 dismiss a messenger for misconduct. Each messenger must tind secu- 

 rity for the proper performance of his official duties. Messengers 

 require to perform their functions with great precision, as they are 

 not only amenable to questions regarding the liberty of the subject, 

 but have often to perform acts, on the legal accuracy of which the title 

 to landed property may afterwards depend. 



MESSENGERS, KING'S, or QUEEN'S, certain officers employed 

 under the secretaries of state, who are kept in readiness to carry 

 despatches both at home and abroad. They are not now employed so 

 often aa formerly in serving the secretaries' warrants for the apprehen- 

 sion of persons for high-treason or other grave offences against the state. 

 Formerly too it w;ia not unusual for them to keep the prisoners they 

 apprehended at their own houses. A remarkable instance of this practice 

 is detailed in the ' Post-Boy' newspaper of 1713. " London, Jan. 10. 

 Yesterday morning the Morocco ambassador was taken into the custody 

 of one of her majesty's messengers, by way of reprisal for his master's 

 ordering and committing to slavery several of her majesty's subjects." 

 In the same paper, July 14, 1713, we read, " The emperor of Morocco 

 having released those of her majesty's subjects that had been carried 

 into slavery Don Bentura de Zari, his ambassador, who was in custody 

 of Mr. Chapman, the messenger, by way of reprisal, was on Saturday 

 last set at liberty." So that his excellency must have passed six 

 months in the messenger's custody. 



MESSIAH (ITI27C) is a Hebrew word, of the same signification 



as the Greek XpHTr6s (Christ), anointed. In the Old Testament 

 the word is repeatedly applied to persons who were consecrated to 

 the service of God in some sacred office. Thus the Jewish priests, 

 prophets, and kings are called anointed (Messiah), or the anointed of 

 God. From this general meaning the word has passed into a particular 

 use, referring to the illustrious personage whom the ancient Jews 

 eipected, and whom their descendants still expect, to confer some 

 signal blessings on their nation and the world. The word is found in 

 this sense twice in the Old Testament, in Psalm ii. 2, and in Daniel, ix. 

 25, 26. 



The expectation of the Messiah, first excited by the promise given to 

 Eve after the fall of man (Genesis, iii. 15), may be traced from the 

 exclamation of Eve at the birth of Cain, " I have gotten a man from 

 Jehovah," or "a man Jehovah" (Genesis, iv. 1), down through the 

 patriarchal history, the Mosaic law, and the whole series of the Jewish 

 prophets ; and it is very generally admitted that remnants of the early 

 belief upon this subject are plainly seen in the religion and traditions 

 of nearly all heathen nations. For information on these traditions, 

 see Dr. J. P. Smith's ' Scripture Testimony to the Messiah,' book ii., 

 c. 2 ; and Bp. Horsley's ' Dissertation on the Prophecies of the Mes- 

 siah, dispersed among the Heathen." See also Hengstenberg's ' Chris- 

 tologie des Alten Testaments." 



The expectations of the Messiah among the Jews in the period between 

 the close of the Old Testament and the birth of Christ, as indicated by 

 the Targums, the Apocrypha, the Book of Enoch, and the writings of 

 Philo and Josephus, were confused and often inconsistent. From 

 Josephus we learn nothing on the subject, a fact sufficiently accounted 

 for by his own temporising disposition and the circumstances in which 

 he was placed. 



At the time of Christ's advent various expectations respecting the 

 Messiah prevailed among the Jews. It is sufficiently evident from the 

 New Testament, that, while some looked for a human prince who was 

 to deliver them from the Roman yoke and exalt them to national 

 supremacy, others expected a divine teacher who was to confer spiritual 



of the Samaritans, recorded in John, iv. 42, that the Messiah would be 

 a religious teacher and " the Saviour of the world," is worthy of 

 special attention, because the Samaritans received no part of the 

 Scriptures but the Pentateuch, and were cut off from all intercourse 

 with the Jews by national hatred. 



It is the belief of all Christians that Jesus Christ is the Messiah 

 predicted iii the Old Testament. The evidence of this fact is contained 



in the New Testament, especially in the four gospels, from which it 

 appears that his lineal descent, the place, time, and other circumstances 

 of his birth, the constitution of his person, the history of his life and 

 death, the 'miracles he performed, and the doctrines he taught, all 

 agree to the minutest particular with the prophecies respecting the 

 Messiah. 



The Jews, having rejected the claims of Jesus Christ, are still 

 looking for the Messiah, whom they almost universally expect to be a 

 mere man and to confer on them only temporal blessings. Most of 

 the Rabbinical writers of the middle ages speak of two Messiahs : one, 

 the son of David, the conquering monarch : the other, the suffering 

 Messiah, the son of Joseph, who is to fall in battle, fighting for his 

 countrymen against Gog and Magog, and in this sense to die for them. 

 This opinion may be traced up to the 6th century, and perhaps higher. 

 In these Rabbinical writings, especially in the book ' Zohar,' there are 

 scattered valuable fragments of the more ancient belief of the Jewish 

 people on this subject. (Schb'ttgenii, ' Horso Hebraicse et Talmudica; ;' 

 and Lightfoot's ' Works.') 



In different ages there have appeared numerous " false Messiahs " 

 (Matt., xxiv. 24). Of these ecclesiastical historians reckon twenty-four, 

 for an account of whom the reader is referred to Johannes ci Lent's 

 ' History of False Messiahs." 



MET ; META. Prefixes used in chemical nomenclature, to desig- 

 nate compounds closely related to the bodies before the names of 

 which they are placed. Such bodies will generally be found described 

 under the names minus the prefix ; thus metanaphthalin, will be noticed 

 under naphthalin. 



METACENTRE is a point in a floating body, the position of which, 

 relative to that of the centre of gravity, determines the conditions for 

 the stability or instability of the equilibrium of that body. The equi- 

 librium is stable, if, when the body receives a slight disturbance from 

 its position, it tends, by the combined action of its own weight and the 

 pressure of the fluid in which it is partially immersed, to re-adjust 

 itself in that position after some oscillations ; and the equilibrium is 

 installs if a slight disturbance will cause the body to overset and 

 acquire a different position, which will then necessarily be. one of 

 stable equilibrium. 



The surface of a heavy fluid at rest is a horizontal plane ; the 

 portion of this plane which we may imagine to be within the floating 

 body is called the plane of floatation. 



When a body floating on a fluid is in equilibrium, the weight of the 

 body applied downwards at its centre of gravity must be equal and 

 exactly opposite to the pressure of the fluid, or, which is the same, to 

 a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid, applied upwards at 

 the centre of gravity of this portion of the fluid ; hence in this position 

 the right line joining these two centres is vertical, and is called the line 

 of support. 



When the body is slightly disturbed from this position, the plane of 

 floatation evidently alters its position in the floating body ; the centre 

 of gravity of the part immersed also changes, and the thru&t of the 

 fluid will in general no longer pass through the centre of gravity of the 

 whole body. The magnitude of this force will however undergo but a 

 very small change, and the body is now subjected to the action of two 

 forces which are equal and contrary, but no longer directly opposite. 



The figure and density of a body may however possibly be such that 

 the thrust of the fluid may, after the disturbance, continue to pass 

 through the centre of gravity of the body. The equilibrium is then 

 said to be indifferent, inasmuch as the disturbance communicated only 

 produces a new position of equilibrium. This happens when a body 

 floats in a fluid of equal density with itself, and in other cases, as in a 

 floating sphere. We may observe that if the disturbance of the equi- 

 librium consisted merely of an elevation or depression of the centre of 

 gravity, small vertical oscillations would be the consequence : the 

 disturbance considered here is supposed such as to tend to turn the 

 body round its centre of gravity, or to make the original line of 

 support deviate in a vertical plane through a very small angle ; this 

 line is called the axis passing through the centre of gravity. 



When the position of the body is thus disturbed, if the line of thrust 



Fig. 1. 



II C 



when produced upwards meets the above-named axis, the point of 

 intersection is called the metacentre. The consequent motion of the 

 body will then be the same as if the centre of gravity were fixed, and 



