MANNA. 379 



sometimes to have mistaken for other vegetable substances. 

 The modern officinal drug sold under this name comes from 

 Italy and Sicily, where it is obtained from a species of ash, 

 with a leaf resembling that of the acacia. The Calabrian 

 manna is said to exude after the puncture of an insect, — a 

 species of grasshopper that sucks the plant ; and this fact 

 led Michaelis to propose the question to the Danish travel- 

 lers, whether the Arabian species might not be produced in 

 a similar manner. But notwithstandmg the identity of the 

 name, the resemblance in the description, and the concur- 

 rence of learned naturalists, it is impossible to reconcile the 

 manna of Scripture with any species of vegetable gum, much 

 less to explain the preternatural circumstances connected 

 with its appearance. We are expressly told that it was 

 rained from heaven ; that it lay on the ground when the dew 

 was exhaled, round and small as the hoar-frost, like coriander- 

 ■seed, and its colour like a pearl ; that it fell but six days in 

 the week ; that it became offensive and bred worms if kept 

 above one day ; that the double quantity provided for the 

 Sabbath kept sweet for two days ; that it continued fulling 

 for forty years, but ceased on the arrival of the Israelites at 

 the borders of Canaan. These and other facts all indicate 

 4;he extraordinary nature of the production ; and in no one 

 ^respect do they correspond with the distillations of the tarfa, 

 the gharrab, or the talh-tree. These gums are collected 

 only for about a month in the year ; they do not admit of 

 Reiner ground in a hand-mill, nor baked ; they are not sub- 

 ject to putrefaction if kept, nor are they peculiar to the Pe- 

 traean wilderness ; besides, the constant and daily supply in a 

 desert often barren of all vegetation must have been impos- 

 sible, except on the supposition that the trees accompanied 

 them on their march. Whatever the manna was, it was 

 -obviously a substitute for food ; and the peculiarities con- 

 nected with its regular continuance, its corruption, and peri- 

 •odical suspension are facts not less extraordinary than the 

 ■mysterious nature of the substance itself. It is in vain to at- 

 tempt any explanation of these phenomena by natural causes. 

 A skeptical philosophy may succeed in reconcihng preter- 

 natural appearances with its own notions of probability ; but 

 this gives not a particle of additional evidence to the credibility 

 of the sacred narrative. The whole miracle, as related by 

 Mosesj admits but of one solution — the interposition of a 



