•285 
“ Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat 
Sighing through all her works, gave sign of woe 
That all was lost.” 
The thorn is repeatedly alluded to in Scripture in 
the way of threatening. “ Thorns and snares are in the 
way of the froward.” “ They have sown wheat, but they 
shall reap thorns.” “ And now go to, I will tell you 
what I will do to my vineyard : I will lay it waste ; it 
shall not be pruned or digged; but there shall come 
up briers and thorns.” “ Thorns shall come up in 
her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses 
thereof.” 
These are a few of the many texts where the thorn 
is employed, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, 
to express the sterility and desolation which should visit 
those nations and people “ whose ways had been per¬ 
verse before God.” 
The species of thorn here signified has furnished a 
subject of much ingenious disquisition amongst the 
learned. Haselquist fully believes the thorny whin, 
(Anonis spinosa) with which, he says, whole fields in 
Syria are covered, is the one alluded to in the Scriptures. 
It would be difficult, one thinks, to decide on a matter 
