we are not told, but probably it is very considerable.

Lastly. Such an explanation seems to agree best with the restriction in Tobit's instruction to his son: Pour out thy bread on the burial (or tomb) of the just; but give nothing to the wicked. For the widows and fatherless children of the wicked might want to have food sent them by their charitable neighbours, when overwhelmed with affliction occasioned by the death of a wicked husband or parent, as well as others; but if this bread was considered as purging away sins, or recommending the departed soul to God, he might very well forbid his son's giving bread on that occasion, as it would be expressing a hope concerning the dead, that was not to be entertained. The best of men have their imperfections, and the giving of alms on their behalf might be supposed to purge away their guilt: but no alms, in his apprehension, would remove the guilt of an heathen, or an apostate from the law of Moses: to them no mercy, he might apprehend, could be expected to be shewn.

St. Austin somewhere makes use of a like distinction, I think, in a case a good deal resembling what, I should suppose, it is not improbable Tobit had in view. I do by no means take upon me to justify the sentiment of this celebrated African bishop; I believe, on the contrary, it is by no means evangelical: the texts he cites from the writings of St. Paul prove it to be wrong. For we must all stand

before the judgment-seat of CHRIST; that every one may receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. 2 Cor. v. 10. That He hath done, not what others may do after his death, in order to benefit him. But as this was the best explanation of certain superstitious practices that obtained in his age, more especially among weaker, and less informed Christians, it is by no means an unreasonable supposition, that the same sentiment might arise in the mind of him who wrote the book of Tobit-arise from a similar practice, which seems to have obtained among the Jews of his time.

The pollution that was supposed to attend the touching of the dead, and also of their graves, according to the law of Moses,' may be thought to afford a strong objection to the supposing, they were wont to give such alms at the tombs of their friends, which I have been proposing as what, probably, was the meaning of Tobit; since this custom has been readily adopted not only by Christians, but Mohammedans too, who have the same apprehension of the impurity contracted by a dead body and a grave as the Jews had. So Chardin observes, in his description of Persia, that they never bury in the mosques, because, though the dead bodies have been purified, they notwithstanding look upon them as rendering every thing they touch impure, and the places in which they are deposited; yet, according to the next Numb. xix. 16,-18. Tome 2, p. 368.

page, which I cited just now, they sometimes leave offerings of cakes, of fruits, and of sweetmeats, at the sepulchres of the dead.

The Jews then might do the same in the days of Tobit, notwithstanding their notion that the touching a grave renders persons and things impure; it is certain it does not prevent their women's going often thither, to howl and cry over their dead relations.

CHAP. VIII.

THE LITERATURE, BOOKS, &c.

OF THE EASTERN NATIONS.

CONCERNING

OBSERVATION I.

Curious Methods of learning to write, used in the East.

THERE is a distinction made, in that passage

of the book of Job which I was considering under an Observation of the preceding Chapter, relating to the writing of words, and writing them in a book, that I never saw remarked, though it seems to me that a very clear account of it may be given.

O that my words were now written! O that they were printed in a book! That they were graven . . . . . in the rock for ever! There is a way of writing in the East which is designed to fix words on the memory, but the writing is not designed to continue. The children in Barbary that are sent to school make no use of paper, Dr. Shaw tells us,' but each boy writes on a smooth thin board, slightly daubed over

* Job xix. 23, 24.

P. 194.

with whiting, which may be wiped off, or renewed at pleasure; and it seems they learn to read, to write, and to get their lessons by heart, all at the same time: O that my words then, says Job, might not, like many of those of the miserable, be immediately lost, in inattention or forgetfulness, but that they were written in order to be fixed in the memory! There are few, Shaw says, that retain what they have learned in their youth; doubtless things were often wiped out of the memory of the Arabs in the days of Job, as well as out of their writing-tables, as it now often happens in Barbary Job therefore goes on, and says, O that they were written in a book, from whence they should not be blotted out! So in confor

Dr. Pococke represents the Coptis, who are used by the great men of Egypt for keeping their accounts, &c. as making use of a sort of paste-board for that purpose, from which the writing is wiped off from time to time with a wet spunge, the pieces of paste-board being used as slates. Vol. 1, p. 191. Peter della Vallè observed a more inartificial way still of writing short-lived memorandums in India, where he beheld children writing their lessons with their fingers on the ground, the pavement being for that purpose strewed all over with very fine sand. When the pavement was full, they put the writings out; and, if need were, strewed new sand, from a little heap they had before them wherewith to write farther, p. 40. One would be tempted to think the Prophet Jeremiah had this way of writing in view, when he says of them that depart from GOD, they shall be written in the earth, ch. xvii. 13. Certainly it means in general, soon be blotted out and forgotten, as is apparent from Ps. Ixix. 28, Ezek. xiii. 9. HARMER.

Dr. Bell's plan of teaching a number of pupils to read at the same time, was taken from what he saw practised in the East and this is the plan which Mr. Lancaster has since greatly improved and extended. The plan of writing on sand is still in use in the East. EDIT.