St. John's wort

“ John's-wort,—how it has established itself in our fields and become a most pernicious weed, very difficult to extirpate; while the native species are quite rare, and seldom or never invade cultivated fields, being found mostly in wet and rocky waste places. ”

“ John’s wort, vervain, trefoil, and rue, all of which were thought to have magical properties. They set the orpine in clay upon pieces of slate or potsherd in their houses, calling it a Midsummer-man. As the stalk was found next morning to incline to the right or left, the anxious maiden knew whether her lover would prove true to her or not. Young men sought also for pieces of coal, but in reality certain hard, black, dead roots, often found under the living mugwort, designing to place these under their pillows, that they might dream of themselves.—Book of Days, vol. ”

“ In the relief which it affords as a snuff made from the dried leaves to congestive headache of a passive continued sort, this benefit is most probably due partly to the special titillating aroma of the plant, and partly to the copious defluxion of mucus and tears from the nasal passages, and the eyes.
[287] JOHN'S WORT. The wild Saint John's Wort (Hypericum peiforatum) is a frequent plant in our woods and hedgebanks, having leaves studded with minute translucent vesicles, which seem to perforate their structure, and which contain a terebinthinate oil of fragrant medicinal virtues. ”

“ John has been presenting to us from the beginning of his Gospel, of a Word who was with God and was God, of a Son who had come forth from the Father to reveal His grace and truth to men, of a Son who was returning to that Father as to His proper home. All is consistent from first to last; all has been divine, and all human. No clashing of the one with the other; but the human showing forth the divine as the perfect light from which it has been derived; the human leading on to the divine as that in which it is satisfied.
Hitherto this prayer has had no special reference to the disciples. ”

“ John bore witness of Him and cried, saying, This was He of whom I spoke. He that cometh after me is preferred before me because He was before me. We have all received of His fullness, grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared Him.
And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? ”

“ John, the divine, the theologian, does not indulge us in this wish. He is determined that we should understand it to have been an ordinary wedding-feast, at which men drank as at others. 'The mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine.' Whatever meaning we may discover in the words when we know who spoke them and to whom they were spoken, they are plain words, the announcement of the plainest fact. ”

“ All but superficial readers must perceive that in the writings and character of St. John there is from time to time a tonic and wholesome severity. Art and modern literature have agreed to bestow upon the Apostle of love the features of a languid and inert tenderness. It is forgotten that St. John was the son of thunder; that he could once wish to bring down fire from heaven; and that the natural character is transfigured not inverted by grace. The Apostle uses great plainness of speech. For him a lie is a lie, and darkness is never courteously called light. ”

“ John's gospel in Latin his father showed him the Greek Testament, and by five years of age he could read St. John's Gospel through. Two months later he began Hebrew, and soon read the first psalm. Every day he then read English at eight, Latin at ten, Greek at two, and Hebrew at four. He gradually acquired a natural perception of grammar. At five and a half he began Homer and Virgil, and by six he had read the whole ‘Batrachomyomachia,’ the golden verses of Pythagoras, and the first three eclogues of Virgil, and some Terence and Corderius. ”

“ John is the least likely to fall into the exaggeration of libelling the flesh as essentially evil. Is it not he who, whether in his Gospel, or in his Epistles, delights to speak of the flesh of Jesus, to record words in which He refers to it? [192] Still the flesh brings us into contact with all sins which are sins that spring from, and end in, the senses. Shall we ask for a catalogue of particulars from St. John? Nay, we cannot expect that the virgin Apostle, who received the virgin Mother from the Virgin Lord upon the cross, will sully his virgin pen with words so abhorred. ”

“ And yet as one flower is more perfect than another and plants are said to flower, even though they bring forth no perfect fruit, so the perfect receive that of Christ which transcends the flower. Those, on the other hand, who have known Him as a rod will partake along with it, not in His perfection, but in the flower which comes before the fruit. ”

“ John habitually considered the miracles of Jesus as “signs” or object lessons, in which the spiritual mind might read unseen truth. They were intended to present to the eye a picture of the similar but greater works which Jesus wrought in the region of the spirit. He heals the blind, and therein sets Himself before men as the Light of the world. He gives the hungry bread, but is disappointed that they do not from this conclude that He is Himself the Bread sent by the Father to nourish to life everlasting. ”

“ It is one of the chief results of the Incarnation itself. It begins to act upon us first, when the Gospels become something more to us than a mere history, when we realise in some degree how He walked. But it is not complete until we know that all this is not merely of the past, but of the present; that He is not dead, but living; that we may therefore use that little word is about Christ in the lofty sense of St. John—"even as He is pure;" "in Him is no sin;" "even as He is righteous;" "He is the propitiation for our sins." ”

“ John does not, in applying these semi-abstract words to God, attenuate in the slightest degree His personality. God is Love, but He also exercises love. "God so loved the world." And He is not only the "white radiance" that "for ever shines"; He can "draw" us to Himself, and "send" His Son to bring us back to Him.
The word "Logos" does not occur in any of the discourses. The identification of Christ with the "Word" or "Reason" of the philosophers is St. John's own. But the statements in the prologue are all confirmed by our Lord's own words as reported by the evangelist. ”

“ Thou shalt 'not be hurt with the second death.' I give thee 'a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written.' I give thee 'the morning star.' 'I will in no wise blot thy name out of the book of life! I make you a pillar in the temple of My God.' O John, rememberest thou thy petition and that of thy brother who has long been with Me,—'Grant unto us that we may sit, one on Thy right hand, and one on Thy left hand in Thy glory'? Thou thoughtest that 'glory' was an earthly throne, which thou never sawest. But thou hast overcome thy pride and ambition, thy jealous and revengeful spirit. ”

“ Like the First Epistle of St. John, the Revelation has particularly strong external evidence in its favour. About A.D. 150 Justin Martyr speaks of it as the work of "John, one of the apostles of Christ," in his dialogue held with Trypho, a Jew, at Ephesus, where St. John had lived. Still earlier, Papias looked upon the book as "inspired," and "bore testimony to its genuineness." Irenaeus, the pupil of Polycarp, the disciple of St. John, quotes it as written by "John, the disciple of the Lord." ”

“ As one of the series of apostles, St. John is always, in Western Art, young, or in the prime of life; with little or no beard; flowing or curling hair, generally of a pale brown or golden hue, to express the delicacy of his nature; and in his countenance an expression of benignity and candour. His drapery is, or ought to be, red, with a blue or green tunic. ”

“ Several points in the literary style of the apostle have been noticed in dealing with the internal evidence which they afford to the authenticity of his Gospel. But it is necessary to add something more, for there is no writer to whom we can more fitly apply the profound saying that "the style is the man." The language of St. John is the result of a long and impassioned contemplation. Whether he writes down his own words, or records the words and deeds of our Lord, his language shows the result of careful reflection. ”

“ As he gave out this text, his voice "rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes," and when he came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St. John came into my mind, "of one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey." ”

“ It is this, "Verily I say unto you, 'Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.' Let it be known that this woman was Mary of Bethany, then at Jesus' feet. Henceforth let her name be linked with her deed."
Thus ends the words we have imagined St. John might have spoken with the Gospels of Matthew and Mark in his hand. The additions to their story are suggested by his own Gospel. He has drawn a beautiful picture of Mary, in brighter colors and more delicate shades than has any other. ”

“ But there is one comfort for us in St. John’s vision; that brittle, and uncertain, and dangerous as life may be, yet it is before the throne of God, and before the feet of Christ. St. John saw it lying there in heaven, for a sign that in God we live, and move, and have our being. Let us be content, and hope on, and trust on; for God is with us, and we with God.
But St. John saw another wonder. Four beasts—one like a man, one like a calf, one like an eagle, one like a lion, with six wings each. ”

“ John the Evangelist, the Apostle who is distinguished in Holy Scripture as the disciple whom Jesus loved, and who is represented as leaning on the bosom of the Lord at the Last Supper. Now, we may ask what is the reason the Lord showed this marked preference and especial affection for St. John above the other Apostles? It must have been because St. John was more like the Lord than any of the others, for God must always love us in proportion as we approach His divine image and likeness. ”

“ Where corruption is, death must have entered. He who is the source and spring of life, He who can restore life, must have in Himself the very principle and power of purification. All instruments of purification must derive their virtue from Him. He must be the Purifier.
Accordingly it is to this quality of the divine Word, or Son, that St. John has from the first directed our thoughts. 'In Him was life, and the life was the light of men:' this is the starting-point of his Gospel. The sign in Cana of Galilee was the sign that Jesus was the communicator of life. ”

“ John has been speaking of a race born, not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of men, but of God. Christ here declares that He has founded such a race upon the earth. He prays His Father to keep it in the world, not to take it out of the world; to keep it by His word, His quickening, uniting word, which a world that is divided and is seeking death must hate; to keep it in the confession of Him who is not of the world, but is the Son of God ”

“ This verse is almost the only one in which John touches upon that extinct controversy, and here the Law is introduced simply as a foil to set off the brightness of the Gospel. All artists know the value of contrast in giving prominence. A dark background flashes up brighter colours into brilliancy. White is never so white as when it is relieved against black. And so here the special preciousness and distinctive peculiarities of what we receive in Christ are made more vivid and more distinct by contrast with what in old days 'was given by Moses.'
Every word in this verse is significant. ”

“ John was with Jesus in Bethany in Peræa, when there came the sad, brief, confiding message from Mary and Martha, "Lord, behold, he whom Thou [Pg 122] lovest is sick." Doubtless it touched the heart of the apostle as well as that of his Master, whose response he records: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby." We are reminded of John's own words concerning the change of water into wine: "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory." ”

“ For how can John be the beginning of the Gospel if they suppose he belongs to a different God, if he belongs to the demiurge, and, as they hold, is not acquainted with the new deity? And the angels are not entrusted with but one evangelical ministry, and that a short one, not only with that addressed to the shepherds. For at the end an exalted and flying angel, having the Gospel, will preach it to every nation, for the good Father has not entirely deserted those who have fallen away from Him. ”

“ John's Gospel is the most spiritual and divine of all the Gospels. And we may maintain its claim to that honour, by showing that it leads us to a grand primary truth, affecting all human beings, capable of being apprehended by those who have least of what is called culture, capable of making itself manifest to the consciences of the most guilty. Does not his Gospel, for this reason, establish the truth of the other Gospels and Epistles, which had been unfolding the ways of God to men? ”