The Rod In And Out Of School.

THE ROD IN AND OUT OF SCHOOL .

BY BRO . JOHN HENRY LEGGOTT . THE pious injunction of wise King Solomon has troubled the righteous soul of many a saint , and has been used as an excuse for the unrig hteous acts of many a sinner since his day .

It may safely be conjectured that the utterance of the wise one was only . the expression of a truism which was almost universally accepted by his contemporaries , and which had almost , if not altogether , been as universally acted upon by his ancestors . The rod has been in use and actively employed from the remotest ages of antiquity . To go no further back than the period of captivity of the Israelites in Egyptwe find that the captives were expected

, to perform a certain quantity of work every day , ancl if the allotted task was not completed they were beaten . Under the Mosaic law the punishment for certain offences was scourging . Forty stripes appear to have been the maximum number , but they were apportioned according to the malignity , of the offence . In Deuteronomy xxv ., 2 , 3 , there occurs the following— " And it shall be if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten , that the judge shall cause

him to lie down , and to be beaten before his face , according to his fault by a certain numbei-. Forty stripes he may give him , and not exceed , lest if he should exceed and beat him above these with many stripes , then thy brother should seem vile unto thee . " Our Saviour was scourged before his crucifixion , and St . Paul tells us , " Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one , thrice was I beaten with rods . " It was customary in order to keep within the bounds of the law just quoted , to give only thirty-nine stripes instead of the maximum number .

Punishment b y the rod had undoubtedl y the authority of Scripture in its favour , but some have sought to find in Hol y Writ a warranty for their voluntary flagellations . There is strong reason to believe that voluntary whipping was practised amongst the Jews . A writer in the 17 th century thus describes the practice : — " There are constantl y two men in every Jewish school who withdraw from the rest of the company , and retire into a particular place of the room where they are met ; that one lays himself flat on the ground

with his head turned to the north and his feet to the south ( or vice versa ) , and that the other , who remains standing , gives him thirty-nine blows upon his back with a strap , or thong of ox leather . In the meanwhile the man who is lashed recites three times over the 38 th verse of the 78 th psalm . This verse in the Hebrew language contains just thirteen words . At every word the patient recites , he receives a lash from the other man , which when he has recited the

whole verse three times over makes up the prescribed number , thirty-nine ; and at every time he says the last word he strikes his own breast with his fist . This operation being concluded , the operator in his turn becomes the patient , and places himself in the same situation as the other had done , who then uses him in the same brotherl y manner in which the former had used him , and they thus mutually chastise each other for their sins . " In the thirteenth

century so strong was the belief in the virtue of whi pping as an expiation for sin , or keeping the body under , that in Italy a sect arose called the " Flagellants , " who vigorously whipped themselves with leathern thongs until the blood ran down . So intense did the excitement grow that thousands of the devotees of this system might be seen in the public streets , and in the churches , zealousl y lashing their bodies , praying the while that their sins mi ght be for-