In the Greek text the word used is nardos pitike. It has been variously conjectured that the adjective may have meant liquid, genuine or powdered; the word lends itself to either of those meanings. Or it may have been a local term, or possibly it may have been altered from a word which would have meant what we understand by “spike” in botany. The most likely meaning is “genuine,” for we know that this product was at that period a perfume in high esteem, and that there were several qualities, the best, and by far the costliest, being brought from India. The ointment employed was really an otto, and it was imported into Rome and other cities of the Empire in alabaster vessels. Dioscorides and Galen refer to it as nardostachys. The Arab name for it was Sumbul Hindi, but this must not be confounded with the sumbul which we know. The word sumbul simply means spike. The botanical origin of the Scripture spikenard, the nardostachys of Dioscorides, was cleared up, it is generally agreed, by Sir William Jones in 1790. He traced it to a Himalayan plant of the valerian order which was afterwards exactly identified by Royle. A Brahman gave some of the fibrous roots to Sir William Jones, and told him it was employed in their religious sacrifices. Pliny mentions an ointment of spikenard composed of the Indian nard, with myrrh, balm, custos, amomum, and other ingredients, but the “genuine” nard alluded to in the Gospels was probably the simple otto. Pliny also states that the Indian nard was worth, in his time, in Rome, one hundred denarii per pound. Horace mentions an onyx box of nard which was considered of equal value with a large vessel of wine: Nardo vinum merebere Nardi parvus onyx eliciet cadum. EASTERN IMAGERY. In Ecclesiastes, xii, 5, the familiar words “and desire shall fail,” have been changed in the Revised Version to “the caper-berry shall fail.” This alteration does not strike the ordinary reader as an improvement, but it appears that the Revised Version translation is a reversion to that of the Septuagint, and is probably exactly correct. It is supposed to mean the same thing. The caper has always been recognised as a relish to meat, as we use it; and there is evidence that it was given as a stimulating medicine among the Arabs in the Middle Ages, and perhaps from very ancient times. The idea would be therefore that even the caper-berry will not now have any effect. The Revisers also suggest in the margin “burst” for “fail.” It is only a question of points in Hebrew which word is intended, and some think that the berry when fully ripe and bursting may have been an emblem of death.