MOTTOES ON PRESENTS.

Kumara Times, Issue 491, 24 April 1878, Page 2

MOTTOES ON PRESENTS.

“ What queer feii^s-^fasiiio^has !” exclaims the Gazette. It has been tlio. fashion for. three or four years past, to engyaye- 'the Word ‘ Mizpab’ upon lockets-for presentation by young gentlemen to their sweet. .. hearts. Same of these innocents" have been writing to you lately':to hsk /the me mmg of the mystical woVd. .e And' well they might.’ I?Jie dxlswer-usvi- >• aii*

ally, given, to the inquiry is that the word means ‘ The Lord watch ■over thee, when we are absent one from another. This is certainly a liberal amount of English translation for one Hebrew word. If you look it out in a Hebrew dictionary you will find its. meaning given as simply a watchtower and nothing more. And if yOu look into the Book of Genesis you will find no very happy or affectionate associations attaching to the use of the word as a proper name in the thirty-first chapter. After Laban and Jacob had cheated each other and could trust each, other no longer, they made a covenant, in token of which Jacob ; set up a heap of stones, which was called Mizpah, because Laban, said, * The" Lord watch between-: me and thee when' we'arb absent one from m other. . The Lord.; judge betwixt us.’ Absence' Was " not to make the . heart prow, fonder; but more suspicious; and the ■watchfulness sf. Heaven was .invoked: against-.some dishonest trickery which each feared that the other would be guilty of: A pretty sentiment, this, for young lovers in the nineteenth century to express towards: each other 1”