American Baptist Missionary Union. See Missions (Baptist).
American Baptist Publication Society. See Baptists.
American Bible Society. See Bible So- cieties.
American Bible Union. See Bible Socie- ties.
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. See Missions (American Board).
American Home Mission Society. See Missions.
American Missionary Society. Sec Mis- sions (American Missionary Society).
American Reform Tract and Book Socie- ty. See Tract Societies.
American Sunday-school Union. See Son- day-school.
American Tract Society. See Tract So- cieties.
Amerytha (AptpvSd according to some copies, see Hudson, in loc, while others have 'ApipwSa ; ac- cording to Reland, Palmst. p. 5G0, both by erroneous transcription for M>;pw3-, which most editors give ; see Achabara), a town of Upper Galilee, which Josephus fortified against the Romans (Life, 37) ; probably the same as Merotii (q. v.), which terminated Upper Galilee westward (Josephus, War, iii, 3, 1); and con- jectured by Reland (Palcest. p. 875) to have been the Mearah of the Sidonians (Josh, xiii, 4).
Ames (or Amesius), William, a celebrated Puri- tan divine, born in Norfolk, 1576, and educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, undeF Dr. Perkins, bj- whom he was taught evangelical religion. Appointed chaplain to the university, he gave great offence by a sermon in which he inveighed against some of the bad practices of the university, e. g. card-playing, etc., and, to avoid expulsion, he left England and became English chaplain at the Hague, and afterward divinity professor at Franeker in Friesland. He attended the synod of Dort, and died at Rotterdam in 1633. He wrote many works, among them, 1. Puritanismus An- glicanus (1623, in English, 1641) : — 2. Da Conscientia (1630, in English, 1643) :— 3. A Reply to Bishop Mor- ton (on Ceremonies) : — 4. Fresh Suit against human Ceremonies in God's Worship (1633): — 5. Antisynodalia, 1G29 (against the Remonstrants): — 6. Medulla Theo- logica (1623 and often after, both Lat. and Eng.). His Latin works are collected under the title Opera, quce Lat. scripsit, omnia (Amst. 1658, 5 vols. 12mo). Ames was eminent in casuistry (q. v.), and was a strong op- ponent of Arminianism. — Neal, Hist, of Puritans, i, 572 sq. ; Brooks, Lives of Puritans, ii, 405; Mosheim, Ch. Hist. c. xvi, sec. iii, pt. ii, ch. ii, § 371 n.
Am'ethyst (rrabnx, achlamah' ; Sept. and N. T. apsQuarog, Vulg. amethystus), a precious stone men- tioned in Scripture as the ninth in the breastplate of the high-priest (Exod. xxviii, 19; xxxix, 12), and the twelfth in the foundations of the New Jerusalem (Rev. xxi, 20). The transparent gems to which this name is applied are of a color which seems composed of a strong blue and deep red, and, according as either of these prevails, exhibit different tinges of purple, sometimes approaching to violet, and sometimes de- clining even to a rose color. From these differences of color the ancients distinguished five species of the amethyst; modern collections afford at least as many varieties, but the}- are all comprehended under two species — the Oriental amethyst and the Occidental am- ethyst. These names, however, are given to stones of essentially different natures, which were, no doubt, anciently confounded in the same manner. The Ori- ental amethyst is verj' scarce, and of great hardness, lustre, and beauty. It is, in fact, a rare variety of the adamantine spar, or corundum. Next to the dia- mond, it is the hardest substance known. It contains about 90 per cent, of alumine, a little iron, and a little silica. Of this species emery, used in cutting and polishing glass, etc., is a granular variety-. To this species also belongs the sapphire, the most valuable of gems next to the diamond, and of which the Ori- ental amethyst is merely a violet variety. Like other sapphires, it loses its color in the fire, and comes out with so much of the lustre and color of the diamond that the most experienced jeweller may lie deceived by it. The more common, or Occidental amethyst, is a variety of quartz, or rock crj-stal, and is found in various forms in many parts of the world, as India, Si- beria, Sweden, Germany, Spain ; and even in England very beautiful specimens of tolerable hardness have been discovered. This also loses its color in the fire (Penny Cyclopaedia, s. v.). Amethysts were much used
AMHARIC LANGUAGE
198
AMMAII
by the ancients for rin^s and cameos ; and the reason ' given by Pliny, because they were easily cut (Hist. Nat. xxxvii, 9), shows that the Occidental species is to be understood. The ancients believed that the amethyst possessed the power of dispelling drunken- ness in those who wore or touched it (Anthol. Or. iv, 38 ; Pliny, xxxvii, 9 , Marbodius, De Gemmis, c. 4) and hence its Greek name (" from a privative, and ptOino, to get drunk," Martini, Excurs. p. 158). In like man- ner the rabbins derive its Jewish name (from CsH, to dream), from its supposed power of procuring dreams to the wearer. (See Briickmann, Abhandlung von den Edelsteinen ; Hill's Thenphrastus, notes ; Hillier, De gemmis in pector. pnntif. , Rosenmuller, Mineralogy of the Bible; Braun, De vestitu sacerd. ii, 1G; Bellarmin, I'rim und Thummim, p. 55; Moore's Anc. Mineralogy, p. 1G8.)— Kitto, s. v. See Gem.
Amharic Language, a degenerate Shemitic dia- lect, mixed with many African words, spoken with the greatest purity in Amhara, one of the principal divisions of the Abyssinian empire. See Abyssinia. It is apparently referred to by Agatharcides (Hudson, Geogr. Min. i, 46), about B.C. 120, under the name Kapapa At £ic, as the language of the Troglodytes of Ethiopia. It began to prevail in Abyssinia over the Geez language about A.D. 1300, and is more or less prevalent throughout that country to the present day. Its literature is nearly confined to a few theological treatises and translations of portions of the Holy Scriptures, which have been printed mostly by the British and Foreign Bible Society, in Ethiopic char- acters. (See Gesenius, in Ersch and Gruber's Ency- clopddie, s. v. Amharische Sprache.) The Amharic has the same alphabet as the Ethiopic, with the addition of 6even characters, which have, respectively, the sound nearly of sh, ch (soft), nasal n, guttural (German) ch, weak (French) ch, g (soft), and z (as in azure'). The vowels and diphthongs are the same in number and sound as in Ethiopic ; also the same rules of pronun- ciation prevail as in that language. The formation of nouns differs very little from the Ethiopic. The indication of gender is the same. Declension takes place by means of certain particles ; but the accusa- \ five case exhibits the peculiar Arabic "nunnation." See Arabic Language. The verb appears in four modifications, as active (neuter), a two-form /active, and passive. The prate-rite, present, and future are clearly distinguished by a change in formation. Be- sides the "conjunctive" form of the present impera- tive and infinitive, there is also a peculiar kind of par- ■ ticiple. Numerals and pronouns are, as to their form and use, entirely after the Shemitic analogies. The same is almost universally true of the particles. In the arrangement of words the nominative follows the other cases, and some of the conjunctions are placed at the end of the sentence. The best known specimens of Amharic literature are contained in Ehbragzer's ( 'at: ,/ii sis ( 'hrist. lingua .1 mharica (Borne, 1787). Lu- 1 dolph prepared a brief Grammatica lingua; Amharico-. with a Lexicon Amharico-latmum attached (Frcf. 1GD8, fol.). The Church Mission Society (of Great Britain) has published a Grammar if tin- Amharic Language, by Isenberg ( Lond. 1842, 8vo). Further detail's may be found in Jowett's Chiistian Researches, p. 197-213; Piatt, Ethiopic MSS. (Lond. 1823); Sectzen, Linguis- tischer Nachlass (Leipz. 181G-18), p. 115 sq. ; Schmid's Bibl.f. KritiL i, 307-310. See Ethiopic Language.