Lilith. See Screech-owl.
Lillie, John, D.D., a minister originally of the Re- formed (Uutcli), but afterwards of the Presbyterian Church, was born in Kelso, Scotland, Dec. 16, 1812; graduated with the highest honors at the University of Edinburgh at the age of twenty-one years, prosecuted his theological studies for two years at Edinburgh, then came to America, and completed his course at tlie The- ological Seminary of the Keformed (Dutch) Church, New Brunswick, N. J. In 1835 he was installed pastor of the Keformed Dutch Church in Kingston, N. Y, In 1841 he took charge of the grammar-school of the New York University, and in 1843 of a congregation which had gathered about him in the University Chapel, ijnd afterwards (1816) occupied their new church in Stanton Street. From 1844 until 1848 he was the editor of the Jewish Chronicle. He was employed by the American (Bai>tist) Bible Union as one of its translators from 1851 to 1857. In 1855 he received the degree of D.D. from the University of Edinburgh. In 1858 he accepted the call offered to him by the Presbyterian Church, King- ston, N. Y., and he there labored until his death in 1867. Dr. Lillie's published productions are not numerous, but highly creditable. His revision and translation of the Epistles to the Thessalonians, the Seroml Epistla of Peter, those of John and Jitde, and the Rerebi/ion, for the Anglo- American edition of " Lange's Commentary," have won
the highest encomiums. He was also the author of a small work on The Perpetuity of the Earth, in which he developed his premillennial views. Dr. Lillie was an ear- nest Christian, a ripe scholar, and a faithful pastor. See Wilson, Fresb. Hist. Aim. 1868, p. 117; Kingston Argus and Journal, Feb. 1867 ; Mem, Sermon by Rev. W. Irviu ; British and Foreign Evangelical Review, Ixix, 619.
Lily (yii Vii, shushan', from its whiteness, 1 Kings vii, 19 ; also "idi'j, shoshan', 1 Kings vii, 22, 26 ; Cant, ii, 16; iv, 5; V, 13; vi, 2, 3; vii, 2; and iiy^ivc:, shoshannah', 2 Chron. iv, 5; Cant, ii, 1, 2; Hos. xiv, 5 [see Shu- shan; Shoshanniji] ; Sept. and N. T. (cpiVoi^ Matt, vi, 28 ; Luke xii, 27), " There are, no doubt, several plants indigenous in Syria which might come under the de- nomination of lily, when tliat name is used hi a general sense, as it often is by travellers and others. The term shoshan or sosun seems also to have been employed in this sense. It was known to the Greeks {(toiktop), for Dioscorides (iii, 116) describes the mode of preparing an ointment called susinon, which others, he says, call koi- invov, that is, lilinum. So Athenceus (xii, 513) identi- fies the Persian suson with the Greek krinon. The Ar- abic authors also use the word in a general sense, several varieties being described under the head sosun. The name is appUed even to kinds of Iris, of which several species, with various colored flowers, are distinguished. But it appears to us that none but a plant which was well known and highly esteemed would be found occur- ring in so many different passages. Thus, in 1 Kings vii, 19-26, and 2 Chron. iv, 5, it is mentioned as forming the ornamental work of the pillars and of the brazen sea, made of molten brass, for the house of Solomon, by Hiram of Tyre. In Canticles the word is frequently mentioned ; and it is curious that in five passages. Cant, ii, 2 and 16; iv, 5; vi, 2 and 3, there is a reference to feeding among lilies, which appears unaccountable when we consider that the allusion is made simply to an ornamental or sweet-smelling plant; and this the shushan appears to have been from the other passages in which it is mentioned. Thus, in Cant, ii, 1, 'I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys;' verse 2, 'as the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters ;' v, 13, ' his lips like lilies, dropping sweet- smelling myrrh;' vii, 2, 'thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies.'' If we consider that the book of Canticles is supposed to have been written on the occasion of tiie marriage of Solomon with a princess of Egypt, it is natural to suppose that some of the im- agery may have been derivetl from her native country, and that the above lily may be a plant of Egypt rather than of Palestine. Especially does the water-lily, or lotus of the Nile, scorn suitable to most of the above pas- sages. Thus Herodotus (ii, 92) says. 'When the wa- ters have risen to their extremest height, and all the fields are overflowed, there appears above the surface an immense quantity of plants of the lily species, which the Egyptians call the lotus ; having cut down these, they dry them in the sun. The seed .of the flo^vers, which resembles that of the poppy, they bake, and make into a kind of bread : they also eat the root of this plant, which is round, of an agreeable flavor, and about the size of an apple. There is a second species of the lotus, which grows in the Nile, and which is not unlike a rose. The fruit, which grows from the bottom of the root, re- sembles a wasp's nest: it is found to contain a number of kernels of the size of an olive-stone, which are very grateful either fresh or dried.' All this exists even to the present day. Both the roots and the stalks form articles of diet in Eastern countries, and the large fari- naceous seeds of both the nymphiEa and nelumbium are roasted and eaten. Hence possibly the reference to feeding among lilies in the above-quoted passages" (Kitto\ This flower (the Xymjihaa Lotus of Linnanis, and the beshnin of the modern Arabs) grows plentifully in Lower Egypt, flowering during the period of the an- nual inundation. There can be little doubt the " lily-