MORTAR 6
it from his Indian experience. ' Large mortars are used in the East for the purpose of separating the rice from the husk. When a considerable quantity has to be prepared, the mortar is placed outside the door, and two women, each with a pestle of five feet long, begin the work. They strike in rotation, as blacksmiths do on the anvil. Cruel as it is, this is a punishment of the state : the poor victim is thrust into the mortar, and beaten with the pestle. The late king of Kandy com- pelled one of the wives of his rebellious chiefs thus to beat her own infant to death. Hence the saying, " Though you beat that loose woman in a mortar, she will not leave her ways;" which means. Though you chastise her ever so much, she will never improve' {Orient. Illustr. p. 368)."— Smith. " We do not infer from the above passage in Proverbs that the wheat was pounded to meal instead of being ground, but that it was pounded to be separated from the husk. The Jews probably had no rice, but there are several passages from which we may gather that they used wheat in the same way that rice is now used — that is, boiled up in pillaus, variously prepared. In fact, ^ve have partaken of wheat thus employed in the remote mountains where rice could not be obtained, or only at a price which the villagers could not afford ; and it is also so used among the Arabs, forming a y^tj palatable and nutritive food. For this purpose it is necessary that, as with rice, the husk should be previously disengaged from the grain ; and if we suppose that this object was attained with wheat, by a similar treatment with that to which rice is now subjected, the present text may be very satisfac- torily explained. There are men, and even women, who gain their bread by the labor of husking rice, which they generally perform in pairs. Their implements con- sist of a rude wooden mortar, formed of a block hollowed out; pestles, about five feet long, with a heavy block of ■wood at the upper end ; and a sieve for sifting the pound- ed grain. They carry these utensils to the house where their services are required, and, if men, strip to the skin (except their drawers), and pursue their labor in a shady part of the court-yard. When two work together, they commonly stand opposite each other, and strike their pestles into the mortar alternately, as blacksmiths strike their iron. Sometimes, however, one pestle alone acts, and the laborers relieve each other, the relieved person taking the easier duty of supplying the mortar, and re- moving and sifting the cleaned grain. From the weight of the pestle, the labor of pounding is very severe, and the results of the process are but slowly produced" (Kit- to, Pict. Bible, note on Prov. xxvii, 22). See Pesti.e.
Mortar, Holy, the term applied to mortar used in cementing altar stones in churches and in Roman Catholic establishments, is made with holy water.
Mortera, Saul ha- Lewi, a Jewish divine of note, was born about 1596 in Germany; studied at Venice and France ; and settled at Amsterdam as rabbi of the Sephardim, or Spanish Jews, where he foimded in 16-13 the academy Keter Tora. When Elias Jlontalto died, Mortera was sent to Paris to convey the corpse of Montalto for interment in Amsterdam. He died in 1660. Mortera is noted, moreover, as having been the teacher of the famous Baruch Spinoza. Of his works the follo^ving are worthy of notice : his Gibeath Shaid (^^N"j r?3a), a collection of Sermons (Amst. 1645), and a polemical work, entitled tVib-Q ITnin, The Divine Providence of God towards Israel, impugning Romanism so severely that it could never be printed. See Fiirst, Bibl Jiid. ii, 391 ; De Rossi, Dizionario (Ger. transl.), p. 234 sq. ; Bibl. Jiid. A ntichr. p. 72 sq. ; Rodriguez de Cas- tro, Bibl. Rabb. Span, i, 573 ; Lindo, Hist, of the Jews in Spain, p. 368; Kayserling, Sephardim, p. 201, 206, 254; Gesch. d. Juden in Portiif/al, p. 275-310 ; Jost, Gesch. d. Juden. u. s. Sekten, iii, 232 sq. ; Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, ix, 525; x, 9, 10, 11, 141, 169, 176; Zunz, Monatstage (Berlin, 1872), p. 7. (B. P.)
MORTIFICATION
Mortgage (p.yj, arab', Neh. v, 3, to pawn any- thing), a lien upon real estate for debt (Gesenius reads the passage, " we must pawn our houses") ; in 1 Sam. xvii, 18 rendered "pledge," and in Prov. xvii, 18 "surety," whence T'^^i", arabon, "anythuig given as a pledge or promise" (Gen. xxxviii, 17, 18, 20). Gesenius thinks the word was probably introduced as a commercial term, from the Hebrew or Phoenician language, into the Greek and Latin, as appajiwif, and arrhabo, in the significa-' tion oi earnest, or purchase-money. See Loan.
Mortification (1), is a term generaUy applied, in theological parlance, to certain voluntary inflictions of pain or acts of self-denial, which are supposed by those that employ them to have a meritorious efficacy, or at least a salutary moral influence on the sufferer. AVher- ever these austerities have been practiced, it is easy to trace erroneous views of Christian truth. This is ap- parent in the system of monkery and asceticism which at so early a period overspread the Church. Every religion of man's devising, or mixed and modified by man's corruptions, will be found to place religious ex- cellence more in self-inflicted sufferings (ban in moral duties; to prize more that mortification which consists in voluntary endurance of pain and privation than that which consists in the habitual subjugation of sinful passions. It will ordinarily be found that the preva- lence in any religion of general laxity of morals and of severe austerities will keep pace with each other. The greater the merit attached to self-inflicted sufferings by certain devotees, the greater will be the indulgence for neglect of moral duties ; and the stricter the require- ment of fasts and mortifications at certain seasons, ac- cording to prescribed regulations, the less the general restraint at other times. The religion of Christ in- culcates habitual self-control, a readiness and firmness in the discharge of each appointed duty, however pain- ful ; which is a self-denial more difficult to the natural man than even habitual austerities. The mortifica- tion of sin in believers is a duty enjoined in the sacred Scriptures (Rom. viii, 13 : " For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die {piWfTS uiro^vfjaKiiv] ; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify \^^avu-ovTt'\ the deeds of the body, ye shall live;" Col. iii, 5: "Mortify \_vt- Kpucrnre] therefore your members which are upon the earth"). It consists in breaking the league with sin, declaration of open hostility against it, and strong re- sistance to it (Eph. vi, 10, etc.; Gal. v, 24; Rom. viii, 13). The means to be used in this work are not macer- ating the body, seclusion from society, or our own reso- lutions; but the Holy Spirit is the chief agent (Rom. viii, 13), while faith, prayer, and dependence are sub- ordinate means to this end. The evidences of mortifi- cation are not the cessation from one sin, for that may be only exchanged for another, or it may be renounced because it is a gross sin, or there may not be an oc- casion to practice it; but if sin be mortified, we shall not yield to temptation ; our minds will be more spirit- ual; we shall find more happiness in spiritual services, and bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. See Owen On the J\[o}-tiJication of Sin, and on the Holy Spirit, ch. viii, bk. 4; Charnock's Works, ii, 1313; Bryson's Ser- mons on Rom. viii, p. 97, etc. ; Farrar, Eccles. Diet. s. v. See Self-denial.