The terms pestilence and plague are used with much laxity in our Authorized Version. The latter, however, is by far the wider term, as we read of 'plagues of leprosy,' 'of hail,' and of many other visitations. Pestilence is employed to denote a deadly epidemic. In our time however, both these terms are nearly synonymous; but plague is, by medical writers at least, restricted to mean the glandular plague of the East. There is indeed no description of any pestilence in the Bible, which would enable us to form an adequate idea of its specific character. Severe epidemics are the common accompaniments of dense crowding in cities, and of famine; and we accordingly often find them mentioned in connection (;;;; ). But there is no better argument for believing that 'pestilence' in these instances means the glandular plague, than the fact of its being at present a prevalent epidemic of the East. It is also remarkable that the Mosaic law, which contains such strict rules for the seclusion of lepers, should have allowed a disease to pass unnoticed, which is above all others the most deadly, and, at the same time, the most easily checked by sanitary regulations of the same kind.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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