041. "A Good Name is Better Than Precious Ointment"
"A Good Name is Better Than Precious Ointment"
We can scarcely understand the value put upon perfumes and ointments by the Eastern people, and their enjoyment of the perfumes, especially at their feasts of all kinds. Many of them were fearfully expensive. They kept their perfumes in very precious vases and jars of alabaster and glass and metal.
Perfumes are so much used in Eastern countries that the omission of them means that one is in mourning. The perfumes mentioned in the Bible were applied in various ways. Often the people wore perfumes about their persons; sometimes they were used in the way of fumigation; sometimes the perfume was extracted and mixed with oil, and used afterward as ointment; and sometimes the perfume was kept in bottles, which were fastened to the girdle, - but the Word told them that a good name was even better than that.