BDELLIUM, del'i-um (Hebr. bedholah): One
of the products of the land of Havilah, mentioned
with gold and the shoham-stone (E. V. "onyx")
in Gen. ii, 11-12. In Num. xi, 7, manna is said
to have resembled it. It was, therefore, something well known to the Hebrews, but the
exact meaning is uncertain. Some have thought
that it was a precious stone, perhaps the pearl;
others identify it with myrrh or with musk. The
most probable and generally accepted explanation
is that it was the gum of a tree, much prized in
antiquity and used in religious ceremonies. Pliny
(Hist. nat., xii, 35) describes it as transparent,
waxy, fragrant, oily to the touch, and bitter; the
tree was black, of the size of the olive; with leaves
like the ilex, and fruit like the wild fig; he designates Bactria as its home, but states that it grew
also in Arabia, India, Media, and Babylonia. It
probably belonged to the balsamodendra and was
allied to the myrrh.
I. BENZINGER.
BEACH, HARLAN PAGE: Congregationalist;
b. at South Orange, N. J., Apr. 4, 1854. He was
educated at Yale College (B.A., 1878) and Andover Theological Seminary (1883). He was
instructor in Phillips Andover Academy 1878-80,
and was ordained in 1883. He was missionary
in China for seven years, and from 1892 to 1895
was instructor and later superintendent of the
School for Christian Workers, Springfield, Mass.
He was appointed educational secretary of the
Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions
in 1895, and held this position until 1906, when he
was chosen professor of the theory and practise of
missions in the Yale Divinity School. He has been a
corporate member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions since 1895 and of
the cooperating committee of the same organization since 1906, as well as chairman of the exhibit committee and executive committee of the
Ecumenical Conference in 1900, member of the
Bureau of Missions Trustees since 1901, member
of the executive committee of the Yale Foreign
Missionary Society since 1903, member of the advisory board of Canton Christian College and trustee
of the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy since
1905. In theology he is a moderate conservative.
He has written
The Cross in the Land of the Trident (New York, 1895);
Knights of the Labarum (1896);
New Testament Studies in Missions (1898);
Dawn on the Hills of T'ang: or, Missions in China (1898);
Protestant Missions in South America (1900);
Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions (2 vols., 1901-03);
Two Hundred Years of Christian Activity in Yale (New Haven, 1902);
Princely Men of the Heavenly Kingdom (New York, 1903); and
India and Christian Opportunity (1904).
