499
M E N
MEN
"'ore for his vanity. He affected the character, and attributes ofJupiter ; made his patients follow him in those of the other gods,and travelled through different countries escorted by these coun-terfeit deities. He once wrote to the king of Macedon, “ Mene-Ofates-Jupiter to Philip, greeting. Thou reignest in Macedo-"■a, and I in medicine; thou givest death to those who are ingood health, I restore life to the sick ; thy guard is composed ofMacedonians; the gods themselves constitute mine.” Philip an-gered, that he wisiied him restored to reason. Hearing after-wards that lie was in Macedon, Philip sent for him, and invited1'hn to an entertainment. Menecrates and his companions wereplaced on rich and lofty couches; before which was an altar, co-Ve red with the first-fruits of the harvest: and whiht an excellentr( *past was served up to the other guests, perfumes and lihatiousonly were offered to these new gods, who, greatly affronted, has-My left the palace, and never returned.
MENEilOULD, St. a town of France , in the department ofMarne , and late province of Champagne ; twenty miles N. E. ofChalons, and 110 E. of Paris .
MENES, the founder of the Egyptian monarchy, was born at.his, a town of Thebais in Upper Egypt . He had three sons,"'a. Athotis, who ruled after him at This and Thebes ; Curudes,"’ho is, Lower Egypt founded the kingdom of Heliopolis , which"’as afterwards that of Diospoli; and Neeherophes, who reigneda * Memphis . It is supposed that Menes reigned 1 17 years after"'e birth of Peleg, son of Heber, which was the year of the dis-persion of mankind throughout the earth. In building Memphisle stopped the Nile near it, by a causeway 100 furlongs broad,a,1 d caused it to run through the mountains. Sir Isaac Newton "lakes Menes the same with Amenophis . Others make him thes ‘""e with Mizraim.
men i lite, in mineralogy, is of a chesnut-brown colour, in-ehning to liver-brown: externally, it is marked with narrow stripesreddish-brown and pearl-grey, which alternate with each other.*• occurs in tuberose imbedded masses, the surface of which isW"°oth and ribbed, and sometimes covered with a white crust. It* found near Paris , and is composed of
Alumina..... 1
Oxide of iron. 0.50
Calcareous earth. 0.50
Water and carbonaceous matter.11.00
Loss
98.50. 1.5
100
] .^JCNlN, a town of France , in the department of the Lys, andProvinee of Austrian Flanders, eight miles S. E. of Ypres ,
M iV oi .' E lsle - Lon - 3 - 9- L. Lat. 50. 48. N.b r ■ CNlNGES, two membranes that envelope the
b ' n ’ which are called the pia mater and dura mater; the latterthe exterior involucrum is, from its thickness, so denomi-
lUrr ^ NAT0M v.
Xjj CNlNX, an island in the Mediterranean, W. of the Syrtisof *L 0r i supposed by Strabo and Polybius to be Homer’s countryV K ;L°tophagi. 3
Sat pEN[Pl>EAN SATIRE, MENIPPEA SATIRA, a kind of]\j re . consisting of prose and verse intermixed ; so called fromp^'PPUs. Varro wrote satires under the title of Satiric Menip-'"m'p'v ence t *" s satlre ‘ s a ' so called Varronian satire.
8>n n , Pl>US > a cynic philosopher of Plia'nicia. He was ori-Stea* r slave, but purchased his liberty, and became one of the"hirl u usurers at Thebes . lie wrote thirteen books of satires,MEN y '°st ’ aiu ' at * ast billed p.imself.or f . JSClUM, in botany, a genus of the cryptogamia Slices," e 'uis ,1S f .^^Psules heaped in crescents, interposed between thefhtive. 0 f e f r01 'd. Tliere is but cue species, M. reticulatum, a
M EN isrne 3 '.
ati c \ ' la v.ub, in optics, a glass or lens, concave on one side,0 PTlc ' lv «x °n the other; sometimes also cabled lunula. See
Ci 'der"^MUM, Moonseed; a genus of the decandria' dllti diceeia class of plant*; natural order, Sarmenlaceae.
Male petals, four outer; eight inner; stamina sixteen: female,corolla as in the male ; stamina eight, barren ; berries two, out-seeded. There are thirteen species.
MENNO, Simon, the founder of the sect of the McnnonitcNwas born at WitmarUim, a village near Bolswaert in Friesland , hi1505, and died in 1561, in the duchypf Holstein, at the countryseat of a certain nobleman near the city of Oldesioe, who, movedwith compassion by the perils to which Mcnno was exposed, andthe snares that were daily laid for his ruin, took him with certainof his associates into his protection, and gave him an asylum. Thewritings of Menno, which are almost all written in the* Dutch lan-guage, were published in folio at Amsterdam in lfijl. About1637, Menno was earnestly solicited by many of his sect, to assumethe rank and functions of a public teacher; and as he consideredthose who made this proposal to be exempt from the fanaticalphrenzy of their brethren at Munster, lie yielded to their inlreaties.From this period to the end of his life, he travelled from onecountry to another, with Iris wife and children, exercising his mi-nistry, under pressures and calamities of various kinds, that suc-ceeded eacli other without interruption, and constantly exposed tothe danger of failing a victim to the severity of the laws. Eastand West Friesland, with the province of Groningen were first vi-sited by this zealous apostle of the Anabaptists ; whence he direct-ed his course into Holland, Guelderland, Brabant,Westphalia , andthe German provinces on the coasts of the Baltic, and penetratedso far as Livonia. In al! these places his ministerial labours wereattended with remarkable success, and added to his sect a prodigi-ous number of followers. Hence he is considered as the chief ofalmost all the anabaptists. He was a man of genius, directed by avery sound judgement; lie possessed a natural and persuasive elo-quence, and such a degree of learning as made him pass for auoracle with the multitude. He appears also to have been a manof probity, of a meek spirit, gentle in his manners, pliable and ob-sequious with persons of all ranks, and extremely zealous in pro-moting practical religion and virtue, which he recommended bothby example and precepts.
MENNON1TES, a sect in the United Provinces , in most re-spects the same with those in other places called Anabaptists .They had their rise in 1536, when Menno Simon, wiio had been aRomish priest, and a notorious profligate, resigned his rank andoffice in the Romish church, anti publicly embraced the commu-nion of the Anabaptists. Though the Mennonites usually pass fora sect of Anabaptists, yet M. Herman Schyn, a Mennonite mi-nister, who lias published their history and apology, maintains,that they are not Anabaptists either in principle or by origin.However, nothing is more certain, than that Die first Mennonite congregations were composed of different sects of Anabaptists .The Mennonites are subdivided into several sects; whereof thetwo principal are the Flandrians or Flemingnns, and the Water-landians. The opinions, says Mosheim, that are held in commonby the Mennonites , seem to be ail derived from this fundamentalprinciple, that tlie kingdom which Christ established upon earth isa visible church or community, into which the holy and just aloneare to be admitted, and which is consequently exempt from allthose institutions and rules of discipline that have been inventedby human wisdom, for the correction and reformation of the wick-ed. This principle, indeed, was avowed by the ancient Menno-niles, but it is now almost wholly renounced ; nevertheless, fromthis ancient doctrine, many of the religions opinions, that distin-guish the Mennonites from all other Christian communities, seemto lie derived; in consequence of this they admit none to (fit- sa-crament of baptism, but such as are come to the full use of theirreason ; they neither admit civil rulers into their communion, norallow any of their members to perforin the functions of magistracythey deny the lawfulness of repelling force by force, and considerwar, in all its shapes, as unchristian and unjust; they entertain theutmost aversion to the execution of justice, and more especiallyto capital punishments; and they refuse to confirm their testimonyby an oath. J
MENOLOG1UM, or MENOLOGY, [from ,w, month, anddiscourse,] is much the same as inart\rology, or calendar,in tlie Latin. The Greek menologium is divided into the severalmonths in the year: and contains an abridgement of the lives ofthe saints, with a bare commemoration of the,names of such whoselives were never written.
MENS A,