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SALVER—SALVIAN

Manson, The Salvation Army and the Public (1906; 3rd ed., 1908); Salvation Army, Headquarters, A Calumny Refuted: A Reply to the Unfounded Charges of Sweating, &c. (1908); United Workers' Anti-Sweating Committee, Salvation Army Sweating: A Reply to the Mis-statements of General Booth and his Officials (1908; 2nd ed., 1910); Reports of the Trades Union Congress (1907 to 1910).


SALVER, a flat tray of silver or other metal used for carrying or serving glasses, cups, dishes, &c., at table or for the presenting of a letter or card by a servant. In a royal or noble household the fear of poisoning led to the custom of tasting the food or drink before it was served to the master and his guests; this was known as the "assay" of meat and drink, and in Spanish was called salva (salvar, to preserve from risk, Lat. salvare, to save). The term salva was also applied to the dish or tray on which the food or drink was presented after the tasting process. There seems no doubt that this Spanish word is the source of the English "salver"; a parallel is found in the origin of the term "credence-table," which is from the Ital. credenza, Lat. credere, to believe, trust (see Credence and Credence-Table).


SALVIA, a large genus belonging to the natural order Labiatae (q.v.), containing about 500 species in the temperate and warmer regions of both hemispheres. The name is derived from the Lat. salvo, from the healing properties of sage, S. officinalis (see figure under Labiatae). S. verbenaea, Clary, is a native of Britain found in dry pastures and waste places.

Some of the Salvias are among the most showy of the soft-wooded winter-flowering plants, the blossoms being of a bright glowing scarlet. The three most useful species are S. splendens, S. Heerii and S. gesneriflora, the first beginning to flower early in the autumn and lasting till Christmas, while the others follow immediately in succession, and continue in full beauty till April. Young plants should be propagated annually about February, and after nursing through the spring should be grown outdoors in a fully exposed situation, where they can be plunged in some non-conducting material, such as half-decomposed leaves. The young shoots should be stopped to secure bushy plants, but not later than the middle of August. The most suitable compost for them is a mixture

From Strasburger's Lehrbuch der Botanik, by permission of Gustav Fischer.

Pollination of Salvia Pratensis.

1, Flower visited by a bumble-bee,
showing the projection
of the curved connective
from the helmet-shaped
upper lip and the deposition
of the pollen on the back of
the bumble-bee.

2, Older flower, with connective
drawn back, and elongated
style.

4, The staminal apparatus at
rest, with connective enclosed
within the upper lip.

3, The same when disturbed by
the entrance of the proboscis
of the bee in the direction of
the arrow.

f, Filament.

c, Connective.

s, The obstructing half of the
anther.

of mellow fibry loam enriched with a little mild thoroughly decomposed manure, made sufficiently porous by the addition of sand or grit. In spring, and during the blooming period, the temperature should be intermediate between that of a stove and greenhouse. There are other very ornamental species of easy growth, increased by cuttings in spring, and succeeding well in ordinary rich loamy soil. Of these S. angustifolia bears spikes of fine bright-blue flowers in May or June; S. chamaedryoides, a dwarfish subject, has deep-blue flowers in August; S. fulgens produces scarlet flowers in August; and S. involuerata produces fine red flowers during the autumn. S. patens is a lovely blue free-blooming sort, flowering in August, the colour being unique.


SALVIAN, a Christian writer of the 5th century, was born probably at Cologne (De gub. Dei, vi. 8, 13), some time between 400 and 405. He was educated at the school of Treves and seems to have been brought up as a Christian. His writings appear to show that he had made a special study of the law; and this is the more likely as he appears to have been of noble birth and could describe one of his relations as being "of no small account in her own district and not obscure in family" (Ep. i.). He was certainly a Christian when he married Palladia, the daughter of heathen parents, Hypatius and Quieta, whose displeasure he incurred by persuading his wife to retire with him to a distant monastery, which is almost certainly that founded by St Honoratus at Lerins. For seven years there was no communication between the two branches of the family, till at last, when Hypatius had become a Christian, Salvian wrote him a most touching letter in his own name, his wife's, and that of his little daughter Auspiciola, begging for the renewal of the old affection (Ep. iv.). This whole letter is at most curious illustration of Salvian's reproach against his age that the noblest man at once forfeited all esteem if he became a monk (De gub. iv. 7; cf. viii. 4).

It was presumably at Lerins that Salvian made the acquaintance of Honoratus (ob. 429), Hilary of Arles (ob. 449), and Eucherius of Lyons (ob. 449). That he was a friend of the former and wrote an account of his life we learn from Hilary (Vita Hon., ap. Migne, l. 1260). To Eucherius's two sons, Salonius and Veranus, he acted as tutor in consort with Vincent of Lerins. As he succeeded Honoratus and Hilary in this office, this date cannot well be later than the year 426 or 427, when the former was called to Arles, 'whither he seems to have summoned Hilary before his death in 429 (Eucherii Instructio ad Salonium, ap. Migne, 1. 773; Salv., Ep. ii.). Salvian continued his friendly intercourse with both father and sons long after the latter had left his care; it was to Salonius (then a bishop) that he wrote his explanatory letter just after the publication of his treatise Ad ecclesiam; and to the same prelate a few years later he dedicated his great work, the De gubernatione Dei. If French scholars are right in assigning Hilary's Vita Honorati to 430, Salvian, who is there called a priest, had probably already left Lyons for Marseilles, where he is known to have spent the last years of his life (Gennadius, ap. Migne, lviii. 1099). It was probably from Marseilles that he wrote his first letter—presumably to Lerins—begging the community there to receive his kinsman, the son of a widow of Cologne, who had been reduced to poverty by the barbarian invasions. It seems a fair inference that Salvian had divested himself of all his property in favour of that society and sent his relative to Lerins for assistance (Ep. i., with which compare Ad eccles. ii. 9, 10; iii. 5). It has been conjectured that Salvian paid a visit to Carthage; but this is a mere inference based on the minute details he gives of the state of this city just before its fall (De gub. vii. viii.). He seems to have been still living at Marseilles when Gennadius wrote under the papacy of Gelasius (492–496).

Of Salvian's writings there are still extant two treatises, entitled respectively De gubernatione Dei (more correctly De praesenti judicio) and Ad ecclesiam, and a series of nine letters. The De gubernatione, Salvian's greatest work, was published after the capture of Litorius at Toulouse (439), to which he plainly alludes in vii. 40, and after the Vandal conquest of Carthage in the same year (vi. 12), but before Attila's invasion (450), as Salvian speaks of the Huns, not as enemies of the empire, but as serving in the Roman armies (vii. 9). The words "proximum bellum" seem to denote a year very soon after 439. In this work, which furnishes a valuable if prejudiced description of life in 5th-century Gaul, Salvian deals with the same problem that had moved the eloquence of Augustine and Orosius. Why were these miseries falling on the empire? Could it be, as the pagans said, because the age had forsaken its old gods? or, as the semi-pagan creed of some Christians taught, that God did not constantly overrule the world he had created (i. 1)? With the former Salvian will not argue (iii. 1). To the latter he replies by asserting that, "just as the navigating steersman never looses the helm, so does God never remove his care from the world." Hence the title of the treatise. In books i. and ii. Salvian sets himself to prove God's constant guidance, first by the facts of Scripture history, and secondly by the enumeration of special texts declaring this truth. Having thus "laid the foundations" of his work, he declares in book iii. that the misery of the Roman world is all due to the neglect of God's commandments and the terrible sins of every class of society. It is not merely that the slaves are thieves and runaways, wine-bibbers and gluttons—the rich are worse (iv. 3). It is their harshness and greed that drive the poor to join the Bagaudae and fly for shelter to the barbarian invaders (v. 5 and 6). Everywhere the taxes are heaped upon the needy, while the rich, who have the apportioning of the impost, escape comparatively free (v. 7). The great towns are wholly given up to the abominations of the