impersonation of subtilty and craft, united with superior wisdom and supernatural intelligence.

We should here close our remarks on early language; but there is a part of the subject which, although not immediately affecting our enquiry, is too interesting, and has occasioned too much controversy, to be passed over unnoticed; that is, the probable period of the introduction of LETTERS, or characters representing words. We must be brief on this, for we have already exceeded the limits designed for this part of our enquiry, important as it is.

Much argument has been expended on this subject; there are two circumstances which have been but little observed. The reader who has gone along with us, in the preceding remarks, will merely require to be reminded of them in order to come to a satisfactory conclusion.

In the first place, has the difficulty, if not impossibility, of creating signs to represent a progressive language, such as we have attempted to describe, has the difficulty of this, after the language has progressed for many ages, received that consideration which it deserves? We think it has not; and the more the intricacy and difficulty of fixing on signs, suited to represent the varied roots and branches of the sacred language, is reflected on, the more apparent will the improbability (to use the lightest term) appear of it having been the work of Moses, or of any man, inspired or uninspired. A language without signs can scarcely be methodical or regular in its construction. A branchial or derivative language without signs is all but impossible; and a derivative

language, existing and branching out for thousands of years without signs, and then having them so devised as to suit every root or branch pertaining to it, is past the comprehension or belief of any rational being.

In the second place, there is not a reader of the Bible, however unacquainted with the language in which it was originally written, who is not aware of the astonishing effect of the introduction, or of the change of one letter in the word. The instance of the word Abram will suffice. Abram signifies the 'high or mighty Father;' one letter introduced so as to change it to Abraham, altered the meaning to the Father of many nations.' The same power in individual letters existed in the time of Adam, as the instances formerly quoted prove. Could the language have possessed such a property without visible signs? The thing is impossible. A sound could not have accomplished it; for the same letter, according to its position or connexion, produced very different effects. These effects were produced by single consonants, not by syllables or sounds. A language, the single letters or consonants of which possessing such power, without signs for such consonants, is an absurdity, which only reluctance to own that language, in all its parts, was the gift of God, would ever have dignified even by the name of a supposition.

Unless, therefore, we are prepared to admit the most glaring difficulties and absurdities, we are driven to the conclusion, that language, in its signs as well as its sounds, was the gift of God to Adam

a gift, which even the glimpses we can now obtain of it, prove to have been worthy of the source from which it came. It bears the marks of having been fitted to convey to man, at the first, the clearest conceptions of the powers, properties, laws, and operations, by which the Former of all things ordained that the universe should be sustained;to enable him, from them, metaphorically, to express the passions, emotions, and feelings of his own mind and affections-and, from them, to understand, so far as finite capacity could do, the spiritual operations of God's greater creation, of which the visible universe was a figure. It appears, also, to have possessed, in a most remarkable manner, the property of giving immutability to the ideas or opinions expressed by it-so far at least as to prevent a change of opinion without a change of language; and was thus the proper, the Divine vehicle for expressing and perpetuating the Truth of God: and the names or nouns formed of its elements seemed, most miraculously, framed for rendering every object, animate or inanimate, to which they were applied, the bearer of some figurative or prophetic lesson.

That language, darkened and disfigured, alas! by rabbinical puerilities and heathen attempts to twist it to the rules of more worldly tongues, we still have in our hands-it still retains traces of its Divine origin, sufficiently plain to commend itself to the understanding of every one who is bold enough to refuse to look at Divine Truths through the mists of Paganism, or to estimate Revelation by the criterion of Philosophy.

CHAPTER V.

HIEROGLYPHICS.

THE preceding discussions have been gone through, not for the purpose of establishing certain abstract theories in regard to creation, to the first man, and to language, but to correct the current erroneous notions respecting these matters, by giving due weight to the inspired record; and so pave the way for a more just estimate of the curious and interesting subjects before us. It is scarcely necessary to say, to such readers as have followed us thus far in the enquiry, that we are disposed to take a very different view of the origin and design of hieroglyphic representation, from that which is generally received in the world, or countenanced by the learned. We shall not, therefore, waste our limited space in combating the current opinions regarding hieroglyphics, as having been antecedent to or the first rude attempts at letters; for unless our premises have been unfounded, and our deductions false, language and its signs must have existed long before any of the hieroglyphics, still extant, were pourtrayed. Besides, it is perfectly plain that if hieroglyphics

had been the rude and imperfect precursors of letters, they would have gone into disuse on the appearance of the more improved method of pourtraying ideas, or have remained in use for a time only amongst the illiterate; whereas we know that they continued in use long after letters are, by all, acknowledged to have been introduced, and that not amongst the vulgar, but amongst the most learned class of the community, the priests. Rejecting such theories as unsatisfactory, and incompatible with established and incontrovertible facts, let us enquire whether a more truly philosophical and satisfactory origin is not to be found for them, in the aptitude of the mind of man to receive instruction by means of allegory; and, whether the early existence of such figurative representations, be not a convincing proof that the principles contended for, in the preceding chapters, are well founded.

We shall in vain attempt to take a just view of this subject, if we do not keep in mind the widely different nature of the thoughts and employments of mankind, in the primeval ages of the world, from what they have become in a more artificial state of society and manners. We must also remember, that a great change has taken place in this respect since the Desire of all nations' has come; and since the revelations from heaven have assumed the aspect of a finished testimony regarding a matter that has been perfected, instead of all being of a prospective and expectant nature. At the same time, although this remarkable change has taken place, there has, in every age, been this intercommunity of thought—