Expositors commonly frame and lay down some rules by which they suppose
symbolic language in general, and the symbols of this book in
particular, may be interpreted. On examination, however, it will be
discovered that the learned are not agreed either in the nature or
number of such rules, and sometimes an expositor who has exerted his
ingenuity most in devising canons of interpretation, forgets to apply
them.

All languages, whether spoken or written, are more or less metaphorical,
interspersed with what are called figures of speech. It is customary to
represent nations and tribes, whose language abounds in symbols, as but
little advanced in civilization; and to view oriental nations as more
disposed to indulge in tropes and figures than those of the west; but
perhaps this relative estimate of the modes of speech in the eastern and
western hemispheres will admit of some modification, when we consider
the gesticulations and similes by which the aborigines of America
attempt to give expression to their ideas. The word _hieroglyphics_,
signifying sacred sculpture, derived from the ancient mode of writing by
the priests of Egypt, has received conventional currency among the
learned, as descriptive of any writing which is obscure, "hard to be
understood." And all who read this book will find some of it "dark"
indeed. The divine Author intended that it should be so, (ch. xiii. 18;)
yet he calls it emphatically, a "Revelation."

We have already noticed, that the symbols in this book are taken from
the ceremonial law in part, and part are taken from the works of
creation. The heavens and the earth present to our senses a variety of
material objects; some more, some less calculated to arrest our
attention. Among these, the sun, moon and stars,--earth and sea,