One must not be astonished, therefore, if this use of symbols reached
the Hebrews when they had formed a body of people near the Syrian
desert.

One of the most beautiful emblems of the Judaic books is this passage of
Ecclesiastes: "... when the grinders cease because they are few, and
those that look out of the windows be darkened, when the almond-tree
shall flourish and the grasshopper shall be a burden: or ever the silver
cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken
at the fountain...."

That signifies that the old men lose their teeth, that their sight is
dim, that their hair whitens like the flower of the almond-tree, that
their feet swell like the grasshopper, that they are no more fit for
engendering children, and that then they must prepare for the great
journey.

The "Song of Songs" is (as one knows) a continual emblem of the marriage
of Jesus Christ with the Church. It is an emblem from beginning to end.
Especially does the ingenious Dom Calmet demonstrate that the palm-tree
to which the well-beloved goes is the cross to which our Lord Jesus
Christ was condemned. But it must be avowed that a pure and healthy
moral philosophy is still preferable to these allegories.

One sees in this people's books a crowd of typical emblems which revolt
us to-day and which exercise our incredulity and our mockery, but which
appeared ordinary and simple to the Asiatic peoples.

In Ezekiel are images which appear to us as licentious and revolting: in