266 THE INNER SENSE OF THE BIBLE. Div. I. THE genius of Oriental nations appears in all former ages to have been remarkably attached to signs and symbols. We discover it in all their monuments and temples; in the fragments of ancient writings which have been transmitted to us; and in the concurrent testimony of all the historians who have treated on the subject. In the course of ages, a series of revolutions has swept over every region, and either changed or modified the institutions of every people of the East. Religion, laws, and government have successively yielded to innovation. No external relations have been unreached. the mind remains the same; scarcely affected in its predilections and peculiarities by the vicissitudes which have so sensibly influenced all outward things. But It is difficult to account for this bias, in a manner which shall be wholly clear and satisfactory to the mind; or to explain the fact, why nations situated in certain positions of the globe should have thoughts and feelings of so singular a character, that the rest of the world can scarcely find a parallel to them. Take the Northern nations of Europe; and neither in such records as we have received of their ancient state, nor in our full knowledge of their existing manners and customs, are greater traces of this peculiarity perceived, than we might expect to find in nations who have remotely proceeded from one common centre, and who have preserved some faint impressions and relics of the habits of their kindred progenitors. Take the states of Greece and Rome; and except in their "Mysteries" and in those religious rites, which they derived from Egypt, and adapted to their own Mythology, scarcely a shade of this feeling will be discoverable. In all that sprang from the genius of their own mind, it was almost entirely absent; so much so that the mysticism in their religion to which I have alluded, appears to the observer a self-evident and a rough graft from a foreign source. Both countries might be said emphatically to have been the seat of Reason, in contradistinction to the emblematic and allegorical cast of thought of Eastern nations. In America too, except in those leading symbols, in which were treasured the few, solitary truths of their religion; and which, drawn from the one common source whence all nations and languages originally issued, had been carefully preserved in their long migrations from Shinar, the earliest discoverers found no features of this character, which could at all be remarked as distinguishing features. In all other respects on this head, they scarcely differed from the barbarians in the North of Europe. But turn from these countries to Egypt, Palestine, Persia and India; and the character of the mind is totally changed; we might almost say, reversed. The simplest, as the most sublime truths are alike beheld in the garb of secrecy and mystery. Every principle, whether in religion or in nature, is seen endowed with its appropriate emblem; and they are so enwreathed and interlaced with each other, that an entire language of symbols and figures must be acquired, before the hidden truth or meaning can be brought to light. The philosophical ground on which they have proceeded is this; that, all matter or universal nature must of necessity be the form and visible idea of the essence or spirit within. Each object in religion has thus its corresponding sign and character in one of nature; and those of nature in return are held in esteem and reverence from their consecration to the uses of religion. The extent indeed to which this system was carried in Egypt has at all times been proverbial. It formed the subject of expressed astonishment, and secret admiration to the ancient historians of the world. The dark and impenetrable veil in which Truth was encircled, had an air of sublimity, which seized powerfully on their imagination. Egypt became the grand emporium of the West for objects of adoration. Their mythology in fact was almost founded on Egyptian worship. But though possessed of the external form, they were greatly ignorant of its original and real power. They lacked the spirit which could amalgamate and blend these things with the movements of their own minds, and led not only to a confusion, but even a total destruction, of all Truth. The philosophers and sophists flocked thither to acquire that species of information which they could not gain from the Western States; and felt a pride in an initiation by the priests within those mystic and hallowed precincts, which elevated them, both in their own estimation, and in the opinions of their fellow citizens, far above all who were deficient in that desired knowledge. We trace up to an Eastern origin the system of Pythagoras; the ethics of Aristotle; and even the philosophy of Plato, so far more spiritual and sublime than either; and have no question, from a comparatively abundant evidence, that the principles which appeared so great and glorious to the Greeks, existed on the Indus and the Nile, ages before the first dawn of civilization in the West. The Jews too, through every period of their varied history, were no less addicted to this fascinating study, than the other Eastern nations. They pursued it with an eagerness, which was not surpassed, even by the Egyptian priesthood. The fact is of an extreme importance; since, in their possession of the Bible, we behold the origin of that philosophy, which led them to the adoption of this system of correspondence. even It appears to me very forcibly, that men make too little account of the early parts of the Bible; not only in regard to enquiries like the present; but in illustration of the fact, that in all religion, in Christianity, which professes to be the most open and enlightened system which God will ever give, the mystery of parable should form so large a portion. A system of religion without this principle, is one of the fond delusions which men put on themselves. The thing is impossible; unless indeed their faculties were more comprehensive than God at present has ordained them ; — and a study of the most ancient revelations to man would clearly demonstrate, that the Almighty, from the beginning, selected a mystic form of communication of his Will; doubtless because he saw it would convey the most spiritual notions of His own Essence, and fasten the most powerfully on man's imagination. The first religious ordinance which was conveyed to him, was under the combined symbol of the trees of life and of knowledge; and that principle which was thus laid down in man's state of innocence, was continued under more abstruse and hidden forms after his fall into sin and death. The emblem was at first simple and evident. It was a plain and open command; one which might be said to have borne its inner meaning on the very face of it. But it was still a symbol; and given to man in that state of innocence and purity, was evidently designed as the mode and form in which the Deity would ever communicate with his race. This truth indeed became substantiated in a most remarkable manner in the acts of the Deity which immediately succeeded the fall. Both were mystic in the very highest degree. The one, the promise of Christ under the emblem of the serpent, and the woman's seed who should crush its head; the other, the typical expulsion from Eden, and the flaming sword which henceforward guarded the way of the tree of life. In the institution also of the rites of sacrifice which immediately followed; in the blood of the victim, which was -- |