356 On the Antiquity of the Gealic Language*. 



By this order of our numerals we discover one of the 

 most excellent and interesting precepts that ever was deli- 

 vered to man; containing, first, an excitement to wonder 

 with amazement at the procedure of the Presence and the 

 operation of the Spirit in the production of Light, calling 

 forth our gratitude to the Great Author for that portion of 

 this Light or Ray of himself he is pleased to endue us se- 

 verally with : and, secondly, the prevention of hurt towards 

 our neighbours ; whether by defamation, murder, false 

 witnessing, false weights and measures, unjust accounts, 

 or otherwise. We are commanded to depart to replenish 

 the earth, and not to prostitute in their own symbols those 

 great and awful attributes ; he must be most hardened, in- 

 deed, who, knowing the significations they bear, can dare 

 to do it. Therefore those excellent names, preferable to all 

 others, are given to be our numbers ; and they are com- 

 prised in those numbers, that in all our transactions they 

 may be as a lamp before us. 



The commanding number Dec, the others being attri- 

 butes of the Almighty, evinces that those characters, though 

 commonly called Arabic, are truly the Gealic's j and m 

 fact, neither the Arabians nor any other nation until now 

 did ever claim them ; nor could they, indeed, having no 

 title to show. Whatever the Jews may have had > they 

 dropped it long since in jEgypt. 



The Gealic alphabet, if not providentially preserved as 

 its numeral characters have been, is long since lost; and 

 the following facts, handed down by tradition, may account 

 for their being so. 



The Magi (from the nominative plural Maghi, Maghim, 

 or Maghin ; singular, Mai ; i. e. Ma-I, the goodness of 

 God), or expositors' of the goodness of God, became in 

 process of time, from being esteemed the best and wisest of 

 men, to be dreaded as dangerous innovators ; and were ac- 

 cordingly suppressed. The more ignorant vulgar believed 

 that, by their great knowfcdge in the secret operations of 

 natural powers, they could at pleasure transmute their own 

 bodies into those of other animals, and in particular into 

 that of the hare ; and from this opinion conceived so deep 

 a prejudice at the flesh of that animal as to be scarcely worn 

 out even at this day. Many of the more common High- 

 landers will say that they prefer eating of any other flesh to 

 that of the ghare ; i, e. the cut-lip or hare. If asked why? 

 they immediately retort, " Ne Vaghi" (the oblique case of 

 Maghi), Is it the Magi, or would I eat the Magi ? and with 

 fk serious countenance will add, that ten hates to one are 



witches 



