168 



Forgetful that its branches grew 



Where weep the heavens their holiest dew , 



On Alpine's dwelling low. 



Wo to the wretch who fails to rear, 

 At this dread Sign, the ready spear ; 

 For as the flames this symbol sear. 

 His home, the refuge of his fear, 

 A kindred fate shall know. 



Far o'er its roof the volumed flame 

 Clan Alpine's vengeance shall proclaim, 

 While maids and matrons on his name 

 Shall call down wretchedness, and shame, 

 And infamy, and woe. 



I have briefly endeavoured to show that the love of symbolism is 

 a kind of instinct in man, and is adopted by unlettered races 

 living in various climes and in various conditions of existence, as 

 the readiest means of communicating ideas ; where, without it, in 

 fact, they would have had no means of communicating ideas at all. 

 But if this is so amongst the cold apathetic races of a temperate 

 clime and a western sky, how much more would it strike root and 

 flourish among the fervid and impassioned tribes of Asia, under 

 the burning sun of the torrid East; the land of song and tradition; 

 the birth place and cradle of the human race? The sacred writings 

 teem with illustrations of this truth, and the history of the 

 Israelites, as contained in the Old Testament, is one long struggle 

 with the idolatrous worship of symbolic forms, of which the real 

 meaning and original intent has been lost and misunderstood. I 

 feel much tempted to linger over this part of my subject, but it 

 would detain me from the more immediate object of my lecture ; 

 I will therefore only remind you of one of the earliest and most 

 striking instances of the use of symbols, which is contained in the 

 49th chapter of Genesis, where Jacob illustrates by symbols the 

 characters of his sons, fortells the future of the tribes which 

 shall descend from them, predicts the coming of the future Shiloh 

 as the offspring of Judah, whom he describes as an old lion. 

 Who, he says, shall stir him up ? How pregnant with meaning is his 

 comparison of Issachar to a strong ass crouching between two 



