55 
by that of Dr. Wall,—that, on the contrary, the removal of an error must 
always clear the way to the discovery and elucidation of the truth. 
It is not easy to give a clear idea of the nature of Dr. Wall’s theory 
to those who are unacquainted with the Oriental languages; but I shall 
venture, trusting to your indulgence, to make the attempt. 
He maintains that when men first attempted to record their thoughts 
by writing, hieroglyphic pictures were naturally the first mode of doing 
so that occurred to them. 
He asserts that the great defects and necessary obscurity of this 
method of writing, being inadequate to the fulfilment of the Divine 
purpose of giving to mankind a written revelation, not subject to the 
uncertainty of tradition, the Almighty was pleased to reveal to Moses 
the principle of alphabetic writing; and the Tables of the Law, written 
by the finger of God, were the first example of words expressed in 
writing by an alphabetic representation of their elementary sounds. 
In this primitive revelation of alphabetic writing, it is to be borne 
in mind, that it was the principle only that was revealed. With that 
economy of miracle which characterizes God’s dealings with man, the 
Almighty revealed to Moses, as Dr. Wall maintains, only this principle, 
—that, instead of pictorial objects to represent things, and arbitrary 
pictorial symbols to represent abstract ideas, the sounds of language might 
be analyzed into their elements, and writing made a representation, not 
of thoughts or objects, but of sounds. 
According to this theory the alphabetic principle was not revealed in 
its perfection, but in its elementary idea; and men were left to work out 
that idea, and to perfect their alphabetic systems for themselves. I can- 
- not stop to attempt any account of Dr. Wall’s learned dissertations on 
the progress and defects of alphabets, and on the very curious subject of 
the ideagraphic system of writing still in use among the Chinese. I must 
hasten to the essential part of his theory, in its application to the Hebrew 
Bible. 
He maintains that the Book of Job was first written in hieroglyphies, 
and was translated by Moses into alphabetic writing. He supports this 
opinion by most ingenious arguments, and shows that this hypothesis 
explains in a remarkable way the obscurity of style complained of in 
that sacred book. 
He maintains that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet were originally 
the representatives of syllabic sounds, not of consonants or vowels; that 
the letter 6, for instance, represented ba, be, bz, bo, bu, indifferently, ac-~ 
cording as the context required ; there was nothing in the alphabetical 
character (2) itself to determine which of these vowel sounds was to be 
connected with it. 
Hence the ancient Orientals had no vowels among their alphabetic 
characters, and it was not until they became dead, or partially dead, 
languages, that the necessity of something more than a syllabic alphabet 
was felt. When the Jews returned from the Babylonish Captivity, 
where a new generation had been born, and had consequently forgotten, 
in a great degree, the language of their forefathers, a difficulty was found 
in the reading of their sacred writings. 
