ist, 1847, the United States conquered Mexico and annexed
California." "In the year of Christ--what new Olympiad may be that?" he
would say. "The United States of course means the States of the Achaen
League, but on what shore of the Euxine may Mexico and California be
found?" What information could Aristotle gather from the record that,
"In 1857, the Transatlantic Telegraph was in operation?" Could all the
augurs in the seven-hilled city have expounded to Julius Caesar the
famous dispatch, if intercepted in prophetic vision, "Sebastopol was
evacuated last night, after enduring for three days an infernal fire of
shot and shell?" Nay, to diminish the vista to even two or three
centuries, what could Oliver Cromwell, aided by the whole Westminster
Assembly, have made of a prophetic vision of a single newspaper
paragraph of history written in advance, to inform them that, "Three
companies of dragoons came down last night from Berwick to Southampton,
by a special train, traveling 54-1/2 miles an hour, including stoppages,
and embarked immediately on arrival. The fleet put to sea at noon, in
the face of a full gale from the S. W.?" Why, the intelligible part of
this single paragraph would seem to them more impossible, and the
unintelligible part more absurd, than all the mysterious symbols of the
Apocalypse.

The world has accepted God's symbols thousands of years ago, and it is
too late in the day for our reformers to propose new laws of thought,
and forms of speech, to the human race. David's prophetic lyrics,
Christ's graphic parables, Isaiah's celestial anthems, Ezekiel's
glorious symbols, and Solomon's terse proverbs, will be recited and
admired, ages after the foggy abstractions of mystified metaphysicians
have vanished from the earth. The Thirst of Passion, the Cup of
Pleasure, the Fountain of the Water of Life, the Blood of Murder, the
Rod of Chastisement, the Iron Scepter, the Fire of Wrath, the Balance of
Righteousness, the Sword of Justice, the Wheels of Providence, the
Conservative Mountains, the Raging Seas of Anarchy, and the Golden,
Brazen, and Iron Ages, will reflect their images in truth's mirror, and
photograph their lessons on memory's tablet, while the mists of the
"positive philosophy," "the absolute," and "the conditioned," float past
unheeded, to the land of forgetfulness. God's prophetic symbols are the
glorious embodiments of living truths, while man's philosophic
abstractions are the melancholy ghost