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THE MYSTERY LANGUAGE
accuring to them in their original character were not those followed by grammarians, who base their distinctions on linguistic differences attributable to the several letters into which, under their system, the ideograms have been transformed. The limits ot space, however, and consideration for the general reader, call on me to forbear from grammatical or quasi-grammatical disquisitions which could not but be wearisome to those not versed in the Semitic dialects. Hence I will only observe on the present occasion that, as far as the Hebrew. Language is concerned, the original ideau grams are no longer in use; and, though the Samaritan alphabet may represent them, it is much more probable that they have irrevocably disappeared as far as the power of recovering them with certainly could reach. It is therefore possible that, in the process of transference from one set of signs to another-as when the Hebrew text was written in the square Chaidee character, in which it has ever since been handed down and preserved--the original ideographs, or word-sigos, were subjected to changes which have more or less modified their primary significance; and in any case every attempting re-interpreter must be only too painfully aware of the difficulties involved in his undertaking, and the possible errors into which he is table to be betrayed,
I well remember how it fisst dawned upon me that a teaching otber than that which was attributed to it by tbe received translations could be drawn from the
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