as being applied at a venture, without any
definite rule, capable of every variety of meaning, so that we can never
be quite _sure_ that we have its correct interpretation?

Commentators generally unite in attaching a definite meaning to certain
symbols, and they tell us that these can not be applied otherwise
without violating their nature. They may not give us their reasons for
thus applying them (in fact, they generally do not), yet it is evidently
assumed that such reasons do exist. Now, if reasons actually exist why a
definite signification must be applied to the symbol in the one case,
why do they not exist in another case, and in all cases? If any law
exists in the case at all, it is a uniform one, for a law that does not
possess uniformity is no law; otherwise, it would be an unintelligible
revelation, and the only possible thing left for us to do would be to
attempt to solve it like a riddle--guess it out. It would be as if the
writer were to use words with every variety of meaning peculiarly his
own attached, without informing the reader what signification to give
them in a given instance. No man has a right thus to abuse written or
spoken language; and we may take it for granted that the God of heaven
would not make such an indiscriminate use of symbolical language when
making a revelation to men. There is no other book the wide world around
in which language is as carefully employed as in the Bible; and we can
rest assured that when God gave this Revelation to Jesus Christ "to
_show_ unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass," he
made choice of proper symbols whose meaning can be definitely evolved,
provided we can but ascertain the great underlying principles upon which
their original selection was based.

In the ordinary communication of our thoughts we employ arbitrary signs
and sounds to which we have universally agreed to fix a definite
meaning. Thus, our entire spoken language is made up of a great variety
of sounds or words with which by long practise we have become familiar.
We call a certain object a horse, not because there is any similarity
between the sound and the animal designated, but because we have agreed
that that sound shall represent that object. So, also, we have agreed
that the characters h-o-r-s-e shall represent the same thing; and by the
use of twenty-six characters, called the alphabet, placed together in
various combinations, we are able to write our entire spoken l