Philology, History, Etc., Etc
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Philology, History, Etc., Etc.
By Editor
A FRIEND handed to us a pamphlet entitled "Three Religions," in which the writer, who styles himself "Ephraim," gives a running exposition of many things, all in the most incoherent and incongruous style. To show the Israelitish origin of Europeans and Americans he treats us to the following precious specimen of reasoning:— "It was the custom among the Israelites to speak of a man as the son of such an one, as David the son of Jesse, etc. The Saxons seem to have held to the custom, only that they put son to the end of the family name, as John Johnson, William Williamson, etc. Now, if we put son to the end of the name Isaac, we have Isaacson. Then, if we cut off the prefix letter I, we have Isaacson, or Saxon." On what principle the prefix is dropped we are not told. With such evidence all must be convinced! The writer is also a strong believer in the Napoleon family, and yet looks for its revival. We can help them out on that subject by a method of argument as conclusive as that given above, and very similar to it. In Rev. 9: 11 is a personage called Abaddon. We can easily imagine, on the principle that names have significance, that this might be written "A-bad-'un," which all know is good rustic dialect for "A bad one," which is an accurate description of Louis Napoleon! The case is clear. We doubt whether there was ever so conclusive evidence given on the Napoleon subject before. We would not, even to show the absurdity of such theories, use a fact or declaration of Scripture, but we have no great respect for the "personage" referred to above, and make no apology for the use of his name. When will vagarists cease to bore the public with their useless theories?