Moreover, in all the old Hebrew writings the consonants only are expressed. Thus it happens that the same written characters may denote different things, sometimes contradictory, unless living tradition could supply the true signification. Thus the word [Hebrew: resh, kaf] means _son_ (Ps. ii. 12), or it may be an adjective signifying _chosen_ (Cant. vi. 9), or, again, _clear_ (Cant. vi. 10), or _empty_ (Prov. xiv. 4). Besides these primary meanings it stands for _corn_ or _grain_, for _open fields_ or _country_, for a _pit_, for _salt of lye_ (vegetable salt), and for _pureness_. The true signification in each passage is not always clear from the context, and critics are frequently at a loss to divine the sense intended by the writer. But whilst these discrepancies and obscurities are a momentary source of distraction, they arouse not only zeal for the study of the sacred languages, by which means philological mysteries are frequently cleared up, but they give us often an insight into the wonderful genius of the Semitic languages, with their peculiar imagery, which associates ideas and feelings apparently wholly distinct from each other according to the use of modern terms. The last-made reflection suggests another advantage, in an educational point of view, which the study of the Sacred Scriptures opens to those who possess sufficient talent and opportunity for its pursuit. I mean the power of thought and reflection which comes with the study of a foreign language. There are portions of the Old Testament which we cannot rightly read and understand without _some_ knowledge of the tongue in which they were originally written. This is one of the several reasons which the Church has for not sanctioning, without certain cautions, the indiscriminate reading of the Sacred Scriptures in the form of translation. Let me give you a very good authority for this.