Whether within or without the ark, or within a secret vault or not, EZRA, the scribe, brought forth the lost book or rolls of the law, and established the rules for its future perpetuity, whether by writing, or in oral explanation. And here, again, we note the use of secrecy in matters of power. From him is derived the present method of reading Hebrew, by what is usually known as the {56} vowel points in the Masoretic text. The Masorites were a set of men whose profession it was to write out copies of the Hebrew Scriptures. And the present vowel points were used by them, as derived from the secret writings of the Cabbalists. The Jews believe that, when God gave to Moses the law in Mount Sinai, he taught him first the true readings of it; and, secondly, the true interpretation of it; and that both these were handed down, from generation to generation, by oral tradition only, till at length the readings were written by the accents and vowels, in like manner as the interpretations were, by the Mishna and Gemara. The former they call Masorah, which signifieth "tradition." The other is called Cabbala, which signifieth "reception;" but both of them denote the same thing, that is, a knowledge down from generation to generation, in the doing of which, there being tradition on the one hand, and reception on the other, that which relates to the readings of the Hebrew Scriptures hath its name from the former, and that which relates to the interpretations of them from the latter. As those who studied and taught the Cabbala were called the Cabbalists, so those who studied and taught the Masorah were called the Masorites. As the whole business of the Cabbalists and Masorites was the study of the true reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, to preserve and teach the proper text, they certainly are justly held the most likely to have invented, or at least {57} received and preserved these vowel points, because the whole use of these points is to serve to this purpose.[64]