xiv. 1, and ask him how the apostle John knew there were exactly 144,000. On his principle that large number could not have been presented to the eye. How then did he know that there were 144,000?”[18] Does the critic mean that John must have come to the knowledge of it by picture representation? {xviii} Is he sure of this? The number is the same, and the company is the same as in chap. vii. 4, and there we read, “And I _heard_ the number of them which were sealed, and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.” The question is by no means one regarding what God _could_ do, but one regarding merely the powers and capabilities of symbolic language; and we do not feel ourselves at all guilty of any unwarrantable “daring,” when we aver that large numbers could not be visibly represented like small ones. The real solution of the difficulty which the objection presents, seems to us to have been given by Birks, in his _First Elements of Prophecy_. “The beasts were conceptions visually suggested to the eye of the prophet, and nothing more; and the days, in like manner, were conceptions suggested by the words of the vision to his ear. _The only difference is in the sense by which the mental image is conveyed_; for it is plain that a day, when used as a symbol, must be mentioned, and could not appear visibly to the eye.”[19] But whatever may be thought of this, and of the preceding observations, we have still our appeal to the matter of fact. If it be the fact, that in Scripture a day _does_ represent a year, we have no concern about speculations regarding _modes_ of representing. The only question is, What is the Bible mode? and to that question we shall very shortly apply ourselves.