Human language has always advanced from its first stage, in which ideas are acquired directly through the medium of the senses, to the higher state, in which abstract ideas are conveyed by appropriate words and signs. When an idea is once formed by outward objects, and a word formed representing that idea, it is then no longer necessary or desirable that the object which first originated the idea should longer be associated in the mind with the idea itself. It is even true that the import of abstract ideas suffers from a co-existence, in the mind, of the abstract thought with the idea of the object which originated it. Thus the word spirit now conveys a distinct idea to the mind of pure spiritual existence; but the distinctness and power of the idea are impaired, by remembering that the word from which it was derived originally signified wind, and that the word itself was originated in the first place by the wind. So in other cases, although the ideas of abstract and spiritual things can be originated, primarily, only from outward objects, yet when they have been originated, and the spiritual idea has been connected with the sign or word conveying its proper sense, it is desirable, in order to their greater force and perspicuity, that their connection with materiality should be broken off in the mind. In all written languages this advancement from one stage of perfection to another, by the addition of abstract ideas, can be traced; and experience teaches, incontrovertibly, that the advancement of human language, as above described, and the advancement of human society, are dependent upon each other. The preceding principles being applied to the subject under consideration, it would follow that the Mosaic machinery, which formed the abstract ideas, conveying the knowledge of God's true character, would no longer be useful after those ideas were originated, defined, and connected with the words which expressed their abstract or spiritual import. It would follow, therefore, that the machinery would be entirely dispensed with whenever it had answered the entire design for which it was put into operation. Whenever the Jews were cured of idolatry, and had obtained true ideas of the attributes of the true God, then the dispensation of shadows and ceremonies, which 'could not make the comers thereunto perfect,' would, according to the reason of things, pass away, and give place to a more perfect and more spiritual dispensation. We find, accordingly, that the machinery of the tabernacle was gradually removed, it never having existed in perfection after the location of the tribes in Palestine. They sojourned in the wilderness until those who had come out of Egypt died. The generation who succeeded them had the advantage of having received their entire education through the medium of the Mosaic institution, and thus of being freed from vicious habits and remembrances contracted in idolatrous society.