David says, "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried." What a miracle-worker, to stop the earth in its revolution! Rather too fast. Two hundred years ago, _prevent_ was used in the strict Latin sense to _come before_, or _anticipate_. It is always used in this sense in the Old and New Testaments. David's expression, in the English of the nineteenth century, is, "Before the dawning of the morning I cried," or, I began to cry before day-break. "So my prayer shall _prevent_ thee." "Let us _prevent_ his face with thanksgiving." "Mine eyes _prevent_ the night watches." "We shall not _prevent_ them that are asleep," &c. In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used in a sense now nearly or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense totally _opposite_ to their present meaning. A few examples follow: "Oftentimes I purposed to come to you, but was _let_ (hindered) hitherto." "And the four _beasts_ (living ones) fell down and worshipped God,"--Whosoever shall _offend_ (cause to sin) one of these little ones,"--Go out into the high ways and _compel_ (urge) them to come in,"--Only let your _conversation_ (habitual conduct or course of life) be as becometh the Gospel,"--They that seek me _early_ (earnestly) shall find me,--Give me _by and by_ (now) in a charger, the head of John the Baptist,"--So when tribulation or persecution ariseth _by-and-by_ (immediately) they are offended. Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are continually throwing off particles and absorbing others. So long as they are mere _representatives,_ elected by the whims of universal suffrage, their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next century is an employment sufficiently silly, (to speak within bounds,) for a modern Bible dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by showing what it means _now_. Pity that hyper-fashionable mantuamakers and milliners were not a little quicker at taking hints from some of our Doctors of Divinity. How easily they could save their pious customers all qualms of conscience about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by demonstrating that the last importation of Parisian indecency, just now flaunting here on promenade, was the identical style of dress in which the pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels, the modest Rebecca drew water for the camels of Abraham's servants. Since such fashions are rife in Chestnut-street and Broadway _now_, they _must_ have been in Canaan and Pandanaram four thousand years ago!