No, these scenes have been all denominated from the form of religion which they recognised, and of which the _Pith_, _Yoni_, or _sacred Boat_, was the conventional sign: as the countries of _Phut_, that is, _But_, and _Buotan_, were so designated likewise, from their adopting the _opposite_ symbol, namely, the _Budh_, _Phallus_, or _sacred Lingam_! Perplexed in this entanglement, and tossed about in “a sea of speculation,” Mr. Jacob Bryant, in some respects a clever man, after a fatiguing cruise of somewhat more than half a century, fell at last a victim in the general shipwreck. “Your wise men don’t know much of navigation.” The _Gentiles_, says he, worshipped Noah’s _ark_! Yes they did; but _not in the sense in which he understood it_.[305] Another _axiom_ of his is, that the _Deluge_ must have really happened, because that the _tradition_ of it is _universal_! To this, also, I chime in my affirmative response, and proclaim, yea. But the _tradition_ of the _tree of knowledge_ is equally _universal_. And though the _ground work_ of _both occurred_, and was _substantively true_, yet was the _description_ of _neither_ more than a graceful _allegory_; while the salutary _alarm_ imparted under this guise, and the monitory _lesson_ suggested by its horrors, in _amusing_ the fancy, _edified_ it, at the same moment, by keeping before it a _picture_ of that _spiritual desolation_, which _sin_ leaves in the _citadel_ of the _soul_.[306] “Moses,” says the apostle, “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.”[307] Now Strabo assures us that the Egyptians of his day were as ignorant as he was himself of the origin of their religion, of the import of their symbols, and of their national history. They pretended to retain some _evanescent_ traces thereof in the time of Diodorus; but so scrupulously exact were they in the concealment of their tenour, that to pry into them, profanely, was morally impossible. Herodotus himself, who neglected no channel of information, found it no easy matter to glean a few _initiatory_ scraps from them. And even these were accompanied with such solemn denunciations, that his embarrassment is betrayed when but alluding to their tendency. If, during Moses’s residence at Pharaoh’s Court, his opportunities of insight were greater, it is still self-evident that the accomplishments which he obtained were more of a secular character than of a religious cast--that the _courtier_ was the first object of the young princess’s directions, and the qualifications of the _statesman_ her next ambition for her charge. The _mysteries_ of the priests were too awful, and too sanctified, to be debased to the routine of a schoolboy’s rehearsal; and even when ripening age did bespeak a more chastened mind, the communication of their contents was obscured by the interposition of an almost impenetrable umbrage.