So far the author of the Treatise. He might have added further, that from the nature of things, the revelation to Moses in this instance _must_ have been "sight or vision," if, indeed, what is not in the least likely, the peculiar architecture and style of ornament used in the Tabernacle was not a borrowed style, already employed in the service of idolatry. An old, long established architecture can be adequately described by speech or writing; a new, original architecture can be adequately described only by pattern or model, that is, by sight or vision. Any intelligent cutter in stone or carver in wood could furnish to order, though the order were merely a verbal one, a Corinthian or Ionic capital; but no such mechanic, however skilful or ingenious, could furnish to order, if unprovided with a pattern or drawing, a _facsimile_ of one of the ornately sculptured capitals of Gloucester Cathedral or York Minster. To ensure a _facsimile_ in any such case, the originals, or representations of them, would require to be submitted to the eye,--not merely described to the ear. Nay, from the example given in the text,--that of the golden candlestick,--we have an instance furnished in recent times of the utter inadequacy of mere description for the purposes of the sculptor or artist. Ever since copperplate engravings and illustrated Bibles became comparatively common, representations of the branched candlestick taken from the written description have been common also. The candlestick on the arch of Titus, though not deemed an exact representation of the original one described in the Pentateuch, is now regarded,--correctly, it cannot be doubted,--as at least the nearest approximation to it extant. Public attention was first drawn to this interesting piece of sculpture in comparatively modern times; and it was then found that all the previous representations taken from the written description were widely erroneous. They only served to show, not the true outlines of the golden candlestick, but merely that inadequacy of verbal description for artistic purposes which must have rendered _vision_, or, in other words, optical representation, imperative in the case of Moses. Some of our most sober minded commentators take virtually the same view of this necessity of vision for ensuring the production of the true pattern of the Tabernacle. "The Lord," says Thomas Scott, "not only directed Moses by words how to build the Tabernacle and form its sacred furniture, but showed him a model exactly representing the form of every part, and the proportion of each to all the rest." There must have been clear optical vision in the case,--"vision without dark speeches." Such, too, was the character of other of the Mosaic visions, besides that of the "pattern" seen in the Mount. The burning bush, for instance, was a vision addressed to the eye; and seemed to come so palpably under the ordinary optical laws, that the prophet _drew near_ to examine the extraordinary