There are eclypses partial and total. In a total eclypse there is the darkness of night. There have been both partial and total eclypses of the Sun of Mercy since his rising. Not only have there been cloudy and dark days, but actual darkness like that of night. Had not a thick vapor arisen from the unfathomable abyss and hid the Sun of Mercy and of Life from human eyes, neither the beast nor the false prophet could have been born.
Wild beasts go forth in the night, and in darkness commit their depredations.
When we dream of troubles, we wade through deep waters. Hence, the commotions and troubled agitations of communities, are symbolized by the waters of the great abyss. From these commotions these deep waters arose the symbolic fog, the figurative vapors which overspread the heavens and hid the Sun of Righteousness from the eyes of mortals. The volumes of traditions, the cabalistic dogmas, the eastern philosophy, the pagan speculations, combined and modified, intercepted entirely, or totally eclypsed the light of the Moral Sun. The sea was usually called the unfathomable abyss.