business, politics, social and domestic gatherings, the daily cares, duties, trials, sorrows of men. It loses none of its sacredness when it enters the house, the shop, the counting-room, the field of labor, the caucus-room, the court of justice, the legislative hall, the executive chamber, and deals with men as responsible beings there. It is the privilege of the clergyman, and indeed every Christian, to carry his faith in God as his Father and Supreme Ruler, the spirit of Jesus, and the sanctity of spiritual truth, into all the ways and walks of his life. He thus introduces an elevating spirit into the busy interests of life and hallows and ennobles every act of duty. The character of the religion which Jesus taught is not sombre, but cheerful and joyous. It sheds sunshine and gladness wherever it goes. It banishes darkness and gloom and everything inconsistent with its spirit, and endeavors to bring into harmony with itself all the hostile forces of the world. It asks us to recognize God in all that we think or do, that "whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do," we may " do all to the glory of God."

The whole sphere of duty pertaining to the Christian Minister may be summed up in three words, "Loyalty to Christ." He is the ruler in the spiritual kingdom where every true hearted ministor dwells and labors. Every inhabitant of this blessed realm is a voluntary subject of him. All delight to obey him. They strive to imitate him as a perfect Exemplar. In imitating him they imbibe his spirit and through him they bow in submission to the Father and receive from him the truth which they need. Thus endowed and sanctified they go forth to reclaim the lost ones and bring them back to their allegiance to the common Master. If the minister ever follows Christ and adopts his methods, he cannot fail in the discharge of the duties pertaining to his office.

Prof. J. S. Lee, D.D.

ARTICLE XIII.

Comparative Philology in Our Colleges.1

WHEN a new science arises, it is necessary, in order that it may find a place in the curriculum of the colleges, for the friends of the stranger to fight and win four battles. They must first prove that the claimant is a science, in fact. Next they must make it certain that this new comer is of value, in an educational way, and worthy of a place among the old reliables. Then room for it must be found in a course of study already full-perhaps overcrowded. And lastly, suitable provision must be made for teaching it. Can such positions be won for comparative philology? Is it a science? Does it deserve recognition? Can we find room for it? Will the necessary means for teaching it be forthcoming?

I. When the forefathers of our physicists were searching for the fountain of perpetual youth, and zealous alchemists dreamed of that elixir which should transmute all metals into gold, there was surely no science of philology. Even a century ago there was none. Before that time the spirit of systematic investigation which was beginning to move in the world of thought, had indeed appeared in language matters. Certain scholars were anxious to discover the mother tongue of all the languages of the world; and they went to work earnestly, with such limited materials as they then possessed. The Hebrew, the oldest language, at least in its literature, with which they were acquainted, was very generally— and with more than the spirit of a tentative assumption - held to be that universal mother tongue.

The great genius, Leibnitz, urged on by his zeal in the study of ethnography, and thinking that linguistics might assist him in his search, collected words in different languages for the purpose of comparing them; and he accomplished at least this much to promote the study of language he founded the present Academy of Science at Berlin, and won for him1 Read before the Association of Ohio Colleges, at Westerville, December 28, 1886.

self the title," Early Prophet of Philology." The Russians under Catherine II. prepared a special list of their words, and collated them with their equivalents in as many languages as possible. The product, when published (1787-9), was entitled "A Comparison of the Vocabularies of all the Languages of the World." Further classifications, based on wide assemblages of facts, were made by other scholars; though little of value seemed to come immediately from this work. Material was, however, being collected; the way was being prepared; and the comparative method was being applied to linguistic investigation. An accurate central principle was sorely needed. Some new discovery which should reveal the correct basis of classification was called for. In the history of astronomy we see that many facts had been gathered and much work done while yet the Ptolemaic system was prevalent, though little genuine progress was made in that science until Copernicus discovered and proclaimed the true centre. So in philology. The discovery which should reveal to scholars the linguistic families and their relations to each other, came; and Hebrew was no longer the mother language of the world. In the year 1765 the East India Company obtained its first sovereignty in Bengal. It determined to rule the people in conformity with their own laws; and Warren Hastings, then Governor-General, had a digest made of the most important of those laws. Sir William Jones, a scholar of especial eminence in language, was appointed a judge of the supreme court of judicature; and he undertook to improve on Hastings' digest of Hindu law. His attention was thus called to the native scholarly language, the Sanskrit. Under the auspices of the Asiatic Society others joined him in the work. In searching through the Sanskrit literature they were "amazed and delighted to discover at every step the most strange and beautiful correspondences, not only with the Latin and Greek, but also with their own mothertongue; and indeed with almost every other language of which they had sufficient knowledge to make it a term of comparison."

Sir William Jones was the first man who announced to the

European world the evident connection, since so fully verified, between the Aryan, or Indo-European languages. In the year 1786, just an even century ago, he expressed himself thus: "The Sanskrit language, whatever may be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could have been produced by accident; so strong that no philologer could examine all the three without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists." And he adds: "There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit." This, you will remember, is the statement of one hundred years ago. In 1789 this same industrious scholar published a translation of the drama Sakuntala, (The Fatal Ring), which created a widespread interest in Sanskrit literature. The door was now fairly open to the subject, and many earnest workers turned that way. They found the Sanskrit "remarkable for its preservation of original materials and processes, and for the great regularity and consequent transparency of its formative methods. In most words there is no difficulty in distinguishing from each other root, affix, and termination, and in recognizing the original form and signification of each. For analyzing words, retracing their history, and referring them to their ultimate roots, the utmost facility is afforded." In Europe the interest was great. Both in England and upon the continent much zeal was manifested; but in Germany especially the "spark from India" kindled. Frederick Schlegel, in his essay on the Language and Philosophy of the Indians, published in 1808, first aroused his countrymen to this new study. He was the first to state the fundamental principle, still intact: "Correspondence in the grammatical structure of different languages proves their identity, beyond any other kind of resemblance."

Francis Bopp made his first appearance as a philologist in 1816, in a work entitled: The Conjugation-system of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Persian and German Languages. It was this production that first effectually opened the new era of Comparative Philology. And "while Bopp was not the first to state that the language of the Brahmans was nearly related to the languages of Europe, especially to Latin and Greek, the credit is due to him of having instituted a systematic comparison, which, starting from the forms of the verb, gradually extended over the whole language, and demonstrated for all time what Jones and Schlegel and others had only suspected or affirmed." Now place beside Bopp's Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European tongues Jacob Grimm's Comparative Grammar of the Germanic branch of the family; then glance along the line of continued progress and demonstration from that day to this, and we need only add some definitions to establish our first point, namely, that the historical and systematic study of language takes proper rank as a science. The many honored workers we would not forget. The list of their names is long. To mention Rask, Burnouf, Ascoli, Curtius, Pott, Benfy, Schleicher, Kuhn, Max Müller and Whitney, would only be to omit many others scarcely less deserving.

In this work, as in every other sort of investigation, many and various theories have been proposed; and often false assumptions have been made, and then abandoned; but since the time when, seventy years ago, the genius of Francis Bopp put forth his epoch-making work, the foundations of IndoEuropean philology, then and there laid, have not been disturbed. The admission of Sanskrit as a term of comparison, and then us an important factor in the problem, was of vast, even revolutionary importance. This was followed by the patient classification of a multitude of linguistic facts, the elucidation of the laws running through them, and the promulgation of the principles there found. And the results, when rightly judged, we hold, fully justify us in affirming that a new science has arisen.