XXIX.

THE SPEECH OF MEN.

GENESIS xi. 6-8.

"And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth : and they left off to build the city."

It is true, that to all mortals is given, by the wisdom and mercy of the Creator, the wonderful faculty of incorporating that which is purely mental, and of clothing the thoughts in audible language, in order to communicate them to other kindred beings: but of the many millions who enjoy this gift of the Deity, there are comparatively few individuals who have ever reflected on its extraordinary qualities and value. Speech, this exclusive property of rational beings-this primary art of that which is immortal, superior to sense, and most excellent within us,-whereby we make terrestrial things the

means and instruments of our designs-this salutation of spirits to spirits, in which they reciprocally testify to each other the equality of their nature, and destination-is well worthy the regard and admiration of the wise ;-as is every thing, indeed, which testifies of the grace of God.

In the earlier days of mankind, nearer the time of their creation, when they probably thought less on the invention and gratification of new and artificial bodily wants, but more on what related to Divine things, they doubtless meditated also on the origin of the differences in the speech of nations.

A valuable ancient record which Moses has transmitted to succeeding generations, in the first of his books, has been fully verified.

After the days of the flood, the whole earth was of one language and of one speech; and the posterity of Noah went down into the plain of Shinar. There they greatly multiplied-there they chiefly lived by feeding cattle, and required much room for their herds-so that whole families were often obliged to remove, in order to find pasturage. Then they might frequently lose themselves for ever from their friends, and not regain the dwellings of their fathers. It was therefore determined, as has been supposed, to build a high tower, whose top should reach to heaven, in order that every one might have a land-mark, by which he might descry

his home from any distant part. But this was contrary to the design of God, who willed, that the whole earth should be peopled with men. And on this account, it is said, He confounded their tongue, so that they could not understand each other's language. Thus the Lord dispersed them from Babel into all lands. (GEN. ii. 1-9.)

It is very useless trouble to enquire what the first language of mankind might have been. What the Scripture teaches us—that in the beginning all the world had one language and speech-is confirmed, both by simple reflection, and by the nature and peculiar relationship of all languages to one another. This relationship is, however, far more defined and lasting in certain sounds, whereby things are denoted, than in the words themselves. For in the beginning, without doubt, when a man wished to describe an object, the same was, as it were, delineated and represented by sounds, which either imitated its peculiar tone, or expressed its outward form or effect. Therefore are all the languages of the most ancient nations as full of imagery and painting as they are poor in words. Thus among the Hebrews, the name of God designates every thing great, high, wonderful or sublime-for God is the most mysterious, enduring, powerful and exalted Being in existence. Therefore they call a great cedar, a high mountain, or the dreadful effects

of a cause unknown to them, the cedar of God, the mountain of God, the power of God. But the richness of the imagery of language among these ancient people, was increased by the vivacity of their imagination. For as this delightful faculty of the human mind is usually the first, next to the memory, which displays itself in great power in children, so it is also with youthful nations. The understanding is afterwards matured by observation and manifold experience with the growth of knowledge the deceptions of the imagination gradually subside.

The human spirit, ever active, does not however wait for the tedious acquisition of partial experience. It reflects on all things, and their causes.

That

which ignorance of the object conceals from it, it supplies through the power of the imagination. Thence it comes that children, to whom no one has ever related stories calculated to excite superstitious terror, when they find themselves frightened in the dark, invent a horrible cause for the thing which alarms them ;—that they hold conversations with lifeless beings, and love or are angry with them, as if they had sense and feeling. They animate in their imagination every thing that surrounds them.

Such was the case with the nations of antiquity in the times of their infancy. They designated every thing by symbols, and borrowed from visible

things names for those which are invisible. The omnipresence of the Most High, they denominated the eye-the omnipotence, the arm of God. Nay, whilst they represented to themselves the most perfect of beings under an image of human form, they even attributed to Him those imperfections which they could never have praised in themselves-anger, revenge, jealousy, hatred, hard-heartedness. They gave life, in their imagination, even to things inanimate. In their narrations every thing has action and speech. If they wished to represent the displeasure of God at the disobedience of man, then they described God as speaking. For all appearances, with the cause of which they had not become acquainted by experience, they imagined one. Thus, according to their fancy, the inanimate was personified to every fountain was given a spirit, to every tree, a soul. From this process sprung at length idolatry and heathenism,—and with religion fiction grew. Nations which, by the preservation of the records of many hundred years, have divested themselves of the errors of imagination-whose understanding consequently is matured much quicker -lose with the images of imagination also the figurativeness of expression. Their language becomes richer in words, and the word less a picturesque than an arbitrary designation of the object. Hence fiction can only be exercised among them as an