common to all primitive stages of language, is as strongly characteristic of the American speech as of the unprogressive eastern mind.

In the slow migrations of the human family from its great central hives, language imperceptibly adapted itself to novel acquirements. Suddenly, in the maturity of Europe's fifteenth century, another world burst upon us. But in its novel scenes language was at fault. Beast, bird, and fish; flower and tree; art, nature, man himself; all were strange. It seemed as if language had its work to do anew, as when first framed amid the life of Eden. But the settlers applied old European names, in an irregular and unscientific manner. This is due, in part, to a late stage of development, when the power of originating root-words has long been dormant. Looking, indeed, to names of the most familiar animals and plants, as they occur in languages of the Indo-European stock, one would say that each nation had etymons for such, only in so far as they were themselves native to the original habitat of the race. As languages in a late stage give birth to few radicals, so nations do not, as a rule, create original names for foreign animals or plants. But one remarkable class of exceptions may be found in certain names of the fauna of new countries, which are imitative of sound, that is, of the class known by the learned as "onomatopoeic." Our word thunder, like its equivalents in other tongues, had its origin in the idea of the sound. Clash, whet, cut, buzz, cough, squeak, laugh, scream, screech, cry, roar, &c., all have a significance which seems to lie at the root of the distinction between the vocal utterances of the lower animals, and the speech of man. By simply adapting this imitative association of ideas, European settlers in the New World have added to the stock of root-words. The sloths of South America received from the Spaniard the name of ai, in imitation of their plaintive cry as they move in the forests. The Brazilian eagle is called the caracara, from its hoarse utterance; and the large toucan is the piapoco, wherever its voice has rendered that sound familiar. The whip-poor-will is heard very distinctly to utter, throughout a whole summer's night, the name by which it is designated. The pewee, the towhee, the kittawake, and many other animals of the New World, have received names all illustrative of the simplest primitive source of imitation. Descriptive names, such as turnstone, fly-catcher, indigo bird, golden eagle, passenger-pigeon, trumpeter-swan, &c., manifestly implying prior ideas of colour, metals, &c., can in no sense be regarded as primitives.

Traces of an independent origin of many Coptic words are full of interest: for some of these are recovered from records graven on the monuments of Egypt. When Thoth, the god of letters, appeared on the earth, there was a tradition, according to Plutarch, that the Egyptians had no language, but only uttered the cries of animals, until he taught them speech, as well as writing. The cry of the ibis still repeats its ancient name of hippep.

The Latin tonitru and taurus are both imitations of grave, prolonged sounds; the latter, at least, having its counterpart, whether independently or not, in various languages. So, as we have the Sanscrit ma, for mother, Prescott remarks on the Mama Oello, or Eve of the Peruvians.

European colonists of the New World re-adapt the vocables of one continent to the objects of another. But this process is seen reversed, when we turn to the native Indian languages. In these the animals introduced from Europe have almost invariably received a descriptive name. For instance, the horse bears a number of names, in various tribes, signifying, "pack-carrier," "carrying on its back;"" the animal with united hoofs;" "the spirit-dog," or marvellous beast of burden.

Evidence of the origin of expressions for inanimate things, by a process of imitation, is highly interesting, as it illustrates the independent growth and expansion of languages. Thus pwah-gun is a tobacco-pipe; the noise of waves, dashing against rocks, is mah-dwa-yaush-kah; and the melancholy, prolonged sound of the wind, travelling through the pine-forest, is mah-dwa-yaund-ah-gah-shi.

Man has not only the faculty of vocal utterance, which is the true equivalent of the voice of the lower animals; but also the power of evolving language so as to convey his thoughts to other men, which is his grand distinction. The finch transferred to the neighbourhood of the lark, or the cuckoo reared in the nest of the linnet, does not lose its own notes for those of its companions; as the English child reared in France or Italy, or stolen by the wild Indian of the western forests, acquires the speech of its nurse, and, unless trained in its utterances, loses its own mother tongue. The bray of the ass, though an act of volition, is no intellectual effort, such as the most foolish of human speech is. If the ass will utter its voice, it cannot choose but bray; and no training, but only a complete change of its organs of sound, could enable it to low like the ox, or mew like the cat. We can, indeed, teach the parrot, the starling, and one or two other birds, to imitate certain words, and even sentences; that is, we can so far superadd speech, in its narrowest sense, to their inarticulate utterances. But we cannot give them language. This pertains to him alone who is not only Divinely endued with "the breath of life," but with "the inspiration of the Almighty," which "giveth him understanding." It is only by conceiving a sure relation between the intellectual instincts of the human mind, and the constructional elements pervading all languages, that we can account for the structural consistency found in those of rude tribes. The vocabularies are complex, lawless, and drawn from diverse sources; but the farther we follow up any language toward a conceivable beginning, the more full, complete, and consistent its grammatical forms prove to be. This alone seems enough to confute the idea of man's origin by development from any inferior, unintelligent order of animated beings.

A perception of the natural significance of articulate sounds may be blunted, but not lost. The exclamatory use of nearly all the vowels is universally recognised; and so are the utterances of laughing and crying. All ears respond, indeed, to the cultivated tones of domesticated animals; especially, of man's companion, the dog. There it is, if at all, that we find any analogy to human language. Its whine, its bay, its whimper, its bark, its yelp, its growl, its snarl, its snap, its howl, are each a distinct utterance;

and every one of these names is a word directly derived from this doglanguage. An intelligent dog catches many ideas from its master's voice; while he, again, can tell, by the dog's bark, whether it is greeting an acquaintance, threatening an intruder, repelling a bezgar; or whether it is only indulging in that liberty of speech which is the birthright of every civilized dog, and taking an abstract bark at things in general. Derived, however, as many terms are, from natural sources, each region will have distinctive features of its own. The very cries of animals, and the modulated rhythms of the wood-songsters, as well as the sounds peculiar to mountain, sea-coast, wood, and prairie, give origin to terms which become native root-words in certain localities. And, given a single new root-word, we know how greatly the language may be enriched by its offshoots. But, amid all chances and changes of the vocabulary, the grammatical structure remains. Here is an element to which the sweetest harmonies of woodnote rhythms offer no analogy. By inflections as truly regulated as the language in which Plato wrote and Pindar sung, the wild and unlettered Indian modifies each root-word, or complex word-sentence, so as to express number, time, quality, or passion, as if guided by an intellectual instinct operating upon the reasoning faculty common to man.

(To be continued.)

HORE BIBLICE.

No. LXXVI.-ILLUSTRATIONS OF TEXTS.

"Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live." (Ezek. xx. 25.)

THESE words have been, from the earliest times, variously misunderstood. Among the Fathers the opinion was so common as to be almost universal, (Jerome alone tries to qualify it,) that the law in general, and in particular its sacrificial rites, must be understood by those statutes not good, and judgments in which men could not live; although the prophet expressly opposes them to those which God had given in the wilderness, and which must have comprehended all the sacrificial institutions. Others, again, have sought to distinguish between one part of the law and another, giving to the Decalogue especially the honour of being accounted good and lifesustaining; while the other and more burdensome parts of the ritual are assigned to the class of not good, and tending to death. (So Spencer, Warburton, &c.) As if the Decalogue only had been given to the generation that had come out of Egypt, at the commencement of the wildernesssojourn, and all the rest had been reserved to the close, and made known to the generation that succeeded! On the contrary, all the distinctive laws and ordinances of the old covenant were imposed during the first and second year after the deliverance from Egypt; and consequently were given, not principally to the generation here spoken of by the prophet, but

to their fathers who had been brought out of Egypt. It was also of these laws and ordinances, of the whole legislation of God by Moses, that Moses himself spake, when he told the people that they had in that the way of life set before them.

It must, therefore, be something quite different and opposite,-it can only, indeed, be the polluted customs and observances of heathenism,—that the prophet here characterizes as statutes not good, and judgments in which life was not to be found. By a strong expression, (and yet not so strong as that in Isaiah lxiii. 17,) God is said to have given death-bringing ordinances to the Israelites, when He saw their wayward and perverse behaviour in regard to the commandments and duties of His service; since, to punish their unfaithfulness, He subjected them to influences which brought on, first spiritual, then outward desolation and ruin. (Compare 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.)

That the view now given is the correct one, becomes still more evident when we look at the next verse, which ought to be regarded as explanatory of the other: "And I polluted them in their gifts," (namely, as the result of the bad statutes and judgments now brought in upon them,) "in the presentation of all their firstborn, that I might make them desolate, that they might know that I am the Lord." When the Lord speaks of polluting them in their gifts, something more is to be understood than Hävernick's, "I declared them to be impure, I treated them as such." They really were impure; and God had, in righteous judgment, ordered His providence so as to render this impurity palpable. He speaks, therefore, as if He Himself had polluted them, that He might lead the people to regard the blindness and infatuation of mind, which disposed them to submit to heathenish influences, as the result of His just displeasure..........He must render their condition desolate, that, thus chastened and humbled, they might come to know the Lord, and return to Him in truth.-Principal Fairbairn.

"When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” (Luke xviii. 8.)

This does not refer to any specific coming of Christ. Observe the context, the parable of the unprincipled judge and the importunate widow. Since persevering importunity will prevail even with an impious man, how much more with God! Patient waiting is the highest gift of faith. (1 Cor. i. 7; 2 Thess. iii. 5.) Yet, when the Lord cometh, at the fall of Jerusalem, at the millennium, or at any other coming, He will not find that kind of faith which consists of patient waiting, in such operation among men as it ought to be, or as might be expected, considering what rich blessings it can obtain for us. Indeed, that waiting, or suspense, as it were, which arises from our being emptied of self, and having full affiance in God, and patient submission to His will, is really the largest operation of faith which can possibly be.-Rev. Charles Simeon.

[The insertion of any article in this list is not to be considered as pledging us to the approbation of its contents, unless it be accompanied by some express notice of our favourable opinion. Nor is the omission of any such notice to be regarded as indicating a contrary opinion; as our limits, and other reasons, impose on us the necessity of selection and brevity.]