National Aid to Education 271
The Parson’s Comforter 274
The Smithsonian Institution 275
Geography of the Heavens for February 279
New Orleans 280
The Upper Chautauqua 284
Outline of Required Readings, February, 1885 285
Programs for Local Circle Work 286
Local Circles 286
The C. L. S. C. Classes 291
Questions and Answers 293
The Chautauqua University
Can Language Be Taught By Correspondence? 295
Editor’s Outlook 296
Editor’s Note-Book 299
C. L. S. C. Notes on Required Readings for February 301
Notes on Required Readings in “The Chautauquan” 302
Talk About Books 305
Special Notes 306
C. L. S. C. Graduates 306
REQUIRED READING FOR FEBRUARY.
HOW ENGLISH DIFFERS FROM OTHER LANGUAGES.
BY RICHARD GRANT WHITE.
It has occurred to me that some readers of THE CHAUTAUQUAN may have
been disappointed in these articles because in their judgment they have
been thus far not sufficiently “practical.” Many people, far too many,
desire chiefly to find some short, straight road to knowledge. They like
to have some man who is called an “authority” upon a certain subject
cut his knowledge up into small parcels or “chunks” of convenient size,
and arrange them with labels, alphabetically, in an article or a book,
so that they maybe referred to at need, and followed like a recipe for
making a pudding, and with as little thought. But there are no such
recipes for acquiring real knowledge. In this way an acquaintance with
facts may be made which, used blindly, may prove of some immediate
service, and may not. Nothing, however, learned in this perfunctory way
is worthy of the name of knowledge. For it is a barren process; it really
teaches nothing; it profits nothing; it does nothing for the education
of the person by whom it is adopted. Real knowledge comes only by a
thoughtful learning of the relations of facts. True as to all subjects,
this is eminently true as to language; because, language is eminently
a subject of relations. There is hardly a word that we use which has
not relations to other words, and other forms of speech; relations
historical, spiritual, almost moral; to set forth which in detail would
furnish occasion for a little essay. The mere learning to speak and to
write a language is only a matter of memory and practice; nothing more.
It is child’s work, and it is continually done, and is best done, by
children. A man may speak and write English, French, German or Latin
with unexceptionable correctness and fluency, and yet know no more about
that language than a well instructed parrot would which had been taught
to use all the words which he uses. His study would not be a study of
language; and in that which he had painfully learned he might be easily
and unconsciously surpassed by a child who had never studied at all. Now
what I hope to do here is to help my readers to some knowledge of the
English language, in so far as my own imperfect acquaintance with my
mother tongue and its literature will enable me to do so.
We have seen what English is, of what stuff it is made, how it came
by its present compositeness of substance; how it became strong, and
full, and flexible, and fervent; let us now look a little into its
structure, _i. e._, the way in which it is put together, in doing which
we shall see by comparison how it differs from other languages. This
matter of structure, the formation of the sentence, is the distinctive
trait of a language. Mere words are not the essential difference between
languages. Many words are common (with slight phonetic variation) to all
the languages of the Aryan or Indo-European stock, as we have already
seen. Multitudes of words have been adopted into all the modern tongues
from other languages ancient and modern, dead and living, as most of
the readers of THE CHAUTAUQUAN know. The bulk of English dictionaries
like Webster’s and Worcester’s is composed of words which are of Latin,
Greek, French or Italian origin, and which indeed are essentially the
same words in all these languages; their unlikeness being merely a
phonetic variation, mostly caused by difference in pronunciation, or
change in termination. For example, _flower_ is in Latin _flos_ (genitive
_floris_), in Italian _fiore_, in French _fleur_, in Spanish _flor_;
each language having somewhat changed the sound of the word, according
to rules or habits which are loosely called laws; but the word is in
all essentially the same. A sentence—many sentences—might be written
in English, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and German, in which all
the words of subject-matter (all but verbs like _have_ and _be_, and
prepositions and conjunctions) should be essentially the same, and so
like that an intelligent person with some faculty for language, and who
understood any one of these languages, could apprehend the meaning of
any one of the supposed sentences with little difficulty. And yet the
sentences would be respectively English, Latin, French, and so forth. Why
and how? It is to the reason of this, that is the why and the how of it,
that we shall now give a little time and attention.
The most important and significant distinction between languages is
in their grammar; that is, in the structure of the sentence. In the
languages mentioned above the greatest unlikeness in this respect is
manifested in English, Latin and German, or to name them in their
order of grammatical importance, Latin, German and English. The term
“grammar” has two senses; one large and vague, and called by some
“philosophical” or “scientific” (phrases commonly used with a deplorable
union of pretension and looseness), which includes all that relates to
the history, the substance and the structure of a language; the other
much narrower and simpler; the sense implied when the phrases “good
grammar” and “bad grammar” are used. To this sense I shall here confine
myself, and shall here repeat a definition of grammar which I have given
before.[A]
Grammar concerns the forms of words and their dependent relations in the
sentence.
To illustrate this: It is “bad grammar,” ludicrously, monstrously bad
grammar, to say in Latin, _Nos habeo bonus mater_, and yet these Latin
words, literally and simply translated in their order, mean, We have a
good mother, which in English is perfectly “good grammar.” In the Latin
(to call it Latin) every word is wrong; in English every word is right.
The reason of this is that in Latin words change their forms according
to their relations, not according to their essential meaning. _Habeo_
means have; but it can not be used to express a plural having; that
requires for _we_ (_nos_) the form _habemus_. _Bonus_ means good; but it
can not be used to express the goodness of a feminine object, for which
the form _bona_ is required. Yet further: Even _bona_ can not be used
to qualify a noun which is the object of a verb, or, as we say, in the
objective (or accusative) case, for which the form _bonam_ is required.
_Mater_ means mother, but as the object of the verb _have_, _mater_ must
change its form to _matrem_. By these required changes of form the Latin
sentence becomes, _Nos habemus bonam matrem_, which is “good grammar,”
although poor Latin, but which, after all the changes, means simply, We
have a good mother; nothing more nor less. Yet further: The sentence,
as written above, although grammatical, is poor Latin because it is at
variance with the habit, or as it is sometimes called the spirit, or even
the genius, of the Latin language. In Latin the word _habemus_ (although
like _habeo_ it means simply, have) is so positively and distinctively
limited in use to the first person plural that the pronoun _nos_—we—is
quite superfluous, and is never used unless with an emphatic purpose;
_habemus_, without the _nos_, means, we have. Moreover it was the Latin
habit of speech to place the object generally before the verb; and good
Latin for, We have a good mother would be, _bonam matrem habemus_—_i.
e._, A good mother we have, or rather (literally) Good mother we have for
the Latin strangely has no articles, or none which correspond to our _an_
(_or a_) and _the_, and which may be translated by them.
This illustration, brief and simple although it be, is sufficient, I
think, to make the great and essential distinction between English and
Latin, and measurably between English and all other modern civilized
tongues, clear to the readers of these articles. The essential difference
is not one of words but of the construction of the sentence. In Latin and
other languages that construction depends not upon the thought and the
meaning of the words, but upon the forms of the words—their inflections.
Now the distinctive trait of English is that it is a language without
inflections—not absolutely so, but so to all intents and purposes; and,
being without inflections, it is therefore without grammar, which, as we
have seen, concerns the forms of words and their dependent relations in
the sentence. _Nos habeo bonus mater_ is bad grammar because the forms
of the words are incorrect according to the usage of the Latin language.
_Bonus_ means good; but for the expression of the quality good in its
barest, simplest idea _bonus_ takes on five forms in Latin; _bonus_
for masculine goodness in the singular, _bona_ for feminine singular,
_bonum_ for neuter singular; _boni_ masculine plural; _bonæ_ feminine
plural, _bona_ neuter plural. To be brief; for use in various relations,
this word _bonus_ takes on no less than thirteen forms, of which more
need not here be given. _Mater_—mother—takes on eight of these forms
or inflections, which are called cases. But in English _good_ has but
one form. Singular, plural, masculine, feminine, neuter, nominative,
possessive, dative, objective, vocative—in whichever of these senses the
word which it qualifies is used it has but one form—_good_. Thus it is
with all English adjectives, and with articles (_an_ and _the_) which
are a kind of adjective. In all other languages adjectives and articles
have various forms adapted to the various numbers, genders, and cases of
nouns. In English nouns have two cases (strictly but one, the nominative
not being a true case), the second of which is the possessive: _e. g._,
mother’s; and they have a singular and a plural form, _e. g._, _mother_,
_mothers_.
In other languages the verb is inflected into a multitude of forms,
expressive of voice (active and passive), person, number and time of
action. In English the variations of form in the verb are very few. There
is no passive voice. The English has but one passive verb; the obsolete
_hight_, which means, is called. As to time, there are only the forms
of present and perfect, e. g., _love_ and _loved_; as to person and
number, inflections only in the present tense, e. g., _love_, _lovest_,
_loves_; and of these one, _lovest_, is obsolete, or very obsolescent.
To these inflected forms there is to be added only the present or
indefinite participle _loving_. Beyond this there are in English, by
way of inflection, only the cases of the pronouns, e. g., _he_, _his_,
_him_, _who_, _whose_, _whom_, _etc._ And it is here to be remarked that
almost all the questions of “good grammar” and “bad grammar” that arise
in English relate to the use of pronouns. (For surely we may leave out
of consideration here the difficulties of those who say _I see_ or _I
seen him_, for _I saw him_, or _I have went_ for _I have gone_, and the
like.) Here, therefore, we have set forth, although very succinctly, the
distinctive grammatical position of the English language.
That position is briefly this: In English words have (with the few
exceptions mentioned above) but one form; and as grammar is concerned
only with the formal relations of words in the sentence, English has no
grammar. Among languages it is the grammarless tongue.
Let us further illustrate this point by a brief consideration of a
subject which is very perplexing to the learners of a foreign language,
and which is not less so to the historical students of language in
general; a subject which, I believe, has never been explained by the
latter with any semblance of satisfaction—gender. All other languages are
infested with gender; in English there is no such distinction in words
as that of gender. English, it should be needless to say, has words to
express difference of sex; that no language can fail to do, for failing
in that, it would not communicate the facts and thoughts of every-day
life. But grammatical gender has no relation to sex, no relation to the
essential characteristics of things. Gender, grammatical gender, is an
attribute of _words_. He creatures are male, she creatures female, and
the words which are their names are generally (but not universally)
masculine and feminine in all languages. Things neither male nor female
are neuter, which means merely, neither. But this is not gender. Gender,
as I have said before, is an attribute of words; of words only. For
example, the Latin word _penna_—a pen, or quill, is feminine; in French
the word _table_—table, is also feminine. It is needless to say that
there is no question as to the sex of a pen, or of a table; nor is
there any quality in either of those objects which has a sexual trait
or characteristic. In each case it is the word which is of the feminine
gender; and in all, or almost all, languages but English all or almost
all words are afflicted with this mysterious pest of gender. How annoying
and perplexing it is, and how it complicates the use of language, and
makes the acquisition of foreign languages difficult, no student needs
be told. For it creates an ever present and far-reaching perplexity. It
dominates the construction of the sentence and binds it up in bonds
of iron. For every adjective, and in French and other languages having
articles, every article which is applied to a noun must be of the gender
of that noun. You can not say in Latin _bonus penna_, a good pen, without
“bad grammar,” you must say _bona penna_. You can not say in French _un
mauvais table_, a bad table, but must say _une mauvaise table_; nor _le
table_, but _la table_—although both mean the table, nothing more nor
less. The absurdity of this is made very apparent when a feminine word
is applied to a male object. Thus _majesté_—majesty, is feminine; but
when a king is called your majesty, the words _sa majesté_ (her majesty)
are used because the _word majesty_ is feminine; and instead of saying
he (_il_) did thus or so, we must say she (_elle_) did it, although the
she was a man; the reason being that the word _majesté_ is feminine.[1]
All this has been swept clean away in English, in which language there
is no distinction of gender but only that of sex: male creatures, or
those so personified, are masculine, female, feminine; those which have
no sex are neuter; and there an end. English is eminently a language
of common sense; and one marked evidence of this trait is its freeing
itself entirely from the nuisance of grammatical gender along with other
grammatical trammels.[2]
It has _freed_ itself from those trammels; for at one time it was
hampered by them sorely. Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, was an inflected
speech, and was tied up in the bonds of gender and other grievous
grammatical tetherings. This was long ago; but it was after Britain had
become England, or Engle-land, the land of the English people and of
English speech. When our English forefathers were little better than
semi-savages, bloody, barbarous, heathen, worshiping Thor and Woden, and
in a state of benighted ignorance of which it would be difficult for
those of my readers who have not tried to pierce the darkness of that
historical past to form even an approximate notion—at this time, and in
this social and intellectual condition of the speakers of the English
language, it was copiously provided with grammar. Even Greek had not much
the better of it in this respect. It had not only forms for person and
number, but gender forms, and cases galore.[3] Take, for example, a word
which was English a thousand years ago, just as it is to-day, _man_. This
simple word has undergone no change in all the thousand years, unless
by losing a little breadth of sound; it having probably been pronounced
_mahn_, of which sound the rustic _mon_ of provincial England is a relic
and representative. But _man_ could not be used pure and simple, under
all circumstances and in all cases, in the English of that day any more
than, as we have seen, _mater_ and _bonus_ could be so used in Latin.
There was the nominative singular—_man_, simply; the genitive _mannes_—of
a man; the dative _men_, to or for a man; accusative _mannan_—a man
objectively; nominative plural _men_; genitive _manna_—of men, or men’s;
and a dative _mannum_—to or for men.
Of all these various forms or cases of _man_, the language has freed
itself, excepting the genitive singular, _mannes_, and the nominative
plural, _men_. These have been retained, not by accident, or neglect, but
at the dictate of common sense, because convenience and intelligibility
required their use. It was found necessary to distinguish the plural
from the singular; and the genitive or possessive idea from the simple
and absolute; but _man_ as a dative or accusative singular, and _men_ as
the same in the plural, were found quite as useful and convenient as the
old inflected forms; and therefore (or therefore finally and in a great
measure) the latter were discarded. The genitive or possessive has been
retained; but it has slightly changed its form; by contraction only,
however; _mannes_ has become _man’s_. The old sign of the possessive was
_es_; and it is this, and not the pronoun _his_ (as once was supposed)
that is represented in our possessive case, in which the apostrophe
merely marks the elision of the old _e_. There is really no good reason
for the use of the apostrophe, none which would not apply equally to many
other cases in which no elision is marked. In the Elizabethan era it was
not used, and with no consequent confusion. Mans folly, the boys hat,
Johns coat, are as clear in meaning as they would be with the apostrophe;
and the possible confusion of the possessive with the plural, as in that
fancy of the girls, and that fancy of the girl’s is so remote and so very
unlikely as to be worthy of little consideration.
As to English in its earliest form (Anglo-Saxon) suffice it here to say
in this regard that it was so largely an inflected language, that is, it
varied the forms of its words so numerously to express time of action,
mode of action, person, number, case, and gender, that it is in this
respect almost as unlike modern English as Greek is, and is little less
difficult of acquirement to the English speaking student of to-day than
Latin. Its very articles had gender forms as well as case forms; and,
moreover, like the Mæso-Gothic and like the Greek it had preserved the
old dual number (for the expression of a plural of two) although only in
the personal pronoun. A comparative examination of the pronoun of the
first person and of the present tense of the verb _to have_ in their
ancient and modern forms will show the mode and the reason of the changes
by which English has assumed its present character.
OLD ENGLISH PRONOUN OF THE FIRST PERSON.
SINGULAR. DUAL. PLURAL.
N. _ic_, I. _wit_, us two. _we_, we.
G. _min_, of me. _uncer_, of us two. _ure_, of us.
D. _me_, to, for, with me. _unc_, to or for us two. _us_, to, for,
with us.
A. _me_, me (objectively). _unc_, us two. _us_, us.
The dual form has been swept away entirely as needless, and worse,
cumbrous and perplexing; but it will be seen that we have retained every
one of the other forms. _Ic_ has become I; _mine_ is still the possessive
of I; _me_ is still not only the objective form of the first person, but
the dative, “make me a hat,” or “buy me a horse,” being merely “make a
hat to or for me,” or “buy to or for me a horse.” _We_ and _us_ will be
recognized at sight, and _ure_ has only changed its pronunciation from
_oor_ to _our_. These forms have been retained in our modern English
partly because a pronoun is the most ancient of indestructible parts of
speech,[B] but chiefly because of their usefulness, their convenience. A
brief consideration of them by the intelligent reader will make this so
plain that more need not be said on the subject.
Now let us see the unlike fate of the verb _to have_. This will be more
readily apparent if we look at it in Latin, in French, and in English (it
is actually the same word in all these languages, with slight phonetic
variation); and we shall thus also have another demonstration of the
manner in which English differs from other languages.
SINGULAR. PLURAL.
Latin. French. English. Latin. French. English.
1. _habeo._ _J’ai._ I have. _habemus._ _nous avons._ we have.
2. _habes._ _tu as._ thou hast. _habetis._ _vous avez._ you have.
3. _habet._ _il a._ he has. _habent._ _ils ont._ they have.
It will be seen at once that the Latin and the French have each a special
plural form, and also three forms for the three persons of that number.
English has swept away this plural form entirely, and uses for the plural
in all its persons the simple _have_ of the first person singular. The
form of the second person singular has also virtually disappeared; the
simple _have_ appearing in its substitute, _you have_. Whether the form
of the third person singular will ever follow the other is doubtful;
but it is certain that our language has lost nothing in clearness, and
has gained much in simplicity by the doing away with all the formal
superfluity by which the old numbers and persons were distinguished.
This simplification of the forms of words is not absolutely confined
to the English language. It appears to be a tendency of language; a
modern tendency, using modern in its widest sense. For this movement
toward simplification appears in the Latin, in the Romance tongues
formed from it, and in the Gothic languages. In none, however, does this
simplification, this destruction of superfluous forms, approach, even
remotely, that which has taken place in English. So different, indeed,
are the results, that the process seems, if not of another kind, at least
as having another motive. For example, all the other languages retain the
absurdity of gender. In this respect German is no better than French. And
let me here remark that the common notion that English and German are
most alike of all modern languages, and most nearly akin, is altogether
wrong. On the contrary, English and German are very unlike; the most
unlike of all the Gothic (or Teutonic) languages. English and French have
much greater likeness, both in substance and in structure. There are
more words now common to the English language and to the French than to
English and German; and the syntax of the French language is very much
more like that of the English, than German syntax is. A French sentence
literally translated in the French order of the words is, in most cases,
so like an English sentence that it requires little change to be correct
English, while a similar translation of a German sentence produces an
effect both harsh and ludicrous.
The simple form of the English language is the result of two causes.
Of these the first in order of time was the conflict and subsequent
mingling of the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and the Norman-French. When two
languages are thus brought together and are both spoken by two peoples,
all that is superfluous in the words of each soon begins to disappear.
Each people grasps only the essential in the foreign words which it is
obliged to use; each soon adopts the curtailed form of its speech used
by the neighbors of another race and speech with whom it is obliged to
live in daily communication; and ere long a composite speech of simpler
forms takes the place of two tongues—each of which was more complex in
structure, but less rich and varied in substance. By this process, out of
Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French, came modern English. But not only thus.
Other languages have mingled, but never before with such a result. Never
was there in any other amalgamation, such an esurience of superfluous
form; a devouring which has to all intents and purposes made English
a language of one-formed words, and therefore a language practically
without formal grammar. In this characteristic is its strength; from
this comes its flexibility, its adaptation to all the needs of man, the
highest and the lowest. Hence it is eminently the language of common
sense as well as of the highest flights of poetry. The English mind saw
that it was not necessary to have two words to express possession in the
singular and in the plural; that _good_ as clearly expressed the goodness
of a woman as of a man, and that of a dozen men as well as that of one;
that pens and tables needed no distinction of gender in their names; in
fact that nothing was gained, and that much was lost by these grammatical
excrescences; and therefore they were done away with very thoroughly,
almost entirely. The process was pretty well completed some three hundred
years or more ago; since when no noteworthy changes in this respect
have taken place. But it is still going on, although so slowly as to be
perceptible only on close examination. All the little specks of grammar
that English has are mostly to be found in the pronouns, as I have before
remarked. In the use of one of these a change is very gradually taking
place. _Whom_ has begun to disappear, began, indeed, a long time ago; but
of late is fading somewhat more perceptibly. For example: all speakers of
good English say, The man whom I saw, not The man who I saw; _whom_ being
the objective form of _who_.
But now-a-days not one person in a hundred of the best bred and best
educated speakers of English asks, Whom did you see? but, _Who_ did you
see? Indeed, the latter form of the question may be regarded almost as
accepted English. Yet in the latter phrase, as in the former, the pronoun
is the object of the verb _see_, and should strictly have the objective
form. But, Whom did you see? would now sound very formal and precise,
almost priggish, like _gotten_ instead of _got_. When, however, the
pronoun is brought in direct contact with the verb, as in the phrase, The
man whom I saw, we shrink from insult to the little semblance of grammar
that our language possesses, and give the word its objective form. The
time will probably come, although it may be remote, when _whom_ will have
altogether disappeared. As to _gotten_, its use is now so confined to the
over-precise in this country as to make it almost an Americanism. Its
disappearance from our language in England is also one of the evidences
of the process of simplification which is still slowly going on. Another,
which has taken place within the memory of the elder living generation,
is the disappearance of the subjunctive mood, which is now obsolete, or
so very obsolescent as to be met with very rarely. But thirty-five or
forty years since correct writers used this mood, and wrote, for example,
_if he go_ instead of _if he goes_. Of the effect of this grammarless
condition of the English language we may see something in a subsequent
article.
FOOTNOTES
[A] “Every Day English,” chapter xvii.
[B] Certain uneasy manipulators of speech have lately set
themselves at making an impersonal English pronoun. Vanity of vanities!
Make a pronoun? As well undertake to build a pyramid. Better. There is
not a pronoun in use that was not hoary with age before the first stone
of Keops was laid.
SUNDAY READINGS.
SELECTED BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D. D.
[_February 1._]
I find David making a syllogism, in mood and figure, two propositions he
perfected.
(Ps. lxvi) 18. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will
not hear me.
19. But verily God hath heard me, he hath attended to the voice
of my prayer.
Now I expected that David should have concluded thus:
Therefore I regard not wickedness in my heart.
But far otherwise he concludes:
20. Blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor his
mercy from me.
Thus David hath deceived, but not wronged me. I looked that he should
have clapped the crown on his own, and he puts it on God’s head. I will
learn this excellent logic, for I like David’s better than Aristotle’s
syllogisms, that, whatsoever the premises be, I make God’s glory the
conclusion.
* * * * *
Young King Jehoash had only a lease of piety, and not for his own, but
his uncle’s life (2 Kings xii:2): He did that which was right in the
sight of the Lord all his days, wherein Jehoiada the priest instructed
him.
Jehu was good in the midst of his life, and a zealous reformer to the
utter abolishing of Baal out of Israel, but in his old age (2 Kings x:31)
he returned to the politic sins of Jeroboam, worshiping the calves in Dan
and Bethel.
Manasseh was bad in the beginning and middle of his life, filling
Jerusalem with idolatry; only toward the end thereof, when carried into a
strange land, he came home to himself and destroyed the profane altars he
had erected.
These three put together make one perfect servant of God. Take the
morning and rise with Jehoash, the noon and shine with Jehu, the night
and set with Manasseh. Begin with youth-Jehoash, continue with man-Jehu,
conclude with old-man-Manasseh, and all put together will spell one good
Christian, yea, one good, perfect performer.
Constantly pray to God, that in his due time he would speak peace to
thee.… Prayers negligently performed draw a curse, but not prayers weakly
performed. The former is when one can do better, and will not; the latter
is when one would do better, but, alas! he can not.…
Be diligent in reading the word of God, wherein all comfort is
contained.… Thou hast a great journey to go, a wounded conscience has
far to travel to find comfort (and though weary shall be welcome at his
journey’s end), and therefore must feed on God’s word, even against his
own dull disposition, and shall afterward reap benefit thereby.…
Be industrious in thy calling; I press this the more because some
erroneously conceive that a wounded conscience cancels all indentures of
service, and gives them (during their affliction) a dispensation to be
idle.
Let none in like manner pretend that (during the agony of a wounded
conscience) they are to have no other employment than to sit moping,
to brood over their melancholy, or else only to attend their devotion;
whereas a good way to divert or assuage their pain within is to take
pains without in their vocation. I am confident, that happy minute which
shall put a period to thy misery shall not find thee idle, but employed,
as some ever secret good is accruing to such who are diligent in their
calling.—_Fuller._[1]
[_February 8._]
The Deity is intended to be the everlasting field of the human intellect,
as well as the everlasting object of the human heart, the everlasting
portion of all holy and happy minds, who are destined to spend a blissful
but ever active eternity in the contemplation of his glory.… He will
forever remain “the unknown God.” We shall ever be conscious that we
know little compared with what remains to be known of him; that our most
rapturous and lofty songs fall infinitely short of his excellence. If we
stretch our powers to the uttermost, we shall never exhaust his praise,
never render him adequate honor, never discharge the full amount of claim
which he possesses upon our veneration, obedience, and gratitude. When
we have loved him with the greatest favor, our love will still be cold
compared with his title to our devoted attachment. This will render him
the continual source of fresh delight to all eternity. His perfection
will be an abyss never to be fathomed; there will be depths in his
excellence which we shall never be able to penetrate. We shall delight in
losing ourselves in his infinity. An unbounded prospect will be extended
before us; looking forward through the vista of interminable ages we
shall find a blissful occupation for our faculties, which can never end;
while those faculties will retain their vigor unimpaired, flourish in the
bloom of perpetual youth, … and the full consciousness remain that the
Being whom we contemplate can never be found out to perfection … that
he may always add to the impression of what we know, by throwing a veil
of indefinite obscurity over his character. The shades in which he will
forever conceal himself will have the same tendency to excite our adoring
wonder as the effulgence of his glory; the depths in which he will
retire from our view, the recesses of his wisdom and power as the open
paths of his manifestation. Were we capable of comprehending the Deity,
devotion would not be the sublimest employment to which we can attain.
In the contemplation of such a Being we are in no danger of going beyond
our subject; we are conversing with an infinite object, … in the depths
of whose essence and purposes we are forever lost. This will probably
give all the emotions of freshness and astonishment to the raptures of
beatific vision, and add a delightful zest to the devotions of eternity.
This will enable the Divine Being to pour in continually fresh accessions
of light; to unfold new views of his character, disclose new parts of
his perfection, open new mansions of himself, in which the mind will
have ample room to expatiate. Thus shall we learn, to eternity, that, so
far from exhausting his infinite fullness, there still remain infinite
recesses in his nature unexplored—scenes in his counsels never brought
before the view of his creatures; that we know but “parts of his ways;”
and that instead of exhausting our theme, we are not even approaching
nearer to the comprehension of the Eternal All. It is the mysteriousness
of God, the inscrutability of his essence, the shade in which he is
invested, that will excite those peculiar emotions which nothing but
transcendent perfection and unspeakable grandeur can inspire.—_Robert
Hall._[2]
[_February 15._]
We need not go far to seek the materials for an acceptable offering; they
lie all around us in the work of our callings, in the little calls which
divine Providence daily makes to us, in the little crosses which God
requires us to take up, nay, in our very recreations. The great point is
to have the mind set upon seeing and seeking in all things the service of
Christ and the glory of God, and, lo! every trifling incident which that
mind touches, every piece of work which it handles, every dispensation to
which it submits becomes a sacrifice.
“If in our daily walks our mind
Be set to hallow all we find,
New treasures still of countless price
God will provide for sacrifice.
We need not bid for cloistered cell
Our neighbor and our work farewell,
Nor strive to wind ourselves too high
For sinful man beneath the sky;
The trifling round, the common task
Will furnish all we ought to ask,
Room to deny ourselves—a road
To bring us daily nearer God.”
If we allow the beauties of nature to raise our heart to God, we turn
that into a sacrifice. If cross incidents, which could not be avoided
or averted, are taken sweetly and lovingly, out of homage to the living
will of God, this, too, is a sacrifice. If work be done in the full view
of God’s assignment of our several tasks and spheres of labor, and under
the consciousness of his presence, however secular in its character, it
immediately becomes fit for presentation on the altar. If refreshment and
amusement are so moderated as to help the spirit instead of dissipating
it, if they are to be seasoned with the wholesome salt of self-denial
(for every sacrifice must be seasoned with salt) they, too, become a holy
oblation. If we study even perverse characters, with a loving hope and
belief that we shall find something of God and Christ in them, which may
be made the nucleus of better things, and instead of shutting ourselves
up in a narrow sphere of sympathies, seek out and try to develop the
good points of a generally uncongenial spirit; if we treat men as Christ
treated them, counting that somewhere in every one there is a better
mind, and the trace of God’s finger in creation, we may thus possibly
sanctify an hour which would else be one of irksome constraint, and after
which we might have been oppressed with a heavy feeling that it had been
a wasted one. If a small trifle, destined to purchase some personal
luxury or comfort, be diverted to a charitable and religious end, this is
the regular and standing sacrifice of alms, recognized by the Scripture
and the Liturgy. And finally, if we regard our time as, next to Christ,
and the Holy Spirit, the most precious gift of God; if we gather up
the fragments and interstices of it in a thrifty and religious manner,
and employ them in some exercise of devotion or some good and useful
work, this, too, becomes a tribute which God will surely accept with
complacency, if laid upon his altar and united by faith and a devout
intention with the one Sacrifice of our dear Lord.
Yes; if laid upon his altar; let us never forget or drop out of sight
that proviso. It is the altar, and the altar alone, which sanctifieth
the gift. Apart from Christ and his perfect sacrifice, an acceptable
gift is an impossibility for man. For at best our gifts have in them the
sinfulness of our nature; they are miserably flawed by defectiveness
of motive, duplicity of aim, infirmity of will. “The prayers of all
saints,” what force of interpretation must they have with God, if, as we
are sure, “the effectual, fervent prayer of a” (single) “righteous man
availeth much!” Yet when St. John saw in a vision “the prayers of all
saints” offered “upon the golden altar which was before the throne,” it
was in union with that which alone can perfume the tainted offsprings of
even the regenerate man. “There was given unto him much increase, that
he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar
which is before the throne.”
The increase is the intercession of Jesus. Place your offering, be
it prayer or alms, deed or work, or submission—in his hands for
presentation; pray him, as your only priest, to transact for you with
God, and he will do so. And the sense of God’s favor shall shine out upon
thy offering; and the dew of his blessing shall descend upon it, and ye
shall be gladdened with your Father’s smile.—_Goulburn._[3]
[_February 22._]
_Heaven, as a place of residence and state of enjoyment, should always
be viewed in contrast with earth._ This is a state of pupilage and
probation, that of dignity and promotion. Here is conflict, there
victory. This is the race, that the goal. Here we suffer, there we
reign. Here we are in exile, there at home. On earth we are strangers
and pilgrims, in heaven fellow citizens with the saints; and, released
from the strife and turmoil, the bitterness and regrets of earth, are
incorporated forever with the household of God.
This is triumph! How striking the contrast! How must earth and its
trials be lost sight of in such a vision! How must this contrast
strengthen the ties of confidence, and kindle the ardor of devotion!
What did Moses care for the perils of the wilderness, when, from the
storm-defying steep of Pisgah, he viewed the land of promise, imaging
forth the green fields of heaven’s eternal spring! Look at Elijah, the
immortal Tishbite, exchanging the sighs and solitude of his juniper
shade, for wheels of fire and steeds of wind that bore him home to God!
Look at Paul—poor, periled and weary, amid the journeyings and conflicts
of his mission: the hand that once stretched the strong eastern tent,
or wore the dungeon’s chain, now sweeps in boldest strain the harps of
heaven.… Look at the Christian of apostolic and early times, exchanging
the clanking of his chains and the curses of his jailor—the dungeon’s den
and martyr’s stake—for the notes of gladness and lofty anthem pealing
from lute and harp, bedecked with eternal amaranth! The load of chain
with which he went out to meet the descending car of his triumph, with
its angel escort, was a richer dowry than the jewels of empire! The
taper that flickered in the dungeon of the sainted hero shot a ray more
glorious than ever spoke the splendor of the full-orbed moon! What are
the crowns or the diadems of all this world’s masters or Cæsars, compared
with the prospects of such an expectant!
* * * * *
Christians! what need we care, although on earth we were so poor and
low we had nor purse nor pillow; so few and trodden down we had no
power; and hamlets, huts and grottoes were the places where we wept and
prayed; if these are to be exchanged for a residence amid the jaspers and
chrysolites, the emeralds and sapphires of the heavenly Jerusalem!
What though soiled by the dust of toil or damp with the dungeon’s
dew—struggling amid tattered want along our lone and periled path—when
even here we find ourselves invested with glory in the night of our
being, and sustained by hopes guiding and pointing us to the temple hymn
and the heavenly harp above! …—_Bascom._[4]
HOME STUDIES IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.
BY PROF. J. T. EDWARDS, D.D.
Director of the Chautauqua School of Experimental Science.
CHEMISTRY OF FIRE.—ANCIENT FANCIES.
In all ages, and among all nations, fire has been regarded with peculiar
interest. Of the four great elements so essential to life—earth, air,
water, fire—the last has often been considered as divine in its origin
and influence. To the unscientific observer it seems more than matter,
and little less than spirit. Contemplating a flame, he sees that while
it has form, it lacks solidity. He may pass a sword through it, but like
the ghost of the story, no wound is made in its ethereal substance. Its
touch is softer than down, but it penetrates the hardest substances. The
diamond carves glass, but flame destroys the diamond.
Men early found that fire was directly connected with their comfort and
progress, and even essential to their existence. How they first obtained
it is still matter of conjecture; whether it was brought down from
the skies, as the ancient Greeks supposed, struck out from the flinty
rock, evolved by the friction of dry wood, kindled by the lightning, or
obtained from the flaming torch of the volcano, we can not tell.
Certain it is, that having once been obtained, all the early races were
very careful to preserve it. Among many it was regarded as sacred, and
kept perpetually burning, both in their places of worship and in their
homes. The officers appointed for its preservation were of the highest
rank and influence. Among the titles assumed by Augustus Cæsar was that
of keeper of the public fire. Whenever by accident the fire in the temple
of Vesta, at Rome, was extinguished, all public business was at once
suspended, because the connection between heaven and earth was believed
to be severed, and must be restored before business could properly
proceed.
Grecian colonists carried fire to their new homes from the altar of
Hestia. The “Prytaneum”[1] of the ancient Greeks and Romans was a place
where the national fire was kept always burning; it was here the people
gathered, foreign ambassadors received, and hospitalities of the state
were offered. Here, too, heads of families obtained coals for lighting
their household fires, which in turn became sacred, so that every hearth
was an altar, where resided the Lares and Penates, the gods who presided
over the welfare of the home.
Fancies akin to these beliefs of olden time may still be found among the
nations of the East and in northern Europe.
MODERN FALLACIES.
No correct ideas of combustion were attained until the time of
Lavoisier.[2] This great French savant gave precision and accuracy to the
investigations of chemical science by the introduction of the balance.
He disproved the theory that “water is the ultimate principle of all
things,” and prepared the way for a clear apprehension of the truth
that matter, though constantly changing its form, is never destroyed.
He also announced the correct theory of combustion. Until this time
scientists had held what was called the “Phlogiston[3] Theory.” We can
but smile at the absurdity of this belief, and yet no hypothesis was ever
taught more positively, or maintained more tenaciously. It declared, in
brief, that when substances burned, they parted with a certain material
called phlogiston. When, at length, its advocates were asked to explain
the fact, discovered by Dr. Priestly,[5] that quicksilver, when burned,
weighed more than before, they were forced to put forward the ridiculous
statement that phlogiston possessed the property of “buoyancy” so that
when it was contained in a body its weight was lessened; which was as
wise as the brilliant supposition that a person can lift himself over a
fence by tugging at his boot straps. After a fierce struggle they were
forced to confess that they had placed “the cart before the horse.”
The truth was precisely opposite to their statement. Substances when
they burn take up something instead of giving it off. That something is
oxygen, and a body when burned, if it can be weighed, will be found to
weigh as much more as the added weight of the oxygen which has united
with it. Example: Iron-rust is iron, plus oxygen.
[Illustration: MAGNESIUM RIBBON BURNING, AND PRODUCING MAGNESIC OXIDE
(MgO).[4]]
THE TRUE EXPLANATION.
We shall here confine ourselves to the consideration of the heat and
light produced by chemical action. It will be remembered that by this
term (chemical action) is meant the process of uniting two or more
different elements to form a compound different from either. We usually
consider air essential to combustion, but this is not necessarily the
fact. Gold foil or powdered antimony, dropped into a jar of chlorine,
spontaneously ignites. Even in the interior of the earth, heat must be
produced by the uniting of any elements that have an affinity for each
other.
[Illustration: BORACIC ACID IMPARTS A GREEN COLOR TO THE FLAME OF
ALCOHOL.[6]]
The most common agent of combustion is oxygen. Of this interesting
gas some description has been given in a preceding article. It is the
fruitful source of almost all of our artificial heat.
The fallen tree in the forest is slowly consumed by it, not less surely
than the flaming wood and coal in our stoves. The human body is a
furnace. In the minute corpuscles[7] of the blood, carbon is uniting with
oxygen as certainly as are the particles of carbon in the flame of our
lamps.
Oxygen is the scavenger that partially cleans our gutters. It is a bird
of prey that devours the offal in our fields and woods. It is nothing
less than the gnawing tooth of old Father Time himself, which crumbles
cities and destroys all things.
Combustion, as we now know it, consists simply in the union of some
combustible material with oxygen. The generic term for all this action
is “oxidation.” For convenience, special names are given to particular
modes. When metallic oxidation occurs we call the product “rusting.”
When oxygen unites with vegetable matter we call it decaying or rotting;
when with animal substances we term it rotting or putrefaction. When
flame is produced, the word combustion or burning is used. The amount of
heat generated is, in all cases, proportioned to the amount of chemical
action. Great ingenuity and skill have been shown in the discovery and
utilization of materials best calculated to combine readily with oxygen.
To these, as a class, has been applied the term
HYDRO-CARBONS.
All substances composed essentially of the elements, hydrogen and carbon,
would come under this designation. These would include coal, wood,
petroleum, the fats, resins, wax and many others, with some of the gases,
among which may be named light and heavy carburetted hydrogen, CH₄ and
C₂H₄ respectively.
[Illustration: PHOSPHORUS BURNING IN OXYGEN.[8]]
In the days of our grandfathers tallow candles were almost universally
employed for lighting houses, and wood for warming them. It would not
be impossible to find even now, in our own country, homes illuminated
(?) by a rag burning in a saucer of fat. Some of us are not too young to
remember the bundle of candle-rods—nice, straight sticks used in dipping
candles—snugly put away for that purpose, alas! sometimes summoned forth
to assist in enforcing family discipline!
[Illustration: GREEN FIRE COLORED BY A SALT OF BARIUM.[9]]
Strands of twisted cotton wick were suspended from these sticks, and
successively dipped into a kettle of hot tallow, until external additions
made them of the requisite size. Tin candle moulds finally superseded
these. Then the wick was suspended in the center and the fat poured
in. In cooling, the candles contracted, and so slipped easily from
the moulds. Wax candles can not be cast in moulds, as they expand in
cooling. They are made by pouring successive additions upon them. They
are afterward given symmetrical form by rolling and shaping. Along the
sea coast I have seen women and children gathering bay berries,[10]
a fruit about as large as a grain of black pepper and covered with a
grayish-white, fragrant wax. When these seeds are placed in hot water the
wax dissolves and serves the same purpose as tallow, making delightfully
aromatic candles.
Many of the hydro-carbons possess an agreeable odor. Sometimes the
woodmen gather the bark and chips of the hickory to smoke hams and
shoulders on account of the peculiarly pleasant flavor they impart.
In burning, a candle or lamp becomes a gas factory, manufacturing and
consuming its own product. The flame consists of three cones. The first,
that next to the wick, is composed solely of gas. It is not hot, as can
be shown by thrusting the end of a match into it, the match will not
ignite. If the match be placed across the flame at the same point it will
burn at the edges, but not in the center. A more striking illustration
of the fact that the flame is hot only where it comes in contact with
the air, can be shown in the following manner: Place on the bottom of an
inverted plate some alcohol, in the center set a tiny saucer containing
powder; ignite the alcohol, and the powder will remain undisturbed in the
center of the surrounding flame until a draft brings the _edge_ of the
flame against the powder, when it will at once explode.
Look steadily at the flame of an ordinary candle and you can readily
discern the three cones; the first is gas, the second gas in rapid
combination with the oxygen of the air, the third the products of this
combination—watery vapor, carbonic anhydride, and, possibly, some
unconsumed carbon.
[Illustration: RED FIRE COLORED BY A SALT OF STRONTIUM.[11]]
The process that goes on in our stoves is essentially the same. The
carbon and hydrogen of the wood or coal unite with the oxygen that passes
through the draft. Now note a wonderful provision for our comfort. It
has already been remarked that the product of combustion consists of
the thing burned, plus oxygen. Suppose, in the case of our fires, this
product were a solid, we should then be forced to take out of the stove
more material than we put in. The Creator has, however, provided that
these resulting materials shall take the form of gas or vapor, so that
they can float away. The ashes that remain form but a small part of the
whole. The two most common products of combustion are watery vapor and
carbonic anhydride.
The illumination of our towns and cities has long been accomplished
by the use of gas manufactured from coal. Bituminous coal is used for
this purpose, and the process consists in heating it to destructive
distillation, and afterward condensing and absorbing such portions of
the volatilized materials as might clog the gas pipes or interfere with
perfect combustion.
Nature, it is now known, has her own gas works, on an immense scale.
Thirty-five years ago the village of Fredonia, N. Y., was partially
lighted with gas, and the supply is still unexhausted. Indeed, of late,
many private individuals have sunk pipes two or three hundred feet, and
thus supplied their homes with gas for illuminating, heating, and cooking
purposes. In Butler and McKean counties, Pennsylvania, the production of
these gas wells is enormous. Many have been burning day and night for
years, while others have been utilized for heating and lighting towns and
cities. Gas is now extensively used in rolling mills for smelting iron.
Petroleum, or rock oil, which is usually associated with this natural
gas, has now become of immense value to this and other lands. It is one
of the chief articles of export from this country, ranking perhaps as
fourth. Wells have recently been struck in Pennsylvania that flowed 5,000
and 6,000 barrels per day.
[Illustration: SODIUM BURNING ON HOT WATER.[12]]
There is reason to believe that this material is the product of
distillation of organic matter in the earth. It is found in porous rock,
usually coarse sand, at depths varying from three hundred to two thousand
feet. When the rock above the sand containing oil is tight, the gas is
often retained, which by its expansion presses upon the oil and forces it
to the surface through the pipes put down for this purpose. This produces
a flowing well. When the gas has escaped a pump is necessary.
The most useful hydro-carbon now employed is coal. Its use was first
introduced in the latter part of the twelfth century, and as late as the
thirteenth century petitions were made by residents of London demanding
its exclusion, on account of its injurious effect on the health. But now,
Great Britain mines annually more than one hundred million tons of coal.
Its uses are manifold. By it England has multiplied her power a thousand
fold. It is almost always employed in generating steam, and the aggregate
steam power of England is equal to the productive laboring force of
four hundred millions of men, or “twice the power of the adult working
population of the globe.” Most countries know its value.
[Illustration: POURING CARBON DI-OXIDE FROM ONE VESSEL INTO ANOTHER TO
EXTINGUISH FLAME.[13]]
Coal is the key that unlocks for us the treasures of the iron ore. It
seizes upon the oxygen in the ore, and liberates the pure metal. By a
wonderful provision they often exist in the same mountain, side by side.
I have seen in Pennsylvania, running out of the same tunnel in the hills,
car loads of coal and iron ore.
Among the many advantages possessed by our own country is our immense
store of this precious hydro-carbon. With an area of 300,000,000 miles of
territory, we have more than 200,000 square miles of known coal producing
area, or one in fifteen.
Great Britain has one-half of the coal fields of all Europe, but even
she has but one square mile of coal to twenty square miles of territory.
Beside, our coal seams are of great thickness, and lie comparatively
near the surface. In the far West, vast fields of lignite[14] have been
discovered, so that there seems no prospect of our exhausting our fuel
supply for ages to come.
The diamond is crystallized carbon, and can be burned, though one would
hardly care to be warmed by so costly a fire.
Cleopatra, in a freak of extravagance, dissolved a wonderful pearl,
but who could think of the wise queen of England using in so wasteful
a manner her Kohinoor.[15] Six of the great diamonds of the world are
called, by way of eminence, “The Paragons,” and a romantic interest has
been attached to this form of carbon among all nations. In point of
fact, however, the black diamonds of the coal pit are more interesting,
and of far greater value to mankind than these glittering gems from
Golconda,[16] Brazil and the Dark Continent.[17]
TEMPERANCE TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE; OR, THE POISON PROBLEM.
BY FELIX L. OSWALD, M.D.