LECTURE II.

ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS.

of his shame.

What

must have woven int

we could meet such the tissue of his langu ness and woe must there could be such w found in the last. T light of the hurts whi self, of the sickness would fain persuade moralists and divines vented, have yet en But are these statem and in sermons? Are tions of their truth im gion of man's natural a more deeply than on more than to open a thoughtfully down a abundant confirmatio estimate of man's m How else shall we ex words, having all to d with both? How ca quite sure that they being needed, that th the world of realities. alphabet; what mea these deep and lon which at once

n of a divine birth and stock? coming from
, and when he fulfils the law and intention
creation, returning to Him again? We need
re than his language to prove it. So much
e in that which could never have existed on
ner supposition. How else could all those
which testify of his relation to God, and of
sciousness of this relation, and which ground
elves thereon, have found their way into this,
ritable transcript of his innermost life, the
ace of the faith and hope which is in him?
other theory than this could we explain that
nd preponderating weight thrown into the
f goodness and truth, which, despite of all
other scale, we must needs acknowledge in
language to be there.
How else shall we
t for that sympathy with the right, that testi-
against the wrong, which, despite of all its
tions and perversions, is yet its prevailing
-tone?

has man fallen, and deeply fallen, from the
s of his original creation? We need no more
is language to prove it. Like everything
out him, it bears at once the stamp of his

dark and sombre threads he o the tissue of his life, before dark ones running through age! What facts of wickedhave existed in the first, ere ords to designate these as are There are, who seek to make ch man has inflicted on himwith which he is sick; who themselves and others that , if they have not quite inormously exaggerated, these. ents found only in Scripture there not mournful corroboraprinted deeply upon every rend spiritual life, and on none his language? It needs no lictionary, and to cast our eye ew columns, and we shall find a of this sadder and sterner oral and spiritual condition. plain this long catalogue of > with sin, or with sorrow, or ne they there? We may be were not invented without ey have each a correlative in I open the first letter of the s this "Ah," this "Alas," -drawn sighs of humanity, unter there? And then preh as these, Affliction, Anguish, ice, and twenty more-words,

I observe, for the most part not laid up in esses of the language, to be drawn forth and rare opportunities, but occupying many of s foremost ranks. And indeed, as regards nce, it is a melancholy thing to observe how cher is every vocabulary in words that set ns, than in those that set forth graces. St. Paul (Gal. v. 19-23) would put these those, “the works of the flesh" against “the the Spirit," those are seventeen, these only nd where do we find in Scripture such lists s as we do, 2 Tim. iii. 2; Rom. i. 29-31, of posites?

nesses, happily unkn
imagined.

And our dictionarie

yet will not tell us all. language of the vulgar are not allowed to fin live as a sinful oral tra set forth that which i of these words, as no 1 with the kindred sins many set evil forth wi approbation, as takin Him who has forbidd tremest displeasure. talent, yea, how much in the service of an ev a nomenclature so ri heaven-defying as it h How many words n with themselves, and of their own fall. Ha significance, they have and degeneration of riorated and degenera of words originally 1

can I help taking note, in the oversight and from this point of view of the words which _te a language, of the manner in which it has t to all its resources that so it may express nite varieties, now of human suffering, now an sin. Thus what a fearful thing is it that age should have a word to express the joy nen feel at the calamities of others; for the ze of the word bears testimony to the existthe thing. And yet in the Greek language word is found. Nor are there wanting in it, ppose in any language, words which are the ul record of the strange wickednesses which ile genius of man, wise to do evil, has inThus a great Latin historian tells us of n Emperor, one of those "inventors of evil to whom the Apostle alludes, (Rom. i. 30,) caused words unknown before to emerge

harmful as their seco worthy have acquired a

meant once no mor peasant; "a boor" w but a strong

น

es, while they tell us much, - How shamefully rich is the r in all lands in words which d place in books, yet which adition on the lips of men, to s unholy and impure. And ess of those which have to do of revelling and excess, how th an evident sympathy and g part with the sin against en it under pain of his exHow much wit, how much imagination must have stood 1 world, before it could have h, so varied, and often so

S.

en have dragged downward ade partakers more or less ing originally an honourable yet, with the deterioration hose that used them, deteed too. What a multitude armless, have assumed an dary meaning; how many unworthy. Thus "knave" than lad, "villain" than s only a farmer, "a churl" 'Timeserver" was used two ite as often for one in an

RESENTMEN

A like deterioration

in the word "to resent that Barrow could spe faithful "resenter" and

There was a time when "conceits" had conceited in them; "officious" had referoffices of kindness, not of busy meddling; y" was that which pertained to a man's without any gloom or sullenness implied. re," (which is, des mœurs, of good manners,) ed no hint, as it does now, of an over-doing outward demonstrations of modesty; in -" and "cunning" there was nothing of I wisdom implied, but only knowledge and "craft" indeed, still retains very often its honourable use, a man's "craft" being his nd then the trade in which he is well skilled. ink you that the Magdalen could have ever us "maudlin" in its present contemptuous tion, if the tears of penitential weeping had eld in due honour in the world? "Tinsel," ne French étincelle, meant once any thing arkles or glistens; thus, "cloth of tinsel" be cloth inwrought with silver and gold: e sad experience that "all is not gold that that much which shows fair and specious eye is yet worthless in reality, has caused the mperceptibly to assume the meaning which has, and when we speak of "tinsel," either 7 or figuratively, we always mean now that has no reality of sterling worth underlying ttering and specious shows which it makes. ry," which is a word of curious derivation, I will not pause to go into it, has underxactly the same process; it once had no

duty of testifying an a our obligations to God. benefits fades and fai quickly than that of in wards remember and much more predomi imaginary which men h they have bestowed on modern English has co to that deep reflective tain against those tha believe to have done, t us to inquire how it co speak of the "retaliat the "retaliation" of in signify the again rend received; but this is of in regard of benef word, though not alt worthier sense, has y unusual sound in ou Were we to speak of nesses, I am not sure stand us.

Neither is it altoget that "animosit

means