disregard or even contempt of other races; a feeling which in the chosen people degenerated into a proud egotism that makes the Jew, even in our day, so particularly distasteful to the far more liberal Mahometan.

The advent of Christianity taught man that he belonged no longer to an exclusive caste such as Buddhism assigns to its followers, or to a people solely and exclusively favored by the Almighty, or even to a Republic, distinguished like the Roman, by its powerful customs and laws. Now all united as the children of the same God in the common desire to be reconciled to their one great Father, and saw in their fellow-man not an enemy, an inferior, or a rival, but a brother. And yet the spirit of our faith is not more opposed to the supremacy of any one nation than to the extinction of all difference of races, marked by geographical lines or variety of language. Anxious to unite the whole human race in one vast family, it respects individuality in precise proportion as it causes man to occupy a higher eminence, and teaches, above all, that love which respects others like ourselves. It is through its agency that modern science perceives more and more clearly how necessary one race is to the other, designed as they all are to work together as an organic whole for nobler purposes than the wisdom of antiquity ever suspected. We may well consider it one of the noblest privileges of our time, that we are allowed to carry the blessings of civilization and a purer faith to the remotest parts of the globe, and to connect this high purpose enterprise, where there are not, as in our missionary efforts, vast means and powers bestowed upon it alone. This principle of humanity is the most cheering sign of the progress made in

with every

other

modern times, and not less evident in inventions of every kind than in the great schemes of discovery, colonization, or conversion.

CHAPTER V.

WANT OF MATERIAL.

No Writing-Curious Substitutes-Voyages of Discovery-Colonies and their Policy-Commerce-Missionaries and their Collections-First Scientific Study of Languages-New Systems of Writing Foreign Idioms.

Ir was, however, not the spirit only that was wanting in ancient times, but the material also was neither collected nor even sufficiently known. The same contempt with which the Roman, for instance, regarded all races but his own, attached itself to their language also, and, except a few phrases and terms introduced for purposes of curiosity or ridicule, no sign of an acquaintance with other idioms is to be found in the writers of antiquity. Their own language suffered under the disadvantage of being but rarely written. It is well known from Livy and Cicero, that in the early days of Rome, a nail was annually driven into the sacred temple, to mark the lapse of another year, because, as Festus says, "letters were very rare in those days." Nor did the introduction of Christianity at once dispel this ignorance. For nearly fourteen centuries of our Christian era but few persons in France and Germany could write, and how was it possible to judge of words and their etymology

without seeing them? The crosses of powerful potentates and living witnesses serving as substitutes for a simple signature, are eloquent proofs of the almost universal ignorance. History itself has suffered much by such negligence of the most eminent men; hence, for instance, the uncertainty of all history of Spain before the days of Ferdinand, and the want of correct information on French events until Charles VII. caused the "coutumes de province" to be reduced to writing. Whole nations, in those days, conquered the world and knew not how to write: the stupendous conquests of Gengis Khan were accomplished by hands better able to grasp the sword than to sign a name, and the Chinese alone wrote, though unfortunately to little purpose.

It is to voyages of discovery and the faithful zeal of pious missionaries that we owe the first fruits of researches in foreign idioms. The Spanish and Portuguese mariners, laying a new world open before the awaking mind of Europe, brought with them no treasures more precious than their scanty knowledge of barbarous tongues, spoken by distant races in hitherto unknown parts of the globe. As colonies were planted in these newly fashioned kingdoms and the faith of Christ had to be preached to millions of pagan brethren, the importance of knowing their languages became more and more evident. The enlightened policy of ambitious sovereigns and powerful bodies like the East India Company perceived at once that it was their interest, not merely to send out the sons of a foreign and conquering race to raise taxes, punish disobedience, and suppress every trace of national feeling in those distant but all-important dependencies; Dutch and English rulers of Eastern lands learnt early how important it was, not only to be masters but to inspire confi

dence, to win the affections and to promote the benign influences of European civilization among their numerous subjects. To do this, to understand the character of those whom they governed, and even to carry on the necessary intercourse with them, a thorough knowledge of their language was indispensable. Hence almost all governments have taken more or less pains to have the idioms spoken in their colonies well studied and their literature explored, so that their officials and agents may the more readily acquire them, as is the case with the Persian and Hindostanee teachers so liberally provided for by the East India Company.

What policy thus prescribed and the sagacity of rulers readily forwarded, commerce, that great but humble benefactor of man, had long been silently at work to accomplish. Fostering in nations the tendency to unite and combine for purposes of common interest, it served to dispel prejudices and to create affections, until nations not only ceased to hate but began to esteem and love each other. This led them to become better acquainted their neighbors other, and the more they knew of each other, the more they learned to cherish mutual respect; for it is only ignorance and narrow pride that despise others. Men soon found it necessary, for the purpose of carrying on their business and of strengthening the bonds of amity between them, to learn more of their respective languages-that truest and least fallible representative of a nation's character. Interest thus became the instrument by which the higher purposes of peace among men and brotherly love were achieved, and what was undertaken for individual gain and worldly profit, resulted in blessings for whole nations.

This effect was principally due to the noble and disinterested efforts of missionaries, to whom the science of language is probably more largely indebted than to any other body of men. As the Bible itself has, once, given a new and powerful impulse to the comparative study of languages, so its messengers now become the most efficient contributors to the new science. It is, perhaps, not without significancy, that religious subjects furnished, naturally, the first common ground on which a comparison of languages, mechanical, to be sure, but not the less. valuable, was first attempted. Already, in 1427, Schildberger published a collection of "Paternosters," an example which was followed by thirteen authors of later date, who added considerably to our knowledge of foreign tongues. A complete dictionary of all languages of the world, based upon a similar collection, was begun under the Empress Catharine of Russia; and the great Napoleon ordered the French Society of Archæologists to make a collection of over one hundred versions of the parable of the prodigal son. The subject commended itself as peculiarly adapted for such a purpose, by its familiarity, its idiomatic mode of expression and great natural force. Even the most sumptuous work of this kind, the "Sprachenhalle" of Alois Auer, printed in that magnificent establishment, the Imperial Printing Office of Vienna, is based upon six hundred and eight copies of the Lord's Prayer, accompanied by the original sources from which they were drawn, and printed each in its native dress. They are made still more valuable by Mr. Auer's appendix, representing the grammatical construction of all cognate languages on a uniform plan, and furnishing ample materials for a comparison of the structure of different tongues. In most of the