Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1850-03-14
MONTPELIER, VERMONT, MARCH IA, 1850.


with missions. The question of Languages has
a vital relation not only with their success but
with their very existence. In this department
we should expect missionaries to labor win all
eurnestneSs and diligence, and they have done
SO, in multitude Of instances reducing to writ
ing languages that previously had no aphaoet
and clearing up the difficulties of those which
were already written, thus opening broad and
comparatively easy path for the scholar who
would investigate their structure These Con-
tributions to human knowledge may be consd'
cred in threefold light.
]. Their relation to PhiIology as a. sclelGe
by Itself.
2. In relation to Ethnologcal researches,
3. In relation to the literature contained in
those various languages.
1t is the busieess of the phiInlhsist q aszesIi-
gate the internal structure and laws q -
a nd ~ IIuTu OI Nu"Va-s
the safer and more philosophical will bis isconclu-
slpns be. Missionaries have furOished the
means which enable the German, in his closet
to compare with each other more than two hun.
dred tongues. He has at his command the al.
most unpronounceabe words in which Elliot
preached, the monosylabcs of China, the lord
ly Sanscrit, the mutifarious dialects Of modem
India, the smooth languages of the South Sea
Islands, the dialects Of the African tribes, the
gntterals OF the existing American Indians and
veIy many others which cannot here be enumer
ated.
Of ancient literature, time will allow US To
mention only briefly the Chinese and the San
scrt. The former leads lis back with annals
astronomical tables, and general literature, to
periods very long before our ancestors had
reached the historic epoch in their existence
This is by far the most extensive literature o
the East, perhaps Of the world. The printed
catalogue of the library Of the emperor Kieu
Long fills 1872 volumes, and "selection' o.
Chinese classic literature, with scloiq and com
HCnloiiess u1ucIluhcH al lile COUllltHu Vi Ul
emperor, will consist of 10000 volumes, 0
which 1871 had already appeared in 1873
All thus mass of reading is opened to th
European world through the labors of DR.. Nor
rlson, and his successors, Medhurst, Bridgeman
&c.
The Sanscrit also goes back to men wit
were contemporary with Abraham. 1t had ceas
ed to be spoken language in the time of Alex
ander the Great. In it we have the prose an
poetry of the elder world, strange, massive, an
often terribly sublime. In the poetry and phi
losophy of those far off periods it may be see
that ideas which, in our days, are brought ior
with blowing of trumpets, and ostentatious proc
amatlons of originality, were already famlid
as household words to men who lived befoI
Agamemnon, and grappled with the giganti
conceptions of oriental antiquity. TIE sick
Sc sentimental polite, dy"wiaearqatq z a.heisg.,
is but as the painted plnythng ofa child O'sid
the sombrc mujesty of the pyrnmids, compare
with the stern stately, terrible pantheism OF San
scrit philosophy.
We have thus hintad at rather than detaiIf
some of the services rendered by missionaries
general KIN ,wledge and formal science. To /
at large into detail would be to write yolum
The examples cited are sufficient to sho
that missions would not have been useless, eyC
If they cad utterly failed in the great purpo
for which the are established, and not soul HI
been saved.
But when we consider that all this, which /,
been spoken Of, is only incidental in its chart
ter, that very many precious souls have be-
redeemed from the thraldom of heathenism, al
made free in the freedom Of our God, may
not well adopt the feeling of the pious won
who, as she sat down to her repast, lifted h
, eyes in gratitude to heaven, and said, "Wh
all this and Christ too?" Brethren, God h
f given us all this accession 10 intellectual wesI
and many souls besides.