Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-05-28
Religions saIutatlOns.


A LARGE, if not the largest, class Of
salutatiOns can be traced to interces-
sion. The deeply religious character
of the Orientals showed itself specially
in their salutatiOns. The Hebrew word
Jarak, "tO bless" had all the mean
ings Of saluting, welcoming and bid
ding adieu, the person spoken to being
in each case commended to God,
" Blessed be thou Of the Lord; " The
Lord be with thee;' and Jacob
blessed Pharoah, and went out from
before him. are instances which illus
trated the usage Of the word. They
are paralleled by the Arabian, " God
grant thee His favOrs," MAY God
strengthen your morning." "May your
morning be good;n by the Persian, II
make prayers for thy greatness and
by the Ottoman, "Be under the guard
of God, " my prayers are for thee"
Forget me not in thy prayers" And
we cannot be surprised that this kind
of salutation is found to exist, in some
shape or other, among all national
greetings. Our religion has come from
the East, and some Of their religious
salutatiOns still survive; as, for exam
pie, in the Esthonian "GOd guide YOU
the " Adieu" Of the French, the 4" Go
with God, SenOrn of Spain, and our
God be with ye," corrupted into
Goodbye" And here it may be re-
marked, in passing that the obviously
religious phrases have been pre-
served by nations in a sense less dis
tinctly religious than the English,
while they have been lost or changed
among ourselves. Has the closer init
macy Of the Continent with Roman
Catholicism produced an effect upon
outward expression, or is the change
due to our greater reverence for sacred
names-a reverence, often, of course,
merely Pharisaic, but which had led us,
as it led the later Hebrews, to shrink
/ from uttering the actual name of the
Deity, and either to corrupt it as in
" Goodbye or eliminate it as in
"Mercy me,n "Save you, sir,n while
the French are much more lavish with
with their &" Mein GOltP' If these sug-
gestions will not hold, perhaps we may
| find q more rational solution in the uni
versal tendency of the West, and espe-
cially of the English, toward brevity;
which tendency would find illustration
/ in our Good day. in the German
" GuteH Idg," in the Swedish, " God
day." and in the French 80 'B0ujour." :"
Under the distinctly religious cate
| CORY come all wishes for good health;
| and here, again, we find the Easterns
retaining the name of God, and the
Westerns usually dropping it. The
Iaire of the Greeks, the SalUe, AUe
Yale, of the Romans, the Swedish Far
\ lCOl, the German Le6eH Sic lCshI, the
Esthonian and Russians Be JeU, and
our FdreJOeH are all the instances of ex-
/ preston of the Oriental mentions OF
the Deity.
The religious character of the East
erns is obvious, or Obtrusive, likewise
in their answers. To the question,
"How is your health?' an Arab would
reply, " Praise be to Cod the tone
alone showing whether he was well OF
i'll. is it well with thee?' would
draw forth the response, "God bles;
thee and preserve thee" These were
the stock answers which it was and il
still considered rude to vary-an in
stance, by the way, of punctilio anC
conservatism truly characteristic of Ori
entail ceremOniOusness and stagnatiOn
This style of answer reminds us of the
Dec gTdtids, salutation of the early
Christians, who, carrying out the apOs
tolic Injunction, In all things give
thanks" laid themselves open to thG
ridicule of the heretics, who said it wa;
only an answer. THANK God, how are
you?' is one of the salutations in Ara.
bia at the present time. In Andrea'
Hofer's district of the Tyrol, the people
still salute with ".Praised be Jesu;
Christ" Among the poorer classes il
Poland the visitor often says, "Tht
Lord be praised" to which the reply
is, "World without end. Amen
! GOT3lhiH