Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1900-06-20
Bill Arp Has to Consult a Diction-
ary fer Their Meaning.
MANY CHANGES THESE DAYS.
People Continually Coining Words
Theolo gians and Church Doctrines
Other Matters.

we progressed to "unintelligibility'
and "incomprehensibility we thought
there were no more worlds to conuuer.
But there were, for away on near the
last page was catalogue of jawbreak-
ers, such as "ph-th-is-ic." which we
called 'tisic," and "michilimackinac"
and 'bonny clabber." etc. We inno
Gently supposed that the old blue back
spelling book contained all the words
in the world but by and by found out
that we were only in the rudiments.
The little dictionary and English read
er and Murray's Grammar and Smi-
ley's Arithmetic were all ahead of MS.
In course of time. however, we learned
TO parse. which is Latin word taken
from "quae parS oratione''-what part
oil speech. Then we mastered the rule
or three, which is now called propor-
uon, and soon advanced to tare and
tret, which we whispered was enough
to make the devil sweat" About this
time we began TO wear shoes all the
year round and began to brush our
hair, and had picked out a sweetheart
and held her hand on the sly when we
stood up to recite, and sometimes we
used the looking glass to see how the
downy beard was coming. When well
up in our teens we were promoted to
and Greek and Algebra and History.
l remember the first sentence in the
old "HiStoria Sacra," Deus Creavit
coelum ct terrain intra sex diess''-God
created the heavens and the earth in
six days. Ii was like n confession of
falth and made Il more lasting impress
sion, for we had to study il out and
parse il. l remember our history and
how Thomps Allan who had been nor
ing over Alcibiades, Pericles. Thucides
Sophocles and Demosthenes, suddenly
came on sentence beginning with the
word besides" and ne called it "bes-i-
des' and thereby got nickname that
stuck to him through life
Put we old men have long since for
gotten our Latin and Greek except the
small words that make up much of our
modern English. Even n limited
knowledge of Latin and Greek is
great advantage and great comfort in
uefnlng our language. II is OF inesti-
mable value to professional men. to
doctors and druggists. botanists and
horticulturists and those who cultivate
flowers. But nobody can readily read
Latin or Greek nowadays except the
professors and teachers in our schools
Not long ago | pondered over Latin
preface in a very old book and had to
give it up. | turned il over TO. Profess
sor Dawes and he rendered it very beau
tifully and no doubt correctly. but his
good wife told me as a secret that he
worked on it evey night till midnight
70 Il whole week with his coat of and
the perSpiration oOZing from his classic
brow
l was Eliminating about these things
because | came across some words to-
day that / never heard OF and had to
consult the big dictionary for the
meaning. or course we have to make
new words all the time to keep up with
inventions and science. but these words
are old, as old as John Calvin, and
seem to have created n mighty discus
sion in making up the Presbyterian
confession of faith at Westminster Alb
hey 25O years ago. | was perusing an
editorial in n New York paper in which
II was stated that over forty presbyte-
ries of the northern church were in IA
vor OF amending the confession of
faith and going back to superlapsari-
anism, which was the doctrine of John
Calvin. That the Westminster confes-
sion was Sublapsinarian and not Cal
whistle. That was a revelation to me-
and so | have been reading up on these
abstruse things, and find that there
was a long and bitter discussion at
Westminster as to whether God de-
creed the doctrine of election before
the creation OF man or after he fell
Calvin declared the former. which he
called sublapsinarianism but the West
minister assembly declared that the de-
cree of election and reprobation was
not determined on by God until
Adam had sinned and fell tell you.
my Christian friends, those two long
words are TO the common mind as un-
ineligible and incomprehensible as
were ''unintelligibility" and "incom-
prehensibility to me when a school
boy l have got along without them
all these years and l am not going %
strain my mind with them now. There
is enough In the sermon on the mount
to guide us and comfort us in the jour
ney of life. These old time theologi-
ans were desperately in earnest on
doctrinal matters, for they were in q
mighty controversy with n mighty foe
and no man had a right to believe as
he pleased and be at peace. Even Cal
vim had Servetus burned as a her
etic because he denied the trinity of
the God head. Servetus was n Unitari-
an in faith and a good man in all the
relations of life. Sometimes fear we
have too much complexity of doctrine
1 mean some of the preachers and the
ologians of the schools The people
are all right and give themselves very
! little concern about doctrine. They
want preachers to preach about life
and duty, how. to live and how to die