The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1900-06-28
BILL ARP'S LETTER
Newly Coined Words Occasionally
Stump" the Old Man,
REFERS OFTEN TO THE DICTIONARY
Great Changes are Occurring These Days.
Word About Theologians and
Church Doctrines.

When we were little school boys it
was big thing to spell Baker
When we reached "crucifx" we had
visions of expansion and suspenders,
and when we progressed to "unintel-
Eligibility" "and incomprehensibility"
we thought there were no more words
Ito conquer. But there were, for away
ron near the last page was catalogue
of iawbreakers, such as ''ph-th- Isle,
which we called ''tisic," and "michili-
smackinac" and "bonny clabber," etc.
n We innocently supposed that the old
s blue back spelling book contained all
a the words in the world, but by and by
we found out that we were only in the
cudiments. The little dictionary and
and English Reader and Murray's
Grammar and Smiley's Arithmetic
were all ahead of us. In course of
time, however, we learned to parse,
~sShich is q Latin word taken from
ssquae pars oratione''-what part OF
speech.
Then we mastered the rule of three,
/. which is called proportion, and soon
whispered was "enough to make the
devil sweat" About this time we be-
gan to wear shoes all the year round
and to brush our hair, and had picked
out sweetheart ana held her hand
on the sly when we stood up to recite,
and some times we used the looking
glass to see how the downy beard was
coming. When we'll up in our teens
we were promoted to the institute and
introduced to Latin and Greek and
Algebra and History. remember the
first sentence in the old 'Historia
Sacra," "Deus creavit coelum ct ter
rim intra sex dies'-God created the
heavens and the earth in six days. 1t
was like a confession Of faith and
made more lasting impression, for
we had to study it out and parse it.
I remember our history and how
Thomps Allen, who had been porting
J over Alcibiades, Pericles, Thucyides,
Sophocles and Demosthenes, suddenly
came on a sentence beginning with
the word "besides, " and he called it
'tbes-i-des" and thereby got a nick
name that stuck to him through life.
But 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 limited
knowledge of Latin and Greek is a
great advantage and great comfort in
y defining our language. 1t is OF ines
Unable value to professional men, to
doctors and druggists, botanists and
-b8rticulturists and those who cult
vaste flowers. But nobody can readily
read Latin or Greek nowadays except
the professors and teachers in our
schools. Not long ago l pondered
over Latin preface in a very old
book and had to give it up. L turned
it over to Prof. Dawes and he rendered
it very beautifully and no doubt cor
rectly, but his good wife told me as a
secret that he worked on it every night
till midnight for whole week with
bis coat off and the Precipitation oozing
from his classic brow.
I was Illuminating about these things
because I came across some words to-
day that l never heard of and had to
consult the big dictionary for mean
ing. OF course we have to make new
i words all the time to keep. up with in
ventions and science, but these words
are old, as old as John Calvin and
they seem to have created mighty
discussion in making up the Presby-
terrain confession of faith at Westmin-
ster Abbey $50 years ago. | was Pc
rusing an editorial in a New York pa
per in which it was stated that over
y forty Presbyteries of the northern
q church were in favor of amending the
B confession of faith and going back to
superlapsarianism, which was the doc
d trine of John Calvin. That the West
minister confession was sublspsinarian
u not Calvinistic. That was reve-
Aon to me, and so 1 have been read
q ing up on these abstruse things and
81 find that there was long and bitter
n discussion at Westminster as to wheth-
r err God decreed the doctrine of cleo
ton before the creation of man or at
ter he fell.
Calvin declared the former, which
called ublapsinarianism, but the
Westminster assembly declared that
the decree of election and Reproduction
was not determined on by God until
adam had snned and fell. I tell
you, my Christian friends, those two
long words are to the common mind
as unintelligible and incomprehensi-
zble as were "unintelligibility" and
&sincomprehensibil to me when
school boy. I have got along without
them all these years and am not 60
ing to strain my mind with them now.
There is enough in the sermon on the
mount to guide us and comfort us in
the journey of life. Those old time
ktheologians were desperately in earn
est on doctrinal matters, for they
were in mighty controversy with a
mighty foe and no man had right to
believe as he pleased and be at peace.
Even Calvin and Servetus arrested and
burned as hereto because he denied
The tMnity of the Godhead. Serve
ers was a Unitarian in faith and a