66 ever to be the blessed instrument of saving many around you, it is certain that, as to acquiring this language, necessity is laid upon you." To reach the heart through the ear by any other medium, is out of the question. Man, it is true, has been described as a divider of the voice," or, in other words, an utterer of articulate sounds; but in order to clear his way he must accommodate himself to the articulate sounds which have preceded his approach to any given spot. Let these sounds have been what they may, his own form of communication will not suffice. In every instance, spoken language takes precedence of all other means, and hence, in improving the condition of any class of men, we propose first to talk with them, then teach them. So it ought to have been all along, and certainly at least two hundred and fifty or three hundred years ago with the Native Irish; and whatever any may say to the contrary, so it must be now in the nineteenth century. But there is here another consideration of no inferior kind. If spoken language is first in the order of time, it continues to be first in point of importance. The noble invention of printing is powerless here, to move it from its ancient and unchanging pre-eminence. The power of the press, great as it is, is here at least far below the power of the tongue : for, independently of the natural power of the living voice, he who made "man's mouth" hath so ordained it. The volume of revelation itself indeed has been printed, but what then? After all, in every instance, he who regards it not as vocal, can never know its meaning-never feel its power. It began in audible sounds by the Creator himself to the parents of mankind-the rest he inspired, and holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The volume hath closed, and the original mode of communication hath ceased, all truth having been uttered which was needful for any age or people. But the communication itself remains, and revelation still is literally and truly a voice— clear and expressive-it is the voice of God Thus Scripture, unsophisticate by man, Is note for note deliver'd in our ears, In the last scene of these six thousand years. But still, even while revelation was in the course of delivery, intelligible speech respecting it was not dispensed with. Inspired men were but occasional teachers, and there were long spaces wherein no prophet appeared. Nay, even in the time when prophecy flourished, the standing ministry were not prophets, and we may see the very prophets send the people for instruction to the "Levite and the teaching priest," or reprove both for neglect.* 66 So also, while Revelation was in the course of delivery, there might be, and there were decays. For a long season Israel had been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without the law," and thirty years more passed away before it was otherwise. But in the third year of Jehoshaphat "he sent to his princes to teach in the cities of Judah," and with them he sent Levites and teaching priests, "and they had the book of the law of the Lord with them, and they went about throughout all the cities of Judah and taught the people." The consequence immediately recorded is striking: "And the fear of the Lord was upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, and they made no war against Jehoshaphat." Nay then the Philistines brought him presents of silver, and even Arabia brought of her flocks to the amount of thousands.+ Such a course for a king may now seem to be of small account; yet such was Jehoshaphat's way of securing both the peace and the prosperity of his subjects. And if it were so in these early days, under the new covenant there was no change, even although the opposition to Christianity as spoken has always been by far the greatesta valuable testimony, by the way, to the power of language as an instrument of usefulness. The Founder of our faith suffered in consequence of his words, and his good confession before Pontius Pilate, yet did he not change his determination as to this precise mode of advancing his cause. The confusion of tongues had dispersed mankind-the gift of tongues was intended to gather into his sheepfold; and his followers replied-" We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." **Haggai ii. 11. Malachi ii. 6, 7. Jeremiah viii. 22. All the cities of refuge were full of Levites or teaching priests, and in them were to be found no weapons of war. Indeed the forty-eight cities of the Levites were just so many points or centres of instruction. Gilead, for example, was a city of teaching priests, and it happened also to be celebrated for its balm. But it was the living voice it seems, it was vocal instruction which was to convey balm to the heart. Hence the point of Jeremiah's inquiry-" Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no Physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?"" † See Chron. xv. 3. xvii. 7-11. "Woe is unto me,” said another, “if I preach not the Gospel!" Yet, gifted as these men confessedly were, what was their very highest aim upon earth? Intelligible discourse. No men were ever so impressed with the importance of intelligible preaching. Understanding well the true ground of action in religion-that the connected sense of Scripture is the only true sense, correct testimony the only ground of faith, and fair argument the only ground of upright action, preaching from their mouths became "serious discourse indeed." Sound, mere sound, in their estimation, was nothing intelligibility, wherever they went, was their aim. Debtors to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the wise and the unwise, no sooner did they step across the boundary of any one tongue, than they took up the vernacular idiom of the spot on which they stood. They might indeed have to preach in one language to-day, and in another to-morrow, and this miracle from on high remains upon record, like a pointing finger to the path which Heaven would approve, when man was to be left to pursue his course with the graces that remain-Faith, and Hope, and Charity. 66 Nor was this all-even on the spot where these men stood, intelligibility in that language was still their aim. Language, let it be which it might, pleased them not, if it affected only the ear. If a man uttered by the tongue words easy to be understood," he met their approbation; if he did not, they called it "speaking to the air. But old Sedulius, the Irishman, they would have esteemed, when he said, perhaps above a thousand years ago-" Be not children in understanding, but ye ought to know wherefore languages were given. Better to speak a few lucid words in the right sense, than innumerable that are obscure and unknown." After all this, it was at once an amiable and important as well as an exemplary feature in these, the original preachers of Christianity, that they had frequently as much anxiety respecting the frame of their own spirits in preaching, as they had respecting the hearts of their auditors in hearing. Their own temper of mind they certainly ranked among the subordinate and ordained requisites of success. In the most painful and perilous circumstances, " approving themselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness and love unfeigned." "We also believe," said they, "and therefore speak." Eloquence, or even being " mighty in the Scriptures," without love, was in their ear but a tinkling sound. Such was at least their regard both to matter and manner-to the letter of their discourse and their dispositions in delivery. To some, their example may seem too high for imitation, but it has been drawn out and left on record assuredly with this intent; for while these are to be our patterns and guides, they are the only human guides whom it is safe in such a course to follow. Is it at all unwarrantable to regard the first propagators of Christianity? Are their principles and procedure not to be followed? or is it forbidden to apply such examples to the present state of Ireland? How then would these men have acted there? Would they have waited and seen the people die around them, without attempting to acquire their vernacular tongue? Would they have waited till it should be the unwise and vain policy of some human power to attempt bringing it into disuse? Would they not rather have styled every other language "barbarous," except the one spoken on the spot ?* Would they not have seized upon this as the only adequate and speedy medium of reaching the mind? as the only way of reaching the heart through the ear? Certainly they would; and any minister of the truth now in Ireland, who shall sit down in good earnest to acquire this lively and expressive medium of communication, with a view to his proclaiming in it the message of salvation, the unsearchable riches of Christ, is following the example of those who, of all other men, most closely followed their Lord, and best understood the terms of his commission. Independently, however, of the force and peculiar attraction of such examples, which we have no doubt were intended, not only to be admired but followed, the very frame and structure, the forms of expression and the disposition of the parts of Divine Revelation, prove that oral instruction was intended to accompany it. The Sacred Volume complete, in the Irish language and character, has left the press. It is an era which may well be accompanied with thanksgiving to God, and I rejoice the more in that it has been printed on Irish ground: but then this is at the same time an event which involves 1 Cor. xiv. 10, 11. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them without signification; therefore, if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh a barbarian unto me. other obligations, and seems to call for reflection upon them.* When the Mohammedan imposture arose, there was no success for the Koran till its author laid his sword across it, and proclaimed the prospect of sensual blessedness. He told his followers, that the system he came to settle must be propagated by the sword, and not by the word, and that all who would not receive it must be exterminated. The hope of plunder in this world, and a voluptuous paradise in the next, account for his success. What a contrast to all this do the Sacred Writings, when considered simply as a volume, present!-in which large portions stand out before us as among the effects of faith, not the original cause of belief, either in the writer or in those to whom he addressed himself.t And now that all truth is spoken, and the volume finished, let us observe its contents. The doctrines to be believed, and the supernatural truths to be received, are unfolded to the mind, not in regular series, not in what men call systematic order, not in any way analogous to arithmetical progression. They are not disposed into common-place, nor arranged at all in the manner which we usually style methodical. And yet, taking the volume as a whole, on searching it, there is no disposition of language to be found, making the most distant approach to method so exquisite, in which there is such constant mutual respect of one part to another, and such vital dependence of one truth upon all the rest. Prophecies and historical writing, prayers and songs, and epistolary correspondence are intermingled: yet in all this, and precisely as it stands, there is a designed and harmonious connexion, and that so perfect, that much of the obscurity, of which some complain, must arise either from ignorance of the truths referred to, or from hostility to them. So very important is this peculiarity of the Scrip "It is worthy of notice," said Mr Fuller, in reference to India, "that the time in which the Lord began to bless his servants, was that in which his holy word began to be published in the language of the natives. The heavens had long declared to those people the glory of God; but it was reserved for the law of the Lord to convert their souls. God by this no doubt intended to put an honour upon his own word, and upon those who made it the foundation of their labours. Great account was made of the foundation of the Lord's temple being laid' among the Jews after their captivity. That was the honoured period from whence their prosperity was dated. Consider now,' saith the Lord, from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider it-from this day will I bless you.'' ""-Periodical Accounts, vol. iii. preface. te. g. Luke i. 1-4; 2 Peter i. 1. |