of that syllable wherever we can find it. We
should never have known that _priest_ meant originally _an elder_, unless
we had traced it back to its original form _presbyter_, in which a Greek
scholar at once recognizes the comparative of _presbys_, old. If left to
modern English alone, we might attempt to connect _priest_ with _praying_
or _preaching_, but we should not thus arrive at its true derivation. The
modern word _Gospel_ conveys no meaning at all. As soon as we trace it
back to the original _Goddspell_, we see that it is a literal translation
of _Evangelium_, or good news, good tidings.(103) _Lord_ would be nothing
but an empty title in English, unless we could discover its original form
and meaning in the Anglo-Saxon _hlafford_, meaning a giver of bread, from
_hlaf_, a loaf, and _ford_, to give.

But even after this is done, after we have traced a modern English word
back to Anglo-Saxon, it follows by no means that we should there find it
in its original form, or that we should succeed in forcing it to disclose
its original intention. Anglo-Saxon is not an original or aboriginal
language. It points by its very name to the Saxons and Angles of the
continent. We have, therefore, to follow our word from Anglo-Saxon through
the various Saxon and Low-German dialects, till we arrive at last at the
earliest stage of German which is within our reach, the Gothic of the
fourth century after Christ. Even here we cannot rest. For, although we
cannot trace Gothic back to any earlier Teutonic language, we see at once
that Gothic, too, is a modern language, and that it must have passed
through numerous phases of growth before it became what it is in the mouth
of Bishop Ulfilas.

What then are we to do?--We must try to do what is done when we have to
deal with the modern Romance languages. If we could not trace a French
word back to Latin, we should look for its corresponding form in Italian,
and endeavor to trace the Italian to its Latin source. If, for instance,
we were doubtful about the origin of the French word for fire, _feu_, we
have but to look to the Italian _fuoco_, in order to see at once that both
_fuoco_ and _feu_ are derived from the Latin _focus_. We can do this,
because we know that French and Italian are cognate dialects, and because
we have ascertained beforehand the exact degree of relationship in which
they stand to each other. Had we, instead of looking to Italian, looked to
German for an explanation of