oticeable objects to the casual observer. But
it is the minute myriad drops of the rain and the dew that cause the
real wonders of vegetation. So these words which we read, and think we
forget, hour by hour, all day long, are continually sinking into the
soil of the heart, and influencing imperceptibly the growth of the germs
of thought. The aggregate of all these minute, unnoticed influences is
prodigious, incalculable.

Whoever can put words together wisely, either by the tongue or the pen,
has a precious talent, which he may not innocently lay up in a napkin.
The gift, like that of wealth, is not his by right of ownership, but
only as a steward. It is his as a means to do good for the honor of his
Lord, and the welfare of his fellow-men. As I said in the beginning of
these remarks, the world is governed by words. Let Christian men, by the
industrious use of the gifts they have received, see to it that a
greater proportion of this governing force in the world is contributed
by the friends of Christ. Let them unceasingly fill up with the words of
truth and righteousness every accessible channel of thought and opinion,
and thus occupy till Christ come.

X.

THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE.

The study of language has ever been considered a study of high
importance, regarded merely as a means of intellectual cultivation.

There are obvious reasons for this. The analysis of language is the
analysis of thought. Resolving complex forms of speech into simple ones,
and again combining simple expressions into those which are complex, and
investigating, alternately by logic and aesthetics, the varying
properties of words and phrases, are operations which come nearer,
perhaps, than any other in which we are engaged, towards subjecting
spirit itself to the crucible of experiment. The study of grammar, the
comparison of languages, the translation of thought from one language to
another, are so many studies in logic and the laws of mind. The
subtleties of language arise from the very nature of that subtle and
mysterious essence, the human mind, of which speech is the prime agent
and medium of communication.

The class of studies under consideration bears nearly the same relation
to the spiritual that anatomy does to the bodily part of us. It is by
the dissecting-knife of a keen and well-tempered logic, applied to the
examination of the various forms which human thought assumes, that we
most truly learn the very essence and prop