Let me again, however, recur to the fact that what our Reformers did in this matter, they did without exaggeration; even as they had shown the same wise moderation in still higher matters. They gave to the Latin side of the language its rights, though they would not suffer it to encroach upon and usurp those of the Teutonic part of the language. It would be difficult not to believe, even if many outward signs said not the same, that great things are in store for the one language of Europe which thus serves as connecting link between the North and the South, between the languages spoken by the Teutonic nations of the North and by the Romance nations of the South; which holds on to and partakes of both; which is as a middle term between them{35}. There are who venture to hope that the English Church, being in like manner double-fronted, looking on the one side toward Rome, being herself truly Catholic, looking on the other towards the Protestant communions, being herself also protesting and reforming, may yet in the providence of God have an important part to play for the reconciling of a divided Christendom. And if this ever should be so, if, notwithstanding our sins and unworthiness, so blessed a task should be in store for her, it will not be a small help and assistance thereunto, that the language in which her mediation will be effected is one wherein both parties may claim their own, in which neither will feel that it is receiving the adjudication of a stranger, of one who must be an alien from its deeper thoughts and habits, because an alien from its words, but a language in which both must recognize very much of that which is deepest and most precious of their own. {Sidenote: _Jacob Grimm on English_}