This language will soon be universal; by common consent it will become
the language of the world. All the changes going on among nations
forecast its ubiquity. China, by an imperial decree, has just added to
her language 700 English words. Her sons by the thousand are with us,
and by the thousand they are learning our mother tongue. The Japanese,
till a few years ago, carried on their foreign correspondence through the
Dutch, but now they have changed to the English. Besides, in the 50,000
schools in Japan English is being taught. If science has an answer for
this strange phenomenon, so have we. Ours is, that it is the will of
Heaven. Confusion of tongues came at Babel as a punishment. By this
means Heaven scattered the unwilling descendants of Noah. When Noah came
forth from the Ark, God bade him multiply and replenish the earth—that
is, fill it up. Babel, however, was built as a monument of
centralisation, for the builders gave as a reason for building it, “Lest
we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.” By a confusion of
tongues they were scattered. Since then we have had some 1,500 distinct
languages, and some 3,500 colloquials, or say 5,000 different forms of
speech. At the present time 600 of the primary are dead, so that there
are about 900 languages now spoken on all the earth, with about 2,500
colloquials.
When these means have answered their end—namely, to make us occupy all
parts of the earth—then they will die out. It then follows that as the
world fills, languages must disappear. So they do. The English and
German were the last languages to come into existence. No new ones are
now being made. Alphabets are increasing, because missionaries are
reducing spoken languages among the heathen into a written form. The
Bible is translated into two hundred different tongues. This itself will
only lead the millions back to English. All ship papers are now made out
in English excepting the French, and no doubt they will soon have to
follow in the wake.
The day of Pentecost foreshowed the universality of some language.
Pentecost was a type, and the English is the antitype. The strangers
from Phrygia, Pamphylia, Libya, Pontus, and Cappadocia, mingled with the
Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Cretes, and Arabians. They all heard the
Gospel in their own tongue. The different tongues make a wall of
division, making them strangers one with another; but the Holy Ghost took
away this wall, and they were all face to face, able to understand one
another. The same power that here multiplied the gift of tongues—giving
to some several—surely could give to Adam one. Away with a faith that
cannot give God credit with being the Author of language.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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