anew the dying flame of devotion within. This necessity in man is the natural occasion of religious festivals. But as men are known by their gods, so their religion is manifested by their festivals; between which there is a remarkable analogy and connection, as well as a manifest difference and progression. The difference results chiefly from the diversity of objects which are the subjects of these festive honors. In paganism it is nature deïfied. In Judaism, it is the god of nature; a national God, bestowing blessings on his peculiar people by the bounties of his providence, and by the special guidance of his peo ple. In Christianity it is the Father of the whole human family, embracing all in his boundless benevolence, and revealed as the Holy One, the moral governor of the universe, revealed in the gospel of his Son, and proclaimed in the church established by him. The festivals of the heathen are essentially feasts of nature. Whatever historical interest they may have is subordinate or mystical. The remarkable diversity in them is ascribable to diversity of climate and an endless variety in the relations of life. They are not strictly national feasts, resulting not from the peculiar social relations of any people, but yearly festivals which have their origin in the peculiarities of the seasons and climate of certain countries. They are local and natural rather than national. The feasts of the Jews, on the other hand, comprehend both natural and moral relations. From their peculiar theocracy their history is inseparably connected with their festivals, and whatever reference these may have to the seasons, it is designed to direct the mind to the God of nature who directs its endless round and is seen in their continual change. But the moral design of these festivals is especially to perpetuate a sense of the divine interposition in selecting them from the nations of the earth as a peculiar people. The feasts of the Jews accordingly are exclu sively national festivals, the object of which was to excite and sustain a national and peculiar spirit among the people. The festivals of the Christian church are purely historical. But the great events to which they relate are the most momentous that in the history of the world have ever occurred. They strike deeper into the heart and spread wider in their relations than any other scenes which have been exhibited on the theatre of this earth. They tell of the love of God. They tell of his amazing scheme of grace, to bless and save all mankind, so that all of ev ery people and kindred and tongue have a common interest in the great events which are commemorated in the festivals of the 669 1847.] Reason of the Jewish and Christian Festivals. Christian church. They are accordingly neither local nor national, but universal. In a word, it results immediately from the nature of the different forms of religion that pagan festivals are local and national; the Jewish, strictly national; while those of the Christian church are purely moral and religious, and universal in their adaptation to man. From this characteristic difference in the nature of these festivals results a corresponding variety in the mode of celebrating them. The festivals of pagan nations are celebrated by symbols, representing the powers of nature, or in rites which represent the changes to which the world is subject in heaven and earth. They call into action natural desires and fears, which, without due restraint, lead to wild excesses. As the exhibitions of the sensual nature of man, these passions, knowing not the restraints of any divine law, may lead to any excess of riot and bacchanalian revelry. The Jewish festivals, on the contrary, were all prescribed by law, and are themselves only a part of the national institutions of the great Lawgiver of the Jews. They are essential for the appropriate manifestation of the piety of an Israelite. They are part of a very earnest and simple faith which excludes the deities of natural religion. They have a partial relation to the laws of nature sufficient to give scope to the passions of the human heart, but these are held in check by the higher principles of a spiritual law. The moral influence of these feasts was good in bringing the people to repentance and reconciliation with God. Christian festivals are not the result of any law, natural or divine; but of the free spirit of Christianity. They are the natural expression of a pious heart, which, though ever in grateful communion with our Lord, seizes upon those great events in his life which most forcibly illustrate the grace of God in Jesus Christ, as occasions for more refreshing communications of his Spirit. Their appropriate rites are accordingly extremely simple, consisting in singing, in prayer and the reading and exposition of the Scriptures. The joy and sorrow connected with them are purely spiritual; the one, sweetly elevating the soul to God, the other, gently subduing it into godly contrition before Him. Now by taking into view these characteristic distinctions, in connection with the undeniable fact that much pertaining both to pagan and Jewish festivals has been transferred to those of the Christian church, we may perceive the analogy and connection between them. The latter are assigned to different seasons of the year in close conformity with the first. These analogies may indeed have been accidental; it is also true that two great festivals, Easter and Whitsunday, are established on historical events of which paganism knows nothing. But we must not for get that both of these have their prototype in Jewish festivals which have a distinct reference to the seasons of the year, and which, without deïfying the powers of nature, seek to improve them as the means of leading the heart to nature's God. So that there is a general connection pervading all these forms of religion that unites even those Christian festivals with those of paganism and Judaism. To these also other Christian festivals have an analogy yet more striking; such as Christmas, St. John's day, all-souls, all-saints, the apostles' day and that of the Virgin Mary. The analogies of Christinas and St. John's day, which occur in the summer and winter solstices, to the festivals of other forms of religion are particularly striking. Christmas is assigned to this period without the least historical evidence. It is indeed possible, but not at all probable, that the birth of Jesus occurred on the twenty-fifth of December. The traditions of antiquity were exceedingly discordant on this subject, and it was not until the fifth century that the Romish church decided upon the observance of this day. But the probable reasons for appointing this day in commemoration of the Saviour's birth have been already inti mated. May not the fathers of the church be presumed also to have had some reference to the festive seasons of the heathen in establishing the cycle of Christian festivals? or were they led by their own reflections to establish them with reference to the seasons of the year? The contrast between these and those of idolatrous nations which occurred at the same time would be the more strik. ing, and influential in gaining converts to the Christian faith. And if the course of nature were made to illustrate the significancy of a feast of the church, even though it carried the mind far beyond the limits of the natural world, the impression made by the festival would only be strengthened by the analogy. Certain it is that the ancient writers often insisted in their discourses on these analogies. Christianity rejected not the teachings of nature but sought to sanctify and give them a proper direction, by raising higher her voice of wisdom. Neither does she sunder the thread of history, but presses into the service of Christ the lessons which are drawn from the records of the past. Not indeed that the or der of religious festivals was arranged with primary reference, either to any harmony, or to any contrast of them with the course 1847.] Comparative Philology. 671 of the seasons. The life of Jesus and the great events connected with the spread of his religion were the prevailing considerations in the institution of these festivals. But it is equally certain that the relations of Jewish and pagan festivals to the analogies of nature had also an important influence in establishing that harmony which subsists between those sacred festivals in the church and the changes of the year in the revolutions of the sea sons. "These as they change are but the varied God- ARTICLE III. THE SANSCRIT LANGUAGE IN ITS RELATION TO COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY. By B. J. Wallace, Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages in Delaware College, Newark, Del. COMPARATIVE Philology is a recent science. The name, no doubt, is taken from Comparative Anatomy in which a system is evolved by a careful examination of the relative structures and functions of animals. This comparison of languages had never been instituted, except casually, until the present century. Von Humboldt, Bopp, Grimm (and more recently Burnouf, Lassen and others) are here the great names. By bringing laboriously together the languages with the history and character of the nations of Middle and Western Asia, Northern Africa and Europe, they have developed the most brilliant results, the central and more valuable languages of the world classifying themselves into two great families, called respectively the Shemitish and the Indo-European. From these labors and as a foundation by others, a complete revolution has been nearly accomplished in philosophical grammar, lexicography, and the methods of classical study. Memory, instead of reigning supreme, and holding firmly immense masses of heterogeneous facts, now sits at the feet of her brother Reason. Grammar, from being one of the most uninteresting of studies, is becoming delightful. The foundations are laid in human nature, and the philosophical gramma rian shows, or labors to show, how every branch of a verb, and ev ery vowel-change, follows not caprice, but a natural law, and that speech instead of a farrago of contradictions, a mass of confused utterances, is the appropriate expression of the human soul every where, whose actings though sorely jarred by depravity show its original brightness, as through a veil, darkly. Adelung estimates the whole number of languages and dia. lects known upon the globe at 3626. Balbi rates them at 2000. But very many of these are mere dialects; many indicate a common origin at no very remote period. By careful examination the number no doubt may be reduced to hundreds, and a very few hundred of distinct languages, especially if we exclude mere savage or outlandish idioms. But after all this reduction the question returns, Are these various modes of speech arbitrary, so that the learning of one but little facilitates the learning of another, or are they so connected as that it is by no means a prodigy, but might be an ordinary result of human industry to be acquainted with twenty or fifty languages? Comparative philology has solved this question. We will try, striving to avoid the fathomless abyss of Teutonic generalizing, and the flying cloud-land of French theorizing, to present some simple and intelligible views on this subject. The soul of man is one. It struggles for utterance and articu. late speech; the result must be, in its essence, everywhere the same. In utterance man always uses the same vocal organs. Here is another source of similarity. That is, thought and feeling must be essentially alike, the organs of expression are the same. Hence there must be, and there is, a general likeness in all articulate speech. There are, for instance, everywhere words to ex press existences-nouns; action gives rise to verbs, sudden emo. tions to interjections. Every language possesses these and a hundred other things because man is like man. But, as it has been well remarked,' there are two great classes of words, those which resemble external sounds, where sound is the echo of the sense, and those which struggle to express that which is peculiar to the soul, and for which there is perhaps no perfect picture in material things. The former class of words must be strikingly alike everywhere. It is in the latter that there will be the main diversity. The reason for the choice of one word here rather than another, though it cannot be considered arbitrary, is subtle, and 1 Introd. to the Hebrew Grammar of Nordheimer. |