HOMILETIC REVIEW VOL. XXXV. FROM JANUARY TO JUNE 1898 EDITORS: I. K. FUNK, D.D., LL.D., AND D. S. GREGORY, D.D., LL.D. PUBLISHERS: FUNK AND WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON 1898 THE HOMILETIC REVIEW. VOL. XXXV. -JANUARY, 1898. —No. 1. REVIEW SECTION. I. PULPIT STYLE. BY PROFESSOR W. GARDEN BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D., NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND. APART from the pulpit, and from a more extended point of view, the study of one's native language ought to be a subject of profound interest to every educated man. Our native tongue should be dear to us as our native country, not only for its usefulness in every avocation of life, but still more for the higher ends it serves. Has it not been the means of preserving to us the brightest and most inspiring thoughts and feelings of past generations? Has it not done noble service in the past, and is it not capable of noble service in the future? Language has never been stationary-least of all the English. It has been improved, and it has been corrupted; and it may be improved, or it may be corrupted again. Modern Greek is not equal to the ancient. What atrocious corruptions the Latin underwent, as it degenerated into Italian, Spanish, and French! Happily, after it had become comparatively barbarous, men of high literary genius appeared, under whom the process of corruption was arrested, and in each of these three cases the language was again molded into a rich and powerful vehicle of thought. Whenever the language of a nation is becoming barbarous, the nation is becoming barbarous itself. And there are tendencies in our day toward barbarism that need to be watcht. The rage for the broad Scotch of Ian Maclaren, and for American slang, and London slang, and slang of all sorts in stories that aim at piquant writing, can hardly fail of leaving some mark in our literature. Who is to regulate our speech? Not Parliament or Congress, not sovereign or senate. It depends on the good taste and the carefulness of the educated men and women of a country. NOTE.-This periodical adopts the Orthography of the following Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philological Association and the Philological Society of England:-Change d or ed final to t when so pronounced, except when the e affects a preceding sound. -PUBLISHERS, |