3. The fellowship of the churches ought to be based upon, then ought to secure and maintain, an agreement of the churches and of the ministry upon the practical doctrines relating to Christian ordinances and the evangelization of the world. It would be a misfortune to have an exclusive immersionist settled as pastor over one of our churches. It would be a misfortune to have a pastor bring into one of our churches the Romish views of communion. Perhaps the good sense of those opposed to us secures us from any danger on those points, but our own good sense ought also to secure us. I think it would be no less a misfortune to have in our churches preachers who should proclaim that man in his natural state has no religious duties, that his conscience cannot and ought not to condemn him for disobedience to God, till God has given him a gracious ability to obey. Such doctrines cut the very sinews of morality. The preachers of such doctrines are indebted for the Christian virtues of their own congregations, in some degree, to the sounder preaching of their neighbors, as well as to the inherent force of the conscience, Our Congregational churches are therefore bound by their fellowship to co-operate in educating a ministry which shall be in substantial agreement not only as to the doctrines of salvation, but also as to the methods of proclaiming and applying those doctrines. 4. It is worthy of inquiry whether it ought not to be a fundamental principle of fellowship among the churches, that the ministry in its official work be in some way amenable to councils or associations. The Congregational polity at this point seems not fully developed; for the common sense of the churches has required of councils the exercise of powers not granted them in some of our theories. One theory is, that a man is a teacher or preacher in virtue of his office in a church; yet practically all our missionaries, our preachers without charge, our clerical teachers in colleges and seminaries are preachers, and accepted as such, though their church connection be with a church a thousand miles away. A theory is, that the local church ordains a minister, giving him thus the privilege of preaching; but in practice a council can depose him from the ministry. The same body should have power to confer and withdraw the privilege. Moreover, there should be some method of calling a council for the purpose of deposing a minister of scandalous life, other than the mere motion and inclination of the church to which the minister may belong. A theory is, that ordination is simply the induction by a church of a man into the office of teacher in that church; but practically it gives him power to preach anywhere. A theory is that a council gives access to the neighboring churches by extending the right hand of fellowship to a newly-settled pastor; but if a church hire a previouslyordained preacher for a year or a month, he has practically the same access to the neighboring churches. In theory an installation is an attenuated ordination, yet practically ordination is an advanced step to a permanent position in the ministry. There are thus duties imposed upon councils which the individual churches calling them do not impose. When the Board of Missions wishes to send a young man to one of its stations, it asks the church in Sailem to call a council of the churches in Preachem and Teachem for the purpose of ordaining their missionary. It is a mere ecclesiastical fiction to hold that the church calling the council is the prime and responsible mover in the work. But the remarks here made are intended simply to raise the inquiry whether the Congregational system cannot be made more complete than it now is. ARTICLE V. RELATIONS OF THE ARYAN AND SEMITIC LANGUAGES. BY REV. JAMES F. MCCURDY, PRINCETON, N. J. I. HISTORY AND PRESENT STATE OF THE INQUIRY. Of the many unsolved problems that lie perpetually in the way of the student of language, there are two which are specially beguiling and distracting on account of their intrinsic interest and profound obscurity. The questions as to the original source of language itself, and as to the original relations of the various families of speech, have assumed this prominence in the more speculative regions of the science, because the opinions of leading theorists have been so conflicting, and because the methods of proof in each case are so various and uncertain. Each of these questions opens up a field of inquiry practically unlimited; and it is safe to say that, however firmly certain theories or principles may be maintained by the representatives of different schools, we have not yet seen the beginning of the end in the effort to reach scientific certainty upon the basis of established facts. Under these conditions, it is not to be wondered at that extravagant notions have been advanced during the whole history of the investigation. It is, however, natural to suppose that this tendency would be manifested the more strongly in the consideration of the former of the two problems; because when the conditions of the earliest expression of human thought or feeling are brought before the mind, the subject is seen to be so exceedingly complex and obscure extending at once into the regions of philology, psychology, and physiology, with all their delicate and mysterious correlations that a certain measure of ingenious theorizing, in default of scientific demonstration, would seem to have a right to indulgence, at least, if not to encourage - ment. When, however, we regard language not in its nature, but in its manifestations, not in its origin, but in its development, we are shut up almost entirely to a single, region of observation, whose limits are well-defined, though its phenomena are perplexing; and here there can be no justification for the exercise of fancy, where it is not called upon simply to furnish illustrations, but intrudes to present the world with a theory or a system. In this investigation we have presented to us a certain number of languages, differing to a greater or less degree in their verbal forms and in their modes of expression; and the object of inquiry is to determine their relations by a comparison of their respective idioms of grammar and vocabulary. This, we mean to say, is the only method whose principles are in accord with the science of language, and whose well-grounded conclusions. will be fearlessly accepted by scholars of every sect or party. Side-light may indeed be thrown upon the question through the study of comparative religion, and opinions as to the original identity or multiplicity of languages may be based upon convictions with regard to the original unity or diversity. of the race; but these external sources of evidence are either too remote or too indirect in their bearing to satisfy all classes of investigators; while even those who appeal to scripture or to the science of anthropology for the general solution of the question, are as much interested as any in the result of those gradual philological processes by which they admit that its clearest demonstration must be achieved. But even in this legitimate and restricted sphere, where a priori reasoning and philosophical speculation have no proper place, fancy has had greater sway than fact. While this is specially true of the attempts that have been made to exhibit the fundamental relations of all, or of many divergent, languages, it is also manifest in the comparative treatment of the two great inflectional families, the Semitic and the Indo-European. Even since the establishment of comparative philology as a science, and even among men of extensive linguistic knowledge, the abounding temptations to forsake the slow and tedious methods of rigid comparison have often prevailed. In the course of the present Essay, it will be necessary to take a rapid survey of the various theories that have been propounded as to the relations between these two dominant families, and of the various kinds of evidence by which they are supported; and it will be instructive, as well as interesting, to note the errors of fact and inference into which so many students have been led through hasty examination and the seductive influence of fanciful analogies. Those of us, moreover, who believe in the primal identity of all forms of human speech, would do well to guard against the danger of bringing our dogma into disrepute among more sceptical thinkers by adducing in its defence evidence at all suspicious or easily disproved. We must not forget that the attempt to demonstrate by a strict examination and comparison of all families of language, that they have proceeded from a common source, is an immense, possibly a vain, undertaking. But if entered upon at all, it must be begun by investigating, as profoundly and justly as possible, the relations of those idioms that are best understood and have the greatest mutual resemblance. When an affinity is once established, then, and only then, will the first sure step be taken towards the solution of the wider and final question. Hence the need of soberness and caution in every stage of the inquiry. Our more immediate concern, however, is with the narrower and more manageable problem, the relations of those two great families of speech that have been most highly developed and cultivated, and have apparently preserved in manifold forms much of their original stock of idioms, and are therefore most amenable to the processes of analysis and comparison. In approaching this question, it will be proper first to glance at some of the many attempts that have been made at its solution, and to examine the various theories that have been propounded with regard to it. This will be our object in the present introductory Article. Before the establishment of the science of language, it was impossible that any intelligent view of the subject could |