We refer to temptings through the body, incident to this profession, as to no other in a similar degree. There are, in any literary career, peculiar exhaustions of the nervous energy; inadequate or disarranged secretions; drains upon the system, leading not so much to weakness and dullness of the appetitive functions, as to an inordinate desire for stimulating management. This may account, in part, for the amount of dissipation among writers and authors of all eras; even Coleridge being unable to resist the opiate that proved so detrimental to his happiness and vigor. But the inspiration of the writer upon sacred themes especially, resembles that of the Pythoness, who, on the cessation of her divinations, always lay as in a swoon. Therefore to him, in strange degree, comes that exhaustive longing after some continued stimulus which the body would fain have after the excitement of the mind has passed. Cut off, moreover, from the expensive sources of relaxation of other men; his sensibilities more acute and powerful than theirs by reason of his constant meditation upon stirring, spiritual themes; he is more liable than they, to feel as Paul did, "thorns in the flesh;" a "messenger of Satan sent to buffet him." We do not refer to clergymen who recklessly outrage their nervous organism by night-study and excessive extra work; we need not count them, or the few whom self-indulgence had within its grasp before they became ministers; for the name is legion without such as these, who are prone to rush from the extreme of spiritual excitement to the most careless bodily indulgence. Not that the clergy are, as a class, in danger of immoral practices; we believe a pnrer-minded order of men, when taken as a whole, does not exist upon the earth; but they are apt to lay hold of innocent enjoyments (which in moderation they should seek) with a relish, or rather with a nervous eagerness, out of all proportion to the innocence of a restrained participation in them; and we all know that lawful pleasures, when abused, are far more perilous to spirituality than an occasional relapse into great sin. When clergymen seem worn out, therefore, with their work, it is their work, in one sense (though no harder than the brain-work of the other professions), but only as their kind of work leaves hankerings of a more lasting and injurious sort behind. Therefore a minister, the more he throws himself into his work, the more he shall forget himself in it, the more is he imperiled by the buffetings of Satan through the flesh. In view, then, of these perils, where is the hope of any Christian preacher that he shall not be at last a cast-away! Better not to wear these robes of holiness, if under them lie self-deceptions, dangers, and disgrace at last! Happier those who wear their badge of sin before the world, than they who, "wearing one face to themselves, another to the world, get finally bewildered as to which may be the true!" Better, in the language of another, "show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred," than to be found at last a selfdeceived, deceiving soul! and in the attempt to scale the kingdom on the ladder of the priesthood, to drop back into a deeper hell! Fearful, indeed, is such a destiny! To keep so long the entrance to the holy city; to call so many into life; to catch ourselves grand glimpses of the glory yet to be revealed, and all this, only as the preparation for a more disastrous, ignominious refusal of admission, thrust into the outer darkness by the very hand that we have urged souls in distress to take! Surely, on the basis of our human power, to stand among these perils of the ministry, we are bereft of hope! As men, encircled by these dangers, we are surely lost; as priests, we may be left to perish at the very altar of our ministry; but thanks to God! as his redeemed and pardoned children, we, with all the rest of the unworthy multitudes of earth, may hope. Upon the basis, not of our humanity but of Christ's divinity, there is encouragement even unto us to lay our hands upon the blessed promises of grace. Let us, then, pray God to counteract the evils that environ us; to preserve us from the snares peculiarly endangering our spirituality as preachers of his word; even letting the arrows of conviction from our official hand fly back, when needful, on our consciences, and giving ns, as we shall need, to feel the edge of truths and terrors we are wielding against others' sin. Bring us, Oh, our Father, humbly to thy feet! Beat down our pride and self-sufficiency to the dust, if need be, that rising in Thy might alone, clad only in the priestly righteousness of Christ, and guided by the Holy Ghost, we may not, having preached to others, be cast away ourselves! ARTICLE IV.-THE DEFINITIONS OF THE NEW WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY. -- THIRTY-SIX years from the first publication of Webster's Dictionary, a new edition, the fifth in order, leaving abridgments out of view,-has been published under the editorial supervision of Prof. Goodrich, and Prof. Noah Porter, of Yale College; "thoroughly revised, and greatly enlarged and improved," as the title-page informs us; while an examination shows the revision to be so thorough and radical, the enlargement so great, and the improvements so decided, that the work in its present form justly challenges examination and criticism as an original production, which might properly have been entitled, "A New Dictionary of the English Language, based upon the labors of Webster and other modern lexicographers." We regret that the publishers, in their advertisements and on the title page and cover, have not given greater prominence to this fact, as they certainly were justified in doing both by the alterations and additions which have been made, and by the great expense and painstaking with which the new Webster has been prepared. Their part in its preparation is most honorable to them. Aiming to furnish the American people at the earliest possible day, with the best possible dictionary of the English language, they have employed competent revisers and liberally supplied them with all the requisite means. We shall not now undertake to exhibit all the peculiar and original features of this new work. We shall leave entirely out of view the Appendix, with its curious lore, its pronouncing vocabularies, its explanatory tables, and its classified selection of pictorial illustrations. We shall leave to other hands an examination of the revised etymologies of the main work, and passing by most of the preparatory matter, with Prof. Hadley's scholarly History of the English Language, we shall devote all the space at our command to the definitions of the new Dictionary. In doing so, three points come up before us. We ask what words are defined? how are they defined? and how well are they defined? I. We notice the vocabulary. What words are inserted? Upwards of 114,000 we are told; an immense number-especially when we set over against this thesaurus the statement of Dr. George P. Marsh, that "few writers or speakers use as many as ten thousand words, and ordinary persons of fair intelligence not above three or four thousand; "* about three times as many words as were found in Johnson's and Walker's dictionaries, and others in use fifty years ago; about twice as many as appeared in 1827, in the American edition of Todd's Johnson. In Dr. Webster's first edition there were about 70,000. Worcester's latest contained 104,000; and now we have 10,000 more. Not that the words of the English language have increased in this ratio, although new terms have been multiplied, especially in science. The increase of volume is due in great measure to a change of plan, and an enlarged scope in modern dictionaries. The professed aim of the earliest English dictionaries was to explain "the hard words" of the language, and the most useful terms of art. Johnson's vocabulary was composed of words which he found in reading the best English writers, but in his search for words, he made few excursions, as he tells us, among writers earlier than Sidney, who lived less than two hundred years before. Dr. Webster was a careful reader within a limited range, and before the publication of his first dictionary, the language had been enriched by many new technical terms, while at that period, as now, the English reviews were coining words ad libitum. Prof. Kingsley, in 1828, collected from two numbers of the London Quarterly Review, a list of about a hundred words which had found their way into no dictionary or into Dr. Webster's only; and added, "This is not given as a complete list. It is made up of such words only as were selected * Lecture on the English Language, p. 182. |