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Untitled Article
the mere recording and giving permamence to actual exiting diakcts . New ideas were to be expressed , nt attajtoijig which the vocabulary was enriched ; The missionaries , preached and catechised in die new languages , which thus acquired force and freedom . Translations of the Seriptufes , and of other esteemed woriss * were made * which enriched the store ? of words , and gave new ideas to the people for whom they were intended . The same clerical instructors soon used these languages as the channels for imparting laws , sciences * , and arts . Where the missionaries found the people delighting
in rude rhymes , sung in the streets and highways , concerning the deeds of their forefathers , or the achievements of their deified heroes , they warily directed the popular taste into other channels , by using the same vehicles for the celebration of scriptural narratives . In process of time , however , the arms which piety had imparted or cultivated were turned against the weaknesses or political intrigues of those who , while they brought many good gifts , were soon made the instruments of the wily intrigues and temporal policy of the court of Rome . The Troubadours , directed their satires and jokes
against the venality and hollowness of her policy ; the German Minnesingers and the Norman Trouveurs echoed the same strains ; the rhymers who succeeded , and more properly belong to the modern school of poetry , directed their efforts in . the same track ; and then began the struggle on the part of the church to preserve its empire by restraining that spirit , and those arms of offence , which she herself had furnished in days of greater innocence or Jess foresight . But the torrent was not to be stemmed , and the Reforma
tion was one of its products . In vain were Indexes , prohibitory' or expurgatory , directed to ward off contamination arising from the host of assailants whom the press soon after armed with hundred-fold energies . The struggle to maintain ascendancy by repressing inquiry and discussion completely failed . It ended as it must , we trust , always end ; and we are left to enjoy the full ; harvest of the seed sown for us , in fact , by the professors of the chujrch whieh we reject . The Indexes are now waste paper , except in two or throe of the abodes of unmitigated slavery and debasement , where the political interests of the state lead it to make common cause with the worst forms of ecclesin
astical tyranny . The Church of Rome must , like other religious eommunU ties , have her pretensions discussed , and be content to maintain them only by argument and conviction ; and she herself must confess , that where she is most subject to perpetual examination and the influences of emulation , her spirit and discipline are purified and ameliorated both in the minds of ber teachers and their disciples . . It fray not , perhaps , be without some interest to notice a few of the in- «
stances in which the languages of modern Europe , or those from which the present dialects have sprung , awe their first cultivation and literary permanence U > their adaptation to religious purposes , or in which exertion was very early made to pla . ee the Bible , or portions of it , within the rea ^ oh < rf the people to whom it was desired to impart the blessings of religion * What we kn . ow of the ancient Gothic language is entirely derived from a
translation oi the New Testament into that tongue , made by Ulphilas , Bw ghopof the Goths , who was , as such , piesent at the Synod helc ( at Constantinople in 359 . For the purpose of this version it is generally supposed that the good Bishop had the previous labour tp encounter of forming char , racters to express the alphabet ; and undoubtedly the vocabulary i&uat also have revived considerable additions for the purpose , of conveying many of the idea * which such a work contained , in the tongue of barbarians , to whom
Untitled Article
$ 14 Bemfa- * Cofty&em&s AnbgfoSaa&n Poetry .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1828, page 314, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2560/page/26/
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