INSPIRATION AND THE LANGUAGES
By A. C. Bourdeau
The Holy Scriptures were written by inspiration—holy men of old wrote them as they were moved upon by the Holy Spirit. While it is very probable that the Hebrew tongue existed before the books of the Old Testament commenced to be written, it is very evident that the inspired writers, the prophets, greatly improved that language, breathed into it a new life, and thus they were, under God, the fathers of the Hebrew tongue. The same may be said of the Greek language, in which the books of the New Testament were written, and of the writers of the gospel. The decalogue, or the moral law engraved on tables of stone by the finger of God, and the pentateuch, or the five books of Moses, are the most ancient writings in the world. God was the creator of the Hebrew tongue. Written language was doubtless of divine origin. The Creator of the universe set the first copy when he wrote the ten commandments, which are the great foundation and center of the Holy Scriptures. The Bible has been translated into nearly three hundred languages. And it is remarkable how the inspired word of God has greatly improved, elevated, and sanctified the languages into which it has been translated, by unfolding its rich treasures, and pouring into them a large variety of new terms, breathing into them a new life, and subliming them with the energies of a celestial flame. Inspiration has effected much in transforming the languages, even through the preachers of the gospel. This is well illustrated in the following item relative to “Calvin and the French language,” taken from the Montreal Witness:— “It is remarkable, surely, that the two great reformers of Europe should have been each the creator of the language of his native country. Calvin was the father of the French tongue, as Luther was the father of the German. There had been a language in these countries, doubtless, since the days of their first savage inhabitants, a ‘French’ and a ‘German’ before there was a Calvin or a Luther. . . . Calvin found French, as Luther had found German, a coarse, meager speech—of narrow compass, of small adaptability, and the vehicle of only low ideas. He breathed into it a new life. A vastly wider compass, and an infinitely finer flexibility, did he give it. And, moreover, he elevated and sanctified it by pouring into it the treasures of the gospel, thereby enriching it with a multitude of new terms, and subliming it with the energies of a celestial fire. This transformation in the tongue of France the reformer achieved by the new thinking and feeling he taught his countrymen; for a language is simply the outcome of the life of the people by whom it is spoken. “That Calvin was the father of French Protestantism, is, of course, admitted by all; but we less often hear it acknowledged that he was the father of French literature. Yet this service, surely a great one, ought not to be passed over in silence. It is hard to say how much the illustrious statesmen and philosophers, the brilliant historians and poets, who came after him, owed to him. They found in the language, which he had so largely helped to make fit for their use, a suitable vehicle for the talent and genius by which they made themselves and their country famous. Their wit, their sublimity, and their wisdom would have been smothered in the opaque, undramatic, poverty-stricken, and inharmonious phraseology to which they would have been forced to consign them. There is no more powerful instrumentality for fashioning language than the gospel.” Truly, the Bible is the inspired word of God—the revealed will of God to man, and should be the man of our counsel, our rule of faith and practice. “Holy Bible! book divine!
Precious treasure, thou art mine!”