Importance of the Spanish Language
By B. E. Crawford
THE Spanish language is rapidly coming into prominence, and bids fair in a few years to rival the English tongue in its world-wide predominance. It has been estimated on good authority that “the Spanish and Portuguese, which are mere varieties of the same language, will be spoken by 180,000,000 in 1920.” In view of this fact, it is highly important that many young men and women begin the study of the Spanish language at the earliest opportunity. The openings for missionaries in Spanish-speaking countries are unlimited. Our sister continent, South America, a large proportion of whose inhabitants speak the Spanish language, is throwing its doors wide open to missionaries. The Sabbath-school at Emmanuel Missionary College is making a careful study of South America as a mission field, spending a portion of the time each Sabbath in this study. In many ways it is one of the most interesting of all mission fields. Its natural resources are undoubtedly greater than those of any other continent, but are yet largely undeveloped. “If the El Dorado of early voyagers was a myth, the gold of the Guianas is not, nor the gold and diamonds of Brazil, the iron, copper, lead, bismuth, and other metals of various sections.” “The niter of Chile is a national source of wealth; while the Andes are rich in precious metals, the mines of Potosi alone having furnished the world over $1,500,000,000 worth of silver since the Spanish first took possession of them.” “The products of the forest are a limitless source of future wealth, and a present cause of prosperity. Beautiful woods used by cabinet-makers are found in almost inexhaustible supply; a variety of gums and wax, and the extensive tracts where the india-rubber trees flourish, furnish a large part of the exports; modern medicine could hardly exist without South America’s coca, which yields cocaine, and above all, Peruvian bark,” from which quinine is prepared. South America is only one of numerous interesting Spanish-speaking countries where the gospel must be proclaimed. There should be a large class of young people studying the Spanish language.