Appendix: Ulphilas
‘IS monograph on Ulphilas was meant for publication, and perhaps may yet see the light. It is very elaborate and minute; but I could not venture to give a specimen of it here. There are, however, several important letters relating to it, addressed to his friend and fellow-worker, the Rev. C. E. Greig, that I should like to print as an appendix to the present volume. They will give the reader some idea of his philological studies and acquirements: —
“Lesnewth Rectory, Boscastle,
Cornwall, 27th April, 1875.
“My Dear Greig, — I got yours yesterday, and was glad to hear from you. I am in such an outlandish part of the world that I hear seldom, and at long intervals, from anybody. We are sixteen miles from Launceston, whence I, having come by train, was driven, on a lovely moonlight night, through a wild and open country, till we reached this charming rectory, considerably after decent evening hours. I am enjoying my stay here very much. Such a rest after all the toil and lectures of the session! I must congratulate you most heartily on having come
417 2 E off with first-class honours, and hope you will be content with these, and not go mad after philosophy. About Sanscrit, I have had a great fancy to do something of that kind; and I think that we may manage to do something together. But you are mistaken if you think me fit to teach it. I really did barely any work for Aufrecht after I was so knocked up in the end of January. It needed no end of application, which I had not strength to give. However, we might arrange to go over Aufrecht’s notes, which are very good; and then there is the charm of philology to add to the interest. So we shall say, * Sidhis Sadye,” success in all we are to do j ’ or, if you are heathenish enough, you may add, * Prasadaltasya Dhurjate,’ * by the favour of Siva;’ only the wish cannot be brought about unless you can pronounce these good old Sanscrit words’ correctly. I must not, however, make you think that I have a great deal of time for it.... This is rather a romantic place. Arthurian legends cling with tenacity to the old castles, which are, of course, more rear than the legends.
‘* I saw some old crosses the other day, some of them more than 1000 years old. A Saxon inscription on one was interesting, but I had not time to make it out. One was being hewn out by a farmer for a pig-trough; the marks of the Yandal’s tools are very visible. At the entrance to the churchyard — the lichgate (Germ, leich = corpse) — the old stocks are laid down, in which defaulters were held fast.”
“Edinburgh, 16th April, 1877. My Dear Greig, — I set off this morning to find you, but failed. Many thanks indeed, for your letter. You have just begun where I had reached to, and your results are valuable and of great help; but I suspect that you too may have to give in to Bessell’s* subtle suggestions when you take the whole and look at it as one proof, the parts of which are mutually related. However, I am quite determined to take up his views cautiously; I think that there is too much of what the French term ‘plaidoyer’ in his method. Waitzf is not so critical as Bessell, who has the advantage there. At the same time, 1 feel that a man who turns up and proves to be wrong most of the contemporary historians, does go a little too far, and one is inclined to attempt a harmony of the historians’ views rather than accept Bessell’s emendations in their place. I am sure his way of treating the question of Ulfila’s nationality at the end of the book is most unjustifiable, and might be used to destroy any similar evidence. I will let you have Bessell as soon as I have finished it. As long as that book is unfinished and uncomprehended, I am most uncomfortable, and as long as I delay finishing it, the rest of the work, with the exception of the part on the language, is delayed; so I must set to and finish this. I have a good deal in my head about the use of the word * Naseins ’ and ‘Nasjands ’ — ‘Salvation ’ and ‘Saviour.’ It has struck me very much how the idea of salvation being health took hold of the Teutonic mind. Even in the passage — ‘His name shall be called Jesus,’ the Saxon gospels put Hjelend, and never use, except, it may be, in one or two solitary instances, the
* Ueber das Leben des Ulfilas, Gbttingen, 1860. t Ueber das Leben des Ulfilas, Hann., 1840.
name Jesus, but always Hselend; of course it is the Greek %akhg, and Sanscrit kalyas, literally and pliilologically healthy; cf. hale, hallow, whole — where, by-theby, the w’ should not be, or, if written, should be
* hwole ’ — Chaucer * hool,’ and has also ’ halwes ’ for
* saints;’ Scottice, Hallows, in ‘All-Hallows eve.’ But what is interesting is, that it shows not only their idea of salvation, but throws much light, in a philological point of view, on the theological subject of holiness. I have often thought of writing an article on the relations of Theology and Philology. Regarding holiness, compare
* Salvus,’ Sanscrit ‘Sarva ’ (r = 1), Persic Harva; have these any connection with o7^og, solus 1 If I remember, Aufrecht thought they had, also with these couw, cwii;, eooTTyia, with sanus, sundheit, sound, and back again to Gothic ^niscm,^ to heal, Germ, genesan. What is most notable in the whole is that holiness is ’ separation from,’ isolation; and so health is separation from disease, from the unhealthy; and so to be holy is to be separate. *Eor their sake I sanctify myself.’ I suspect Hebrew would yield much the same; * ciyiog ’ would also: what about osiogi Does it strike you that rs/xsvog, templum, a grove or a temple, is a piece of land cut off, separated; and so a temple is holy 1 How often the idea recurs! What do you think of this *? It is a vein that might be worked. — I wrote to Bagster that it could not be ready till June, so if you come here in June I shall have a good deal of stuff for you to examine, I only hope it won’t
be ’ unthoroughfaresome.’ D proposed that I
should write to Upsala where the silver Codex is, and ask for a rubbing on tissue paper of the embossed portrait on silver of Ulfila! and put it at the beginning of the volume. Nous verrons, — Yours ever very sincerely.”
“12,Td May, 1877. ‘’^ My Dear Greig, — I have been very busy with divers subjects and questions, and what with visiting and exhorting confirmed drunkards, and warning others that show evidence of having almost undergone that episcopal rite, and finally with sermonising, and reading Gothic literature, I am hard up for time. My experiences regarding XJlphila have been somewhat after the fashion of ‘O’er hills, o’er dales, o’er rocks, o’er crags, I go.’ It is truly a hilly country, and one can almost feel the necessity of ‘living a hundred winters,’ as these sturdy Teutonic Aryans expressed it, for the completion of such an investigation. I think you will change your mind on reading the whole of Bessell. I don’t see how you can safely form so decided an opinion as you gave after reading only a part. There is much said afterwards which is very clear. One thing damages Waitz: it is pretty evident that Maximinus searched the Codex Theodosianus for the laws, not knowing which to take, and even changed them to suit his purpose; and again, Bessell pretty well shows that Philostorgius is after all the most accurately informed on Ulfila’s life, and its epochs and events. Though Bessell is very arbitrary in rejecting Philostorgius’ statement of the Cappadocian origin of Ulfila. I have got Massmann on the ‘Skeireins,’ a first-rate book. You seemed to think that Eadand might lead to the admission that there was no forensic element in the salvation plan. Now what has that to do with justification
422 Me7now of Rev. G. T. Dodds.
any more than (rurri, or couw, or Cwry/a — the forensic element is found in dtxaioffvvTj; the Gothic, e.g., in Luke vii. 29, is ‘Domidedun Guth,’ * justified God,’ i.e., recognised and declared Him just. Domjan is not only to ‘think one just,’ but to declare and give the privilege oi justificatio7i. I do not see how any Anglo-Saxon idea of a forensic nature could be shown, or any prejudice against it involved, in the choice of such a word as Hseland. Such a conception is confined in the Greek to a different class of words, and so it would not be granting anything to M. Arnold to say that Hseland is not a forensic term, it would be tantamount to granting that the word Arnold itself was not forensic; but perhaps I don’t see what you are driving at. Would you like Bessell 1 if you could abstract part of it, it would be of the greatest service to me. I have gone over it most carefully, and though the whole question is not easy, he has the weight of evidence — well, I shall only say probability — on his side.”
“Edinburgh, 20^A July, 1877.” My Dear Greig, — I got your note this morning; your news is cheering and reassuring. I shall try and have the opponent of the ’ privat-docent ‘Waitz abstracted also, and we shall have, I hope, an expiscation of the mystery. I shan’t be sorry if we can get a good fling at Bessell for his audacity and refined ingenuity. I hope also to have the notes about ‘Hseland’ and ‘Hallow,’ and ‘nasjan’ done. I am going to write to Aufrecht about some of these ’ good old words ’ he used to declaim to me in his private room, but I want to hear some more of them. I find in a book bj Schoebel, * La Religion premiere de la race Indo-Iranienne,’ that Persian ‘harva,’ Skr. * sarva, Latin * salvus,’ Greek ‘IXog signifying in all ‘completeness,’ ‘perfect isolation, was used in the Persian word ’ haurvatat,” immortality,’ which shows how the root branches off into another idea than salvus though here there remains a similarity also.
“Do you think that there is a connection between hs’)(0[Lai 2iiidi hixccio6)vyi’ It might be shown thus: ‘dico’ (•i.e., ‘deico’ in old Latin) is Greek ’ ds!xvv/yi’; the idea of pointing or showing giving rise to saying ’ diKcciog ’ is ‘straight,’ indicating the right; cf. our ‘righteousness’ — the same root is in ’ dstog ’ the right hand, with which one points; but it is also in ’ hsyoiyai to take, to receive — the hand we take with being the ‘right hand’ (in fact, I suppose Ki’/oijjai is our ’ take,’ according to Grimm). Do you think this is made out? I have not got Curtius to verify, but my object is to lead to a comparison between ‘a justified man,” 3/xa/oc:,’ and ’ 5sxrog,’ approved (Phil. iv. 18 ^u(r/av ^sxrji/), and then to the opposite ‘■ aU%i(Log’ ‘reprobate,’ ‘rejected.’ I don’t know that I shall get Ulfila dragged into this, but it would be a good illustration of the connection of philology and theology; the same might be done for the Indian and Persian (Iranic) idea of ’ holiness ‘; — our white being ‘Spento ’ — S = H., p = V (n having crept in) we have Gothic ‘Hweits.’ I pray you to put a bridle on any of these speculations if they need it, but I think they are so far correct. Ever your very sincere friend.”
“MiLLDOWN, COLDINGHAM,
Berwickshire, Wth August 1877. “My Dear Greig, — I came here last Thursday, half dead with packing and thinking, and have got quit of Edinburgh for a while; am in despair, having lost all this week with ague and intermittent fever — my old enemy; slowing recovering, and turning my attention to Ulfila. I enclose Aufrecht’s letter. Isn’t it a high honour to be asked by a philologue of European fame to go to the Western Islands and Shetland probably he intends to bore the inhabitants about ’ good old vords,’ and make researches into the etymology of ’ fey.’ You will be amused at his saying that he has his own ideas as to the etymology of ‘Guth,’ but he has not published them yet; but he is no worse than KrafFt, whose name should be English in its meaning, out of whom it seems impossible to get any information as to why he has changed his views from 318 to 313, and not to 311 a.d,, though he has read that ’ privat-docent’s ’ lucubration. I am glad that he gives a more satisfactory derivation for ’ nasjan,’ as I always felt that the comparison of sa-nus (Ta-o; and sound, and nasjan was far-fetched. Curtius gives v£-o-/xa/, vi(S-6-o-ijjai, i/oV-rog, which means * heimkehr,’ a name for death among Northmen. Nsfr-rw is * f iihrer ’ or *heimfiihrer,’ a fine touch of feeling.
“Could you send me your abstract or extract of Bessell and Waitz, to be here by Thursday 1 I should be much obliged, as I must begin to do something to that part. Do you know anything about the use of vorog, or connected verbs in Greek prose: what is Nestor’s exact mythological position ‘? You can return Aufrecht’s note
Appefidix. 425
when you like — that is, when you have laughed over it and laid up in memory these roots. I hope you are well, and enjoying a rest.”
The note of Aufrecht’s referred to contains the following sentences: —
“Hailyan is the literal rendering of Salvare, as hail of salvus. Salvus and wllus are okog, Skr. sarva, Zend hawrva. Salus — ’tis as in Sansk. sarvatat, Zend, hawrvatat, integrity. 8olus alone, has nothing in common with salvus., There is no etymology for sarwa.
“Nothing that is in any way probable has been produced about the etymology of Guth. The word was originally a neuter, which is remarkable. It has nothing in common with gods, or giidh, or xsuw, still less with chota. I have my own ideas about it, but have not published them yet. — Yours truly,
“H. AUFRECHT.”
“MlLLDOWN, COLDINGHAM, BY AyTON,
llth August, 1877.
^’ My Dear Greig, — I thank you very much indeed for your thorough work, and most kind help — the abstract is capital; both I shall find most useful, and shall make an elaborate acknowledgment of your services, somewhere between the beginning and end of the book! If Aufrecht had only given me a tithe of the help you have given about Guth I should be content.
“I am in rather a bad temper with my ague, having lost ever so many days thereby. As to the etymologies
426 M 67710 ir of Rev. G. T. Dodds.
of Guth which Aufrecht floors, I drew up the list, which makes it all the more mournful. He had no scruple in denying each of my suggestions, but would suggest nothing in return. Pictet in the 2nd volume of ‘Les Aryas Primitifs ou Les Origines des Indo-Europennes ’ gives a list. He says there is no co-relative in Oriental tongues (Aryan) to Guth, except it may be the Persian choda. Burnouf refers to Zend qadhata, i.e., cree de soi-meme = Skr. svadata; but Gothic ’ g ’ cannot correspond to Zend ‘q’ or Skr. *sv.’ Pott gives Guth, cf. Skr. root 9udh = purificari, but this would be ’ hud ’ in Gothic, according to Grimm. Pictet hazards Skr. gudh = guh = Grk. x£u-, tegere, i.e., God a hidden being, and also compares Guth and root of ’ to sacrifice,’ ^uw ;i/£uw ^frjy, Gothic giutan, to pour out (German giessen), and so on; but these I think are far-fetched. Do you know Pictet 1 it is a splendid work; what he says on the religion of the primitive Aryans is very good. I ‘m awfully ignorant of the numerals and their philology; hope to see you at Lochee. — Ever yours very truly, &c.”
Post-card of 19th September: —
“St. Andrews.
“My Dear G., — Mrs. D. came yesterday, and brought your letter and your screed,’ which is very good, and worthy of a better name: if I were remaining in this country you and I would turn out another Gabelenz and Loebe, and write conjointly on Wulfila! Atta is, I think, an onomatapoetic; I mean an infantine sound, like Abba. So Adelung thinks in his Mithridates, but he is antiquated. I shall make a last effort to dispoye of Wulfila completely, and likely shall take the MSS. with me to London to Bagster. After I have once corrected the proof-sheets in Paris, I shall leave it mostly in your hands, and you can put in any etymologies you like!”
The letter of 15th October is the most important, as showing the state of his work just before leaving for Paris: —
“My Dear Greig, — You will think me an ungrateful scoundrel, but I’ve been mentally and heartily blessing you again and again these few weeks past. I wish to let you know how matters stand. I have been subject to endless interruptions, and in the prospect of soon going off am doubly busy, and often with anything but Wulfila. But the state of progress is this: I ‘ve finished WulfilaJs life rather carefully done in scroll-pencil, twenty-six pages of common essay paper, I fancy, because it is on rough long sheets. I. ‘ve got about fifty on the state of literature among the Goths (the question whether Wulfila invented the A B C or not, and all connected with it), the various MSS. and their history, which is a most engrossing part; then a general review of the Version, its peculiarities, excellencies, the genius of the language, its graphic expression, its Greek order and idiom, the sources he drew from, &c. &c. I have still to write the philological discussion on special Gothic words used to express theological ideas, but that is already in notes, and its place is well in my mind; that may come to forty pages more. I ‘ve got an account of the Skeireins, and a discussion on its authorship. Then, considerable notes on the Goths j their origin; Christianity among them; their Arianisra. These notes are still to be reduced to a scroll, and the discussion on Bessell and Waitz, which I regard as very important as an Erkldrung on the whole question, is still to be written, but that is at my fingers’ ends. So that the book will contain, according to an approximate reckoning: —
Pages.
” The Goths’ History and Religion, ... 35
Christianity, Introduction among Goths, including their Arianism,... .20
Waitz and Bessell, A Discussion,.. .20
Life of Wulfila, 25
Introduction to Bible Version, General Examination of, and Estimate; Discussion of
Words, 80
The Arianism of Wulfila from the Version, Skeireins, and other Sources; Auxentius; Kraff’t’s ‘De fontibus Arianismi Wulfila,’ &c., 30 As this is a narrow computation, add. .10 That is, of essay paper at least 200 pages, it may be boiled down to 150 in print. Now, my idea is this. I cannot get it finished before going to France. Whether is it better to finish completely what I ‘ve got so far, i.e., write out for MSS. what I have in scroll, or write as much in scroll here as I can, and copy out in Paris 1 I think the latter I must adopt. I ’11 find time to copy, but not to study in Paris: indeed I fear I may have to study for the first chapter at least. Now, I should have liked to have put some in your hands before I went away, but since I do not expect to do that now, I let you know; and my proposal is, that when I send it from Paris, you take it under review, and while I correct the proof sheets at least once, you will also keep an eye on it going through the press.
“I had no idea that it was a work of such labour and research. But though I am vexed at its being so late, I am determined it shall not be half done, or imperfectly. I wish it to be complete as far as possible, and I think I ’11 manage it with your help. I think it might be out in February, 1878. I am in great haste, and must stop. I ‘m waiting results and news from France before I know when we shall go. Your MS, in the Magazine is very suggestive, and very good. I ’11 send it soon. I ‘ve partly taken a hint from it, and from Max Müller, and prepared an account of the Goth’s life, and habits, and civilisation, &c., from the Version alone.”
From Paris: —
“Really I find that being here, and in such work, one’s mind and heart are truly enlarged. I am not a whit less a Presbyterian, but I am more and more disposed to sink those matters which so much divide us at home, and to join with every evangelical Christian who is seeking to advance our Redeemer’s kingdom. Here the elements of primitive Christianity come more into light and prominence, and we have less of the sterile features of religious controversy.
“I am not inclined to talk about Wulfila just now, and I have not much to say. I have not got it looked at since I wrote, and none of it is in a fit state for publication.”
To his brother: —
“Uh April, 1878.
“No -one could be more sorry than I am about Ulfila, but it is unavoidable. Settling down and learning my work shoved every other thing out of the way, and week after week I expect to begin, and then engagements turn up, and nothing is done. It would be impossible to publish what I have just now. Only one chapter is written, the rest and most important part is entirely in notes. One cannot publish on a subject like that what is disjointed and imperfectly arranged. The philological and critical would not tolerate it.
“Now that my labours are less, I hope to get it looked at, and a little done day by day.”
I give in a note here the following fragment of a letter regarding Ulfilas, though it is out of its proper date.*
Apart from philology, the different branches of sciences were taken up by him.
* “ToRev. T. B. D.”
“27th March, 1877. ‘• UlfiTa makes progress, but there is much to be done. His word for Redemption is Faurbauht — forbought; ‘He forbought us.’ For Justification or justify, the word is Garaihts domjan, to deem or judge righteous, a striking proof that he knew what forensic justification meant.”
Chemistry was a great subject of interest to Mm at one period.
Among letters referring to his studies when with Mr. Wood’s family is one to his sister, half amusing, half instructive. It is dated: —
“Bank House, Maghull,
Friday, Ylih November, 1871.
‘’ Did I ever tell any of you about a moonstone which I took away, and which Mrs. Wood has offered to get set for me as a Christmas present?
“It seems that moonstones, agates, and opals are crystals which have become combined with water — the name of all these jewels is ’ silicon,’ or they may be called each a ‘silicate.’ An amethyst is a silicate coloured by some organic matter, or it would be quite colourless. When the amethyst is brown it is known as a cairngorm stone. When they have lost their transparency or brillancy they are called calcedony and carnelian — that shows that some iron has found its way into them. The onyx, which makes cameos, is another kind of silicate with water in it. Again, flint, that hard substance, is just silicon with some colouring substance. Sand is silicon in powder; white sand is purest, and where it has a yellow or brown colour it is owing to oxide of iron. If you have ever noticed houses built of sandstone, coloured or stained in a very ugly manner here and there, you may be sure iron is in the stone, and has done it. You would hardly think that flint or silicon is found in many plants, especially grasses and cereals — that is, wheat, barley, &c.: it can easily be seen by looking at the outer sheaths of the stems — you will observe shining particles, which are silicon, or flint, or sand; so that flint, which is a very hard substance, and forms the greater part of the rocks, is also found in the frail and tender grass or reed. It is a remarkable provision for plants, for soils in which these cereals grow are found to contain a great amount of silicon; and this proves that silica, so hard, is yet soluble, for plants never absorb through their capillary vessels substances which cannot be dissolved. Silica is found in the neighbourhood of hot springs, and coats the earth round about with a layer. Silica or sand, of course, makes glass, and glass when it cools is known to be good by its not crystallising. In some bad glass it does so, and then the glass becomes dark and opaque. So you see what a curious thing this silicon is — how it is so hard as to scratch glass, and yet is so soft under certain conditions that it can be obtained in the form of a jelly!
“I think you should be able to understand all this lecture, which I am going to give to my pupils in time; you have got it first. I hope your German is prospering. I have been reading in philology a good deal, and may give you the results of my reading by-and-by. What would you think is the derivation of ’ bed-ridden ’ % I havn’t time to give you it fully, as it is close on post time. You should study that book you have, ‘Craik on the English Language,’ well, especially the specimens at the end of Old English. Also, if jou could get hold of ‘Trench on Words ’ you would find it very interesting, or ‘Max Müller’s Lectures on the Science of Language.’ I must stop, and with love to all. — Ever your affectionate brother.”
II.
I add in this Appendix some miscellaneous letters which I omitted in their proper place: —
“Newhaven, Conn., U.S.
Monday, 10th October, 1880.
‘’ My Dear Father and Mother, — You should have had a second letter much sooner than this, but travelling has been incessant, and I have had so little sleep that I am glad to tumble into bed whenever I can. M; old enemy — ague — came on rather severely, with con ant sick headache and disgust at food, and I feel ver. far from well. At Norwich I saw a doctor who wished me to rest, but I said I should first try his medicine; and for the first time since landing I feel clear about the head and free from fever.
“We are here, Eeveillaud and I, staying with Dr. Bacon, the Nestor of New England Congregationalism, a fine old man, seventy-nine years of age, but as lively and active as a boy, with a wonderful memory and keen intelligence. He is a well-known author and a religious poet. This is the city where Yale College stands, the oldest University, and wearing already a look of antiquity which is rarely met with in this new — and often bran-neiu — world. They gave us a reception in the chapel of the College on Saturday evening; we met many distinguished men. Dr. Noah Porter, a well-known writer on mental science; Professor Fisher, whose books on the Reformation and the beginnings of Christianity are exceedingly good. I met also Professor Weylland,
2 F son of the Weylland whose book on ‘Mental and Moral Science ’ was not so long ago used and approved in Scotland; and I spoke last night with E-eveillaud in Dr. Todd’s church (he is a son of the well-known Dr. John Todd, the writer of books for children), a queer sort of man, with all sorts of machines in his house, telegraph, telephone, &c. To-day, I ‘ve been dining with Professor Whitney, the first of the few philologists whom America has produced. I found him a most interesting man; he knows Aufrecht, under whom I studied in Edinburgh; and so we fraternised. I got many questions answered; he is a very learned man.
“The American churches are large and well attended. They have organs and, generally, a paid choir; some of their sopranos and contraltos get immense salaries. One is paid, in Dr. Taylor’s Tabernacle in New York, about <£100 I think, and is driven at the church’s expense to the church from her home every Sunday morning. The choir sing solos and quartettes, and, altogether, it is a kind of theatrical performance in a church, — which I donH like, however artistic and perfect may be the singing. The congregation join, however, in the common singing, though at other times they are content to be sung to. Yet many of the Congregational ministers are good men and faithful pastors. I attended the meeting of their Board for Foreign Missions at Lowell, and liked it better than the Philadelphia Council, where there was really too much disposition to joke and to exalt Presbyterianism. At Lowell, there was great earnestness and deep interest in the work of missions, and in the speeches an assertion pf crthocloxv which was refreshin:.
“We spent a Sunday in Providence; it is a fine old town. On the Sunday afternoon we drove to Pawtucket, an Indian-named suburb, and there had a large congregation, and one meets generous and unbounded hospitality everywhere. I enjoyed much being at Norwich, The charm of these American ’ cities ’ comes from the houses being so scattered, that when looked at from a height you do not see buildings crowded together, but white-painted houses surrounded with trees, and occupying double the space which any English town of the same size would fill. At Norwich, the lowlands and clifis and forest were in a glory of autumn tints, — the maple was sometimes of a light-pale yellow colour, oftener as red as fire, and variegated with every shade between these two. The hill behind was a perfect mass of colour, — maples, and hickory, and feathery beeches, and white and black oak. When the sun set over the brow of the hill, which was covered with drk pines, I understood what I have often heard of the beauties of an American ‘Fall.’ I found a most exquisite gentian, with long petals fringed at the edge, and folding up in a spiral form in the evening. The sassafras was in abundance, — a scented plant, wrongly called scented fern, and another myrtle-looking bush from which bay-rhum is made; the berries yielded wax, of which the Jesuits who came to America long ago made candles for their altars, considering it a most wonderful providence that such a thing should be conveniently at hand! “At a missionary meeting at Norwich, General Armstrong exhibited twenty or thirty Indian boys and girls whom he had received from savagery, and is educating to useful trades and Christianity. The Jewish faces of some of them, especially the girls, struck me much. They repeated tho 23rd Psalm in English, and then two of them spoke by the sign-language. I could see the drawing of a bow, and fitting the arrow to it, and the act of scalping. It seems that often this is the only mode of communication among the tribes, who do not understand each others’ dialect. They can talk for hours in this fashion without uttering a syllable. The Roman Catholics build splendid churches, but the free atmosphere of the Republic is modifying the power of the priests to a considerable extent, which may well explain the statement of an Irish bishop, that he feared the emigration of the Irish most of all for his Church.”
In December he thus writes: —
*’We left New York after a week of tremendous work; here’s an outline of it: — On Monday, the 13th December, we left Mr. Jessup’s, where we had been dining, and started for Boston at 10.30. Arrived in the morning, wrote letters, lunched with Mr. Kimball, an old friend of Mrs. Lundie Duncan, went to see Mr. and Mrs. Perkins. Mr. Perkins took us to see the Boston Museum, which is a fine building, built partly in stone and coloured bricks; it is a sort of Byzantine stone; he is one of the directors, and was a capital guide. There is a very fine collection of Egyptian antiquities; one thing struck me very much, the ‘robe of justification,’ which the dead put on when they entered the j udgment hall of truth. It was coarse, white linen. “What is the origin of such an idea? Renouf, the Egyptologist, says that their first religion was monotheistic, quite against the modern theories of man’s descent, or rather ascent, from a savage worshipping a fetish. After dining with the Perkins’, off to our meeting in Phillips Brooks’ Chapel, then off to New York. We went to Philadelphia, returning on Saturday morning again by train, arriving about seven.... On Thursday to New York. Went to a clergyman’s meeting — Presbyterian, and a select affair; they call it ‘Chi Alpha.’ It meets every Saturday at five in private houses. Most of the notable New York clergymen were there — Dr. Schaff, Dr. Shedd, Dr. John Hall, Dr. Taylor, and others. After translating for P., I addressed them on ‘How we preach in Paris,’ giving them an outline of Theodore Monod’s address on ‘Jesus lai’que,’ which was much appreciated. I see that our way of going to work has something fresh and new in it even for those enterprising Yankees. On Sunday we had three services — in the morning in the Church of the Covenant, Dr. Yincent’s, where we got 700 dollars. Mr. W. E. Dodge, a well-known New York citizen, took us to his house to lunch. He is a good man, — a great deal of the quiet, refined English gentleman; a great temperance advocate. In the afternoon we crossed to Brooklyn, and spoke in Mr. Cuthbert Hall’s church. Our M’All Mission has a flourishing Auxiliary in Mr. Cuthbert Hall’s church, formed by Miss Beach; and I met all the ‘M’All ladies,’ — as we call them in Paris. In the evening I spoke alone in a Dr. Wilson’s church: the very image he is of Theodore Monod, of Paris. R had a large audience to speak to in the French Episcopal Church. The Episcopalians have given us a very warm welcome.
“We arrived in Washington on Monday morning. But it was a very unfavourable day for seeing the capi-
43 S Memoir of Rev. G. T. Dodds.
tal; for hardly had we breakfasted with Dr. Child s when it began to snow, and snowed heavily all day, blinding everything and drifting everywhere. However, we went out first to see the White House. We had an introduction to the President; but he was absent. I should have liked to see Mrs. Hayes, of whom every one speaks well. Garfield, the new President, who does not enter into office until March, is said to be a decided Christian.
“The White House is a very ordinary building. America has not yet got the style of royalty; but I liked the ‘Blue Room.’ There was an unmistakable odour of tobacco-smoke, though I was told that smoking was prohibited. Perhaps it was the ghosts of former cigars, though the smell was only in the lobbies. These new State buildings are fine, and the architecture chaste and beautiful. The pillars all round at the entrance had capitals of the simplest but most exquisite design. I wish I could reproduce it, it struck me as so beautiful. Thereafter we went to the Capitol, and saw both the Senate and House of Pepresentatives; and in the first I heard their three best speakers..,. They accentuate their words too much, even the smallest, and the result is a continual unchanging sound on one note at one pitch, with none of the easy fiow, or climax, or melody in enunciation so necessary to oratory. It is because the French do not accent their words, but their sentences, that their language is so oratorical. Even when Peveillaud spoke by translation he was elegant. Every sentence was climactic, however small; it rose as it went on to the end.
“The Americans in their Senate and House of Representatives would need to observe the canon ’ decently and in order,’ the page-boys sat on the edge of the president’s platform, indulging in fun and fights of their own, rushing about among the members, one of whom I saw whacking one of the boys on the back with a roll of journals, and behaving as if they were anywhere else than in the chief court of the nation! The members, too, whirled about in their revolving chairs, and rolled cigars in their mouths (not being allowed to light them), and kept clapping their hands to call the pages, which peculiar custom we uninitiated creatures thought to be perpetual applause.
“You ’11 think me very critical, but I find such a mixture of all things in America, which is quite natural in a people who try everything, and seem to have money enough to do so.
“Washington is a city of ’ magnificent distances,’ as the Americans say, and I should have liked to stay longer in it, but after one or two meetings (one of the Ladies’ Association for our Mission) we started. I remained in my sleeping-car at Philadelphia till about seven, when I got up to find my way to Dr. Ott’s house. He is a Southerner and a good man. He was conducting family-worship and catechising his four or five boys about * Ole Saul,’ which epithet father and sons used with equal indiflference. We had our meeting in Trinity Episcopalian Church; it gave me an opportunity of getting the Episcopalians interested in our work. Then I lunched with Mrs. Marine J. Chase, the president of the M’AU Auxiliary. She stays with Dr. Lea, a well-known man in the scientific world, especially as a concholegist, a fine old man of eighty-nine years of age, a Quaker. There are many of them still in Philadelphia, wearing the dress and keeping up the same habits. I love that quiet Quaker city, although its people may be slow and not easily waked up. I should like to live there.
“Then I left for New York in time to dine at Professor Charlier’s, who has been our host all along and very kind. Then off to our farewell meeting held in the Y.M.C.A. Hall. We had a strong suyport from the principal men in New York. Dr. Storrs made a most eloquent speech, and altogether it was a very good meeting. We have succeeded in exciting a good deal of nterest in France, which will not die out, and something permanent will be done to send aid. We have made and left friends wherever we have been. Our secretary, Dr. Beard, has done all that could be done.”
A year later he thus writes: —
“GUILLESTRE, HaUTES-AlPES,
Wednesday, lith September, 1881. “My Dear Father and Mother, — You will have got my card from Dormilhouse; but I must send a fuller account of my sojourn in this Alpine department of France. It was on Friday last week when I left Clermont-Ferrand, at six o’clock in the morning. It is a much easier thing to go from Paris to Gap than from Clermont-Ferrand, as my route lay across country, so that I did not reach Gap till Saturday at eleven, having got to Lyons on Friday between two and three, and waiting there till eleven at night. I spent the intervening hours with Mr. Simpson, the pastor of the English church. When T got to Grenoble, at half-past five in the morning, I had to change for Gap, but the earlymoving about was nothing to go through, for the route is magnificent and the air pure and bracing. It is a good height above the sea and above Lyons, at Gap, and the mountain chains that rise up to the higher Alpine summits in the Hautes-Alpes, are a sight never to be forgotten. I saw a bright sunrising over their grey, rocky flanks, lighting up a most beautiful and peaceful valley. It was all most enjoyable, except that I always find pleasure in this region, and specially in the districts far removed from busy teeming towns like Paris or Lyons, alloyed though it is with the painful thought that the Gospel is unknown, and that especially in this part of France, it has been quenched with the blood of many martyrs. I found Reveillaud and Pastor Schell waiting for me at Gap, once a Roman town, Yapincum, — a good philological example of the change of ‘V ’ into G. We dined — a very good dinner — at the Hotel de la Poste, and soon after we set off” in the diligence for St. Laurent, one of the parishes of Felix Neft s diocese; we had met an old pupil of Neff” in Gap, and he was to tell the pastor of our coming. It rained very heavily, and we were on the imioeriale; yet the heavy covering — ’ bache’ — which they stretch over the roof, raised like a tent, kept us from being wet; the driver, who turned out to be a Protestant, covered our knees with his great coat, and thus equipped we crossed the ‘Col ’ or neck of the ridge of mountains which lay between Gap and St. Laurent. They put us down at an ’ oratoire,’ after a long drive, that is a sort of broad pillar, with a recess iii it, and a grating over it containing a saint; the Catholics place these oratoires and often crosses besides, all over this country, wherever there are Protestants especially. A little further on we found one of these crosses, a cock on the top, a head of the Christ in the centre crowned with thorns, a sword, hammer, ladder, rod with sponge, nails, cfecy all over the wood, planted in 1859. They tried to plant one at Dormilhouse, — a wholly Protestant village, in 1864; the bishop went up with a procession to do the thing solemnly; the pastor gathered the entire population into the church, which was once a Roman Catholic church (the fount for the ‘eau benite’ is still shown), and placing himself against the door talked to them till the bishop had finished his work, The people obeyed him, but they were so enraged that it is a question if the bishop’s life would have been safe. The pastor entreated them also not to touch the cross, but that night it was taken away, — no one ever knew how, or by whom, and the pieces of it were never found. So much for the missionary zeal of the Catholics. We reached St. Laurent soon after, and were met by Pastor Charpiot, a most venerable old man, who welcomed us very warmly, and gave us dinner; he is seventy-five years of age, and is there only until his son, who is nominated to the charge, comes to replace him. But we were very tired, and soon went to bed to sleep soundly till morning, when the good man appeared again,
bringing me a bit of soap and a mirror not one-third the size of this page. We went to church at ten o’clock, in the schoolroom, as a new “temple” is being built; the room was full and the lobby also. T shall never forget that service, the attentive devout congregation, the plaintive singing of the old Huguenot psalms and hymns: had it not been for the language, and to a very limited extent the dress, I could have imagined myself in a Scotch church at Yarrow, or in the Highlands. Reveillaud spoke, and I also addressed them, telling them of our persecutions and our Church. Many of them came to us at the end to shake hands, — grave, dignified, intelligent, and determined men. What France has lost in driving out thousands like these, no one can tell. One of them drove us back to Gap, at least, so far as the summit of the ridge, for Reveillaud had a meeting at Gap that evening. We walked the rest of the road, talking on all subjects, and specially on Roman Catholicism, which Reveillaud analysed and commented on as only a converted Catholic could do. As we went to our hotel we saw a French ’ charletan,’ haranguing a crowd on the merits of his panacea from his gilded carriage, a clever rascal, and as impudent as clever: but both Reveillaud and I agreed that if some evangelists would only put half the energy and determination of this scamp into their addresses, their work would be more fruitful and more joyful.
“We had a queer meeting in the evening in the Cafe du Cerale; the men and women were round the table, smoking and drinking; however, they stopped while Reveillaud spoke and told them truths they had never heard before, with a vigour and eloquence, in classic French, all extempore, leaning on the back of a chair, such as they had certainly never heard from ’ cure ’ or * conferencier.’ Gap is a clerical town, and even thoss who
444 MemoU’ of Rev. G. T. Dodds.
hate the priests are afraid to do anything. They were caught that night, and forced to listen, whether they would or not.
“We left Gap that same evening, or rather Monday morning, at half-past twelve o’clock, and journeyed all night in the diligence, which had a coupe, an interieur, and a rotonde; we were in the interieur, and slept part of the way, but that was not very easy, and I awoke every now and then to call Eeveillaud’s attention to some magnificent views in the clear moonlight, — often of a small village nestling among trees at the foot of a great mountain, a wild rocky torrent running along our course all the way, on which the moon shone, darting in streaks of light across the current, or resting on the dark deep pools. It was light very early, and we had a magnificent drive in the lumbering diligence until we got to La Roche, where we got out, as we were going to the Val de Fressinieres; but first of all we had breakfast, melon, omelette, squirrel, and mutton chops, cooked in a dirty inn, but very good for hungry travellers; I forgot to add that M. Keveillaud made me eat saucissond’ane, and said that our interior was becoming a Noah’s ark, when we got to the squirrel, which was very good and like rabbit. — Here I began this letter, and lo, it must be finished in Italy.
“Our ascent to the Valley of Fressinieres was very pleasant; it was a bright afternoon, there are few parts of Switzerland finer than these valleys of the Hautes Alpes, so seldom visited. I did not wonder that the French Yaudois chose this valley for their refuge. Coming up the valley of the Durance from Gap, none would ever imagine that a wide fertile valley lay behind the mountain, any more than when in Fressinieres one would imagine that there was also the Yalley of Dormilhouse. We soon found our way to Pallons, where the minister, M. Brunei, stays, though his church is at Les Yiolins, a little distance further on. He has a ‘Salle de culte ’ at Pallons, and a church at Dormilhouse, and in winter the distances are not only difficult, but dangerous, so that his pastorate is one of self-denial. I had a letter from Mr. Lundie, and Reveillaud’s name was enough; besides, M. Dardier of Geneva had preceded us and announced our arrival. So we had a cordial welcome. He was alone (M. Brunei); his wife, and children being away in the north of France. The pastors are not at all what we would call well off, but a committee at Lyons and English friends have done something for them, and altogether their position is much better than it was in Felix Keff’s time. He died at his post, of hardships endured in his too extensive diocese. M. Brunei’s preshytere is large and beautifully situated, looking towards the range of Alps towards Embrun. He has a large garden in which apples, pears, and plums grow in great abundance, and even melons, and cucumbers, and grapes. In this way they eke out their living, and that, even when they are poor, is not difficult. He has got a cow, and can get a mule from his parishioners, but that is one side of the picture only. I must give you the other in another letter. It is better this should go to you unfinished, as it is, than that I should delay any longer. We stay here. La Tour or Torre Pellici, till Monday morning, when we go to Turin, and then to Briangon, on our way to Clermont-Ferrand and Paris respectively. Keveillaud is asleep, and I got none last night, having had to fight a useless battle with an unseen enemy. My love to all of you — of whom I often think in these my journeyings. Deus noster nos custodivit; henedicatur nomen ejus. — Your ever loving son,
“George Theos. Dodds.”
LORIMER AND GILLIES, PRINTERS, 31 ST. ANDREW SQUARE, EDINBURGH.