Last spring it was announced that during the session of the School of Languages in ’82 two prizes would be awarded for proficiency in Anglo-Saxon acquired during the session. Accordingly, after due announcements, the examination was held during the last days of the session. The papers were submitted to Dr. Cook, Professor of English in the University of California, well-known to old students at Chautauqua. He has lately decided upon the papers with the following result: The first prize was awarded Miss Mary Parker, Ogdensburg, N. Y.; the second to Miss Mary A. Bryant, Columbia, Tennessee. It is expected that similar prizes will be offered during the session of ’83.

HINTS TO BEGINNERS IN THE STUDY OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.

By Rev. ALFRED A. WRIGHT, A.M.[O]

THE PURPOSES OF THIS COURSE OF STUDY.

It is one purpose of the study of New Testament Greek as conducted by the Dean of the Department of Greek and the New Testament in the Chautauqua School of Theology, to acquaint students with the best methods for obtaining an elementary knowledge of grammatical and philological principles lying at the basis of Bible Greek.

It is another purpose to acquaint students with the best methods of using the tools needed to mine the treasures of Greek ideas which are not always near the surface of things.

The supreme purpose of this course of study is to enable students to read for themselves the very words which the blessed Master and his Apostles uttered, and to so enter into the mysteries of the language-forms and idioms as to behold the very ideas which Christ and his Apostles had before their mental eyes.

He who attempts this is fascinated from the start with the anticipations of discovery and with the comforts of expected reward for every toil of endeavor. And, as he advances, whatever difficulties present themselves, appear only as the stepping-stones upon which he may plant his ascending footsteps, and from whose loftier elevations he may scan a wider scope of beauty.

Surely—if there are hidden secrets of divine truth phrased in the metaphor or in the thought tone of the Bible Greek, the student can afford to tightly gird his loins for the journey;—it shall prove to him indeed the “Quest of the Holy Grail.”

DIFFICULTIES—IN THE LANGUAGE.

1. “It is all Greek to me,” is often said with a quality of facetiousness in tone and manner which is evidently intended as a compliment to the exceeding difficulty of learning the language. Or, it may be a quasi tribute to the very picturesqueness of the Greek letters and word-forms as they appear in the sentence. Or, it may be said by one who is overwhelmed at the erudition of some academic “Greek” flourishing a Greek Testament, and suggesting in manner a certain layman of Lynn, who once took from the parlor table a book printed in French, and asked his astonished hostess, “Is this Latin or French? For if it’s Latin I can read it.” Or it may be possible the superstition that the mysteries of religion are themselves in some manner connected with the very forms of Greek words, has its influence in producing the expression; however, it is a fact that the phrase is found on the lips of even cultured persons, “It’s all Greek to me.”

2. Misapprehension.—The fact is, many people misapprehend the nature of the language and of the real difficulties in the way of mastering its secrets. For the new scholar will invariably assert that Greek, especially New Testament Greek, is not a difficult study, because of the language forms or idioms. The real difficulties are to be found in other places, than in the gardens of the text.

THE REAL DIFFICULTIES.

1. Lack of Early School Training.—Here is a real difficulty which many Sunday-school teachers and others feel. Unquestionably, however, they too much magnify it. An undertaking may be difficult and yet possible. Its difficulty may be over-estimated. A lack of early or the best school training, seriously affects one’s future success in letters or in art. But if there be will and energy and perseverance in a man, these will go far toward insuring his success, while he who has them not will surely fail though blessed with every advantage of school and teacher.

Elihu Burritt, blacksmith, learned eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects, because he would learn them, not because he had early scholastic advantages.

Shakspere says,

2. Lack of Time.—With busy pastors, superintendents and teachers, this difficulty is a real one. Nevertheless we may hint to some pastors that their busy-ness is largely misdirected. It is certain there is time enough to do all that God wants you or needs you to do. But to elaborate the sixth topic of a thirty minute discourse upon the anvil of three weeks’ time, and to do nothing else must be pronounced at least doubtfully wise or valuable. Or, to “run in and see” the mince-pie making Martha or the floor-scrubbing Patience or the boudoir-adorning Evelyn and her Æsthetic sister Elsie, and to do nothing else, may please the dear creatures and make one the most popular pastor for the village ages, but is this wise or valuable?

[Hint. They who “run in” may “run out.”] A New York Sun reporter in describing the proceedings of the last Democratic State Convention, coined a new word,—not elegant indeed, but extremely expressive. “The Hon. —— arose and proceeded to peppersauce himself all over the convention.” Certainly this is a most emphatic use of the middle form of a noun-verb, and is indefinitely suggestive of the very action and distributive energy of the Hon. ——’s speech as well as of the speecher. The number of parish calls made per year is not the only measure of a pastor’s value to his church. We must have the qualis as well as quantus of his work if we would make a fair test of values. But the quantity of this work is the very consumption of time. Probably you could both learn Greek and make better pastoral calls if you should refrain from distributing yourself so continuously over the parish. Wesley’s rule, “Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be triflingly employed. Neither spend more time at any place than is strictly necessary,” is one of universal wisdom. Kirke White learned Greek while walking to and from a lawyer’s office.

A nail cutter was at work cutting nails at his machine in the mill; the long stick that held his pincers was grasped in his right hand and the other end of it, running between his side and elbow, was slung in a cord pendent from the floor above. The red-hot nail plates glowed in the fire, ready to be seized one by one in the pincers, as the workman finished feeding the last one into the closing jaws of the machine. Only a minute’s time and a single nail plate—turned for every nail by the deft hand of the skilled artisan, and fed accurately, became nails. The workman was so adjusted in mental tether to his work that the jaws never closed upon the iron pincers. With a single motion the refuse bit within the pincers fell amongst its fellow scraps, and a new plate began its course. And all the while the workman was reading a book. The babel of two hundred crunching jaws around availed nothing to disturb him. He’d planned to save time. He didn’t mean to become machinery or a machine. That man could learn Greek.

[To be continued.]