THE POWER OF WORDS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3070, 29 April 1881, Page 4

THE POWER OF WORDS.

" Civis" in the Otago Witness says :—

Dean Stanley lately preached one of his broad Church sermons at Westminister Abbey for the benefit of the Borough road students on the power of words, for a copy of which I am indebted to a correspondent. Being the anniversary day of the murder of Thomas a'Becket, he told the following pretty little story : —" There is only one circumstance that occurs to me—l would rather say one legend — attaching to the name of Thomas a'Becket which can in any way be made edifying and instructive to the present generation, and this I think would be instructive even to you whom I see before me. There was a story that his father, Gilbert Becket, has been a crusader in the Holy Land, and that he there formed an attachment to a Saracen lady, who contrived his escape from prison. She followed him at a long interval, and it is said that she only knew two words in any other language than her own. One was ' London,' and the other was ' Gilbert.' She travelled through the different countries of Europe, repeating first of all this one word ' London,' which at last brought her to tho shores of England, When she came to the outskirts of London she betook herself to the other word and repeated ' Gilbert/ and going from street to street and still repeating the word ' Gilbert,' she at last came to the house where Gilbert Becket lived. He recognised her, he took her to his home, and they became the parents of the famous Thomas." A neat legend, which the Deun adroitly used to illustrate the importance of throwing our whole soul into our word. But he capped this story with a still more amusing ono to illustrate the especial force of the words of the Bible —" There is a story," said the Dean, " that two travellers of different nations who met on a ship on the high seas found that there were only two words in which they could communicate with each other. The two words wero 'Hallelujah' and ' Amen/ and through them they were able to express not all, but many of the various feelings that filled their minds." I have been trying to depict the possible success of this small vocabulary, with a few signs and gestures to boot. For instance, when one of the two travellers proposed by

sympathetic' 'pantomime- to proceed -to a " square meal," the other might give an appropriate assent by an emphatic " Amen," and when the square meal was despatched, and each leant back exhausted in his chair, they migh both together give vent to a cheerful " Hallelujah," but ingenuity would be considerably taxed to carry tho conversation much beyond that. If one or the other managed accidentally to sit down on a sharp pin neither "Hallelujah" or "Amen" would, I fear, adequately express the " various feelings" of human nature tinder the trying circumstances. Was the Dean elaborately poking fun at his hearers, or is this the "broad" teaching to which, the [esthetic age in which we live is coming ? A whole vocabulary in the various inflexions of hallelujah and amen is a refinement of the same naturo as tho satisfying of the cravings of hunger by contemplating a lily. But it is a superfine era. I own I would sooner listen to Handel's Hallelujah and Amen choruses well pei-formed than to some modern sermons, but when it comes to expressing the "various feelings" I prefer a copia verborum.