any, many centuries have passed since tongues have been known in this
world. They have ceased. Take it in any sense you like. Take it, for
illustration merely, as languages in general--a sense which was not
in Paul's mind at all, and which tho it can not give us the specific
lesson will point the general truth. Consider the words in which these
chapters were written--Greek. It has gone. Take the Latin--the other
great tongue of those days. It ceased long ago. Look at the Indian
language. It is ceasing. The language of Wales, of Ireland, of the
Scottish Highlands is dying before our eyes. The most popular book in
the English tongue at the present time, except the Bible, is one of
Dickens' works, his "Pickwick Papers." It is largely written in the
language of London street-life, and experts assure us that in fifty
years it will be unintelligible to the average English reader.

Then Paul goes further, and with even greater boldness adds, "Whether
there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." The wisdom of the ancients,
where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy today knows more than
Sir Isaac Newton knew. His knowledge has vanished away. You put
yesterday's newspaper in the fire. Its knowledge has vanished away.
You buy the old editions of the great encyclopedias for a few cents.
Their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the coach has been
superseded by the use of steam. Look how electricity has superseded
that, and swept a hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. One of
the greatest living authorities, Sir William Thompson, said the other
day, "The steam-engine is passing away." "Whether there be knowledge,
it shall vanish away." At every workshop you will see, in the back
yard, a heap of old iron, a few wheels, a few levers, a few cranks,
broken and eaten with rust. Twenty years ago that was the pride of the
city. Men flocked in from the country to see the great invention; now
it is superseded, its day is done. And all the boasted science and
philosophy of this day will soon be old. But yesterday, in the
University of Edinburgh, the greatest figure in the faculty was
Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. The other day his
successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by the librarian
of the university to go to the library and pick out the books on his
subject that were no longer needed. And his reply to the librarian was
this: "Take every textbook that is more than ten years old, and put it
down in th