s, before the English had
grown so much. The Hebrew was a very limited language; not numbering
more than 7,000 words. The English is now said to number about 80,000.
The most lavish writer does not use over 10,000; the common average is
about 3,000. In the English we have not less than 1,000 Hebrew roots.
This, comparing the languages a few years back, is a large percentage.
In names of persons and places the Hebrew is very prominent in England.

I take it for a fact that language is of Divine origin. Men have written
on the origin of language from every standpoint; the majority of them
trying to account for its existence without allowing so noble a source.
The first man, Adam, I believe, could talk as easily and naturally as he
could see, and hear, and taste. Speech was a part of his endowment.
There is nothing more wonderful in a man talking than a bird singing,
save that speech is a higher order of utterance. Dumb nature performs
marvels every day as mighty and wonderful as man's talking. The
honey-bee builds its cells, ignorant of the fact that such construction
is the solution of a problem which had troubled men for centuries to
solve. At what point shall certain lines meet so as to give the most
room with the least material and have the greatest strength in the
building? This problem is said to have been worked out by a Mr.
McLaughland, a noted Scotch mathematician, who arrived at his conclusion
by laborious and careful fluxionary calculation. To his surprise, and to
the surprise of the world, such lines and such a building were found in
the common bee cell. Now I hold that the same Creator who gave to the
bee the mathematical instinct could endow man with the instinct of
speech. Even to animal instinct we find a certain variation and
permitted latitude in what is called adaptive instinct. So in man we
find this same instinct of adaptation in a higher sense. The instinct
comes into play when we suppose a number of persons separated from
others, each living in different quarters of the globe. In such a
condition, though of the same language when first separated, they would
not remain so long--that is, in the primitive state of society. Thus,
among the tribes of Africa, at this day, languages are widening and
varying from a once common centre. So Israel in captivity would lose the
Hebrew gradually. The language of the people among whom they settled was
the Sanskrit, from which a score of languages h