A large part of England, all that portion of it which the Saxons occupied, is divided into 'hundreds'. Have you ever asked yourselves what this division means, for something it must mean? The 'hundred' is supposed to have been originally a group or settlement of one hundred free families of Saxon incomers. If this was so, we have at once an explanation of the strange disproportion between the area of the 'hundred' in the southern and in the more northern counties—the average number of square miles in a 'hundred' of Sussex or Kent being about four and twenty; of Lancashire more than three hundred. The Saxon population would naturally be far the densest in the earlier settlements of the east and south, while more to west and north their tenure would be one rather of conquest than of colonization, and the free families much fewer and more scattered. [Footnote: Kemble, The Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 420; Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, p. 98.] But further you have noticed, I dare say, the exceptional fact that the county of Sussex, besides the division into hundreds, is divided also into six 'rapes'; thus the 'rape' of Bramber and so on. [This 'rape' is connected by Lappenberg, ii. 405 (1881), with the Icel. hreppr, which according to the Grágás was a district in which twenty or more peasants maintained one poor person].
Let us a little consider, in conclusion, how we may usefully bring our etymologies and other notices of words to bear on the religious teaching which we would impart in our schools. To do this with much profit we must often deal with words as the Queen does with the gold and silver coin of the realm. When this has been current long, and by often passing from man to man, with perhaps occasional clipping in dishonest hands, has lost not only the clear brightness, the well- defined sharpness of outline, but much of the weight and intrinsic value which it had when first issued from the royal mint, it is the sovereign's prerogative to recall it, and issue it anew, with the royal image stamped on it afresh, bright and sharp, weighty and full, as at first. Now to a process such as this the true mint-masters of language, and all of us may be such, will often submit the words which they use. Where use and custom have worn away their significance, we too may recall and issue them afresh. With how many it has thus fared!—for example, with one which will be often in your mouths. You speak of the 'lessons' of the day; but what is 'lessons' here for most of us save a lazy synonym for the morning and evening chapters appointed to be read in church? But realize what the Church intended in calling these chapters by this name; namely, that they should be the daily instruction of her children; listen to them yourselves as such; lead your scholars to regard them as such, and in this use of 'lessons' what a lesson for every one of us there may be! [Footnote: [Still etymologically lessons mean simply 'readings, the word representing French leçons = Latin lectiones.] 'Bible' itself, while we not irreverently use it, may yet be no more to us than the verbal sign by which we designate the written Word of God. Keep in mind that it properly means 'the book' and nothing more; that once it could be employed of any book (in Chaucer it is so), and what matter of thought and reflection lies in this our present restriction of 'bible' to one book, to the exclusion of all others! So strong has been the sense of Holy Scripture being 'the Book,' the worthiest and best, that book which explains all other books, standing up in their midst,—like Joseph's kingly sheaf, to which all the other sheaves did obeisance,— that this name of 'Bible' or 'Book' has been restrained to it alone: just as 'Scripture' means no more than 'writing'; but this inspired Writing has been acknowledged so far above all other writings, that this name also it has obtained as exclusively its own.
Again, something may be learned from knowing that the 'surname,' as distinguished from the 'Christian' name, is the name over and above, not 'sire'-name, or name received from the father, as some explain, but 'sur'-name (super nomen). There was never, that is, a time when every baptized man had not a Christian name, the recognition of his personal standing before God; while the surname, the name expressing his relation, not to the kingdom of God, but to a worldly society, is of much later growth, super-added to the other, as the word itself declares. What a lesson at once in the growing up of a human society, and in the contrast between it and the heavenly Society of the Church, might be appended to this explanation! There was a period when only a few had surnames; had, that is, any significance in the order of things temporal; while the Christian name from the first was the possession of every baptized man. All this might be brought usefully to bear on your exposition of the first words in the Catechism.
There are long words from the Latin which, desire as we may to use all plainness of speech, we cannot do without, nor find their adequate substitutes in homelier parts of our language; words which must always remain the vehicles of much of that truth whereby we live. Now in explaining these, make it your rule always to start, where you can, from the derivation, and to return to that as often as you can. Thus you wish to explain 'revelation.' How much will be gained if you can attach some distinct image to the word, one to which your scholars, as often as they hear it, may mentally recur. Nor is this difficult. God's 'revelation' of Himself is a drawing back of the veil or curtain which concealed Him from men; not man finding out God, but God discovering Himself to man; all which is contained in the word. Or you wish to explain 'absolution.' Many will know that it has something to do with the pardon of sins; but how much more accurately will they know this, when they know that 'to absolve' means 'to loosen from': God's 'absolution' of men being his releasing of them from the bands of those sins with which they were bound. Here every one will connect a distinct image with the word, such as will always come to his help when he would realize what its precise meaning may be. That which was done for Lazarus naturally, the Lord exclaiming, 'Loose him, and let him go,' the same is done spiritually for us, when we receive the 'absolution' of our sins.
Tell your scholars that 'atonement' means 'at-one-ment'—the setting at one of those who were at twain before, namely God and man, and they will attach to 'atonement' a definite meaning, which perhaps in no way else it would have possessed for them; and, starting from this point, you may muster the passages in Scripture which describe the sinner's state as one of separation, estrangement, alienation, from God, the Christian's state as one in which he walks together with God, because the two have been set 'at one.' Or you have to deal with the following, 'to redeem,' 'Redeemer,' 'redemption.' Lose not yourselves in vague generalities, but fasten on the central point of these, that they imply a 'buying,' and not this merely, but a 'buying back'; and then connect with them, so explained, the whole circle of statements in Scripture which rest on this image, which speak of sin as a slavery, of sinners as bondsmen of Satan, of Christ's blood as a ransom, of the Christian as one restored to his liberty.
Many words more suggest themselves; I will not urge more than one; but that one, because in it is a lesson more for ourselves than for others, and with such I would fain bring these lectures to a close. How solemn a truth we express when we name our work in this world our 'vocation,' or, which is the same in homelier Anglo-Saxon, our 'calling.' What a calming, elevating, ennobling view of the tasks appointed us in this world, this word gives us. We did not come to our work by accident; we did not choose it for ourselves; but, in the midst of much which may wear the appearance of accident and self-choosing, came to it by God's leading and appointment. How will this consideration help us to appreciate justly the dignity of our work, though it were far humbler work, even in the eyes of men, than that of any one of us here present! What an assistance in calming unsettled thoughts and desires, such as would make us wish to be something else than that which we are! What a source of confidence, when we are tempted to lose heart, and to doubt whether we shall carry through our work with any blessing or profit to ourselves or to others! It is our 'vocation,' not our choosing but our 'calling'; and He who 'called' us to it, will, if only we will ask Him, fit us for it, and strengthen us in it.
End of Project Gutenberg's On the Study of Words, by Richard C Trench