24 JOHN READE ON LANGUAGE AND CONQUEST, 
point, however, it would take me too long to dwell at any profitable length. Suffice it to 
say that (if we except the Phœnician and Punic in the days of Tyrian and Carthaginian 
colonizing enterprise, the Arabic, during the domination of the Caliphs, and the Hebrew, in 
the wake of the Jewish wanderings) the Semitic languages have been seldom found far 
away from the limits of their ancient cradle-land. Yet of no group of tongues have the 
conquests been more splendid or more enduring, if we have regard to the influence of their 
literatures on the nations of the world. As an Aryan was destined to be the religious teacher 
of countless myriads of the races of farther Asia, so from the tents of Shem was to spread 
the light that was to lighten the gentiles of the west. Palestine is the Holy Land to the 
proud civilizations that arose on the ruins of Rome. Rome itself put a Jewish fisherman 
in the high place of its haughty Caesars. Hebrew, which Greek and Roman scholars did 
not think worth the trouble of learning, became the Holy Tongue, a “sacred and original 
language,” occupying a serene height by itself, apart from any vulgar speech (though Greek, 
too, was allowed to share in its sanctification), and endowed with graces and privileges of 
which no other language could boast. Though the Jews are strangers in all lands, and their 
only home is among strangers, their sacred books are the most valued literature, the most 
prized heritage of Christendom. Nor does their influence end there. The Old Testament 
was the foster-mother of Mohammedanism as well. To the followers of the Prophet, as to 
us, Abraham is the father of the faithful; and there is not a community of either creed 
from Yokohama to San Francisco, or from Siberia to the Cape of Good Hope, whose belief 
and worship, and even whose common thoughts and speech do not bear some impress of 
Judaism. The Hebrew language has not penetrated and interfused other languages, like 
the Latin and Greek, but much of the peculiar phraseology which was familiar to Moses, 
to David, to Isaiah and to Paul may be heard to-day in every domestic gathering, in almost 
every thoroughfare in the civilized world. Every recurring Seventh Day recalls the law 
of Moses and on the most momentous occasions in our lives: at the font, at the marriage 
altar, at the death-bed, at the grave-side, we hear words of comfort, of warning, of sympa- 
thy which were common to the Jewish people when as yet the glory had not departed 
from Israel. What conquest could be more marked, more permanent than that? And yet 
that is not all? Did not Jewish modes of thought modify those of Pheenicia, of Egypt, of 
Greece, of Persia, of Rome,—being, perhaps, modified themselves in turn? For the com- 
munication of nation with nation was undoubtedly less exceptional in ancient times than 
it was once the fashion to believe. Josephus says that the Awrea Chersonesus of India 
was the destination of Solomon’s fleet and, whether or no, it is reasonable to believe that 
the Jews, especially after the exile, were no strangers to the life and movement of the 
civilized world from the Indus to the Pillars of Hercules. 
That the Pheenicians, near neighbors to the Jews, and speaking almost the same 
tongue, made important contributions to civilization, it is needless to say; but, like those 
who give their own blood to invigorate others, their labours and victories only went to 
build up the greater power of Rome. The mistress of the world never forgave her rival, 
though she relented so far as to build a second Carthage ; but Greece never ceased to 
remember the “letters Cadmus gave.” Dr. Arnold has emphasized the providential close 
of the triple conflict. Still, even if we give our sympathies to the victor who was to hand 
down the gains of his triumph to ourselves, we cannot but regret that those who conferred on 
Europe the glorious boon of letters should have left so few traces of the language to which 
