OF THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 93 



THE EARLY HOME, SEPARATION AND 

 RE-UNION OF THE ARYAN FAMILY. 



BY REV. R. T. LAIDLAW. 



Going back an indefinite number of centuries, let us suppose 

 that a company of people from Great Britain have drifted in some 

 unaccountable way to the Continent of America, and that all com- 

 munication between them and their native land, is cut off. Coming 

 to this continent, they establish themselves in the heart of the wilder- 

 ness. They begin their new life with the speech of their fatherland, 

 but here they come in contact with tribes speaking different tongues. 

 They learn their speech, and in course of time have it so mingled 

 with their own, that their language becomes materially altered. Then 

 here they find trees, plants, animals and many other objects in nature 

 entirely different from those they were familiar with at home, and 

 requiring different names. As years and centuries roll by, and they 

 turn their attention to the tilling of the soil, and make new dis- 

 coveries and inventions in the arts and sciences, they require still 

 other words. And as they attend to matters of government in their 

 new circumstances, they require new terms to express the various 

 ranks and relations existing among them. In the course of eight or 

 ten centuries the language of that people, if not their character and 

 general appearance as well, will be completely changed. 



In the meantime similar changes would be taking place in the 

 old home. The use and the spelling of old words would be changed^ 

 and a host of new words would be introduced as arts and inventions 

 multiplied. 



At the end of a thousand years, let an Englishman and one of 

 these colonists of Enghsh descent meet, and they will look upon 

 each other as foreigners. They will be unable to understand each 

 other's speech, and will never for a moment suspect that they are at 

 all related. They will have certain words in common, but they 

 will not at first discover this, as even those common words will 

 be considerably changed in sound and spelling. The only words 

 they will be likely to have in common will be names which were 

 in use in England before the American colonists left their early 



