Narrated Event #4: Words of Wisdom from Father Noah

Finally, at the conclusion of his explanations of different typological conventions and punctuation marks, Webster launches, out of nowhere, into a pseudo-religious and paternalistic diatribe with little to do with the rest of the book. Beginning with “Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding,” delving into a flowery and abstruse tale of how the earth will come to an end, and ending with “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil,” Noah truly outdoes himself in terms of the lengths he will go to in order to show language as inherently related to morality. After seeing his comparison of this text to a religious work, it is not surprising that Webster closes the book with an evangelical harangue attempting to proselytize his readers, if not to be better Christians, at least to speak his version of English. Such is ultimately the social work accomplished by this text: to attempt to “convert” his readers to his side – the side of “proper” English – by demonstrating that being a good speaker of English is necessarily tied to being a good Christian, a good American citizen, and a good person.