upon the disciples, His action in the disciples, and His action through the disciples.

First His action upon the disciples. (1) Upon their ear, "There came a sound as of a rushing mighty wind," &c. The sound came "suddenly;" the atmosphere does not pass at once from the serene to the tempestuous, but it seems somewhat thus now, for the moment before a profound quiet reigned around them; the suddenness indicates the supernatural. The sound was mighty, "It was as of a rushing mighty wind." The language expresses a violent commotion in the air. The sound is from heaven; it does not sweep horizontally through the room, but comes directly down with a sudden rush and startling roar. The great epochs of history are usually preceded or accompanied by extraordinary phenomena in nature. "Thunders of lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud," accompanied the promulgation of the law on Sinai. A strange star careering in the heavens attended the birth of the Son of God. The darkening sun, the rending rocks, and the quaking earth, marked the wonderful death of the world's Redeemer ; and now this sudden, violent, heaven-sent noise, as a wind in the fury of tempest, marked the advent of the Divine Spirit. Here is the action-(2) Upon their eye. "And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them." The word "cloven," designates-not the division of the tongues themselves, but their distribution amongst the people; it means that one flame in the form of a tongue appeared on each. "It sat upon each of them." Perhaps the supernatural appeals to the ear and the eye in the rushing wind and the distributed tongues of fire, were intended to express the relation of the Divine Spirit. To life-wind or air is vital, it is the breath of life;-To speech-the tongues would indicate that the Spirit has to give men new utterances ;-To purity-fire would indicate that the Spirit had to consume all the corruptions of the Soul. The baptism of the Spirit is the baptism of fire.

Secondly: His action in the disciples. 'They were filled with the Holy Ghost." The Holy Ghost entered their

spiritual natures, filled them with Divine thoughts and emotions. Now were realized to the experience the promises that Christ made to them. "The Spirit of truth shall testify of me, and ye also shall bear witness." (John xv. 26, 27.) Again: "It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which is in you." (Matt. x. 20.) The Spirit now so took possession of their souls, that His thoughts, and acted out His will. had no thoughts but His, or such as agreed with His ; no feelings but such as glowed with His inspiration; no will but His. They were now the consecrated temples of the Holy Ghost, workers that were to become mighty through God.

they henceforth spoke He filled them. They

Thirdly His action through the disciples. Three things are observable concerning their speech. (1) The speech followed their Divine inspiration. It was not until after the Spirit had entered them, filled them, purified them with His holy fire, given them the right thoughts and feelings, that the speech came. Better be dumb, than speak out the thoughts of a soul unrenewed by the Spirit. It would be well for the race if the tongues of the unrenewed were sealed in silence. It is when the Spirit comes into us, fills us with its purifying and vivifying influence, that we want speech, and we shall have it. The old dialect will not do to express the new life. 66 They spoke as the Spirit gave them utterance," or, as it might be rendered, "According was given to them to declare.” Each spoke with the tongue which the Spirit gave at the time, not each with all the unquestionably was miraculous. the wonderful things which the Spirit gave them, not in their vernacular, but in a language or a dialect with which before they were perfectly unacquainted. Language is a wonderful art in itself. Words are at once the necessary media by which we form and systematize our thoughts, and the arbitrary signs by which we convey them to our fellow men. Hence a new language is never attained but by long, systematic, and often trying labor. The coming at once into the possession of a new language is as great a miracle as if

as the Spirit

tongues. (2) The speech These disciples spoke out

we came into possession of a new organ or a new limb. This was the miracle now. These men got a new language at once, through which they could pour forth the Divine things that now came into their spirits. The miraculousness of the gift was felt by all that heard them, and all that heard them understood. "Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed, and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? If the marginal reading is right, which reads—“ when this voice was made”—instead of "when this was noised abroad"—the idea is not that the rumour of the people about the strange tongues attracted, in the first instance, the attention of the multitude, but the voice of the strange language of the disciples themselves first arrested the attention of the multitude. The probability is, that the strange tongues having first fallen on the ear of some of the people who were near at hand, the report of the wonder spread rapidly amongst all the classes throughout the city, and drew the multitudes together. And when they came they were confounded, they were amazed, they marvelled. Expressions, these, which indicate a wonder and astonishment so great as to overwhelm the mind with confusion. The cause of this wonder you have in this question :—“ How hear we every man in the tongue wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes," &c. The cause of the wonderment was here that the "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judæa, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Lybia about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians"-all these men of different languages, assembled from all parts of the civilized world, heard these poor Galileans speak in their tongues. The miracle, therefore, was so indubitable and so astounding, that it struck the multitude into the wildest wonder. (3) The speech was immensely useful. It served to impress the multitude with the Divinity of the system with

72

HOMILETIC GLANCE AT THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

which the disciples were identified, and it enabled the disciples at once to proclaim the Gospel to the multitude assembled from every part of the world. Without the miraculous gift of tongues, the disciples would have had to spend years in obtaining such a knowledge, even of one language, as to have enabled them to preach in it, and in the natural order of things, ages would have rolled away before the Gospel could have spread beyond the boundaries of Judea. Now, through these tongues, they spoke the Gospel to representatives from all parts of the known world, and who, after the grand festival was over, would return to their countries and radiate through their own spheres the wonderful intelligence. Chrysostom has said that the different tongues pointed out as a map what land each should visit and occupy as the scene of his labors in converting the world. Our Lord prophesied that before the close of the generation in which He lived, "This Gospel of the kingdom should be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations," and Paul tells us in Romans x. 18, that the sound of the Gospel "went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." This gift of tongues alone explains this world-wide diffusion of the Gospel. (4.) The speech was profoundly religious. This wonderful faculty of speech was given, not to declare any of the weak things of the human spirit, still less anything wicked, but to declare “the wonderful works of God." Their speech and their subject were both wonderful. Heaven gave them a wonderful medium to reveal a wonderful thing. What were the works they spoke of. We rest assured that they were works connected with the redemption of the world in the mission of Christ, and the advent of the Spirit. Oh, come the day when the languages which God has given man, shall, instead of being as now the vehicle of the erroneous in thought, the impure in feeling, the depraved in purpose-shall convey to men the purest thoughts, and the holiest feelings concerning the "wonderful works of God."

(To be continued.)

Germs of Thought.

SUBJECT:-A Voice from Eternity to the Children of Time.*

“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."-Isaiah lvii. 15.

Analysis of Homily the Six Hundred and Thirty-ninth.

ERE is a voice from eternity. It is clear, emphatic, and

Hull is a voice from tigh the g, troplatit, and

rolls between us and the period when it fell on the first human ear, it sounds with unabated force, and bears truths as applicable to us as to the men of preceding times. Voices from time abound; they load the air we breathe, they din us with their echoes. But most of them are conflicting, none of them are satisfactory; they speak not out the information our deepest natures crave; they solve not the problems that distract us; they calm not the unresting sea of our thoughts. Here, in this mortal life, borne on as we are by the swelling current of advancing years, and changing our circumstances and experiences every day, we still retain a consciousness, more or less vivid, of our alliance with the immutable and everlasting.

In truth, does not that sense of change with which the flight of time so deeply impresses us, on this the dawn of another year, imply an element of immutability within us? We feel that we are moving, and that the universe is moving, because there is something fixed, deep, and ineradicable in the centre of our being. As that rock, which lifts its majestic head above the ocean, and alone remains unmoved amidst the restless waves and the passing fleets, is the only measure to the voyager of all that moves on the great world of waters,

* This Discourse was delivered on the First Sunday of the Year.

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