fibre with the presence and the Passion and the love of Jesus. It must have been hard for them to hold their peace. They must have desired a hundred languages and voices and tongues to declare all day long the Passion on the Cross, the glory of the Resurrection, and the peace of the kingdom of God.
The other cause of the special power and force of the Apostolic preaching is also incommunicable—namely, the inspiration of the Day of Pentecost. "They were filled with the Spirit." The parted tongues of fire were emblems of the light and ardour with which thej declared the Word of God to men. "Are not my words as a fire, and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?"[1] Such were the words of the Apostles, wheresoever they went in all the world.
"We cannot conceive these messengers of the kingdom of God labouring to compose their speech or studying the rules and graces of literary style. The records of their preaching in the New Testament are artless and simple as the growths of nature in a forest, which reveal the power and the beauty of God. Their words and writings are majestic in their elevation, and depth, and pathos, and unadorned beauty, like the breadth and simplicity of the sea and sky.
- ↑ Jerem. xxiii. 29.
