handmaidens,' the brethren and the women, now received. Herein is the
true democracy of Christianity. There are still diversities of
operations and degrees of possession, but all Christians have the
Spirit. All 'they that believe on Him,' and only they, have received
it. Of old the light shone only on the highest peaks,--prophets, and
kings, and psalmists; now the lowest depths of the valleys are
flooded with it. Would that Christians generally believed more fully
in, and set more store by, that great gift!

As symbols preceded, tokens followed. The essential fact of Pentecost
is neither the sound and fire, nor the speaking with other tongues,
but the communication of the Holy Spirit. The sign and result of that
was the gift of utterance in various languages, not their own, nor
learned by ordinary ways. No twisting of the narrative can weaken the
plain meaning of it, that these unlearned Galileans spake in tongues
which their users recognised to be their own. The significance of the
fact will appear presently, but first note the attestation of it by
the multitude.

Of course, the foreign-born Jews, who, from motives of piety, however
mistaken, had come to dwell in Jerusalem, are said to have been 'from
every nation under heaven,' by an obvious and ordinary license. It is
enough that, as the subsequent catalogue shows, they came from all
corners of the then known world, though the extremes of territory
mentioned cover but a small space on a terrestrial globe.

The 'sound' of the rushing wind had been heard hurtling through the
city in the early morning hours, and had served as guide to the spot.
A curious crowd came hurrying to ascertain what this noise of tempest
in a calm meant, and they were met by something more extraordinary