The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 176

THE OUTPOURING OF THE HOLY

136

SPIRIT

tongue yet the narrative itself proves rather the contrary. Let the experiment be tried. Let fifteen men (the number of languages mentioned in Acts ii.) speak in fifteen different languages at once and together, and the result will be not that every one hears his ;

own

language, but that no one can hear anything.

rative of Acts

ii.

is fully

But the nar-

explained in that the apostles uttered

sounds intelligible to Parthians, Medes, Cretans, etc., because they understood them, receiving the impression that these sounds agreed with their own mother-tongues. As a Dutch child seeing a problem on the blackboard worked out by an English or German child naturally receives the impression that

it

was done by a Dutch

child,

simply because figures are signs not affected by the difference of language, so must the Elamite have received the impression that he heard the Elamitian, and the Egyptian that he was addressed in the Egyptian tongue, when on Pentecost they heard sounds uttered by a miracle, which, being independent from the difference of language, were intelligible to man as nian. We must not forget that speaking

is

nothing else than to pro-

duce impressions upon the soul of the hearer by means of vibrations But if the same impressions can be produced without in the air. the aid of air-vibrations, the effect upon the hearer must be the

The sight of twinkling The same effect can be produced by rubbing the eye with the finger when reclining on a couch in a dark room. And this applies here. The airsame.

Try the experiment upon the

eye.

stars or dissolving figures excites the retina.

vibrations are not the principal thing, but the emotion produqed in

mind by the speaking. The Pamphylian, accustomed to reby hearing his mother-tongue, and receiving the same impression in another way, must think that he is addressed in the

ceive emotions

the

Pamphylian tongue. Thirdly

—According

to St. Paul's interesting information, the

this, that the vocal organs produced sounds not by a working of the mind, but by an operation of the

miracle of tongues consisted in

upon those organs. Luke writes " They began to speak with other tongues, as Spirit gave them utterance " (Acts ii. 4) and St. Paul proves

Holy

Spirit

St.

the

:

;

exhaustively that the person speaking with tongues spoke not with i.e., as a result of his own thinking, but in consequence of an entirely different operation. That this is possible,

his understanding,

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