ng on his face, he confessed that God was among them of a
truth. Other members exercised gifts more like those we are ourselves
acquainted with, such as the gift of teaching or the gift of
management. But in all cases there appears to have been a kind of
immediate inspiration, so that what they did was not the effect of
calculation or preparation, but of a strong present impulse.

136. These phenomena are so remarkable that, if narrated in a history,
they would put a severe strain on belief. But the evidence for them is
incontrovertible; for no man, writing to people about their own
condition, invents a mythical description of their circumstances; and
besides, Paul was writing to restrain rather than encourage these
manifestations. They show with what mighty force, at its first
entrance into the world, Christianity took possession of the spirits
which it touched. Each believer received, generally at his baptism,
when the hands of the baptizer were laid on him, his special gift,
which, if he remained faithful to it, he continued to exercise. It was
the Holy Spirit, poured forth without stint, that entered into the
spirits of men and distributed these gifts among them severally as He
willed; and each member had to make use of his gift for the benefit of
the whole body.

137. After the services just described were over, the members sat down
together to a love-feast, which was wound up with the breaking of bread
in the Lord's Supper; and then, after a fraternal kiss, they parted to
their homes. It was a memorable scene, radiant with brotherly love and
alive with outbreaking spiritual power. As the Christians wended their
way homeward through the careless groups of the heathen city, they were
conscious of having experienced that which eye had not seen nor ear
heard.

138. Abuses and Irregularities.--But truth demands that the dark side
of the picture be shown as well as the bright one. There were abuses
and irregularities in the Church which it is exceedingly painful to
recall. These were due to two things--the antecedents of the members
and the mixture in the Church of Jewish and Gentile elements. If it be
remembered how vast was the change which most of the members had made
in passing from the worship of the heathen temples to the pure and
simple worship of Christianity, it will not excite surprise that their
old life still clung to them or that they did not clearly distinguish
which things needed to