was made to hinge. Redemption waited the evidence
of resurrection. Nothing was to be accounted as sealed and finally
certified, till Jesus should deliver himself from the power of death.
All of the gospel, all the hopes it brings to us, all the promises with
which it comforts us, were taken for their final verdict, as true or
false, sufficient or worthless, to the door of that jealously-guarded
and stone-sealed sepulchre, waiting the settlement of the question,
_will he rise?_

But an event so momentous was not left to but one class of evidences.
There was a way by which thousands at once were made to receive as
powerful assurance that Christ was risen, as if they had seen him in his
risen body. Jesus, before his death, had made a great promise to his
disciples, to be fulfilled by him only after his death and resurrection;
a promise impossible to be fulfilled if his resurrection failed; because
then, not only would he be under the power of death, but all his claim
to divine power would be brought to nought. It was the promise of the
Holy Ghost. "When the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from
the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father,
he shall testify of me, he shall glorify me."

It was after he had "shown himself alive after his passion, by many
infallible proofs, being seen of his disciples forty days, and speaking
to them of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God," that the day
for the accomplishment of that promise came. The day was that which
commemorated the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. It was now to
witness the going forth of the gospel from Jerusalem. I need not relate
to you the wonderful events of that day of Pentecost, the coming of the
Holy Ghost with the "sound as of a rushing mighty wind" that "filled all
the house;" the cloven tongues "like as of fire," which sat on each of
the disciples; the evidence that it was the Spirit of God which had then
come, given in the sudden and astonishing change which immediately came
over the apostles, transforming them from weak and timid men to the
boldest and strongest; in the change which suddenly came upon the power
of their ministry, converting it from the weak agent it had previously
been in contact with all the unbelief and wickedness of men into an
instrument so mighty that out of a congregation of Jews of all nations,
many of whom had probably partaken in the crucifixion of Christ, three
thousand that day were bo