point. The facts are familiar to you,
and the inferences drawn from them are commonplace and known to us all.
But let me just enumerate them as briefly as may be.

'Suddenly there came a sound, as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it
filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared cloven
tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they were all
filled with the Holy Ghost.'

What lay in that? First, the promise of a Divine Spirit by symbols which
express some, at all events, of the characteristics and wonderfulness of
His work. The 'rushing of a mighty wind' spoke of a power which varies
in its manifestations from the gentlest breath that scarce moves the
leaves on the summer trees to the wildest blast that casts down all
which stands in its way.

The natural symbolism of the wind, to popular apprehension the least
material of all material forces, and of which the connection with the
immaterial part of a man's personality has been expressed in all
languages, points to a divine, to an immaterial, to a mighty, to a
life-giving power which is free to blow whither it listeth, and of which
men can mark the effects, though they are all ignorant of the force
itself.

The other symbol of the fiery tongues which parted and sat upon each of
them speaks in like manner of the divine influence, not as destructive,
but full of quick, rejoicing energy and life, the power to transform and
to purify. Whithersoever the fire comes, it changes all things into its
own substance. Whithersoever the fire comes, there the ruddy spires
shoot upwards towards the heavens. Whithersoever the fire comes, there
all bonds and fetters are melted and consumed. And so this fire
transforms, purifies, ennobles, quickens, sets free; and where the fiery
Spirit is, there are energy, swift life, rejoicing activity,
transforming and transmuting power which changes the recipient of the
flame into flame himself.

Then, still further, in the fact of Pentecost there is the promise of a
Divine Spirit which is to influence all the moral side of humanity.
This is the great and glorious distinction between the Christian
doctrine of inspiration and all others which have, in heathen lands,
partially reached similar conceptions--that the Gospel of Jesus Christ
has laid emphasis upon the _Holy_ Spirit, and has declared that holiness
of heart is the touchstone and test of all claims of divine inspiration.
Gifts are much, graces are more. A