Daniel's prophecy was made the basis. "One like a "Son of Man," (that is, he who had called himself the Son of Man) would come in the "clouds of heaven." This mythological picture was made cardinal, with the addition of "God's trumpet," of which the sound would wake the dead out of their graves.--(1 Thess. iv. 16.) Still the original cry was uttered, "The kingdom of God "is at hand;" which continued to be the touchstone of faith for more than fifty years. This earnest expectation and looking for "the Lord from heaven" was made the primitiv Gospel of the Church.

The doctrin of a suffering Messiah could only be maintained by arbitrary and uncritical interpretation of the old prophets. But one school of Rabbis was very fanciful. Their methods were available for obtruding the new tenet. By isolating the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah from the chain of prophecy in which it is one link, a specious beginning was made, and various Psalms of moaning and complaint were presently assumed to be "Messianic." The cry of despair which was imputed to the dying Jesus is a quotation from the first verse of Psalm xxii.; which was sufficient to suggest that the Psalm prefigured Messiah's bitter complaints. After this, ver. 18 of this Psalm was likely to be borrowed and transmuted into history as we see in so many other cases.----In modern England Daniel ix. 26 is thought to assert that Messiah shall be slain; but in the Greek version it is the Anointing (not the Anointed) that shall come to an end. Such also is the rendering by erudite German scholars. No school of Jews in high repute for learning has ever admitted that their prophets taught a suffering Messiah. Evidently Christians betook themselves to the idea, in order to find comfort in their blank disappointment.

But on the day of Pentecost which followed the death

of Jesus, i. e., about seven weeks later, a new event suddenly broke out, of which a garbled account is given in the book of Acts. Garbled we may boldly pronounce it; for the learned Evangelical Professor Augustus Neander in his History abandons it as indefensible. After long strained religious emotion, many of those present babbled in unintelligible sounds, which were supposed to denote a Divine Inspiration. Paul (in 1 Cor.) givs a lucid account of what he personally knew he makes plain that the strange sounds were not foreign languages, as the writer in the "Acts" pretends; but were explicable only by a new miracle, i. e., by some one gifted divinely with a power of interpretation. All was closely similar to the phenomena displayed in Edward Irving's London Church from 1830 for several years. In modern England the delusion could not long abide unexposed, but it permanently deceived the early Christians. The idea that such carnal and morbid excitement was a special mark of the Divine presence and approval, and was "a gift of the Holy Spirit "-pervades the whole book of Acts. So little discrimination of healthy from morbid emotion do we find in those primitiv Christians, whose warmth of devotion and selfabandonment is often transcendent. We may honor their self-sacrifice and their many virtues, while deploring their weakness of understanding.

This outburst on the day of Pentecost gave a mighty impetus to new enthusiasm. It roused all the disciples into the belief that God was on their side. The Church

was, as it were, set on flame. Among the apostles, Peter and John seemed suddenly to enter upon new life. Many new converts were made, and "were baptized in "the name of Jesus the Messiah for the remission of sins." These words call for remark. In the three first Gospels no one but John the Baptist baptizes. We ar not

positivly informed that the Apostles and other disciples of Jesus had been baptized by John. It is probable that they were, if it be true that Jesus personally submitted to it and recommended it. We afterwards find in the Acts that baptized disciples of John pass as Christians. Jesus is twice made to prefigure his own coming sufferings as a new "Baptism" or Immersion: but in the three Gospels neither does he baptize nor the disciples for him. Only in the fourth Gospel (John iii. 22, and iv. 2) is this asserted. But after this Pentecostal excitement Baptism in the name of Jesus becomes the rite for admission to the new church; and the idea naturally went abroad that Jesus himself had instituted it for all future disciples.

The new zeal and enthusiasm kindled earnest remembrance of the preachings of Jesus against the retention of Wealth. Some of the richer men among them, seeking for perfection along the lines laid down by Jesus, sold their possessions and brought the proceeds to the apostles. Open tables were spread, at which all the converts, new and old, fed without charge, as in an Essene Establishment. But after a little while, the apostles felt the administration of such funds to be an invidious and unsuitable task, and begged the assembly to elect seven deacons (i.e., ministers) for its due discharge. Seven were elected, of whom one was called Stephen. But Stephen presently showed himself far too high for this duty. He forthwith flamed out as a new apostle. His short career is of great importance, and deserves far more attention and closer detail than has been given to it. According to the narrator, "Being full of faith and power, he did great "wonders and miracles among the people." No details ar given of these miracles, nor even a hint of their nature; nor how his "faith" was displayed: but we learn that he stirred deep resentment in the Jewish rulers by the doctrin which he preached; resentment

wholly new. This makes it important to examin the narrativ closely.

His offence (we ar told) was an avowal that Jesus would destroy the holy place and change the Mosaic law. Change of the law does seem to be implied in the coming kingdom of Messiah; yet no hostile emotion had been awakened when Peter announced this event as impending. Stephen is conjectured to hav added, that in Messiah's kingdom Jews would hav no advantage over Gentiles: but at this era Gentiles were not even admissible into the Church,- a fact which does not commend the conjecture as probable. What is more, the penalty of stoning is not commanded by the law against religious error except when anyone is guilty of introducing some new god; and it is manifest that on this occasion the tribunal was strictly judicial, with priests of high rank presiding. Thus a high probability arises, that the introduction of the worship of Jesus was the main guilt imputed. The writer of the "Acts" professes to giv us in great detail Stephen's actual speech of defence. Unless Stephen is maligned by the narrator, he must hav tried the patience of his judges sorely. It is impossible to find out from his speech that any offence was imputed to him. He denies nothing, he defends nothing, he explains nothing. He enters upon a tedious and very superfluous recital of events from Abraham in Mesopotamia downwards,―matters notorious to every boyish Jew; digresses to quote prophecy against the idolatrous; then goes back to Solomon and his temple. At last he bursts out into fierce attack on his judges, as resisting the Holy Spirit, now equally as of old, and entitles them "betrayers and "murderers of The Just One," and "transgressors of the "Law."-Up to this point the tribunal had controlled itself; but (we must infer) it now concluded that he had no defence to offer; that he knew himself guilty of the

crime imputed, and, like a dashing captain of war, thought his best defence lay in counter-attack. Abundant time had been granted. He had used freedom of speech only to abuse it. Conviction of his guilt was now universal. The law of Moses (as alone known to them) strictly forbad mercy, and prescribed the dreadful form of punishment-namely in Deuter. xiii.; for by this chapter they evidently were guided. He discerned anger rising in the countenance of his judges, and aggravated it by declaring that he "saw the heavens opened, "and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” They can hardly hav been ignorant that by the Son of man he meant that Jesus of whom he called them betrayers and murderers. A terrible scene followed,the popular stoning to death, which the law strictly commanded against anyone who might try to bring-in the worship of a new god. It is not credible that the Christian account defines correctly the crime alledged against him. The last words ascribed to Stephen ar an invocation of the dead Jesus as a god: "Lord Jesus! "receive my spirit." We cannot suppose that Stephen now invoked Jesus for the first time. It must hav been his habit, and it can hardly hav been secret. The evident probability is, that Invocation of Jesus was the main offence imputed; but after such invocation had become universal in the Gentile Church and the Jewish Church was nowhere, the writer of the "Acts" was unwilling to record that the Jews had resented such invocation as idolatrous. Of course no Jew could see any difference between the Greek invocation of a dead hero, and the Christian invocation of a dead man, however saintly. If they had been physically unable (as they may hav been) to keep Greek hero-worship out of Cæsarea, this was no reason for conniving at the like in Jerusalem itself. Subtle devices which explain away