Page 116 - Third Book of Reading Lessons
P. 116
READING LESSONS. 115
preach the Gospel to every creature. For this vast undertaking they required greater strength and illu mination-the gifts of the Holy Ghost, to await whose descent they remained at Jerusalem, as they had been directed by their Lord. In the mean time, they per rmed nothing except the election of another apostle, atthias, in the place of him who had pre varicated. On the festival day, on which the giving of the Old Law on i1ount Sinai was celebrated, the perfection of the New Covenant in the Christian Church was e ected. The Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles and assembled disciples in the rm of ery tongues, and imparted itself to the new-born Church, that was then collected in one plaee. I ence rth it continued as the living soul, inseparably in sed into the body of the Church, preserving it in unity of ith and love. Its in uence upon the apos tles soon became visible; weak as they were be re in ith, doubt l and timorous, they now displayed minds ll of ith and of understanding, rvent, courageous, and undaunted, which not even the threat of death could subdue. The stival had drawn to Jerusa]em Jews and proselytes from every nation of the earth. These, Parthians and i1edes, inhabitants of iesopotamia, and of the provinces of Asia; Jews om Egypt, Rome, and Lybia; Cretes and Arabians, stood in astonishment when they heard, 'in their own languages, the wonder l things of God, spoken by the apostles ; and so power l was the e ect of the inspired word of God, coming from the mouth of Peter, t at in one day three thousand converts added themselves to the Church. fany of these, returning to their native lands, bore with them the seeds of the Divine word; so that the apostles, when they went from Jerusalem to preach to the whole world, und
