In the full confidence that their scheme had been concerted with the utmost privacy, Ananias, after the sale of his possessions, hastened to deposit a part of the price in the hands of the apostles. He, no doubt, expected to be welcomed in the warmest terms of commendation. With what astonishment and horror, therefore, must be have heard the terrible appeal of Peter, "Why bath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God!" Instantaneous as the lightning of heaven, Almighty vengeance descended upon the unhappy criminal, and withered him in a moment. "Ananias hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost; and great fear came on all them that heard these things." He was immediately buried, and about three hours afterward, his wife, totally unacquainted with the melancholy fate of her infatuated husband, and glowing with expectation of sharing the praises which the assembled disciples, as she supposed, were bestowing upon their generosity, presented herself to the apostles. Peter immediately demanded an explicit answer to the question, whether the sum which Ananias had subscribed were the real purchase-money of their estate? To this she deliberately replied in the affirmative. "How is it," said Peter, excited to holy indignation, "how is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out." Immediately, to the universal astonishment and terror of all the spectators, "she fell down at his feet and yielded up the ghost; and the young men came in and found her dead, and carrying her forth, buried her by her husband." The apostle, by representing the atrocious sin of these offenders as "lying unto God," and "tempting the Spirit of the Lord," intended to intimate that as the ambassadors of heaven, and endowed with miraculous powers and discernment, they who attempted to deceive them, virtually offered an insult to that Holy Spirit that resided in them. They were his representatives and agents, acting by his authority and under his influence. God was present with the apostles in a manner totally different from the mode of his manifestation to any other persons; and in attempting to deceive them, they virtually denied the agency of the Omniscient Spirit, in communicating to them a capacity to discern the inmost motives of the mind.