and glory? The same! yet how different their tone--how altered their conduct! To what cause can we attribute this astonishing change in the minds of three thousand persons in the same instant of time? Surely it was none other than the almighty work of God the Holy Ghost. It was his influence on the minds of these men which produced the Spirit of grace and supplication, and taught them to direct the anxious cry and supplicating look unto him whom they had pierced. Was not the anguish of their souls, under a sense of their sins, equal to the exquisite sorrow of those who bitterly bewail the death of their first-born? However skilfully Peter might wield the sword of the Spirit, (the word of God,) it was none other than the God of all grace, who directed and sent it home with saving power to the hearts and consciences of these Jerusalem sinners. Are not the other triumphs of the Spirit worthy of regard, when five thousand are made willing cordially to embrace Christ crucified? May we not, by the way, observe, that the reception of the Gospel by such numbers so immediately after the ascension of Jesus, proved the truth of the facts recorded by the apostles, of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ? Many, no doubt, of these early converts of Christianity, had been eye-witnesses of several of the events, and _all_ had an opportunity of discovering the deception, if there had existed any, in the apostles' narrative. But no sooner are they persuaded to compare the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah, with all the circumstances in the history of Jesus of Nazareth, than they anxiously desire to be enlisted under the banners of the cross. Unable to resist the force of truth, they join the persecuted adherents of the crucified Jesus, and cast in their lot with his despised followers, although "a sect every where spoken against." When were converts to Christianity most numerous? Was it not when there existed the best possible opportunity of detecting the least imposition or falsehood, on the part of the writers of the New Testament? Let it not be forgotten that those early converts were neither won by the arm of worldly power, nor bribed by proffered gold. On the contrary, no sooner did they embrace the Gospel, but they were met at the very threshold by ignominy and persecution in every varied and frightful form, sufficiently terrific to deter all but men really convinced of the truth, and swayed by its sacred influence. [111] John xvi. 7-14.