The apostles, as soon as they were released from this unjust confinement, went directly to their own companions, and reported all that the high priests and elders had said to them. And when the disciples heard of the threats which these tyrannical hierarchs had laid on their persecuted brethren, with one mind they raised a voice to God in a prayer of unequalled beauty and power, in which they called upon the Lord, as the God who had made heaven, and earth, and sea, and all in them, to look down upon them, thus endangered by their devotion to his cause, and to give them all boldness of speech in preaching his word; and to vindicate their authority still further, by stretching out his hand to heal, and by signs and miracles. No sooner had they uttered their prayer than they received new assurance of the help of God, and had new evidence of a divine influence. “The place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled again with the Holy Spirit, and spake the word of God with renewed boldness.” This first attack upon them, by their persecutors, so far from dispiriting or disuniting them, gave them redoubled courage, and bound them together still with the ties of a common danger and a common helper. “All those who believed were of one heart and one soul,” and were so perfectly devoted to each others’ good, that “none of them said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but held them as the common support of all.” And in spite of the repeated denunciations of the Sadducees and the Sanhedrim, the apostles, with great power and effect, bore witness of the resurrection of their Lord; and the result of their preaching was, that they were all in the highest favor with the people. Neither was any one of them suffered to want any comfort or convenience of life; for many that owned houses and lands at a distance, turned them into ready money by selling them, and brought the money thus obtained, to the apostles, with whom they deposited it in trust, for distribution among the needy, according to their circumstances. This was done more particularly by the foreign Jews, many of whom were converted at the pentecost, when, being gathered from all parts, they heard for the first time of the Messiah, from the mouths of his apostles, and saw their words supported by such wonders. Among these was a native of Cyprus, by name Joseph, a Levite, who so distinguished himself by his labors of love among them, and gave such promise of excellence as a teacher of the new faith which he had adopted, that the apostles honored him with a new name, by which he was ever after known, instead of his previous one. They called him Barnabas, which means “the son of exhortation,” no doubt referring to those talents which he afterwards displayed as an eminent and successful minister of the gospel.