Next He repeated the "Peace be unto you," and told them that He was sending them forth as the Father had sent Him--"Go ye unto all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." But He added, "Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." "And these signs shall follow them that believe. In My name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Then, to fit them for this time of waiting, and that the Holy Spirit might prepare them to receive His fuller inflow, the Lord breathed on them and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." By which He surely meant that there was no other way by which sins would be forgiven and put away than by the preaching of the Gospel, which He now committed to their trust. They are therefore parallel with Peter's statement in after days, "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name given under heaven, among men, by which we must be saved." The Church of God alone can proclaim to men the conditions of evangelical repentance,--and those who refuse her testimony, and disbelieve her Gospel, expose themselves to unspeakable condemnation and loss. "There remaineth no other sacrifice for sin; but a certain looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation." Refuse Christ, and there is no alternative way of salvation. Whatever else is contained in these words, it is quite clear that there was nothing exclusively reserved to the apostles and their successors, which is not equally the possession of all who believe; for we know that the Lord's words were spoken not to the apostles only, but to the two that had come from Emmaus with burning hearts, and to those who were in the habit of commingling with the immediate followers of Christ. "Them that were with them" (Luke xxiv. 33, 35, 36). All had been witnesses of these things, and all were now to proclaim in His name repentance and remission of sins among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Thomas was not there on that memorable occasion. He was always accustomed to look on the dark side of things. When Jesus proposed to go into Judaea to raise Lazarus, he made sure that there was no alternative but to die with Him; and when the Master spoke of His impending absence, he said gloomily, "Lord, we know not whither Thou goest, and how can we know the way?" He was doubtless at this time wandering alone over the scenes of that awful tragedy, which had so deeply imprinted itself on his imagination that he could not forget the print of the nails, and the wound in His side, and the unlikelihood of any surviving such treatment as He had received.