the attention of critics was seriously directed to the question, however, this interpretation became rapidly modified, or was altogether abandoned. It is unnecessary for us to refer in detail to the numerous explanations which have been given of the phenomenon, or to enumerate the extraordinary views which have been expressed regarding it; it will be sufficient if, without reference to minor differences of opinion respecting the exact form in which it exhibited itself, we broadly state that a great majority of critics, rejecting the theory that [------] means to speak languages previously unknown to the speakers, pronounce it to be the speech of persons in a state of ecstatic excitement, chiefly of the nature of prayer or praise, and unintelligible to ordinary hearers.(1) Whether {367} this speech consisted of mere inarticulate tones, of excited ejaculations, of obsolete or uncommon expressions and provincialisms, of highly poetical rhapsodies, of prayer in slow scarcely audible accents, or of chaunted mysterious phrases, fragmentary and full of rapturous intensity, as these critics variously suppose, we shall not pause to inquire. It is clear that, whatever may have been the form of the speech, if instead of being speech in unlearnt languages supernaturally communicated, [------] was only the expression of religious excitement, however that may be supposed to have originated, the pretentions of the gift to a miraculous character shrink at once into exceedingly small proportions. Every unprejudiced mind must admit that the representation that the gift of "tongues," of which the Apostle speaks in his Epistle to the Corinthians, conferred upon the recipient the power to speak foreign languages before unknown to him, may in great part be traced to the narrative in Acts of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Although a few apologists advance the plea that there may have been differences in the manifestation, it is generally recognized on both sides that, however differently described by the two writers, the [------] of Paul and of the Acts is, in reality, one and the same phenomenon. The impression conveyed by the narrative has been applied to the didactic remarks of Paul, and a meaning forced upon them which they cannot possibly bear. It is not too much to say that, but for the mythical account in the Acts, no one would ever have supposed that the [------] of Paul was the gift of speaking foreign languages without previous study or practice. In the interminable controversy regarding the phenomenon, moreover, it seems to us to have been a {368}