and morally conceivable, and as not the slightest intimation of such a thing in the Apostles is perceptible in their Epistles and elsewhere (on the contrary, comp. xiv. 11); as, further, if it was only momentary, the impossibility increases, and as Peter himself in his speech does not once make the slightest reference to the foreign languages: therefore,--whether, without any intimation in the text, one consider that Pentecost assembly as a representation of all future Christianity, or not--the occurrence, as Luke relates it, cannot be transmitted in its actual historical circumstance."(1) Let us a little examine the particulars of the narrative in Acts ii. All the brethren were assembled in one place, a house [------], on the morning of the day of Pentecost. In the preceding chapter (i. 15) we learn that the number of disciples was then about 120, and the crowd which came together when the miraculous occurrence took place must have been great, seeing that it is stated that 3,000 souls were baptized and added to the Church upon the occasion (ii. 41). Passing over the statement as to the numbers of the disciples, which might well surprise us after the information given by the Gospels,2 we may ask in what house in Jerusalem could such a multitude have assembled? Apologists have exhausted their ingenuity in replying to the question, but whether placing the scene in one of the halls or courts of the Temple, or in an imaginary house in one of the streets leading to the Temple, the explanation is equally vague and unsatisfactory. How did the multitude so rapidly know of what was passing in a private house? We shall say nothing at present of the sound of the {372}