of the Corinthians, probably no one understood, instead of simply "magnifying God" in their own tongue, which everyone understood, is almost ludicrous, if without offence we may venture to say so. The same remarks apply to xix. 6. We must again allow an eminent apologist, who will not be accused of irreverence, to characterise such a representation. "Now in such positions and such company, speech in foreign tongues would be something altogether without object and without meaning. Where the consciousness of the grace of salvation, and of a heavenly life springing from it, is first aroused in man, his own mother tongue verily, not a foreign language, will be the natural expression of his feelings. Or we must imagine a magical power which, taking possession of men, like instruments without volition, forces them to utter strange tones--a thing contradicting all analogy in the operations of Christianity."(1) The good sense of the critic revolts against the natural submission of the apologist. We have diverged so far in order prominently to bring before the reader the nature and source of the hypothesis that the gift of "tongues" signifies instantaneous power to speak unlearnt foreign languages. Such an interpretation is derived almost entirely from the mythical narrative in the Acts of the Apostles. We shall now proceed to consider the statements of the Apostle Paul, and endeavour to ascertain what the supposed miraculous Charisma really is. That it is something very different from what the unknown writer represents it in the episode of Pentecost cannot be doubted. "Whoever has, even once, read with attention what Paul writes of the speaking with tongues in the Corinthian community," writes Thiersch, "knows that the difference between that gift of tongues {381} and this (of Acts ii.) could scarcely be greater. There, a speech which no mortal can understand without interpretation, and also no philologist, but the Holy Spirit alone can interpret; here, a speech which requires no interpretation. That gift serves only for the edification of the speaker, this clearly also for that of the hearer. The one is of no avail for the instruction of the ignorant; the other, clearly, is imparted wholly for that purpose."(1)