and they began to think that they should no more see the Master until his solemn return in the clouds. Their imaginations were forcibly impressed by a promise which they supposed that Jesus had made. During His lifetime, they said Jesus had frequently spoken of the Holy Spirit, conceived as a personification of divine wisdom.[3.16] He had promised His disciples that this Spirit should be their strength in the battles which they would have to fight, their inspiration in difficulties, their advocate if they were called upon to speak in public. When these visions became rare, they relied on this Spirit, viewed as a Comforter, as another self whom Jesus would doubtless send to his friends. Sometimes they fancied that Jesus, displaying himself suddenly in the midst of his assembled disciples, had breathed upon them from His own mouth a current of vivifying air.[3.17] On other occasions, the disappearance of Jesus was regarded as the condition of the coming of the Spirit.[3.18] They thought that in these apparitions he had promised the descent of this Spirit.[3.19] Many set up an intimate connexion between this descent and the restoration of the kingdom of Israel.[3.20] All the activity of imagination which the sect had displayed in the creation of the legend of Jesus resuscitated, it now began to apply to the creation of a similar pious belief respecting the descent of the Spirit and His marvellous gifts. It seems, meanwhile, that a grand apparition of Jesus had again taken place at Bethany, or on the Mount of Olives.[3.21] Certain traditions referred to that vision the final recommendations, the reiterated promise of the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the act by which He invested His disciples with power to remit sins.[3.22] The characteristic features of these apparitions became more and more vague; one was confounded with another, and the result was, that they ceased to think much about them.[3.23] It was a received fact that Jesus was alive, that he had manifested himself by a number of apparitions sufficient to prove His existence, and that he would continue still to manifest Himself in partial visions, until the grand final revelation when everything would be consumed.[3.24] Thus St. Paul represents the vision which he saw on the route from Damascus as being of the same order as those which have been related.[3.25] At any rate, it was admitted that in an ideal sense the Master was with his disciples and would be with them even to the end.[3.26] In the early days, the apparitions were very frequent; Jesus was imagined as dwelling upon the earth constantly, and more or less fulfilling the functions of an earthly life. When the visions became rare, they inclined to another conception, representing Jesus as having entered into His glory and seated at the right hand of His Father. "He is ascended into heaven," they said.