Vers. 12-16.-Tlie heal,ing personality of (Jhrisfs servant.,. I. THEY ARE VEIDOLES OF DIVTh.: POWER. The lips and the hands are consecrated to the service of doing good. Here especially the hands. Jt is a beautiful organ, the human hand, and may stand in Christian thought as the very symbol of beneficence. Signs and wonders are wrought, betokening that God is in immediate connection with the agency of man, that his presence is lo,ing and healing, that Christianity brings in an era of deliverance from pa.in and sickness. IL THE REPELLEl>,. FOI:CE OF HOLY PERSONALITY. False souls are scared by the presence of n true man. They are in polar antagonism to him. They cannot bear his direct glance, his clear tones, his indefinable influence. There are those whose pre- sence silences the ribald jest and scoff. The holy man awakens dread and love wherever he goes. Society seems to divide into its elements as he approaches. He is magnetic. Hence thP- sb.nder of some is an equal testimony to moral greatness with the admiration and love of others. lII. ITS ..1.TTRA=vE FORCE. The multitude love goodness and revere it in their inmost heart. And not for long can the sympathies of the multitude be held except by goodness. In this case Divine power set its seal too plainly upon the character and work of the apostles to be resisted. In the vast concourse of sick and suffering in the streets and open places of Jerusalem we have the picture of the effects of Christianity. It is and ever has been the religion of the poor and the suffering. It remains the Divino will that the Christian minister should be the healer, the comforter. His pattern is to be found in the description Christ gave of his own mission in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke iv.), and it is surely a sign of weakness somewhere when the public organs of Christianity fail to co=and the attention and to supply the heart-wants of the lowly and the suffering. By the ordinary laws of mind to work for the spiritual help of such is Letter than all the power to work signs and wonders. Let every Christian minister be like" Petcr's shadow," a refreshment and _a rest_by his spirit and teaching to weary souls.--J.
Vers. l'i-26.-Arrest of :the apostl,u. L THE 'l'EMPER OF ·THE RULmG l'OWERS I. Zeal. It is good or evil in its effects, according to the objects to which it is directed. '!'here is no mood of which more opposite descriptions have been and may not be with justice given. In the excitement of feeling, the fire and fervour which zeal implies, egotism may be so easily mistaken for public spirit. Our self-passions may and must mix with those of a purer kind. Resentment against injury to our interests or indignity to our party, or contempt for our opinions, is constantly mistaken for pure zeal for the kingdom of God and the cause of goodness. 2. Whenever anger and violence break out it is a proof that the dangerQ'IJ,Sforce of ual is at work. 'l'heonly way to correct its mischief is by denying any personal interest which is apart from that of the truth. It is the clear calm gaze at truth which cools the undue heat of zeal, or gives the force its true direction. Here violence showed that egotism was the principle of priestly zeal, an.i passionate interest, divorced from truth. The apostles are seized and put in prison. OH, V, 1-42,) THE ACTS Ob' 'fHE APOSTLES. 17]