THE HOLY SPIRIT.
(Whitsunday)
"The Holy Spirit." — Luke xi. 13.
"THIS is the anniversary of the day of Pentecost, called Whitsunday, from the white robes of the newly baptized catechumens who used formerly to be then received to their first communion. I doubt whether we know precisely what took place on that day. Yet perhaps we know as much as the persons present could clearly recall and tell; for it is often those who are most immediately involved in a rapid series of remarkable and exciting incidents, who are least able to define them with precision, and this may be the reason why the author of the Acts of the Apostles, whose circumstantial minuteness indicates his accuracy and honesty as an historian, has left some points in this particular narrative less distinct and intelligible than we might desire. But this we learn, — that there occurred external phenomena which filled a large number of persons with amazement, secured for the name and cause of the late crucified Jesus a sudden accession of honor and influence, and multiplied his disciples more than twenty-fold. This, too, we learn, that on the same day the primitive disciples found themselves possessed of a zeal for the truth, a love of God and man, and a spiritual might, which never left them afterward, so that for them the Pentecost was the beginning of a new and momentous epoch in their lives."
Blessings
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