Under the head of "Criticism in the Daily Paper," I recently presented an extract from Professor Briggs' latest book, which appeared in the Louisville Daily Times. I now give another, in which, after quoting the statement in the second chapter of Acts that the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, the Professor says:

      It was evidently the frenzied or ecstatic utterance of sounds ordinarily unintelligible both to speakers and hearers. It was not unnatural that a speaker should appear demented to an unbelieving auditor, as Paul implies was not unfrequently the case. No other gift enjoyed by the early church so vividly reveals the inspired and enthusiastic character of primitive Christianity, It was apparently this gift of tongues with which the disciples were endowed at Pentecost, and they spoke therefore not in foreign languages, but in the ecstatic, frenzied, unintelligible spiritual speech of which Paul tells us in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The speaking in many different languages unknown before is not only psychologically and physically incredible, but has little historic support in the latter interpretation of the ancient documents by the author of our Book of Acts.

      Every man who has ever read the Book of Acts will [317] recognize in this extract a flat contradiction of Luke's narrative. Not only did the apostles speak in foreign languages that were understood by the hearers, some understanding one and some another, but the fact that this was done by Galileans, who knew only their mother tongue, was the one significant fact that gave to Peter's speech which followed all of its power over the multitude. If Professor Briggs is right, the whole of the second chapter of Acts is a deception and a fraud. No reason that can be properly called a reason can be given for such an interpretation. To say that such a miracle is "psychologically and physically incredible," is simply to say that miracles are incredible. What is there more incredible, either psychologically or physically, in this than in raising Lazarus from the dead? To reject a miracle on this ground is to reject all miracles, or to be involved in illogical inconsistencies of which a man like Professor Briggs ought to be ashamed. If he continues to progress, he will scarcely be able to remain in the Episcopal Church, where he has recently landed, but will finally glide into company with Ingersoll. The sooner, the better for the good of those who may still be under his influence.

[SEBC 317-318]