The Pentecost of the Spirit

“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” — ACTS ii. 4, HE great advantage of the Spirit is that it 4 gives me a common language. Before the Spirit comes I speak in my own tongue; I cannot interpret the language of my brother. But when I get the Spirit I get the thing called sympathy — the power to feel with another. The only language which I can speak in common with another is the language of the heart, for the language of the heart is the only tongue which has never changed. It is the same yesterday and to-day and for ever; it is the speech of man as man. If I can only get down into my own heart I have reached the base of universal humanity; for, the wants ot my heart are the wants of the whole world. The tower of Babel was an act of pride; it was the struggle of each man to rise above his fellow and therefore it was the death of sympathy.

But the coming of the Spirit was a descent. It was a leading down of my soul into the depths of its own need and therefore it was an entrance into the prayers of every soul. We all live in the experience of others when the Spirit comes. Spirit divine, outpour Thy Pentecost on me. Send forth that rushing mighty wind which shall break down the Babel tower of my own isolation. Send forth that fire of sympathy which shall burn up all that is narrow and mean and selfish within this soul of mine, and shall give me the right and the power to enter into the soul of my brother. I am imprisoned within myself until Thou comest; I can speak only one language — the language of selfishness. But thou canst make me a universal linguist. Thou canst enable me to understand the speech of every heart by giving me a heart of my own. Thou canst help me to translate the wants of others into my own experience and to ask “How would I feel in their place?” Evermore indue me with this divine gift — a gift whose glory is its pain, whose crown is its cross. Evermore grant me this mirror within — the sympathy that can take its impressions from all the burdens that are passing by. When Thou shalt give me utterance shall speak the language of love.