Three years sufficed to explode these tongues; and from time to time I had an uneasy sense, how much discredit they cast on the Corinthian miracles.  Meander’s discussion on the 2nd Chapter of the Acts first opened to me the certainty, that Luke (or the authority whom he followed) has exaggerated into a gift of languages what cannot have been essentially different from the Corinthian, and in short from the Irvingite, tongues.  Thus Luke’s narrative has transformed into a splendid miracle, what in Paul is no miracle at all.  It is true that Paul speaks of interpretation of tongues as possible, but without a hint that any verification was to be used.  Besides, why should a Greek not speak Greek in an assembly of his own countrymen?  Is it credible, that the Spirit should inspire one man to utter unintelligible sounds, and a second to interpret these, and then give the assembly endless trouble to find out whether the interpretation was pretence or reality, when the whole difficulty was gratuitous?  We grant that there may be good reasons for what is paradoxical, but we need the stronger proof that it is a reality.  Yet what in fact is there? and why should the gift of tongues in Corinth, as described by Paul, be treated with more respect than in Newman Street, London?  I could find no other reply, than that Paul was too sober-minded:  yet his own description of the tongues is that of a barbaric jargon, which makes the church appear as if it “were mad,” and which is only redeemed from contempt by miraculous interpretation.  In the Acts we see that this phenomenon pervaded all the Churches; from the day of Pentecost onward it was looked on as the standard mark of “the descent of the Holy Spirit;” and in the conversion of Cornelius it was the justification of Peter for admitting uncircumcised Gentiles:  yet not once is “interpretation” alluded to, except in Paul’s epistle.  Paul could not go against the whole Church.  He held a logic too much in common with the rest, to denounce the tongues as mere carnal excitement; but he does anxiously degrade them as of lowest spiritual value, and wholly prohibits them where there is “no interpreter.”  To carry out this rule, would perhaps have suppressed them entirely.

This however showed me, that I could not rest on Paul’s practical wisdom, as securing him against speculative hallucinations in the matter of miracles; for indeed he says:  “I thank my God, that I speak with tongues more than ye all.”

2.  To another broad fact I had been astonishingly blind, though the truth of it flashed upon me as soon as I heard it named;—­that Paul shows total unconcern to the human history and earthly teaching of Jesus, never quoting his doctrine or any detail of his actions.  The Christ with whom Paul held communion was a risen, ascended, exalted Lord, a heavenly being, who reigned over arch-angels, and was about to appear as Judge of the world:  but of Jesus in the flesh Paul seems to know nothing beyond the bare fact that he did[24] “humble himself” to become man, and “pleased not himself.”  Even in the very critical controversy about meat and drink, Paul omits to quote Christ’s doctrine, “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man,” &c.  He surely, therefore, must have been wholly and contentedly ignorant of the oral teachings of Jesus.