Choose a topic from Part 2B:
1. The "gift of tongues" is the divinelyimparted knowledge of a variety of languages. The apostles had thisgift, and were able to speak the languages of all the peoples towhom they were sent. We read in Scripture (Acts 2:6) that when theapostles spoke to the people of many nations, "every man heardthem speak in his own tongue." This was rather that they spokein the various languages than that, speaking their own language,they were understood by all. For their own language could not,without illusion, sound differently in different ears.
2. The gift of tongues is not so great a gift (that is, agratuitous grace) as that of prophecy. For prophetic knowledgecomes by divine enlightenment. Now, it is more excellent to haveknowledge than to have words to express knowledge. And prophecy islikely to be more powerful than the gift of tongues in its effectupon souls. The gift of tongues seems, sometimes, to have stirredup more astonishment than conviction.
"It is well to choose some one good devotion, and to stick to it, and never to abandon it."
St Philip Neri
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"Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation in the things of God, or to suffer and keep their ground in drynesses of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it."
St Philip Neri
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"It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come."
Thomas á Kempis
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