Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/188

176 in the Book of Acts prolong His divine voice. It may be truly said that in them He fulfilled His own promise. "He that heareth you heareth Me." So, again, in the Epistles of S. Paul, S. Peter, and S. John. The character of each comes out in their writings, but the brevity, simplicity, and plainness of their Master's teaching is still maintained. The absence of all art, of all self-conscious effort for effect, came from the consciousness of a divine message. The necessity that was laid upon them cast out all unworthy reflection upon themselves. S. Paul distinctly tells the Corinthians that he would use no arts of their rhetoricians, no imposing subtilties of their philosophers. There is an unspeakable power and grandeur in his few and simple words: "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not in loftiness of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of Christ. For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my teaching was not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in showing (demonstration) of spirit and power: that your faith might not stand on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God."