Wednesday. [Acts 4:13–22; John 5:17–24]

   Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard (Acts 4:19–20). Thus spoke the holy apostles Peter and John to the authorities when the latter forbade them to speak about the Lord Jesus resurrected, after they healed a man lame from childhood by His name. They did not fear threats, for the obviousness of the truth did not allow them to be silent: we have seen and heard, they said, and our hands have handled, as Saint John later added (I John 1:1). They are eye-witnesses. According to the principles of human knowledge, eye-witnesses are the first reliable witnesses of the truth. There is not a single field of human knowledge that has such witnesses. For, eighteen and a half centuries have passed since that time, and the power of their testimony has not diminished at all, and consequently the obviousness of the truth testified by them has not diminished. If people fall away into faithlessness—and now there are very many who are falling away—they fall away for no reason other than a lack of good sense. They do not want to examine things and are carried away by phantoms to which the delusion of a depraved heart willingly imparts some probability. Poor souls! They are perishing, fancying that they have landed at last on the proper track, and are rejoicing especially that they have entered this track first and have become leaders for others. But it is not a great joy to sit on the throne of the destroyers.