Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned.
Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. How great must have been the popular enthusiasm in favour of the apostles-whose beneficent miracles no doubt won the admiration even of those who held aloof from them, while their own miraculous liberation from prison would inspire the general community with awe-when even the officers of the Sanhedrim were afraid of becoming the victims of popular violence if they laid a rough hand upon them! But in what a hateful light does this exhibit those hypocritical, hardened ecclesiastics! They are astonished, they are dismayed; but they are all unawed by the miraculous tokens of God's presence with the apostles, and have only the fear of the mob before their eyes!