The special purpose of this act of God was to distribute mankind. They had said, “Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” God nullified their design by so confounding their language that they could not understand one another’s speech. They left off building the city, and were scattered abroad (Gen. 11:5-9). The gift of tongues at Pentecost in no way rescinded this, though by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit those from a distance of various languages heard, each in his own tongue, the same gospel. The apostles had never spoken those languages before. The learned have devoted much labor in the endeavor to discover the links that exist in all known languages; but it would require divine power to remove in any practical sense the divergencies.