the same bold and high bearing, undaunted by the assembly of the wise, and learned, and powerful of his nation. He was conscious of the presence of the great High-Priest; he knew that the angels of heaven were looking on. In his address he went through a summary of the Jewish history, showing God's free mercies to the nation, and the return which it made by rebellion and idolatry. He showed them, among other apostacies, how their fathers had forsaken the tabernacle of Jehovah, and taken up the tabernacle of Moloch. This brought him to the mention of the temple, which they, although no longer idolators, yet regarded with a carnality little short of idolatry'. With the usual abuse of superstition, they confined God's presence on earth to that favoured spot, and only there thought of the purity necessary for appearing before him; nowhere else did they reck of his eye. Here too, of course, it consisted but in outward rites and oblations.

In vain

had prophets been sent from God to recall them to more spiritual notions; they persecuted and slew them, both them who spoke of the coming of the Just One, and the Just One himself. Their menaces during this latter part of his speech, when he came to the subject of the temple, were very significant, and perhaps drew him to dilate more at large on their resistance to God's will; he saw that he himself was shortly to be added to the number of God's maltreated messengers, and burst out into that indignant apostrophe, "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised of heart, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your

1 See the Epistle of Barnabas, chap. xvi.

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fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have now been the betrayers and murderers: who have received the law by the dispensation of angels, and have not kept it." On this the rage of his hearers became excessive; they were cut to the heart. Stephen, seeing them gnashing on him with their teeth, and aware of what was preparing for him, lifted his heart above all earthly fears, and, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked stedfastly into heaven there he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. Possessed with the blessed sight, he cried out, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." The application to Jesus (for so they could not but understand it) of that high title, which, when Jesus himself made, the high-priest rent his clothes as at blasphemy, and pronounced sentence of death, was also fatal to his faithful servant. Stopping their ears as at shocking blasphemy, they rushed upon him, dragged him out of the city, and stoned him, while he was invoking Jesus in the same praycr in which he himself had invoked the Father from the cross, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my soul." He knelt down to receive his death, and, crying out "Lord! lay not this sin to their charge," fell asleep.

In comparing the circumstances of the death of this blessed proto-martyr with those which attended Zechariah's, the first thing which strikes us is their different fruits. A mournful solitude and barrenness surrounds the fate of Zechariah. We are not told of

any bright vision which cheered him; and his blood seems to have flowed in vain; to have been shed as seed upon barren sand. He had no followers; his death was the herald of the destruction of his country, but wrought no spiritual regeneration. It prophesied the downfall of the law; but Stephen's helped the rising of the Gospel. His blood fell on the fat soil of God's vineyard of the Church, and among his murderers was its future most efficient apostle. The death of Zechariah drove the faithful servants of God to hiding-places and silence; but that of Stephen, by scattering his companions, sent preachers of the Word into all corners of the world. The blow in the one case drove the waters, as in a circumscribed pool, to break fruitlessly upon the shingle; but in the other, like the impression of the heavenly bodies on the wide ocean, it sent the waters rolling away in every direction to far distant regions. The end of Stephen is no less contrasted with Zechariah's than its effects. It is full of exulting triumph; it partakes of the splendour of Elijah's ascension. Here is no dark and mournful solitude; the glory of God which had guided Israel, which surrounded Christ upon the mount, which formed his chariot of ascent into heaven, is revealed to his eyes amid the opening heavens, and in the midst of it appears the triumphant Saviour, ready to receive into bliss the departing spirit of his servant. The death of Zechariah was that of a true son of the Lion of Judah; he resisted unto blood, and died amid struggling defiance, and in the bold utterance of the commission of denunciation with which he had been charged: "The Lord look upon it, and require it." But the death of

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Stephen is that of a follower of the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. He fell asleep with the words, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," upon his lips. His last words were nearly those of the blessed Lamb himself, who cried, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." Both suffered most cruel injustice at the hands of their fellow-countrymen, dying the death. of idolators for declaring the will and word of the only and ever-living God. But a shade of melancholy overspreads the martyrdom of Zechariah, and a gladness relieves the gloom of Stephen's. Stephen was still in communion with his fellow-countrymen, and when he came into the temple, worshipped the same God, joined in the same prayer, partook of the same sacrifice. But Zechariah, when he came into the temple, found none but apostates; saw the altars of God overthrown, and the courts thronged with the votaries of Moloch and Baal. Stephen had to complain of their corrupting the law; Zechariah of their abolishing it. Stephen spoke to men who abused their knowledge; Zechariah to those who had cast it away. Stephen spoke to men, many of whom, perhaps, and most assuredly at least one, had the zeal of God, though not the true knowledge. But Zechariah to a throng who, in despite of late signal mercies, had, with their king at their head, conspicuously abandoned him, displaying thus an utter debasement of mind, a serpent-like ingratitude, a fiendish malignity. Stephen therefore might hope for converts; Zechariah could hope for none. Stephen's blood therefore fell like dew, watering and fattening; but Zechariah's was as that of Abel's, crying for ven

geance', and fell on the floor of the temple like the showers of brimstone and fire upon Sodom.

Glorious is the example of these blessed martyrs ; and yet perhaps the critical agony of their conflict is not before us. The real fight has been well nigh finished by the time that it affects the flesh. The sword, the axe, the stake, are brute and blunt weapons, the pain of which reaches not the mind. there is the real fight, there the deadly struggle of heaven and hell for everlasting possession. The gain and loss of fame, of friends, of fortune, the fear of wrath, and mockery, and revilings, the dread of breaking up honourable and closely entwined affections, the reluctance to withdraw long reposed confidence, the willingness to retain well-earned friendship and esteem, the clinging to the wonted comfort of embraces, and smiles, and kind words: these and many more are the combatants. This is the fight that tears and tortures the soul; when the martyr is led forth to die, it has ceased. All is peace within him. Christ hath conquered; the crown of glory is

woven.

1 Matt. xxiii. 35.