Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1895 — A DAY WITH STEPHEN [ARTICLE]

A DAY WITH STEPHEN

REV. DR. TALNIAGE PRESENTS FIVE LIVING PICTURES. fitepbeaGazlng Into Heaven—Stephen Looking at Christ—Stephen Stoned— Stephen In His Vying Prayer— Stephen Asleep. An Inspiring Theme. In his sermon for Sunday Rev. Dr. Talmage chose a theme ns picturesque as 4t 18 spiritually inspiring. He groups his discourse into “Five Pictures.” The text selected was, “Behold, I see the heavens opened.”—Acts vii., 50-00. Stephen had been preaching a rousing sermon, and -the people could not stand it. They resolved to do as men sometimes would like to do in this day, if they dared, with some plain preacher of righteousness —kill him. The only way to siieDce this man was to knock the breath out of him. So they rushed Stephen out of the gates of the city, and with curse and whoop and bellow they brought him to the cliff, as was the custom when they wanted to take away life by stoning. Having brought him to the edge of the cliff, they pushed him off. After he hud fallen, they came and looked down, and seeing that he was not yet dead they began to drop stones upon him, stone after stone. Amid this horrible rain of missiles Stephen clambers up on his knees and folds his hands, while the Mood drips from his temples, and then, looking up. he makes two prayers, one for himself and one for his murderers. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” that was for himself. “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,” that was for his murderers. Then, from pain and loss of blood, he swooned away and fell asleep. I want to show you to-day five pictures —Stephen gazing into heaven, Stephen looking at Christ, Stephen stoned, Stephen in his dying prayer, Stephen asleep. Stephen Looking Into Heaven. First look at Stephen gazing- into heaven. Before you take a leap you want to know where yon aregpmgto land. Before you climb a ladder you want to know to what point the ladder reaches. And it -was right that Stephen, within a few moments of heaven, should be gazing into it. We would .all do well to be found in the same posture. There is enough in heaven to keep us gazing. A man of large wealth may have statuary in the hall, and paintings in the sitting room, and works of art in all parts of the house, but lie has the chief pictures in the art gallery, and there hour after hour you walk with catalogue ...and glass and ever increasing. admiration. Well, heaven is the gallery where God has gathered the chief treasures of liis realm. The whole universe is his palace. In this lower room where we stop there are many adornments, tessellated floor of amethyst, and on the winding cloud stairs are stretched out canvases on which commingle azure and purple and saffron and gold. But heaven is the gallery in which the chief glories are gathered. There are the brightest robes. There are the richest crowns. Tljye are the Jjigliest exhilarations. St. John says' of it. ! The jjqpgfl of the earth shall bring theii honor and glory into it.” And J see the procession forming, and in the line come all empires, and the stars spripg up into an arch for the hosts to march under. They keep step to the sound .of earthquake and the pitch of avalanche from the mountains, and the flag they bear is the flame of a consuming "sf-tffm, and all with harps and trumpets aud myriad voiced acclamation of angelic dominions to welcome them in, and so the kings of the earth bring their honor and glory into it. Do you wonder that good people often stand, like Stephan, looking into heaven? We have many friends there. There is not a man here so isolated in life but there is some one in heaven with whom he onep shook hands. As a man gets older.‘the number of his celestial acquaintances very rapidly multiplies. We have not had one glimpse of them since the night we kissed them good-by and they went away, but still we stand gazing at heaven. As when some of our friends go across the sea we-stand on the dock or on the steam tug aud watch them, and after awhile the hulk of the vessel disappears, and then there is only a patch of sail on the sky, and soon that is gone, and they are all out of sight, and yet we stand looking in the same direction, so when our friends go away from us into the future world we keep looking down through the Narrows and gazing aud gazing as though we expected that they would come out and stand on some cloud and give us one glimpse of their blissful and transfigured faces. While yon long to join their companionship, and the years and the days go with such tedium that they break your heart, and the vipers of pain and sorrow and bereavement keep gnawing at your vitals, you will stand, like Stephen, gazing into heaven. You wonder if they have changed since you saw them last. You wonder If they would recognize youV face now, so changed has it been with trouble. You wonder if, amid the myriad delights they have, they caye as rrtwch for you as they used to when they gave you a helping hand and put their shoulders under your burdens. You wonder if they look any older, and sometimes in the evening tide, when the house is all quiet, you wonder if you should call them by their first name if they would not answer, and perhaps sometimes you do make the experiment, and when no one but God and yourself are there you distinctly call their names and listen and sit gazing into heaven. Looking Upon Christ. Pass on now and see Stephen looking upon Christ. My text says he saw the Son of man at the right hand of God. Just how Christ looked in this world, just how he looks in heaven, we cannot say. The painters of the different ages have tried to imagine the features of Christ nnd put them upon canvas, but we will hare to wait until with our own eyes we see him and with our otvn ears we can hear him. And yet there is a way of seeing him and hearing him now. I have to tell you that unless you see and- hear Christ on earth, you will never see and bear him in heaven. I.ook! There he is! Behold the Lamb of God! Can you uot see him? Then pray to God to take the scales off your eyes. Ixiok that way—try to look that way. His voicelcomes down to you this day—comes down to the blindest, to the deafest soul, saying, “Look unto me, all ye ends of the earth and be ye saved, for I am God, and there is none else.” Proclamation of universal emancipation for all slaves. Tell me, ye who know most of the world’s history, what other king ever asked the aban-i doned, and the forlorn, and the wretched, and the outcast to come and sit beside him. Oh, wonderful invitation! You con takeflt to-day and stand at the head

of the darkest alley in all this city, and say: “Gome! Clothes for your rags, salve for your sores, a throne for your etsraotf; reigning.” A Christ that talks like that and acts like that and pardons like that—do you wonder that Stephen stood looking at him? I hope to spend doing the same thing. J must'see him; I must look uj>on that face once clouded with my sin, but now radiant with my pardon, I want to toueb that band that knocked off my shackles. I want to hear the voice that pronounced my deliverance. Behold him, little children, for if you live to three score years and ten you will see none so fair. Behold him, ye aged ones, for he only can shine through the dimness of your failing eyesight. Behold him, earth. Behold him, heaven. What a moment when all the nations of the saved shall gather around Christ, all faces that way, all thrones that way, gazing on Jesus! His worth if all the nations knew Sure the whole earth would love him, too. , ' ' ' Stoned, x I pass on now and look at Stephen stoned. The world has always wanted to get rid of good men. Their very life is an assault- upon wickedness. Ont with Stephen through the gates of the city. Down with him over the preeipieea. Let every man come up and drop a stone upon his head. But these rn'eri did not so much kill Stephen as they killed themselves. Every stone rebounded upon them. While these murderers are transfixed by the scorn of all good men Stephen lives in the admiration of all Christendom. Stephen stoned, but Stephen alive. So all good men must be pelted. “All who will live godly iii Christ Jesus must suffer persecution.” It is no eulogy of a man to say that everybody likes him. Show me auy one who is doing all his duty to state or church, and I will show you scores of men who utterly abhor him. If all men speak well of you, it is because you are either a laggard or a dolt. If a steamer makes rapid progress through the waves, the water will boil and foam all around it. Brave soldiers of Jesus Christ will hear the carbines click. When I see a man with a voice and money and influence all on the right side, and some caricature him, and some sneer “St him, and s"ome"denouncellfm, nnd men who pretend to be actuated by right motives conspire to cripple feim, to cast him out, to destroy him. I say. “Stephen stoned.” When I see a man in some great moral or religious reform battle against grogshops, exposing wickedness in high places, by active means trying to purify the church and better the world’s estate, and I find that the newspapers anthematize him, and men, even good men, oppose him and denounce him, because, though he (iocs good,.lie docs not do it in their way, I say “Stephen But you* notice, my friends, that while they assaulted Stephen they did not succeed really in killing him. You may assault a good man, but you cannot kill him. On the day of liis death, Stephen spoke before a few people in the sanhedrin; this Sabbath morning he addresses all Christendom. Paul the apostle stood on Mars hill addressing a handful of philosophers who knew not so much about science as-a modern schoolgirl, To-day he talks to all the millions of V h 4 is i e -Ss22Lab°ut 14? ivofiifp of tonification and the glories of resurrection. John Wesley was liowled down by the mob to wlionT prcachfd { jind they threw bricks at himfafin u!ey denounced him, and they jostled him, and tTiey spat upon hi®, and ygt. to-day, in all lands, he is admitted to be the groat father of Methodism. Booth’s bullet vacated the, PresidentlaTctnur, but from that spot of coagulated blood on the fleor in the box of Ford’s Theater there sprang up the new life of a nation. Stephen stoned, but Stephen alive. A Dying Prayer, Pass on now and see Stephen in his dying prayer. His first thought was not how the stones hurt his head nor what would become of his body. His first thought was about his spirit. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” The murderer standing on the trapdoor, the black cap being drawn over his head before the execution, may grimace about the future, but you and I have no shame in confessing some anxiety about where we are going to come out. You are not all body. There is within you a soul. I see it gleam from your eyes to-day, and I see it irradiating your countenance. Sometimes lam abashed before an audience, not because I come under your physical eyesight, but because I realize the truth that I stand before so many immortal spirits. The probability is that your body will at last find a sepulcher in some of the cemeteries that surround this city. There is no doubt but that your obsequies will be decent and respectful, and you will be able to pillow your head under the maple, or the Norway spruce, or the cypress, or the blossoming fir, but this spirit about which Stephen prayed, what direction will,that take?’ What guide will escort it? * What gate will open to receive it? What cloud will bo cleft for its pathway? After it has got beyond the light of our sun will there be torches lighted for it the rest of the way? Will the soul have to travel through long deserts before it reaches the good land? If we should lose our pathway, will there be a castle at whose gate we may ask the way to the city? Oh, this mysterious spirit within us! It has two wings, but it is in a cage now. It is locked fast to keep it, but let the door of this cage open the least, and that * soul is off. Eagle’s wings could not catch it. The lightnings are not swift enough to come up with it. When the soul leaves the body, it takes fifty worlds at a bound. And have I no anxiety about it? Have you no anxiety about it? I do not care what you do with my body when my sonl is gone or whether yon believe in cremation or inhumation. I shall sleep just as well in a wrapping of sackcloth as in satin lined with eagle’s dowii. But my soul—before I close this discourse I will find out where 9 will land. Thank God for the intimation of ny text, that when we die Jesus takes us That answers all questions for me. What though there were massive bars between here and the City of Light. Jesus could remove them. What though there were great Saharas of darkness, Jesus could illume them. What though I get weary on the way, Christ could lift me on his omnipotent shoulder. What though there were chasms to cross, his hand could transport me. Then let Stephen’s prayer be my dying litany, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” It may be in that honr we will be too feehle to say a long prayer. It may be in that bopr we will not be able to say the Lord’s f'rayer, for it baa aeven petitions.. Perhaps we may be too feeble even to say the infant prayer our mothers taught ns, which John Quincy Adams, 70 years of age, said every night w hen he put hia head upon his pillow: Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Wmray be too feeble 4© employ either of these familiar forms, but this prayer of, Stephen is sp short, TsT so eonci»e, Ji j«rearnest, is so comprehensive, we surely will be able to say that. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” >©h, if that prayer is answered, how sweet it will be to dies Thin world is clever enough to us. Perhaps it has treated us a great deal better than we deserved to be treated, bnt If on the dying pillow there shall break the light of that better world we shall have no more regret than about leaving a small, dark, damp house for one large, beautiful and capacious, That dying minister in Philadelphia some years ago beautifully depicted •t when in the last moment he threw up his hands and cried out: “I movelnto the light!” Asleep. Pass on now;,and I will show yon one more picture, and that is Stephen asleep. With a pathos and simplicity peculiar to the Scriptures, the text says of Stephen: “He fell asleep.” “Oh,” you say, “what a piece that was to sleep! A hard rock under him, stones falling down upon him, the blood streaming, the mob bowling. What a place it was to sleep!” And yet my text takes that symbol of slumber to describe his departure, so sweet was it, so contented was it, so peaceful was It, Stephen had lived a very laborious life. His chief work had been to care for the poor. How many loaves of bread he bad distributed, how many bare feet he had sandaled, how many cots of sickness and distress he had blessed with ministries of kindness and love, I do not know. Yet from the way he lived, and the way he preached, and the way he died. I know he was a laborious Christian. But that is all over now. He has pressed the cup to the last fainting lip. He has taken the last insult from his enemies. The last stone to whose crushing weight be is susceptible has been hurled. Stephen is dead! The disciples come! They take him up! They wash away the blood from the wounds. They straighten out the bruised limbs. They brush back the tangled hair from the brow, and then they pass around to look upon the calm countenance of him who had lived for the poor and died for the truth. Stephen asleep! I have seen the sea driven with the hurricane until the tangled foam caught in the rigging, and wave rising above wave seemed as if about to storm the heavens, -and then I have seen the tempest drop, and the waves crouch and everything become smooth and burnished as though a camping place for the glories of heaven. So I have seen a man, whose life has been tossed and driven, coming down at last to an infinite calm, in which there was a hush of heaven’s lullaby. Stephen asleep! I saw such a one. He fought all his days against poverty and against abuse, - They traduced his name. They rattled at the doorknob while lie was dying with duns for debts he could not pay; yet the peace of God brooded over his pillow and while the world faded, heaven dawned and the deepening twilight of earth’s night was only the opening twilight of heaven’s morn. Not a sigh. Not a tear. Not a struggle. Hush! Stephen asleep. I have not the faculty as many have to tell the weather. I can never tell by the setting sjijt whether there wM $$ a drought or not, I citfihol tell by the blowing of the jvind whether it will be f u i r jy mk M, I can prophesy, and I will prophesy, what jyeather jt wifi be when you, the Christian’, come to die. You shay have it very rough now. It may be this week one anaayance.fcbenext another annoyance. It may be this year one bereavement, the next, another bereavement But at the last Christ will come in and darkness will go out. And though there may be no hand to close your eyes and no breast on which to rest your dying head, and no candle to lift the night, the odors of God’s hanging garden will regale your soul and at your bedside will halt the chariots of the king. No more rents to pay, no more agony because flour has gone up, no more struggling with “the world, the flesh and the devil,” but peace—long, deep, everInstiug peace. Stephen asleep! Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep, From which none ever wake to weep; A calm nnd undisturbed repose, Uninjured by the last of foes. Asleep in Jesus, far from thee Thy kindred and thy graves may be, But there is still a blessed sleep, From which none ever wake to weep. Yon have seen enough for one day. No one can successfully examine more than five pictures in a day. Therefore we stop, haring seen this duster of divine Raphaels —Stephen gazing into heaven, Stephen looking at Christ, Stephen stoned, Stephen in his dying prayer, Stephen asleep.