3. Of St. Stephen's exertions in the organization and direction of the public charity we hear nothing; although we may be sure that this was not neglected. We are told, however, that he was "full of faith and power," and that he "did great wonders and miracles among the people." No details are given, but his miracles must not be forgotten in our estimate of the causes of his success. His chief scene of labour seems to have been in the synagogue, or group of synagogues, " of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia." The Libertines were Jews who had been taken prisoners, reduced to slavery, then enfranchised by the Eoman general Pompey. Many of them had recently been banished from Eome, and would naturally have had a synagogue to themselves in Jerusalem. At least one synagogue would have belonged to African Jews from Cyrene and Alexandria; and two or three others to the Jews of Cilicia and Asia Minor. These were a very numerous class, and among them the future Apostle of the Gentiles was at this date still reckoned an enthusiastic Pharisee. It was among these Jews from abroad that Stephen opened what
ACTS vii. 59, 60 89
we should call a mission ; he had more points of contact with these men of Greek speech and habits than had the Twelve. He engaged in a series of public disputations ; and although he was almost unbefriended, and represented a very unpopular cause, his opponents " were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit with which he spake."
4. But the victory which his opponents could not hope to win by argument, they hoped they might win by denunciation and clamour. They persuaded some false witnesses to swear that in their hearing Stephen had spoken blasphemous words against Moses and against God. They combined against him the jealousy of the upper classes and the prejudices of the lower ; and they brought him, on trial for blasphemy, before the highest Jewish court — the Sanhedrin.
ii. Before the Sanhedrin.
1. " And all that sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel" (vi. 15). There is one question which we all want to have answered, and it is this : How came Stephen to be thus self-possessed before the frowning Sanhedrin — fearless before an excited multitude in his home- thrusts of truth, brave in the crisis of trial, forgiving at the moment of death ? Men are not born thus. As we mentally put ourselves into his circumstances, and try to realize each rapidly succeeding danger, our hearts fail within us, and we feel that no physical courage, no hardihood of mere natural bravery, could sustain us here. There must have come some supernatural change upon him, to have induced at once this undaunted fortitude and this superhuman tenderness of love. Was it a miraculous bestowment, limited in its conferment to the first ages, and to some specially selected and specially missioned men ? or is it within the reach and enjoyment of believers in Jesus now? These are questions which are interesting to us, as we dwell upon the developments of holy character presented in the life of Stephen.
2. How are we to account for this boldness ? The secret of all the heroism and of all the loveliness is in the delineation of the man. " He was a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost"
90 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH
He did not leap into this perfect balance of character in a moment — springing at once full-armed, as Minerva is fabled to have sprung from the brain of Jupiter. There was no mystic charm by which the graces clustered round him ; he had no mystery of soul-growth — no patented elixir of immortal ripening which was denied to others less favoured. He had faith ; it was the gift of God to him, just as it is the gift of God to us. He had the indwelling of the Holy Ghost ; which has been purchased for us in like manner by the blood-shedding of our Surety. The only difference between ourselves and him is that he claimed the blessings with a holier boldness, and lived habitually* in the nearer communion with God. There is no bar to our own entrance into this fulness of privilege; the treasury is not exhausted; the Benefactor is not less willing to bestow. His ear listens to any prayer for the increase of faith. He waits to shed forth the richer baptisms of the Holy Ghost upon all those who ask Him for the boon.
3. It is not then in physical endowment that we are to find the source of this moral courage. Some of the men who could lead the van of armies in the field — who could fix the scaling- ladder against the parapet and be the first to scale the wall — who could climb the rugged slope that was swept by the bristling cannon — have displayed the most utter cowardice when a moral duty has been difficult, when some untoward disaster has surprised them, or when they have had to maintain the right against the laugh of the scorner. Sometimes, indeed, those who have been physically timid, and who have shuddered sensitively at the first imagined danger, have been uplifted into the bravery of confessorship when the agonizing trial came.