There is none other thing expressed, But long disquiet merged in rest.
\ " He fell asleep." Eepose, safety, restoration — these are the ideas of comfort which are held in the expression of the text. Take them, and rejoice in the majestic hopes which they inspire. Christ has died. He, dying, drew the sting from death ; and, properly speaking, there has been no death of a believer since that day. What says the Scripture ? " He that believeth on Jesus, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall never die." What fulness of consolation to those who are mourning for others — to those who are dying themselves ! With the banner of this hope in hand, the believer may return with a full heart from the grave of his best beloved, " giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light," and may march calmly down to the meeting of his own mortal foe.2
1 A. Maclaren, Last Sheaves, 248. 2 "W. M. Punshon.
ACTS & ROM. — 7
9B FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH
Sleep, little flower, whose petals fade and fall
Over the sunless ground; Ring no more peals of perfume on the air —
Sleep long and sound. Sleep — sleep.
Sleep, summer wind, whose breathing grows more faint
As night draws slowly nigh; Cease thy sweet chanting in the cloistral woods
And seem to die.
Sleep — sleep.
Sleep, thou great Ocean, whose wild waters sink
Under the setting sun ; Hush the loud music of thy warring waves
Till night is done.
Sleep — sleep.
Sleep, thou tired heart, whose mountain pulses droop
Within the valley cold: On pains and pleasures, fears and hopes of life,
Let go thine hold.
Sleep — sleep.
Sleep, for 'tis only sleep, and there shall be
New life for all, at day ; So sleep, sleep all, until the restful night
Has passed away.
Sleep — sleep.1
IV.
The Eesult of Stephen's Martyrdom.
Such was the first martyrdom. How soon did the martyr's blood become the seed of the Church ! He had met his death for declaring the universality of God's Kingdom, that Christianity was destined to spread the blessing of salvation far beyond the Jewish race, even over the whole world ; and his dying prayer was answered by the conversion of one, who, as the Apostle of the Gentiles, helped most to preach the Gospel to "every creature which is under heaven." St. Augustine said, " If Stephen had not prayed, Paul would never have been given to the Church " (Sermo ccclxxxii., Be sando Stephano). It is true the answer was delayed. There are some, however, who believe that the effect was immediate,
1 S. J. Stone, Lullaby of Life.
ACTS vn. 59, 60 99
and that the wild fury of the persecutor, which broke out with such violence, was only a desperate attempt to stifle the convictions which arose in his mind. Painters have caught up this idea and expressed it by the strongest contrast between Saul's face and the faces of the others who witnessed the end. It may have been so ; it may be that a foregleam of the coming dawn did touch him even then ; but whether it came at once or only in after days, no one will think of denying that there is an eternal link between the martyr's prayer and the Apostle's conversion.
^J Why was it that in the ten years after Livingstone's death, Africa made greater advancement than in the previous ten centuries ? All the world knows that it was through the vicarious suffering of one of Scotland's noblest heroes.
^j Why is Italy cleansed of the plagues that devastated her cities a hundred years ago ? Because John Howard sailed in an infected ship from Constantinople to Venice, that he might be put into a lazaretto and find out the clue to that awful mystery of the plague and stay its power. How has it come that the merchants of our western ports send ships laden with implements for the fields and conveniences for the house into the South Sea Islands? Because such men as Patteson, the pure-hearted gallant boy of Eton College, gave up every prospect in England to labour amid the Pacific savages and twice plunged into the waters of the coral reefs, amid sharks and devil-fish and stinging jellies, to escape the flight of poisoned arrows of which the slightest graze meant horrible death, and in that high service died by the clubs of the very savages whom he had often risked his life to save — the memory of whose life did so smite the consciences of his murderers that they laid " the young martyr in an open boat, to float away over the bright blue waves, with his hands crossed, as if in prayer, and a palm branch on his breast." And there, in the white light, he lies now, immortal for ever.1
A patient minister was he,
A simple saint of God, A soul that might no longer be Bound to this earthly clod; A spirit that sought for the purer breath Of the land of life, through the gates of death, —
The path all martyrs trod, That lies through the night of a speechless shame, And leads to the light of a deathless fame.