vision seems to be purified and brightened, and to extend its glance into the world of spirits. While weeping friends stand round the bed of the departing saint, trembling, and sorrowing, that they shall see his face no more, his eyes glisten with unwonted fire: his words are as the words of one having authority: he loses sight of the world; and, pointing towards heaven, he proclaims his present enjoyment of the beatific vision, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.

Whoever has been present at such a scene, has witnessed the most sublime and touching exemplification of the power of Christian faith; and hard indeed must be the heart, which is not moved by such a spectacle to holy meditations and pious wishes: Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his !*

Incensed, not only at the unyielding fortitude of the pious deacon, but at his professing to see the despised and crucified Jesus at the right hand of God, his accusers ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. His last words bespoke

* Numb. xxiii. 10.

the true disciple of Jesus; Lord, lay not this sin to their charge: a fit prayer to be preferred to that Lord, who upon the cross had prayed for those that crucified him, Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.*-And when he had said this, he fell asleep. The moment of death may be one of agony; but its bitterness is soon over, and then all is quiet. To the faithful Christian, at least, death is followed by repose:the Apostle speaks of departed saints as of them that sleep in Jesus. And it is a sleep, not as the heathens described it, an endless, hopeless sleep; but a blessed repose, from which the soul shall hereafter be called forth to rejoin the glorified body, thenceforward to be numbered amongst the blessed spirits, who rest not day nor night, praising and glorifying God.

Let us now consider, what reflections may be made upon this history for our own instruction and improvement. Stephen was the first of that noble army of martyrs, who set the seal of their blood to their profession of faith in Christ crucified; who from time to time gave proof of the power of the Gospel, from the earliest ages of the Church, down to the era of a Cranmer, a Ridley, and a Latimer,

* Luke xxiii. 34.

whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the churches;* and their reward, to be numbered amongst those which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The instance, which we have now considered, is far from being the only one, in which the Lord, whom they professed, has imparted to the Christian sufferers a courage and resolution more than human, a serenity which no torments could discompose, nor death itself disturb.

To persecutions so severe as these, it is to be hoped we shall never be exposed. Yet who can say, what fiery trials still await the faithful servants of Jesus Christ? The prospects of his Church have never been quite unclouded and serene; nor are they now. A cruel bigotry is but too likely to mark the course of a wild fanaticism; an intolerant and persecuting spirit is the never-failing characteristic of the atheist and the leveller. The soldiers of Christ must rally round the standard of the cross; and if it should please the great Lord of the world that we should be trodden in the wine-press of his wrath, we must not give place to the enemies of the Gospel, no, not for an instant; + Rev. vii. 14.

* 2 Cor. viii. 18.

but cheerfully resign even life itself, rather than betray our religion; assured, that the same power which supported the first Christian martyr in his extremity, will not forsake us in the hour of trial.

But surely we may draw another inference from this passage of Scripture, more immediately applicable to ourselves. If for the love of Christ these holy men could cheerfully fulfil, to the very letter, that hard precept of their Master, and lose their lives for his name's sake,* ought we to sink under trials incomparably less severe ? and rather than relinquish a very few of the good things of the world, rather than sacrifice some of our bodily enjoyments, ought we to desert our duty to Christ, and forego, together with the precepts of the Gospel, its promises and hopes? Surely, at the great day of inquisition, when the careless Christian, who gave way unresistingly to the enemies of his salvation, and sacrificed conscience to enjoyment, shall be called upon to give account of his services, there will rise up, to testify against him, and to condemn his carelessness and apostasy, that resolute and holy band, who withstood the great accuser and all his arts, and overcame him

* Matt. x. 39.

by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and loved not their lives unto the death.* Let us continually pray for such a measure of light and grace, that whatever trials we may encounter in the course of our Christian warfare, we may be enabled with the eye of faith to look up steadfastly into heaven, and to see the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

Let me now draw your attention to a very remarkable feature in the history of the first martyrdom; I mean the exclamation which the pious sufferer uttered, when his spirit was about to take its departure from the body. The words of the historian in the fifty-ninth verse, are these; And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. The words upon God, are supplied by the translators, not being in the original; the exact rendering of which is as follows; And they stoned Stephen, invoking and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; that is, invoking Jesus, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Which way soever it be rendered, we have here a distinct and emphatic prayer to Jesus Christ, uttered under a lively

* Rev. xii. 10, 11.