The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1882-05-04
STEPHEN STONED.
Five Pictures Drawn From the
Incident.
Beautiful Lessons Taught by the Cruel
Death and Martyrdom of
the Saint.
[BY t. DEWITT TALMAGE.l

BY L. DEWITT TALMAGE.
TExT:-"B Behold 1 see the heavens
opened, and the Son of Man standing on
the right hand of God. Then they cried
out with loud voice, and stopped their
ears, and ran upon him with one accord,
and cast him out of the city, and stoned
him; and the witnesses laid down their
name was Saul And they stoned
Stephen, calling upon God, and saying:
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he
kneeled down, and cried with loud
voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge. And when he had said this, he
fell asleep."-Acts vii. $50.
Stephen had been preaching a rOusing
sermon, and the people could not stand
it. They resolved to do as men some
times would like to do in this day, if
they dared, with some plain preacher of
ighteOusness-kil him. The only way
to silence 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 below 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 had fallen they came and
looked down, and, seeing that he was
not yet dead, they began to drop stones
upon him, stone after stone, stone after
stone. Amid this horrible rain of mis-
sles Stephen chambers upon his knees
and folds his hands, while the blood
drips from his temples to his cheeks,
from his cheeks to his garments, from
his garments to the ground; and then,
looking up, he makes two pTayeTs,-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 assail-
ants. Then, from pain and loss of blood,
he swOOned away and fell asleep.
want to show you to-day five pic
lures. Stephen gazing into heaven.
Stephen looking at Christ. Stephen
stoned. Stephen in his dying prayer.
Stephen asleep.
First, look at Stephen gazing into
heaven. Before you take leap you
want to know where you are going to
land. Before you climb a ladder you
want to know to what point the ladder
reaches. And it was right that Stephen
within few moments of heaven, should
be gazing into it. 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 statu-
ary in the hall, and paintings in the
sitting room, and works of art in all
picture in the art gallery, and there,
hour after hour, you walk with cata-
lOgue and glass and ever increasing ad-
miTatiOn. Well, heaven is the gallery
where God has gathered the chief treas
ures of His realm. The whole universe
is His palace. In this lower room where
we stop there are many adOrnments:
tessellated floor of amethyst and cOwslip,
| and on the winding clOudstaiTs are
OF n nnt VI
mingle azure, and purple, and saffron
and gold. But heaven is the gallery in
which the chief glOTies are gathered.
| There are the brightest robes. There
are the richest crowns. There are the
| highest eXhilaTatiOns. John says of it:
'The kings of the earth shall bring their
| honor ann glory into it," And | see the
procession forming, and in the line come
| all empires, and the stars spring up into
an arch for the hosts to march under.
| They keep step to the sound of earth
quake and the pitch of avalanche from
the mountains, and the flag they bear
is the flame of a consuming world, and
all heaven turns out with harps and
tTumpets and myTiad-YOiced acclama-
tiOn of angelic dominion to welcome
them in, and so the kings of the earth
bring their honor and their glory into
it. Do you wonder that good people
heavenP We have a great many friends
there. There is not man in this house
to-day so isolated in life but there is
some one in heaven with whom he once
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
Ar,v hnv, ,f CT Il.
go across the sea, we stand on the dock,
or on the steam tug, and watch them,
and after awhile the hulk of the vessel
disappears, andlthen 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 NarTows, and gazing and
gazing as though we expected that they
| would come out and stand on some even
ing cloud, and give US one glimpse of
| their blissful and transtigured faces.
While you long to join their companion
ship, and the years and the days go with
such tedium that they break your heart,
and the viper of pain, and sorrow, and
bereavement keeps gnawing at your
vitals, you still stand, like Stephen,
gazing into heaven. You wonder if
bu6y udb6 CuhuS6u SluC6 JOu saw Lueul
last. You wonder if they would recOg-
nize your face now, so changed has it be-
come with trouble. You wonder if, amid
the myriad delights they have, they care
as much for you as they used to when
they gave you helping hand and put
their shoulder under burdens. You
wonder if they look any older; and some
times, in the evening tide, when the
house is all quiet, you wonder if you
should call them by their first name il
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 wait, and sit gazing into
heaven.
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 can
not say. A writer in the time of Christ
says, describing the SaviOr's personal
appearance, that He had blue eyes and
light complexion, and a very graceful
structure; but l suppose it was all guess
Tho noinforu nf Hiffnranf