there are those who have asked me to write this book. there may be others who shall question me because i have written it. "assuredly," these will cry out, "it is justly forbidden to ascribe words and deeds of one's own devising to them which have been set forever apart in the pages of the book of books. the pen of inspiration has written of stephen all that god wills us to know of him, therefore let us be content."
it is true that the story of stephen is little known; scarcely for a single day does the light shine clearly upon him, and that day the last of his mortal life. a tale is told of ancient alchemists, how that they possessed the power of resurrecting from the ashes of a perished flower a dim ghost of the flower itself. in like manner, may not one gather the fragrant dust of this vanished life from out the writings and legends of past ages, and from it build anew some faint image of its forgotten beauty?
surely in these days, when the imagination hurries to and fro on the earth, delving amid all that is low and evil and noisome for some new panacea wherewith to deaden, if only for a moment, the feverish pain in the hearts of men, it were a good thing to lift up the eyes of the soul to the contemplation of those days when the memory of the living jesus was yet fresh in the hearts of his followers; when his voice still echoed in their ears; when the glory of the cloud which had received him out of their sight lingered with transfiguring splendor on all the commonplace happenings of their daily lives; when the words, "lo, i am with you alway, even unto the end," meant a living presence all comforting, all powerful.
we are wont to look longingly back through the dark mists of the ages and sigh, "oh, that i had known him as they knew him! but in these hard, grey days there is no glory that shines, no voice that speaks, no ecstatic vision of the son of man standing at the right hand of power."
yet had we lived in those days the life which many of us live to-day, going to church and to prayer because such attendance is a christian duty; giving of our abundance to the poor because our neighbors will marvel if we withhold; and for the rest, living as those before the flood, and since also--eating and drinking, and making such poor merriment as we are able in a life which was given us for another purpose--had we lived thus in those far-off days, would the pentecostal flames have descended upon us? could the crucified one have said unto us, "lo, i am with you alway, even unto the end?" would we not rather have cried out in terror and fled away from the light of those sad eyes into darkness, even as did peter after that he had denied with curses.
there is an apostolic church in the world to-day. to-day christ is on earth and walks with men. to-day the spirit works mightily as of old; the blind see, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up. but it is not alone in splendid temple, nor amid the solemn pomp of churchly magnificence that these things are being accomplished, but in the humble upper rooms where the good soldiers of the salvation army, and the workers in rescue missions, labor unceasingly for them that are lost.
in these places, and in the silence of repentant hearts also, one may yet touch the borders of that seamless robe; and lo, every one that touches is made whole.
