Stephen: A Soldier of the Cross

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Florence Morse Kingsley
STEPHEN
A SOLDIER OF THE CROSS
By FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY
Author of Titus
TORONTO: WILLIAM BRIGGS, WESLEY BUILDINGS. C. W. COATES, MONTREAL, QUE. S. F. HUESTIS, HALIFAX, N.S.
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, by WILLIAM BRIGGS, at the Department of Agriculture.
PREFACE.
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.