"Concerning him which hath been hanged, it is written in the law thus," said Stephen, who a little apart from the others had been poring in silence over a number of parchments. "'If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him upon a tree. His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt surely bury him that day; for he that is hanged is accursed of God. That thy land be not defiled which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.'
"But and if a sinless and holy man be put to death by false accusation, how is it that he is accursed? Herein is a great mystery, which as yet we see only in part, nor indeed can it be apprehended of mortals, that God gave his only begotten Son, not only that he should live amongst us a holy and sinless life, but that he should yield up that life in all meekness at the hands of his enemies. This also being the will of the Father concerning him; as he himself said, and as the voice of many prophets declare--who being dead yet speak to us in the words of the scripture. Are we not every one accursed, for we have sinned in the sight of God; and he, the sinless one, hath through the infinite compassion of the Father become accursed in our place. Even as it is written by the hand of the prophet Isaiah, 'He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed.'
"And behold these sayings--'I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and from spitting'--'The assembly of the wicked have closed in upon me, they pierced my hands and my feet'--'They parted my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture'--'They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink'--'I became a reproach unto them, when they looked upon me they wagged their heads.' And this, 'his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men'--'He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him'--'He was taken from prison and from judgment and who shall declare his generation, for he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken'--'And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death.'
"All these sayings I found concerning him," continued the young man gravely, "written many generations before his birth; they might have been writ yesterday by one who witnessed his death. Also by the hand of the prophet Daniel is this: 'And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself, and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be as a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.'"
"The end is yet to come," said Ben Hesed, involuntarily clenching his strong hands and looking toward the walls of the mighty temple, which shone white and mystical in the soft light of the rising moon.
"He himself foretold all that hath happened," said John sorrowfully, "and what is yet to come; how that he should be delivered up to the Romans, and should be mocked and spitefully entreated, spitted upon, scourged and crucified. It lay heavily upon him so that even he, who walked ever in the light of God, was exceeding sorrowful; and when he looked to us for sympathy that last awful night, we--slept. God forgive us!"
"He hath forgiven us all things," said Peter. "He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. For the love of him, shall we not gladly suffer what shall yet befall us? for he told us plainly that the world would hate us, even as it hated him; that we also should be persecuted, scourged, and put to death. Yet how soon will all be past, and then we shall go to him."
In the silence which followed these words a loud knocking was heard at the outer gate of the courtyard. Stephen arose quietly from his place and descended the stair. When he had opened the door, he saw standing in the street a man. He was meanly clad, as Stephen could see by the dim light; therefore his voice was more gentle than usual as he said:--
"What wilt thou, friend?"
"Is there here a young man called Stephen?"