Stephen: A Soldier of the Cross

by Florence Morse Kingsley

"But who?"

"I have my suspicions, and have warned him. His answer was this, 'He is with me alway even unto the end; until my appointed time there is nothing that shall be able to hurt me; neither shall I fear what man can do to me.'"

"Wonderful! I have confessed that Jesus is the Christ, but I fear me my faith in him is but a poor thing compared with that of Stephen; had the like happened to me I should have fled the city."

"'Twas what I urged upon him. Go away from Jerusalem, I said. There be Jews in every city of Greece who would gladly hear thee of the Christ; in the land of thy fathers shalt thou dwell in safety. But he shook his head. 'The day is not far distant,' he made answer, 'when not alone to the Jews shall this salvation be preached, but unto every people and kindred and tongue beneath the heavens; for Christ came to save the world, and therefore shall the world be saved; but it is not I who am called to this work; my place is here.'"

While the two Greeks thus spoke one to another of Stephen, the young man himself was passing rapidly through the streets towards his home, his thoughts busied chiefly with what Andronicus had told him concerning the daily ministrations. "The matter must be looked to," he said to himself. "The twelve are not sufficient for the work, God be praised. So mightily hath the spirit worked with and for us, that the day is not far distant when the cross shall cease to be a symbol of shame and hissing among men and shall everywhere be hailed the sacred token of deliverance."

Communing thus within himself he lifted up his eyes and beheld the square which lay before the palace of Pilate. "It was here," he murmured, "that they brought him on the day of his death. It was here that the people cried out 'Crucify him--Crucify him!' Ah, that awful day--nay rather that day of days, decreed from the foundations of the world!" Then he passed on into the square, being minded to look for a moment on the very place where he knew the Man of Sorrows had stood so patiently on that last day of his earthly life. As he approached the mosaic of many-colored marbles which marked the place of the judgment seat, a Roman chariot containing two men and drawn by a pair of powerful black horses dashed into the square.

"Dost see that fellow yonder, Herod?" exclaimed the man who stood behind the driver. "I mean the one with the white robe. 'Tis that beggarly Greek, Stephen, who hath been setting the city on an uproar of late with his driveling cant. I hate the whole blasphemous brood, but he is most contemptible of all."

"I will engage to run him down, if thou sayest it," said the man who held the reins, and across whose white tunic streamed a scarf of the imperial purple.

"Be it so!" answered his companion with a malignant scowl. "'Twill be a happy accident that rids the world of such an one."

"An accident of course," said the other with a brutal laugh. "Who would dare question it?" And he brought the long lash with a whistling curl about the glossy flanks of the horses; they leapt forward as one. Something else also leapt forward. There was a cry, and the sound of the iron hoofs was horribly dulled for an instant, then the chariot thundered on, and swept into the avenue beyond the palace.