St. Luke, the disciple of St. Paul, says nothing further concerning his master in this business. But St. Paul came afterward, who, humbly giving a public testimony of his cruel error, denounced himself as the instigator of that iniquity. "When the blood of Stephen was shed," he said one day to the Jews, "I was the first, and over the others," Super ad stabam. [Footnote 121] It is the sense of the Greek text. Had [{542}] he for such a thing a mandate of the Sanhedrim, as we shall soon see him vested with full powers against the brethren of Damascus? Everything would make one believe so. The fathers and commentators say, it was for this reason that he kept the garments of those men of blood: and they, in fact, show us those murderers as going the one after the other, deferentially to lay their garments at the feet of Saul, as an homage, so to speak, paid to him, from whom they had the power and the command to strike.
[Footnote 121: Act. xxii. 20.]
Stephen saw him, and revenged himself in his way--the divine way. At the point of death, covered with blood, he lowered his eyes to the earth for the last time, and sadly resting them on his persecutors, perhaps he saw through their impious crowd one of them apart, more furious than the rest. He was moved to compassion for his soul; and then it was that "falling on his knees, he cried with a loud voice," not of anger, but of grace, and said: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." He rose no more, and so saying, Stephen "fell asleep in the Lord."
He could sleep in peace, indeed, for he had just made a magnificent conquest. "If Stephen had not prayed," St. Augustine says, "the church had not won St Paul; the martyr fell, the Apostle rose." [Footnote 122] These substitutions are the most mysterious secrets of Providence. By an admirable law of a bond in solido, of fraternity and of love, God has willed that we, like himself, can, at the price of a little blood, or even of some tears, pay the ransom of souls, and secure to them a future for which they are indebted to us. He has permitted that the life and the death of Christians, like those of their Master, should be a redemption, completing the great redemption of Calvary, according to the saying of St. Paul himself. Coloss. i. 24
[Footnote 122: St. Aug. Sermo 1. "De Sanctis.">[
It was meant that this should be the first apostleship of all, and the most fruitful. In the midst of scaffolds, ever full of victims, and the catacombs which incessantly recruited new children of God, Tertullian proclaimed that "the blood of the martyrs was a seed of Christians." He gave thus form to a beautiful law, which the blood of Stephen, after the blood of God himself, had before inaugurated. The soul of Saul, therefore, was that day a conquered soul. It is in vain that on the road to Damascus he struggles and "kicks against the goad:" he is under the yoke of God; he carries a mark of blood on him which points him out, and which saves him; and Jesus, whenever he will, has only to show himself to throw him down and make him obey. This is admirable. Moses had written in the book of Leviticus, "The priest shall command him that is to be purified to offer for himself two living sparrows which it is lawful to eat, . . . . and he shall command one of the sparrows to be immolated, . . . . but the other that is alive he shall dip . . . . in the blood of the sparrow that is immolated; . . . . and he shall let go the living sparrow, that it may fly into the field." (Levit xiv. 4-7.) It was according to this rite that the transaction was accomplished. Stephen had been the chosen victim; and when Saul had covered himself with his redeeming blood, that blood set him free: he had no more to do but to spread his wings, and to start on his flight.
From Chambers's Journal
THE CUCKOO AND THE NIGHTINGALE.
Our oldest poet, and almost our best, unites in one sweet song the cuckoo and the nightingale--the former to be chidden, and spoken of despitefully; the latter to be made the theme of fervent praise, as the singer and harbinger of love. Taken altogether, the cuckoo, in fact, is far from being an attractive bird. Somehow, it has in all countries been regarded as a symbol of matrimonial infidelity, probably because it introduces itself into and defiles the nests of other, birds. Shakespeare, who loved to make eternal the fancies and prejudices of mankind, exclaims: