"But, brethren, he mistakes who deems that God
Is to one place, one race, one time, one clime,
One mode of showing forth Himself, shut up.
Consider through what phases manifold
Has passed already heretofore God's way
With men; thence learn how lightly reckons God
Of place or method.
"Unto Abraham first
Before he came to Charan, while he yet
Dwelt in the land between the rivers, God
Appeared. Nor in a place thus holy made,
And glorious, by theophany, was he,
Our father, suffered to abide. 'Arise,'
Jehovah said, 'and get thee hence and come
Into the land which I will show thee.' Then
To Charan that obedient pilgrim passed.
Nor there found he a settled rest. Again
He journeyed and in Canaan, this fair land
Wherein ye dwell, a sojourner became;
For here God gave him no inheritance,
Promising only that in after times
That childless father's children here should dwell.
"Meanwhile another change, and now what seems
A long postponement of the purposed grace.
Four hundred years should Abraham's seed sojourn
As strangers in an alien land where they
Should suffer bondage and an evil lot:
Delivered thence with judgment on their foes,
They then should hither come and here serve God.
"Yet when the ripeness of the time was full,
And Moses offered to deliver them,
Our fathers doubted and refused his hand:
But Moses notwithstanding led them out.
And that same Moses prophesied of One
To follow him as Prophet Whom must all
Obey. Yet Moses, mouth of God to men,
Obeyed our fathers not, but, in their hearts
Gone back to Egypt, spurned him far aloof
From them. Then followed that apostasy
To idols, by Jehovah God chastised,
On those offending, with captivity
Which beyond Babylon carried them away.
"Albeit Jehovah gave to Moses such
Honor as never yet to man was given,
Still much that Moses wrought was cast aside.
That tabernacle, made by him express
As God Himself had shown him in the mount,
And so inwove with Hebrew history,
God suffered this to pass, and in its place
Preferred the temple built by Solomon.
"Yet not in houses built with human hands
Dwells the Most High; as, by His prophet, God
Says, 'On the heaven sit I as on a throne,
And the earth make a footstool for My feet.'
'What house will ye build Me,' the Lord inquires,
'Or what shall be the place of Mine abode?'"
So far a loth penurious decent heed
The council had grudged out to Stephen; here
The scowl of curious incredulity,
Wherewith they listened while as yet in doubt
Whither might tend his drift of argument,
Changed to a frown of deadly hate, as they
Conclusion from his use of Scripture drew
That Stephen glanced at overthrow indeed
Meant for the temple. Instantly, alert
To seize occasion, Shimei the sig
Gave to prepared conspirators, who now
Obediently framed a menace grim
Of gesture to denounce the speaker's aim;
And all the council, as one man, astir
With insurrection, frowned a vehement
Refusal to receive the word of God.
Stephen beheld their aspect, and his soul,
Dilating to a seraph's measure, filled
With sudden prophet's zeal aflame for God.
He forged his indignation into words
Which, like bolts kindling, now he launched at them.
He said:
"Stiff-necked ye, and uncircumcised
In heart and ears! Always do ye resist
The Holy Ghost; as did your fathers, so
Do ye. Which of the prophets did they not,
Your fathers, persecute? Who showed before
The coming of the Just One, those they slew;
And of Him now have ye betrayers been
And murderers. Ye who the law, received
At angels' disposition, have not kept!"
Cut to the heart at this, those councillors
Gnashed with their teeth on Stephen.
But that sight
Stephen, his eyes rapt elsewhere, did not see.
Full of the Holy Ghost, his face he raised,
Gazing with sense undazzled into heaven,
And saw the glory of God, and Jesus there,
Not sitting, as at ease, but, as in act
To help, standing, on the right hand of God.
He testified that vision thus to men:
"Opened see I the heavens and standing there
The Son of Man on the right hand of God."
Thereat a loud acclaim of hatred forth
Burst in one voice from all the Sanhedrim.
Full come was Shimei's opportunity.
As started Mattathias to his feet
In honest wrath instinctive, Shimei too
Rose, counterfeiting wrath, sign understood
By his complotters, who now likewise rose
In simultaneous second and support,
Setting the council in a wild turmoil.
They stopped their ears, and all together ran
On Stephen with tumultuary rage
To thrust him forth without the city walls.
The rush of such commotion through the streets,
A torrent madness raging on its way,
Raging and roaring, every moment more,
Roused a wide wind of rumor and surmise
Troubling the air of all Jerusalem.
Tremor of this reached Rachel's jealous sense,
On edge—she knowing that the Sanhedrim
Would that day summon Stephen to its bar—
To fear the worst for Stephen and for Saul.
But Ruth, her home more distant, she at home
Urged by importunate cares which for her wrought
Some present respite from the strain and pain
Of that farewell with Stephen—vexing thought!
Too certain to return insistently,
In waking and in sleeping vision, soon,
At night upon her bed, unbidden guest,
And haunt her bosom with sad memories,
And vague, unhappy, beckoning shapes of fears!—
Ruth, so precluded, nothing knew of all.