too small to combine with any terrestrial element: they can only be imprisoned for a time, as between the close-set planes of crystals, where many of them become polarized, that is, are forced into a position where their vortex planes are parallel to each other.

I withhold reluctantly, for the present, any farther conjectures, and only request the aid of physicists in testing the new theories of gravitation and affinity.

To the earnest religious soul, who feels that all this dry series of mathematical and physical definitions contains for it no satisfying food, I would say: "Be patient. The higher truths have yet to be told." The being of God, that is our quest: all science, all thought, as well as all feeling and religion, are to be summoned to do their part of the work. Each great department of man's nature has to do its share. Each is grounded in God, and each has in God its ultimate fact. No theory of the Universe, which is mathematically false, can possibly be spiritually true. The true theory must be true all round.

I would also ask such souls to remember that all truth is at bottom religious truth, and that it is the divine mission of the religious sense to show to the world that it is so. I confess that I felt a certain exaltation, which I trust kindred minds will share, when I wrote the words, "Matter is a mode of motion of Spirit," not simply because the great problem of the unity of the universe stood solved to my thought, but also because for the first time the infinite love and condescension of God stood revealed to my soul.

Devout minds, who have believed that in Jesus they beheld, "as in a glass, the glory of God," have felt instinctively that the love of Jesus manifested to them the love of God. But how could the sacrifice of Jesus type the sacrifice of God? How can God sacrifice himself? How, for our sakes, can he become poor, that we may be rich? The answer is given in the Galaxy. In matter, God turns his glory into clay for our sakes. In matter, God takes upon himself the form of a servant. In matter, the Infinite

Spirit gives up a portion of his own infinite freedom, that we may be free, that we may have a kingdom of our own to rule. In matter, God by a veritable act of transubstantiation says to his children, "Take, eat: this is my body, which is given for you!" S. R. CALTHROP.

(To be continued.)

STEPHEN, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MARTYR.

Dr. Putnam, in his celebrated "If" sermon, so called, might well have used, among the other things referred to, the instance of the murder of Stephen, as illustrating his thought, that in this world all matters are very conditionally arranged. If Stephen had not been apprehended! If, apprehended, Stephen had not been put to death! We are all pretty well convinced that the examination of Stephen, the defence he made before the Sanhedrim, and the incidents of his being stoned, must have produced a profound impression upon the mind of that most zealous young man, Saul. The great African father, Augustine, hardly attributes too much effect to the death of Stephen, when he says, "Si Stephanus non orasset, ecclesia Paulum non haberet." And how apparently contingent, too, was the little matter that was the occasion of bringing Stephen forward in the Church! If there had been no quarrel or dispute between the Hellenistic and the Hebraistic members of the Church,- what then had happened? This petty controversy, in itself considered, was the means of leading Stephen into the front ranks of the Christian disciples; and that controversy may have had its rise in the fact the native Jews were jealous of the Jews of the dispersion.

Let us see how it was that Stephen came to be an officebearer in the Church.

The Hellenistic portion of the Church murmured against the Hebraistic portion of it, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution of the alms of the Church. The Hellenists brought the matter to the notice of the Apostles for adjudication. The Apostles, though deeply anxious, of course, for harmony, could not perceive that it was their duty to attend personally to this distribution, their time must be carefully spent in prayer and the ministry of the word. Look out, therefore, among yourselves, men who are fit for the office of distribution,- men in whom you can have confidence; and these we will appoint over the work. The whole Church was pleased with the suggestion made, and chose their men, seven in number,- those commonly named the first deacons of the Church.

It is an interesting question, Were there men who filled this office of caring for the poor before the appointment of "the seven"? It seems likely, at least. This distribution of the alms of the Church must have been going on some three or four years we are supposing that the martyrdom of Stephen took place somewhere in the year 37 A.D.— before the time we are now treating of. Had the Apostles been personally attending to the daily ministration of the charities, would there have been any suspicion of unfairness engendered in the minds of the Hellenists? The complaint being made to the Apostles, against the Hebrews, would fairly imply that some men previously to this time were holding this office. If held, it must have been held with the sanction, in some way expressed, of the Apostles; and matters had so far been going on wrongly, the trouble was so embarrassing, that once for all the whole business must be equitably adjusted. And did the Hebrew board of officers hold their place after "the seven" were appointed? Probably not. We never hear of them. And later, we find that Philip is spoken of by the writer of the Acts of the Apostles as being one of the seven,- as if there were no more than seven who held the office. But this is not certain. That the seven were all Hellenists cannot be determined by their names, which are certainly Greek, because Jews by birth

were accustomed to have, beside their Hebrew name, a Greek one. Hackett says, in his commentary, "When the Jews of this time associated with foreigners, they had often two names, sometimes distinct, as Onias and Menelaus, Hillel and Pollio, and sometimes similar in sound, as Tarphon and Trypho, Silas and Silvanus." And we cannot tell whether "the seven" were equally divided among the Hellenists and Hebrews. Gieseler supposes there may have been three of each, and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, who held, as it were, the balance of power.

By this method of trying to harmonize a small dispute in the sections of the Church, we are introduced to Stephen. A Church selfishly bickering brings him to the front. Fortunate thing, then; though I think that nothing would long have kept a man, such as we know by his subsequent conduct Stephen was, in the background. He was one who must have made his mark upon the Church, be the circumstances what they would. A man of positive convictions, decided in his views, his mind seems well made up that the two faiths, the Hebrew and the Christian, cannot dwell together in the same house in peace. A conflict, he saw, was inevitable between them. How far the Christians of either party were aware of the latent discord between Judaism and Christianity, we know not. There is nothing to show that the Twelve had yet attained to anything like the broad view of Christianity that had been granted to Stephen. The Twelve, feeling themselves bound to keep the requirements of the ritual law, seem to have been Jews still. There is nothing to show that the idea that Mosaism was to come to an end had ever, up to this time at least, dawned upon their minds. Peter by and by gets glimpses of the truth; he soon wavers, then his light is again withdrawn. And he was the most far-seeing of the Twelve. To one man, Stephen, the essential dissonance between Mosaism and Christianity was clear as the day. Stephen precipitated the conflict which in time must have arisen. He, at least, apprehended the radical difference between the two faiths, and by so doing he was plainly the forerunner of

Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. The general cast of Stephen's thought is the same as that of Paul. Paul seems to have reproduced the thought of Stephen. Paul believed in the superiority of Christianity as compared with Judaism; so did Stephen. Paul believed that Judaism must be superseded by Christianity; so did Stephen. The strong point in the Pauline teaching was, the inefficacy of rites to bring peace to the soul of man. It was Stephen's, also. In other words, Paul believed in faith as the cause or means of our justification before God; and so did Stephen. Paul, like Jesus his Lord, did not believe in the religion of place and time; and neither did Stephen. Paul and Stephen argued with the Jews by an appeal to their common history. Each made use, in a marked way, of the argumentum ad hominem; perhaps they could hardly do otherwise, considering that they would prove to the Jews the Messiahship of Jesus. If we compare Acts vii., 48, 49, 50, with Acts xvii., 24, 25, we shall be struck with their more than similarity in thought. Compare, also, Acts vii., 38, with Gal. iii., 19, and Heb. ii., 2, and see how these two great men worked the same vein of thought.

It is altogether likely that Paul did not, in the defence which Stephen made before the Sanhedrim, hear for the first time the arguments that Stephen employed to defend a spiritual interpretation of the work of Jesus. It is hardly probable that, hearing this argument- so suddenly broken in upon, as without doubt it was, when Stephen burst out with, "Stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears," and the rest of his indignant charges against his judges - made any very radical change in the mind of Paul, though it may have set him a-thinking. Indeed, none of Stephen's arguments seem to have done much for the conversion of Paul; because, immediately previous to his conversion, on his way to Damascus, Paul was apparently as fierce a defender of Judaism as ever. He was then breathing out threatenings against the Church. He goes up to Damascus full of zeal, and supported by the highest authorities of his nation, determined, if he found any of this way of thinking and