Henceforth Stephen's life was spent in trying to make known to others the joy that had overflowed his own soul. He did indeed 'put the things that he had learned in practice,' as he journeyed over both Europe and America, time after time, visiting high and low. His life is one long record of adventures, of perils surmounted, of hairbreadth escapes, of constant toil and of much plodding, humdrum service too. His message brought him into the strangest situations, as he gave it fearlessly. He sought an interview with the Pope at Rome in order to remonstrate with him about the state of the prisons in the Papal States. Stephen gave his message with perfect candour, and afterwards entered into conversation with the Pope. Finally, he says, 'As I felt the love of Christ flowing in my heart towards him, I particularly addressed him.... The Pope ... kept his head inclined and appeared tender, while I thus addressed him; then rising from his seat, in a kind and respectful manner, he expressed his desire that "the Lord would bless and protect me wherever I went," on which I left him.' Not satisfied with that, though it seems wonderful enough, Stephen another time induced the Czar of all the Russias, Alexander I., to attend Westminster Meeting. Both these stories are well worth telling. But there is one story about Stephen, better worth telling still, and that is how the Voice that guided him all over the world sent him one day 'preaching to nobody' in a lonely forest clearing in the far backwoods of America. FOOTNOTES: [41] 'From my earliest days,' he writes, 'there was that in me that would not allow me implicitly to believe the various doctrines I was taught.' XXXII. PREACHING TO NOBODY _'All the artillery in the world, were they all discharged together at one clap, could not more deaf the ears of our bodies than the clamourings of desires in the soul deaf its ears, so you see a man must go into silence or else he cannot hear God speak.'_--JOHN EVERARD. 1650. _'God forces none, for love cannot compel, and God's service is therefore a thing of complete freedom.... The thing which hinders and has always hindered is that our wills are different from God's will. God never seeks Himself, in His willing--we do. There is no other way to blessedness than to lose one's self will'_--HANS DENCK. 1526. _'The inward command is never wanting in the due season to any duty.'_--R. BARCLAY. 1678.