As he stood in the midst of the council-hall, the members of the Council looked steadfastly upon him and observed his face _as it had been the face of an angel_ (Acts vi. 15) lighted up with supernatural radiance and serenity. At length, as in the case of the trial of his Lord[723], the high-priest enquired what he had to say respecting the accusations brought against him, and Stephen commenced his reply, “the framework of which was cast in a summary of the history of the Jewish Church[724],” and treated of all the great epochs of the national existence,――from Abraham to Joseph,――from Joseph to Moses,――from Moses to David and Solomon[725]. Keeping in mind the charges, of which he was accused, he shewed that the Divine blessing had not been confined to the Jews solely as inhabitants of the sacred land of Palestine, or as partakers in the Temple-worship. The original cradle of their faith was not Palestine but Mesopotamia, and not only had the patriarch Abraham been called from the far distant _land of the Chaldæans_ (Acts vii. 2–5), but whole centuries of the nation’s existence had been spent in _a strange country_. In Egypt the Divine blessing had not failed to rest upon the piety of Joseph (Acts vii. 6–10), or upon the descendants of Jacob, when they all went down and sojourned there (Acts vii. 11–16). In Egypt God raised up Moses their great Deliverer, preserved his life from the machinations of Pharaoh, and so ordered events that he became _learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and mighty in words and in deeds_[726] (Acts vii. 17–22). In Midian He revealed Himself to him in the vision of the Burning Bush, and sent him forth to lead the ransomed people towards the Promised Land; but though by his hands their fathers had received the Law, it had not kept them from idolatry[727]; though he had set up the tabernacle of witness, it had not kept them from setting up _the tent of Moloch, and the star of their god Remphan_[728] (Acts vii. 22–44): nay, when, on the subjugation of the Canaanitish nations, that Tabernacle had been brought into Canaan, and was there after a long delay exchanged for the Temple, on which the Jews threw the whole stress of their ♦dependence, neither Solomon himself who built it, nor the prophets[729] had ever regarded it as in the highest sense the dwelling-place of the Most High (Acts vii. 44–50).