There were some of “those of the way” in the Synagogue where Saul was to be Rabbi. They were always ready to talk about their wonderful Teacher, who had been crucified and they were eager to prove that He was the real Messiah that had been so long expected. Saul thought he could very soon teach them sense and show them how foolish they were. He would quickly prove to them that Jesus could not be the Messiah, for the Messiah would surely never be crucified! He would come in splendour and glory, and if the Romans tried to crucify Him He would call down from heaven an army of angels and destroy all His enemies in a moment! And He would break the Roman Empire all to pieces, as one breaks an old jar of pottery. It would be only a few days, Saul felt sure, when he would be able to stop all this talk about a crucified Messiah. He would argue them down and make them ashamed to say such things any more. But Saul did not know how hard his task really was. He was to discover that some things in this world cannot be hushed up, or argued down! VIII THE MAN WITH A SHINING FACE There was one man in this Synagogue of the Hellenists more remarkable than any of the other people who belonged to it. His name was Stephen. I do not know what city he came from. But he was one of the “out-dwellers,” and he had become a follower of Jesus, “one of the way”—“a Nazarene.” He was different from any of the other followers of Jesus. He saw farther than the rest did. He seems to have been the first of “those of the way” to realise that Jesus did not come to be the Messiah of the Jews alone and to purify their customs. Stephen thought He came to bring life and light and joy to _all_ the world. The other followers of Jesus in this early period were loyal, devoted Jews. They went every day to the temple and they kept the law as the other Jews did. They supposed that Jesus was to be the king in Jerusalem and that only Jews were to be His people. Those who were not Jews could have no share in the good news which He proclaimed. Stephen was so pure and good and wise that he got a new idea of what the coming of Jesus meant. The truth was far bigger than the others dreamed, and he began to see it, and to tell about it. If God is Father, as Jesus kept saying He was, then He must love all men as well as Jews, and if God is Life and Spirit, then He can come into men’s lives everywhere without any temple and without priests and sacrifices. Stephen began to wonder, as he thought about all that Jesus had said and taught and done, whether His message was not far greater and more wonderful even than the law of Moses, whether some day it would not take the place of the old system of laws and customs and sacrifices and whether even the temple itself might no longer be needed to worship God in, for men might worship Him anywhere where they happened to be.