With fixéd look impassible, he gazed At Stephen, while, in altered phase, that pure Effulgence of apostleship burned on: "Nor, brethren, let this word of mine become Scandal before your feet to stumble you Headlong to ruin--'gave Himself for me To bitter death'--implying it the Christ's To suffer death in sacrifice for sin. This is that thing of wonder prophesied, Confounding to the wisdom of the wise; A suffering Saviour, a Messiah shamed, Monarch arrayed in purple robes of scorn, With diadem of thorns pressed on His brow, And in His hand for sceptre thrust a reed-- The Lord of life and glory crucified! "Dim saw perhaps our father Abraham this, Through symbol and through prophecy contained In smoking furnace and in blazing torch Beheld, that evening, when the sun went down And it was dark. The smoking furnace meant The mystery of the Messiah's shame To go before His glory typified In the clear shining of the torch ablaze. "Of the same mystery of agony In sorrow, shame, and death, forerunning dark The bright and brightening sequel without end Of the Messiah's work, Isaiah spake, When he foresaw His coming day from far. The eagle vision of that seer was dimmed With tears, like Jeremiah's, to behold What he beheld--Messiah's visage so Marred more than any man's, and so His form More than befell the sons of men. He read, Within the mirror of his prophecy, Astonishment depicted in the eyes Of many--in the eyes of which of you, My brethren?--at a spectacle so strange. The melancholy prophet saw a gloom Of unbelief darken the world. 'What soul,' Wails he, 'is found to credit our report? To whom has been revealed Jehovah's arm In such a wise outstretched to save?' Heart-sick At what, too clearly for his peace, he sees, Isaiah, turning from his vision, cries In pain--consider, brethren, whether ye Unwittingly fulfil what he portrays!-- 'He was despised, rejected was of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted well With grief; as one from whom men hide their face, Despised was He, and we esteemed Him not.' "Now our own gospel hear Isaiah preach, The good news that such sufferings borne by Him, Messiah, were for you, for us, for all: 'Surely our griefs they were Messiah bore, He carried sorrows that were due to us. Yet we, alas, of Him as stricken thought, Smitten of God, and for affliction marked!'