ve 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.

_'I think I can reverently say
that I very much doubt whether,
since the Lord by His grace
brought me into the faith of His
dear Son, I have ever broken bread
or drunk wine, even in the