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Human history is a record of the thoughts and exploits of human spirits. Wherever we touch the history of spirit, we find it invested with the gravest responsibilities. Wherever we look, we behold memorials of spirit-power. I am anxious to impress you with the fact that you are spirits, and that your history here will determine all your conditions and relationships in the endless ages!

I. MAN'S SUPREME CONCERN SHOULD BE THE WELL-BEING OF HIS SPIRIT. Because your spirit —

1. Is immortal. Only eternity can satisfy it. It claims the theatre of infinitude! Yet many occupy more time in the adornment of the flesh, which is to turn to corruption, than in the culture of the spirit which no Lomb can confine! You pity the imbecility of the man who estimates the casket more highly than the gem, but your madness is infinitely more to be deplored if you bestow more care on the body than on the soul.

2. Can undergo no posthumous change, whereas the body may. There is no repentance in the grave. "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still," etc. Moral change after death is an eternal impossibility. Not so with the body; Christ will change our vile body, and make it like unto His own glorious body.

3. Has been Divinely purchased. "Ye are not redeemed with corruptible things," etc.

4. Is capable of endless progress. There is no point at which the spirit must pause and say, "It is enough!"

II. MAN IS APPROACHING A CRISIS IN WHICH HE WILL REALISE THE IMPORTANCE OF HIS SPIRIT. Stephen was in that crisis when uttering this entreaty. Amid the commotion of the world — the strife for bread and the battle for position — men are apt to overlook the moral claims of their nature. But remember that there hastens a time in which you must give audience to the imperious demands of your spiritual nature! I have visited the prodigal in the chamber of death; and he who was wont to scorn the appeals of Christianity — who had drunk at the broken cisterns of crime — even he has turned upon me his glazed eye, and stammered out with dying breath, "My soul!" I have stood at the bedside of the departing rich; and he whose aim it was to build around himself a golden wall — who considered no music so entrancing as that produced by the friction of coin — even he has turned his anxious gaze to me, and, with stifled utterance, has said, "My soul, my soul!" I have watched the votary of fashion — whose ambition it was to bedeck his mortal frame, whose god was elegance, and whose altar the mirror — and even he has wept and cried, "My naked soul, my naked soul!" I have stood in the chamber where the good man has met his fate: has he displayed anxiety or given way to despair? Nay, he exclaims, "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit!" Now, seeing that the approach of this momentous hour is an infallible certainty, two duties devolve upon us.

1. To employ the best means for meeting its requirements. What are those means? Those who know the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of this world, emphatically testify that they cannot meet the requirements of the spiritual constitution. Faith in Christ and obedience to His will constitute the true preparation for all the exigencies of life, and the true antidote for the bitterness of death!

2. To conduct the business of life with a view to its solemnities. "How will this affect my dying hour?" is an inquiry too seldom propounded, but, when conscientiously answered, must produce a powerfully restraining influence on man's thoughts and habitudes. Few men connect the present with the future, or reflect that out of the present the future gathers its materials and moulds its character.

III. MAN KNOWS OF ONE BEING ONLY TO WHOM HE CAN SAFELY ENTRUST HIS SPRIT — the "Lord Jesus." This prayer implies —

1. Christ's sovereignty of the spiritual empire. Whom does Stephen see? There are ten thousand times ten thousand glorified intelligences in the heaven to which he directs his eyes: but the triumphant martyr sees "no man but Jesus only." All souls are Christ's. All the spirits of the just made perfect are loyal to His crown.

2. Christ's profound interest in the well-being of faithful spirits. He said that He went to "prepare a place" for His people, and that where He was, there they should be also. Now one of His people proves this.

3. Christ's personal contact with departed Christian spirits. Stephen acknowledges no intermediate state; looking from earth, his eye beholds no object until it alights on the Son of Man. Stephen's creed was — "absent from the body, present with the Lord."

4. Christ's unchanging relationship to human spirits. Lord Jesus was the name by which Christ was known on earth. How He was designated in the distant ages of eternity none can tell! But when He uncrowned Himself He assumed the name of Jesus, for He came to save His people from their sins! And now that He has returned to His celestial glory He has not abandoned the name.

IV. MAN ALONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ETERNAL CONDITION OF HIS SOUL. You make your own heaven or hell, not by the final act of life, but by life itself. Your spirit is now undergoing education. Two results ought to be produced by your trials.

1. They should discipline your spirit; bring it into harmony with the Divine will, by curbing passion, checking error, rebuking pride.

2. They should develop the capabilities of your spirit. Trials may do this, by throwing you back on great principles. But for trial, we should never know our powers of endurance. Trial brings out the majesty of moral character.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

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KJV: And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

WEB: They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"