tion, and in the hour of His mortal agony consoling and sustaining Him; as anxious and exulting witnesses of the progress of His Kingdom upon earth; as calling the Gentile Cornelius to be the first fruits of Christian adoption; as smiting with an invisible sword the arrogant and persecuting Herod, and breaking down before the apostle Peter the chains and gates of his captivity.

Nor is it only in these more conspicuous and supernatural dispensations of the Almighty that we may trace the agency of His messengers. It is indeed, as I apprehend, an unauthorised opinion which assigns to the nations of the world each one its tutelary governor; or which allots a separate genius to each believer with the name and commission of a guardian. But of some one or more celestial spirits (if our hearts be right with God) we are assured that we shall obtain the protection. And do not those hearts burn within us when we read of these mighty beings mingling in the converse, assuming the forms, and partaking of the hospitality of mortals; when we learn that not a sinner repents on earth but the angels rejoice in Heaven; that the celestial warriors encamp not only round the houses of the prophets, but around the person and property of every servant of the Almighty; that even the weakest and humblest believer is an object of interest to those who are themselves privileged to behold the face of the Heavenly Father; and that the death-bed struggle ended (and who knows how greatly their unseen

presence may support us under it?) it is they who carry the soul of the humblest saint to Paradise?

All these things are written for our instruction! It is to little purpose that we occupy our minds, or amuse our fancies by speculations on the number and dignity of these invisible warriors, if it is not at the same time impressed upon our hearts and our conduct, that the eyes of such as these pursue us into our most secret retirements; that they who rejoice in our repentance must also blush with indignation at our sins; and that if we desire their vicinity and protection, it behoves us that our daily practices be such as an angel may not feel pain in witnessing.

Μεταβαίνωμεν ἐντεῦθεν, let us depart hence, said the invisible guardian of the Jewish Temple, when the provocations of that infatuated race were about to receive their punishment;* but woe, eternal woe to that nation or individual from whom the angels of God turn away as from a polluted thing, the habitation, thenceforth, of dragons, and the cage of every unclean and every hateful power!

Nor, secondly, when we contemplate the unwearied activity in the service of God, the matchless condescension to the necessities of their younger brethren by which these high and holy spirits are distinguished among the creatures of God: when we behold the rulers of the elements keeping guard in a sick man's chamber, the inhabitants of God's

* Josephus Bell. Judaic. IV. 5.

presence protecting the slumbers of a child, the gods themselves (for such, as we have seen, the inspired writers are not afraid to call them) conducting the soul of a beggar to the bosom of peace and happiness,* how deeply must we be affected with the necessity of those devotions which even angels are required to pay, with the dignity of those works of love and mercy in which the angels find their chief employment? Yea, more, it is an examination on which it behoves us seriously to enter, though it is an examination in which the best and boldest of us all can hardly proceed without alarm, how far the present tenour of our actions and our thoughts as men, are suitable to that hope which we entertain, through Christ, of being received among the angels hereafter? And, when we reflect how little the uncleanness and excess, the pride and avarice, the indolence and self-indulgence of mankind can accord with the circumstances and employments of the spiritual servants of the Almighty, we may be induced to shun more cautiously the sins by which we are led astray, to perceive more clearly the dangers of our natural condition, and more earnestly to seek His help, in whose name alone the angels are become our friends, and of whose grace only it cometh that His will is done either in earth or in Heaven.

And, lastly, since, in the creation of God, the number of his faithful servants is thus great and

* Luke xvi. 22.

infinite, how wretched, even on their own principles of action, does the folly of those men appear, who, against their better knowledge, against their habitual feeling, and in defiance of their secret and reasonable fears, surrender the hopes of virtue and piety, without attaining the brief happiness of vice, and follow what they esteem "the multitude to do evil!" I will not ask them to weigh the real importance, I will not entreat them to count the real numbers of those whose idle mockery they so greatly dread, whose applause they prefer to their own peace of mind,and the approbation, through life, of the truly wise and estimable. But, even if the preponderance of the public feeling were not, as it is on the whole, in league with consistent virtue; if the case were actually what they now persuade themselves, and they, and a few like them, were alone in an apostate world, we have no reason to apprehend that this world itself is among the most populous parts of God's creation, and if the virtuous man were really opposed in his practice and principles to all his fellow mortals, there would still be more with him than with them. They are not the minority who devote themselves to the service, and submit themselves to the reproach of their Redeemer. His flock may seem in the world which now is, "a little one," but "other sheep there are which are not of this fold;"* and when the seats are full in the marriage supper of the Lord, and when

*St. John x. 16.

the new Heaven and new earth in which dwelleth righteousness, have received, in the day of His power, their holy and happy multitude, we shall understand how few in comparison have been the clamorous adversaries which, in this life, disturbed our repose; how blind the cowardice which, with the angels on our side, would have turned back in the day of battle!