sented them; that an angel was not the Rock on which our hopes our founded, not the day's-man between poor guilty fallen man and his offended Maker. We have no sympathy with the angels, comparatively speaking. They did not take upon them our weak nature, burdened with sufferings and infirmities; their visage was not so marred more than any man, or their form more than the sons of men; they were not wounded for our transgressions, or bruised for our iniquities. The iniquity of us all, the chastisetisement of our peace was not laid upon them; by their stripes, their agony and bloody sweat, we were not healed. It was not one of them whom it pleased the Lord to bruise, to put to grief, to make his soul an offering for sin: not one of them who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; or made for us men, and for our salvation-for us who despised and rejected him, who hid, and, alas, alas! do still hide, as it were our faces from him—the bitter acquaintanceship with grief, death, and the grave. No, it was not an angel that did and suffered all this; with these bright beings sorrowing man knows no such sympathy. No human tears flowed down their cheeks at sight of helpless mortals in their hour of anguish and bereavement; no human head was ever pillowed on their breasts, in all the endearing confidence of friendship. Blessed be God, our Jesus, our Redeemer, took not on him the nature of angels, but was a partaker of flesh and blood, made in all things like unto us his brethren. Oh, truth fraught with strong and unutterable consolation! Jesus the Son of God, Jesus who ever liveth to make intercession for us, can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He was in all points tempted like as we are; the sorrows of childhood, the toils of riper years, hunger, thirst, weariness, poverty, anguish of mind and body, shame, the cross and the sepulchre-he has tasted all. This is why in all our affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved us. In his love and in his pity he redeemed us, and carried us all the days of old. No wonder we should shrink from aught that would substitute an angelic being in the place of such a Saviour as this; no wonder that we should turn to him who has deigned to call himself our Friend and our Brother, with an humble trustful confidence, such as none besides, in earth or heaven, can inspire. But we must beware of going into the contrary extreme, and disregarding altogether the agency of "ministering spirits." There are unseen wonders about our path and about our bed, invisible to our bodily eyes, which, if we could realize, would be of immense practical benefit. Idle speculations on the deep and mysterious things of God, are a mere waste of time and intellect; they draw off our attention from really useful objects, and, to use the quaint but forcible words of an old writer, keep us' puzzling our heads when we should be searching our hearts.' But meditation on the influence of angels, cannot be termed an idle speculation. Were we to accustom ourselves to realize their presence, to remember that we are surrounded by hosts of bright spotless beings; could our eyes be opened, as were the eyes of Balaam, and we saw "the angel of the Lord standing in the way," how careful would it make us in our daily walk through life,-how would it animate and enliven us in the praises and thanksgivings we offer at the throne of grace, to bear in mind that angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven, are joining with their harps and voices in that glad song! In the awful hour of death-that hour, the penalty of sin, which even the firm believer in Christ cannot contemplate without some natural dread, we are allowed to expect the ministering of angels. Scripture informs us that when the beggar died, his soul was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom, and daily experience confirms the truth of this their office to the departing spirit. 'I am convinced,' said Mr. H―t, a devoted minister of the gospel, in a conversation with some Christian friends, not many days since, I am convinced that the bed of every dying believer is surrounded by angelic beings, waiting to conduct the happy spirit to the presence of its God.' This is the precious testimony of one whose vocation and circumstances have brought him into daily and hourly contact with the bed of death. · Numerous instances rise into my mind, while I am writing to prove and confirm this delightful truth. One is of a child, the only hope of his parents, who it pleased the Lord should taste of death, while yet the cup of life was full to the brim, and sparkling. His mother sat beside him watching the last faint ebbings of expiring nature, when suddenly the dying boy gathered up his remaining energies, his eyes beamed with delight and animation, and he exclaimed, with a strong glad voice, 'Oh! who-who are those beautiful men and boys that are come to take me away?' There is nothing so cheering and valuable as such expressions from the dying lips of children. Persons of riper years may deceive themselves and others. Constitutional causes,-a nervous temperament, for instance, combined with an imaginative and enthusiastic disposition, may produce a false excitement at the hour of death. All that has been read and heard and witnessed of the experience of others in a similar situation, may, perhaps, recur then, and acting on the weakened frame and heated fancy of one ardently straining after the same rapturous emotions, may cause a degree of spurious exultation. But the unprejudiced, and, (humanly speaking) innocent mind of a child is free from all such previous and received impressions. Upon that 'virgin page' no by-gone memories are traced; no mingled feelings and associations rise to change its sweet simplicity, to force or to restrain its natural and genuine impulses. We feel that we can safely trust in the reality of those heavenly glimpses which it pleases their heavenly Father to grant his dying lambs, for their own support in that awful hour, and the unspeakable consolation of their sorrowing friends. A few short months ago, that consolation was mercifully vouchsafed to one near and dear to myself; one whose earthly path has been watered with her tears; who, when she has gained her everlasting home, will be of those "which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." The bitter tears of early widowhood were scarcely dry, when it seemed good to him who chastens those he loves, to deprive her in the same sad week of two lovely children. The last, his mother's darling, I had almost said her idol, but that her best affections were given long since to her divine Redeemer, was the living image of his father; that father, whose remains were mouldering in the grave when he was born into this weeping world to cheer his mother's widowed heart. Dear little H-! how have I seen his sweet eyes dance and sparkle, when they caught a glimpse of that slender, interesting form; how have I seen him weave around it his little arms, and hide his laughing cherub-face in those melancholy weeds! Many an ardent prayer rose from the mother's heart that swelled beneath them, that God would make her child his own. And so he did. The prayer was answered, and she blessed him for it, even in the pangs and agonies of her bereavement. Bright was the ray of comfort that flashed from the lips of that precious boy as he lay in his mother's arms, expiring. Mamma,' he said, turning his dying eyes upon her, 'Mamma, I am going to such a beautiful place!' Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness! that goodness which tempers with mercy his severest dispensations. How like was this to the “light” which closes that most touching and heartrending picture drawn by Pollok of her who walks among the tombs at noon of night, in miserable garb of widowhood.' 'A light from far illumes her face-a light Of resurrection at the promised morn, And meetings then which ne'er shall part again.' These are blessed anticipations,-it is sad to be obliged to leave them. It is sad to have to turn from the bright cherubim and seraphim to evil and ma |