The Angels Song | Page 6

despise them, "this
honour have all his saints." However lowly their earthly state, the saints
are a kingly race; and as our highest nobles deem it an honour to wait
on the princes of the blood, accepting and soliciting offices at court, the
angels are happy to serve such as, through their union with His

incarnate Son, stand nearer the throne of God than themselves. Unseen
by him, these celestials guard the good man's bed; watch his progress;
wait on his person; guide his steps; and ward off many a blow the devil
aims at his head and heart. They are the nurses of Christ's babes; the
tutors and teachers of His children. A belief in guardian saints is a silly
Popish superstition; but we have good authority in Scripture for
believing that in this our state of pupilage and probation, along all the
way to Sion, in the conflicts with temptation, and amid the thick of
battle, God commits His saints to angels' care; and that, as it is in their
loving arms that the soul of an aged saint is borne away to glory, every
child of God has its own celestial guardian, and sleeps in its little cradle
beneath the feathers of an angel's wing. What said our Lord? On setting
a child before the people as a pattern for them to copy, "Take heed," He
said, "that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you,
That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father
which is in heaven."
But whether we are, or are not, the happier for angels, there is no
question that they are the happier for us. They always loved God; but
since man's redemption they love Him more, and employ higher strains
and loftier raptures to praise His wisdom, power, holiness, justice, and
love. It has disclosed to them new views of God, and opened up in
heaven new springs of pleasure. Heaven has grown more heavenly, and
though they might have deemed it impossible to add one drop to their
happiness, they are holier and happier angels. There is joy among the
angels of heaven over every sinner that repenteth; and to the joyful cry,
My son that was dead is alive again, they respond, as they receive the
returned penitent from the Father's arms into their own, My brother that
was dead is alive again, that was lost is found! Never from surf-beaten
shore or rocky headland do spectators watch with such anxious interest
the life-boat, as, now seen and now lost, now breasting the waves and
now hurled back on the foaming crest of a giant billow, she makes for
the wreck, as they watch those who, with the Bible in their hearts and
hands, go forth to save the lost. And when the poor perishing sinner
throws himself into Jesus' arms, what gratulations among these happy
spirits! "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more
than over ninety and nine just persons." The event is one which I can

fancy was in the prophet's eye, when, fired with rapture, he cried, "Sing,
O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the
earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree
therein: for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in
Israel!" And the heavens do sing. While the saints, descending from
their thrones, cast their sparkling crowns at Jesus' feet, and ten times
ten thousand harps sound, and ten times ten thousand angels sing,
"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and
wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing."

III.
REDEMPTION GLORIFIES GOD THROUGHOUT ALL THE
UNIVERSE.
With a small band of fishermen at His side, and no place on earth
where to lay His head, Jesus pointed to the sun, riding high in heaven
or rising over the hill-tops to bathe the scene in golden splendour, and
said, "I am the Light of the world." A bold saying; yet the day is
coming, however distant it appears, when the tidings of salvation
carried to the ends of the earth, and Jesus worshipped of all nations,
shall justify the speech; and the wishes shall be gratified, and the
prayers answered, and the prophecies fulfilled, so beautifully expressed
in these lines of Heber:
"Waft, waft, ye winds, His story, And you, ye waters, roll, Till, like a
sea of glory, It spreads from pole to pole."
But shall our world be the limits of the wondrous tale? Though ever
and deeply interesting as the scene of redemption, just as to patriots is
the barest moor where a people fought and conquered for their freedom,
our earth holds in other respects but