The Angels Song | Page 9

attended their advent, and how impatiently would
they have waited the course of events! And had peace been the result of
the conference, how would the tidings, as they passed from mouth to
mouth, and were flashed by the telegraph from town to town, have
filled and moved the land! The pale student would have forgot his
books, the anxious merchant his speculations, the trader his shop, the
tradesman his craft, tired labour her toils, happy children their toys, and
even the bereaved their griefs; and like the whirlpool, which sucks

straws and sea-weed, boats and gallant ships--all things, big or
small--into its mighty vortex, the news would have absorbed all other
subjects. The one topic of conversation at churches and theatres, at
marriages and funerals, in halls and cottages, in crowded cities and in
lonely glens; ministers had carried it in their sermons to the pulpit, and
devout Christians in their thanksgivings to the Throne of Grace.
In a much greater crisis, where the stakes were deeper, the question
being not one of peace or war between man and man, but between man
and God, an embassy from heaven reached the borders of our world.
Unlike Elijah, rough in dress, of aspect stern and speech severe, whose
appearance struck Ahab with terror, and wrung from the pale lips of the
conscience-stricken king the cry, "Hast thou found me, O mine
enemy?"--unlike Jonah as he walked the wondering streets, and woke
their echoes with his doleful cry, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be
destroyed,"--the ambassadors were "a multitude of shining angels."
Leaving the gates of heaven, they winged their flight down the starry
sky to descend and hover above the fields of Bethlehem, and in the
form of a song, as became such joyful tidings, to proclaim news of
Peace--their song, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace,
good-will toward men." Nothing presents a more remarkable example
of "much in little" than these few but weighty words. In small crystals,
that coat, as with shining frost-work, the sides of a vessel, we have all
the salts which give perpetual freshness to the ocean, their life to the
weeds that clothe its rocks, and to the fish that swim its depths and
shallows. In some drops of oil distilled from rose-leaves of Indian lands,
and valued at many times their weight in gold, we have enclosed within
one small phial the perfume of a whole field of roses--that which,
diffused through ten thousand leaves, gave every flower its fragrance.
Essences, as they are called, present, in a concentrated form, the
peculiar properties of leaves or flowers or fruits, of the animal,
vegetable, or earthly bodies from which they are extracted; and, like
these, this hymn presents the whole gospel in a single sentence. Here is
the Bible, the scheme of redeeming love, that grand work which saved
a lost world, gladdened angels in heaven, confounded devils in hell,
and engaged the highest attributes of the Godhead, summed up in one
short, glorious, glowing paragraph. For what so much as the gospel,

what, indeed, but the gospel, yields Jehovah the highest glory, blesses
our earth with peace, and expresses Heaven's good-will to the sons of
men? Such were the ambassadors, and such the embassage!
When the king of Babylon, hearing how the shadow had travelled back
ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz, sent ambassadors to Hezekiah to
inquire about this strange phenomenon, Hezekiah received them with
the greatest respect; paid them honours, indeed, which cost both him
and his country dear. The news of an embassy having come to Joshua
spread like wildfire among the Israelites, moving the whole camp.
Seized with eager curiosity, all ran to hear what the strangers had to say,
and gaze with wonder on their soiled and ragged dress, their clouted
shoes and mouldy bread. The herald angels, though arrayed in heavenly
splendours, and bringing glad tidings of peace, were received with no
such honours, excited no such interest. Strange and sad omen of the
indifference with which many would hear the gospel! While angels
sung, the world slept; and none but some wakeful watchers heard their
voices or beheld this splendid vision. They were humble shepherds, to
whom the ambassadors of heaven delivered their message; and it may
be well to pause and look at those who were privileged and honoured to
hear it. We do not pretend to know certainly the reasons why God, who
giveth no account of His ways, conferred an honour so distinguished on
them rather than on others. But we may guess; and in any case may
find the employment profitable and instructive, if we are wise enough
to find "sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, and good in
everything."

V.
THEY WERE MEN OF A