The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-10-20
THE PULPIT.
AN ELOQUENT SUNDAY SERMON BY
TIE REV. WALDO ADAMS AMOS. -.
Subject: Angels.

Brooklyn, N. I.-sunday evening
In the Church of the Holy Trinity the
associate rector, the Rev. Waldo
Adams Amos, preached on Angels
The text was from Matthew AS: H
shall give His angels charge concern
Ing thee and in their hands they snall
bear thee up lest at any time thou
dash thy foot against a stone" MI.
Amos said:
One evening when the poet Shelley
was at University College, Oxford, ne
and a fellow student named Hogg be-
! came engaged in a warm discussion
at the dinner table as to the compare
! tive merits Of German and Italian lit
! erature. The discussion was carried
on with great ardor for an hour or
more, Shelley defending the Italian
writer's, and Hogg siding with n
| Germans. Then it was proposed that
the d%isputants should continue their
debate in Shelley's rooms. On reach
ing his study the poet turned to
! Hogg and said: "To tell YOU the
truth, I have no knowledge of the
Italian language, and I know abso-
| lutely nothing about Italian literal
! ture." Hogg confessed a like lg-
norance of the German language and
literature, and there the discussion
ended.
Let us begin, then, by saying
frankly that you don't know anything
about angels, and neither do l. There
have been times during the course OF
history when people thought that they
/ knew a great deal about them. the
medieval scholiasts, for example,
seem to have had inside information
! which enabled them to give the most
detailed account of the nature and
habits of angels. Even as recently as
| 1875 a Mr.. Duke, of London, pub
lished a book on "The Nature and
Employments of the Holy Angels"
Several years ago one of the scluptors
engaged in decorating the new cathe-
dral in New York was brought to
book when his chisel produced a
woman angel, for any n who knows
anything at all knows that all angels
are of the male persuasion. Appar-
emily, conditions in Heaven are some
what different from what they are In
this world, for among the "angels
have known" several have been OF
the gentler sex. The whole attitude,
however, which prompts a man to
write a book on the nature and en-
ploymentIo of the angels, or seriously to
discuss the question Of their sex,
finds scant sympathy at the present
day. Nowadays we regard the angels
! of Scripture as part of the poetry OF
| religion; we regard them as products
of the poetic Imagination, who give
expression to their hopes and fears
in song and verse; we associate them
with shepherds and starlit' nights and
with 1.-The storied land across the
| Syrian Sea-" Consequently, we resent
any attempt on the part of the theo.
| Logan to reduce the angels to terms
of dull prose; we resent any attempt
such as that of Father Rackham tc
determine what speech is current in
the world beyond, for we know that
the speech of the angels is poetry,
the language of the heart, and that
that language is universal, knowing
naught of accent, gender, moo OF
tense
While the angels are the peculiar
| pTOfluCS VI Tx poSIy We ~ ooeAS IVA"
may, however, apply our scientific
method to what the world has thought
about angels. We must study his.
torically the gradual development OF
the idea of angels without feeling
that we are rushing in where poets
fear to tread. Our word angel is de.
rived from the Greek word meaning
a messenger. In the earlier books OF
the Old Testament the Angel Of the
Lord is the messenger who conveys
Gods word to In the later
books of the Old Testament and ir
the New Testament we find the in
fuence of the Persian religion, with
which the Jews had come into contact
for several hundred years, we find
archangels, Michael, Gabriel and
Raphael, with Persian names. The
background of the Bible. the back
ground of the Masters mind, is the
popular thinking of the day, and con-
sequently we find in our Scriptures
| this celestial company adapted by the
! Jews from the poetry and religion of
Persia. Included in this heavenly
hierarchy were guardian angels, and
recording angels, and angels who car
! ried to and from the messages OF
| God. But all these, guardian angels,
recording angels, angelic messengers,
! in ancient times, as in our own time.
were the products Of the poetic i'm
agination.
When I say that the angels are
part of the poetry of religion, l do
not mean that they are unreal. The
| things of poetry are more real than
the things of prose. The angels are
| the products of the imagination, but
we must remember that the magma
ton is no airy and playful thing. 1t
is that deep and essential faculty
which in a Newton leaps from the
falling apple to the movements of the
stars in their courses; it is that
ideslizing faculty which in a Darwin
wiz IS it's daring flight from a few
obs srved phenomena to a universal
process of evolution. There are
angels, then, guardian angels, record
ing angels, and angels who carry to
and fro the messages of God. Sweden
borg, the philosopher, believed in
them so thoroughly that he used to go
into his church all alone in the early
morning and preach to them, and il
the sermons were expressions of his
own deep and earnest conviction, I've
no doubt the angels heard him.
There are guardian angels. or
thei:. nature and employments we
know nothing. But they are the
spiritual forces that are above and
around and all about us.
And maybe just as we in sleep,
that counterfeit of death, fare forth
into the dream country, SO they fare
forth and take upon themselves the