The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1909-09-24
THE PULPIT.
All ELOQUENT SUNDAY SERMON BY
THE REV. WALDO ADAMS AMOS.
Subject: Angels.

lie IGXL was lIOLl mdILHSW ~. 1AO
shall give His angels charge concern
| Ing thee and in their hands they shall
bear thee up lest at any time thou
dash thy foot against stone" Mr..
Amos said:
| One evening when the poet Shelley
was at University College, Oxford, he
and fellow student named Hogg be-
came engaged in 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 the
| Germans. Then it was proposed that
the disputants 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 litera-
ture" Hogg confessed a like ig-
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 I. There
have been times during the course of
history when people thought that they
knew 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 Mr.. Duke, of London, pub
lished a book ON "The Nature and
| II Of
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 one 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
| I 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-
ployment 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 "the stored 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 to
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, mood or
tense.
While the angels are the peculiar
province of the poet, we prosaic folk
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
messenger. In the earlier books of
the Old Testament the Angel Of the
Lord is the messenger who conveys
Gods word to men. In the later
books of the Old Testament and in
the New Testament We find the in
f1uence 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-
seuuently 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 fnl-
agination.
When l 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
idealizing faculty which in a Darwin
wings its daring flight from few
observed 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 II
the sermons were expressions OF his
own deep and earnest conviction, I've
no doubt the angels heard him.
There are guardian angels. OF
their 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 faro
forth and take upon themselves the
! unknown nature and the unknown
tasks Of the holy angels. Around.
above and all about our ways they
minister, and God has given them
charge concerning us that in their
hands they should bear us up, lest
at any time we dash our foot against
a stone. In tho ear of the prodigal
they whisper words of home and
loved ones; at the bedside of the SUI
| ferer they sing, they check the dar-
ling as he wanders near danger.
lowering about all our paths, guild
ing our steps along the Kings high
way, restraining our weak and sinful
impulses, caring, watching, keeping,
are the guardian angels of the God
of Love.
And sometimes they grieve for rs.
but more often they smile, for these
angels have a sense of humor. Else
would they have died long since OF
broken hearts when they saw all the
pettiness and all the narrowness and
all the misguided zeal of US humans.
But they look beneath the surface:i
they look at our real selves, and in