PETERSON’S MAGAZINE.
GUARDIAN ANGELS.
BY REV. JAMES STEVENS.
The belief in guardian angels is not wholly without warrant. There is, indeed, no direct authority for it in Scripture; but neither docs Holy Writ condemn it; while many analogies saggest it to de peculiarly in harmony with the Providence of God. Few things imprass us so deeply with the love and care of our heavenly Father as the thought that he has set hie angels te watch over as, co that whether we are friend- Jets ot in prosperity, whether we are in a strange lund of smong oar kindred, ministering hands tt round about us, a fenpe and a shield from ‘wil, if we will but submit to their guidance. As ‘Milton saya,
“Hilioes of spiritual oreztares walk the earth, Caseen, both when we sleop and whon we wake.”
‘Who can look upon children asleep, yet doubt thst there are guardian angels? In the sweet, picid faces of the slumbering innocents there isa holinesa which belongs not to earth, ay if the countenances were irradiated from invisible spiritual watehers. The beautiful Irish tradi- ten, which says that when an infant smiles it is because the angels are whispering to it, ia no mere poetiosl fancy. In the soul of childhood there atill Lingers something of the light of the heaven from which it has come; and that holy ‘messengers do mot disdain to visit it, to gase lovingly upon it, to influence it insensibly to a file of goodness, is not irrational to believe. Slams of this trath, broke on Wordsworth, wha he wrote hie “Intimations of Immortality.”
“Not in entire forgetfulness,
And cot in atter nakedness,
Bat trailing clouda of glory do we come
From God, who iz oar home;
Heaven lier about us in our infancy!
Hence, is season of calm weather,
‘Though inland far we be,
Our souls have aight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can ina moment travel thither,
And see the obildren sport upon the shore,
And be mighty waters rolling evermore.”
There are thone who believe that it is the sapeoial privilege of “the loved and lost” to be thereafter the guanilan watchers of the living who are lef bebind. Such s persuasion has dried many ® mourner’a tear. In the over- whelming grief which death brings, it is s relief unspeakable to think that the lamented parent, the cherished partner, or the darling child are still with us, separated only by a diviclon as thin aa air, sympathizing with us, watching over ug, silently persuading us to holy actions, Often has auoh conviction checked the rising thought of evil, and tarned @he tempted and erring back to the paths of virthgh We would fain believe, that thoae sweet innocents who are given to their parents for awhile, and who are thon taken away just as they have begun to weave themselves ‘about our hearts, are angels in disguise, sent to wean us from earthly things, and revive in our souls the longing for Paradise. God spiritualizea ng, in this way, when all other means fail.
There are praying mtothers, whose sons are fur sway, to whom this belief hes sometimes come with pggaliar beauty. Oh! what inexpres- sible joy toWMink that guardian angela attend the wanderer in the watches of the night, in the storm st aea, on the wide prairie, on the bleak sierra, Grown men, separated by vast oceans from their early homes, often feel as if some invisible presence was with them: & presence ns though a celestial spirit, won by a mother's petitions, constantly protected thelr foatsteps. There is a German legend which says that each of 0s, at birth, bas s gaardian angel appointed, who remeins with us until death, unless driver away by our remorseless wickedness. Alas! for those who have banished their invisible attendant. What a dissolution theirs must be, as they go out into the dark eternity to come, lonely wan- dorers whom no messenger from Paradise takes by the hand!
To believe in guardian angels lifts the soul
a! �
