"He hath given His Angels charge over us, to keep us in all our ways. In their hands they shall bear us up, lest we dash our foot against a stone."[1] Thus the mission of these pure spirits is to help the just, who are their younger brethren, to walk in the way of piety. Nor does their ministry cease at death, for we read in St. Luke that the holy beggar Lazarus was carried by Angels into Abraham's bosom.[2] The Royal Prophet tells us that "the Angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear Him, and shall deliver them."[3]
We find another illustration of God's guardianship and defence of the just in the Fourth Book of Kings,[4] where we are told that when the servant of Eliseus feared for his master, against whom the king of Syria with all His army advanced, the prophet begged the Lord to open the eyes of his servant, to show him that there were as many for Eliseus as there were coming against him. The prophet's prayer was heard, and the servant beheld the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire, and in the midst of them Eliseus. Does not the Holy Spirit will to teach us by these symbols the care with which God surrounds the just?
This protection not only delivers the just from evil and leads them to good, but turns to their profit the sins into which they are sometimes permitted to fall. For after a fall they acquire greater prudence, greater humility, and love God more tenderly for pardoning their of-
