nine or fewer ranks or natures, though all scriptural, are all, except the Cherubim and Seraphim of the Hebrews, borrowed from earthly dignities some of them being similarly connected, when evidently used in that sense (Tit. iii. 1), so as to throw upon one of the afore-cited passages (1 Cor. xv. 24) some doubt whether superhuman powers are there meant. Does it not appear, that, in the pride of earthly intellect which has led to the voluntary humility of a "worshipping of angels," the "intruders upon what they have not seen," have, even in this classification, gone beyond Scripture warrant? And Jews and Christians are concluded under the same charge. Thus, Moses ben Maimon, in Cent. xii., of whom it was said, "From Moses to Moses none like Moses," adopted an arrangement of angels in Ten Degrees. The Haïoth ha Kodesh (" Holy Living Beings"), in degree above all. (Ez. i. 5; comp. Rev. v.) Ophanim ("Wheels;" Ez. i. 15). Erellim ("Lions of God, Heralds, or Heroes"). Hhashmallim ("Amberlike;" comp. Ez. i. 4, 27; viii. 2). Seraphim ("Fiery;" Is. vi. 2). Malakim ("Messengers;" Gen. xxi. 17, &c.); Elohim ("Gods," or "Mighties"). Beni Elohim (" sons of gods," or "sons of mighties;" comp. Gen. vi. 2; Job xxxviii. 7). Cherubim ("childlike;" Gen. iii. 24), and Ishim ("men"). The corresponding term, anashim, "men," is used continually in signs of superhuman appearances. "These last," says

Maimonides, "were messengers (angels) that spake with the prophets, and were seen of them in vision of "prophecy;" called men, "because their degree is next to the degree of the knowledge of the sons of Adam." Another obvious reason may be given-that the appearances above mentioned were evidently in the form of men. The reasons of some of these designations may be found in the notes of Bernard's Selections from the Yad ha Chazakat of Maimonides. But it will be evident, on investigation, that parts of the nomenclature are irreconcileable with Scripture. Here are the presumptions of intellect which have bowed the spirit to such devotions as those of the new year, when the cornet-blower begs of God to "send him the angels holy and pure, faithful ministers, and faithful in their mission, inclined and delighted to purify Israel; yea, the Great Angel Patzpatziah, him appointed to present their purifications-Israel's-in the time that this day they are sounding the cornet; and the Great Angel Tahhshab, him appointed to make heard their purifications-those of Israel-and to provoke the enemy with their sounding; and the Great Princes, those appointed over the Cornet, Ankatham and Pastam; and the Great Angels, Hadarniel and Sandalphon, those appointed over our sounding, who bring up our sounding before the Throne of Thy Glory: and the Angel Shamshiel, him appointed over the Flourish (thereof): and the Angel Prasta, him appointed over the Seven-hundred (qu? pp) for their being prepared for their mission." A smile may interrupt the reading of such prayers, (the whole is given with suitable remarks in Dr. M'Caul's admirable Tracts on Judaism, entitled Old Paths). The detail is too elaborate for our tastes, too foreign for our sympathies. But is the principle one whit more presumptuous and unwarranted than one short sentence

from the Canon of the Mass-and is it not exactly parallel with that sentence, thus introduced? "We offer to Thy illustrious Majesty of thine own gifts and bestowments a host pure, a host holy, a host unspotted, the holy bread of life eternal, and chalice of everlasting salvation. Upon which, with propitious and serene countenance, deign Thou to look and hold them accepted as thou deignedst to hold accepted the gifts of Thy servant, righteous Abel, and the sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham, and what Thy High-priest Melchizedek offered—a holy sacrifice, an unspotted host. Suppliant we beseech Thee, Almighty God, command them to be presented by the hands of Thy Holy Angel on Thy lofty altar, in sight of Thy Divine Majesty." A similar comparison and similar contrast present themselves between the Guardian Angels of the Rabbi and of the Roman Catholic. R. Jose said in the name of R. Hhanina: Two ministering angels accompany a man on the eve of the Sabbath from the house of the synagogue to his own house-one good and one bad. On coming to the house, if the Sabbath light be found lighted, the table prepared, and the couch spread: the good angel says, “Please God, that it be so on the coming Sabbath!" And the bad angel answers, "Amen," spite of himself. If otherwise, the reverse takes place. From particularity of narrative, and strangeness of usage, this superstition also is striking. But is it more daring in point of principle, than a recommendation in the Tuesday Devotions, given in "The Christian's Guide to Heaven," 2d ed. London, 1806, published "permissu superiorum?" The day is dedicate to the particular devotion of "Our Guardian Angel." "Let us incessantly invoke their assistance: let us consult them in all our undertakings: let us frequently beseech them to procure the joint intercession of the heavenly host, their companions in glory, in our behalf; but, above all, let us be particularly docile and attentive to their spiritual inspirations." (P. 23.) The devotions for the two days before are to the Blessed Trinity and to the Holy Ghost. Those for the two following are to St. Joseph and the Blessed Sacrament. That for Friday is naturally to the suffering Jesus. And that of the ancient Sabbath is to the Blessed Virgin. It is not in all things easy to discriminate between the offices assigned to the Holy Spirit and the "Holy Angel." The ideas expressed of the former may perhaps be characterised as rather more vague. We are to rejoice at being under the conduct of such a guide: to study the motions of our hearts: to follow those which the Holy Spirit produces, and which alone can vanquish every evil inclination." This is well. But why reserve what is more than this for inferiors? not only "to be docile to their inspirations," as "docile to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost;" but to INVOKE their assistance, CONSULT them in all undertakings, BESEECH them to intercede for the intercessions of others? What is this but a part of a system which removes God afar off, and brings all manner of ministers between us and our King under pretence of enhancing His Majesty? In conformity with this system, cold and distant is the prayer to the Holy Spirit compared with that to the Holy Angel. The Spirit is "adored as primary source of eternal happiness, thanked as sovereign dispenser of benefits received from on

high, invoked as the beneficent giver of that portion of light and strength which he knows to be necessary in the practice of good works." But the angel is avowed to be particularly "charged with the care of the man's conduct;" is declared "to assist the man in his wants, and comfort him in all his afflictions; to support him when discouraged, and continually obtain for him new favours." Profound thanks are returned to him; and this "most amiable Protector" is "conjured to continue his defence against all enemies." The "Spirit of Wisdom" is well called upon to "enlighten the understanding, fortify the will, purify the heart, regulate all its motions, and grant an attentive docility to all His holy inspirations." Yet-on an opposite page-the GuardianAngel is besought to keep one "at a distance from all occasions of sin;" He is asked to "obtain for one the grace of hearkening to his holy inspirations, and faithfully reducing them to practice. And to Him is offered the prayer, "Protect me under all the temptations and trials of this life, but more especially at the hour of death.' The fancifulness of the tenet seems self-betrayed in the instructions for Communion; speaking of the first thoughts on waking, "IMAGINE that your angel-guardian addresses you in these words: Behold the spouse cometh : go forth to meet him.'" But fact, not fancy, is elsewhere vindicated for his services. Is he not one of those auxiliaries without whom Jesus cannot or will not save? The ninth petition of the Psalter of Jesus opens thus: "Jesus! (repeated ten times) grant me the grace ever to remember my latter end." It proceeds presently thus: "At that important hour, by the powerful intercession of Thy Blessed Mother, and the glorious assistance of St. Michael and my good angel, rescue my poor soul, O Lord, from the snares of the enemy of my salvation." With these views the preparation for death is consistent (p. 338): "Glorious St. Michael, prince of the heavenly host, intercede for me at the hour of my death, that I may depart this world in the grace and favour of my Creator! O, holy guardian-angel, to whose care God in His mercy hath committed me, stand by me at that dreadful hour; protect me against all the powers of darkness; defend me from all my enemies; and conduct my soul to the mansions of eternal repose! O, all ye blessed angels and saints of God, assist me by your intercession in this last and dreadful passage!" Again give the praise, if praise it be, of consistency in error. The recommendation of a soul departing, (p. 345,) calls on the Lord Christ to have mercy, and on holy Mary, on all angels and archangels, and then on all the just, all patriarchs and prophets, all apostles and evangelists, the disciples and the innocents, all martyrs, all bishops and confessors, all monks and hermits, all virgins and widows, and all saints of God, many in most of the classes being expressed by name, to pray for the departing. A Dismissal-prayer, beginning" Depart then, O Christian soul," then proceeds "in the name of God, the Father Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who sanctified thee; in the name of the angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, cherubim, and seraphim," and then in

the name of all the classes before mentioned. The division of the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost was ill-advised, but the dismissal of a soul in the name of all these creatures coupled with the Creator's- -what shall be said of that? It is the principle of creatureexaltation, breathing in such passages, that infects others which might have glided by as pure visions of fancy, as in the recommendation, "May the noble company of angels meet thy soul at its departure." "May infernal spirits tremble at thy approach encompassed by angels!" In the prayer, "Let the heavens be opened to him, and the angels rejoice with him; may St. Michael the archangel, the chief of the heavenly host, conduct him :" and the responsory after the departure of the soul, "May the angels present him now before the Lord." Roman Catholics may smile, if we ask what ground for all this in Scripture? But those calling themselves Anglican Catholics may sigh; for with that question they are casting away the strongest shield against the manifold miseries with which a corrupt faith oppressed our ancestors. Of the past, it is fair to judge morally by the past. Men cannot walk by night as by day. The more madness in wishing to turn night into day, and day into night. But we, too, must be judged by our real circumstances. It is vain to disguise ourselves in the dress of the past. We cannot be judged as our forefathers: just as the art of this day cannot step back and be tested by the taste of the men of half a thousand years ago. Beautiful as, for instance, looking through the colouring glass of Archæology, we own the lines of angels to be hovering under the sides of the fiend-oppressing roof of St. John's, Stamford, or the mutilated figures of archangels in that of Kimbolton Church, with the richly coloured plumage of their wings, and the diadem, fastened with a red cross, on the brow. Yet it is, perhaps, by looking back to the earlier centuries of our nation with something of the pleasure with which a man turns to what enchanted the early years of his own boyhood: for, in point of execution and nature, and in some points of taste and feeling, will such works compete with the angel-figures in the works of Bacon, or the marble angel in the Buccleugh mausoleum, which so improperly fills up the chancel of Warkton, near Boughton. But let some of the ancient carvings and sculptures of angels be beautiful as they may, it may be doubted if it be advisable to decorate our churches ever again thus. As was hinted before, much that is sublime in books, sinks in painting or sculpture, at least as deep as the common-place. It is one of the obscure maxims of the Cabbala, "The angel of six wings is never transformed:" but, assuredly, he is transformed when, instead of "the bright seraphim in burning row," we have the "countenances like lightning" represented in wood, stone, gold, or painted canvas, even though it be by the finest genius. And the partial success of the highest genius always draws on second-rate talent to a complete failure; for the proud humility of the genius of Timagenes is not found in the many. If, however, this species of the more direct Symbolism again make way into our churches, what scriptural illustration can accompany it, unless the

following seem suitable? "Let no man beguile you of your reward, in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the HEAD, from which all the body, by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God." (Col. ii. 18.) But need there be any fear of a necessity for this? Is there more chance of it, than of the revival of such relics as the following: "St. Michael's short sword and square buckler lined with red velvet, and a phial of the sweat of St. Michael when contending with Satan?" A reference to that strange work, "Hone's Every-day Book," may seem suspicious on such a point; but his authorities, at p. 815, vol. i., may be investigated. Others are mentioned, stranger still; but one must do old times the justice of construing them most favourably, as being fragments of "holy images," carefully, perhaps superstitiously, preserved: "The face of a seraphim, with only part of the nose;" "the 'snout' of a seraphim, thought to have belonged to the preceding;" "a finger of a cherubim, and a feather of the angel Gabriel;" "a feather and a finger of the Holy Ghost." How awful is this language! But for this we may thank Rome! If, so long ago as 1607, even the Bishop of Avranches, in Normandy, forbade St. Michael's buckles to be shown any more, let us hope we shall see no more the seven effigies of Michael trampling the dragon; Raphael, with his cup, leading Tobias, with his fish; Uriel, with his sword; Gabriel, with his lantern and mirror; Barachiel, with his handkerchief full of flowers; Jehudiel, with his sceptre and crown; and Sealtiel, the best likeness of all, perhaps, with his hands folded in prayer. And if piety will but keep awake, and devote neither Tuesday nor the 2d of October to the Holy AngelGuardians, perhaps Durand's seven angels are not destined to stand in our seven-light windows, between us and the light of heaven. Yet might this sort of window be filled with instruction. The seven Epistles from the Lord Jesus, in their reiterated forms, present it. Suppose the seven candlesticks, or lamps, crowned with their stars of light, depicted. And let the sacred interpretation be there: "The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks are the seven churches." (Rev. i. 20.) Then might the seven lights of the window be illuminated with as much of the substance of the Epistles, as might seem of universal import. Perhaps thus, taking the first and last, as instances. The first, that to Ephesus: "Thus saith He that holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, who walketh amid the seven golden lights: I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear the evil; Never

theless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore, whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works; or else I come to thee quickly, and will remove thy light from its place.

Spirit saith to the churches. of the Tree of Life, which is

Hear, whosoever hath an ear, what the To him that overcometh will I give to eat in the midst of the Paradise of God.".