and us the tenderest love once existed. Whether it be so or not, the idea is a most consoling one, and very congenial with our best affections. And though around such a subject, clouds and darkness are cast with an awful sublimity, yet the idea may be entertained and even cherished with perfect innocence. It may, indeed, be made an incentive to virtue, a restraint from vice. For, superadded to the conviction that God " spyeth out all our ways," who, that most tenderly loved one whom death hath snatched away, would not feel a pleasing emotion in doing ought which should delight the conscious spirit of that beloved departed friend, whom he believes to be privy to the deed? Who would not feel a restraining motive to keep him from the commission of any act that should grieve such a spiritual witness, still affectionately interested in our welfare, though invested with angelic purity? This is addressed to the heart, rather than to the understanding. The tendency of the subject will, it is to be hoped, authorize the entertainment of such contemplations;

since it furnishes an incitement to virtuous conduct, and somewhat of a restraining power from every thing that is immoral and base. It also tends to inspire hope and resignation in the time of trouble, of sickness, and of sorrow, by the idea that the conscious spirit of some departed, once-valued friend may, at those trying seasons, be solicitously watching over us, if not tenderly sympathizing with us: and it certainly is fraught with comfort in the hour of death, by inspiring something like a conviction, that we are then going to rejoin the society of that beloved spirit in the mansions of bliss. May we not, moreover, presume that, by a gracious God, this tender protecting care, on the part of our departed relative sand friends, is ordained to constitute a present ingredient of their heavenly joy? For joy must be felt by them in being promoters of good to those whom, having once loved, they will love for ever; joy unutterable, on witnessing our conversion from a sinful to a holy life!

Of this we are assured by Jesus Christ himself," there is joy in

the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."-If angels, then, in general, rejoice at such an event, what must a kindred angel feel,-the glorified spirit of a parent, of a husband, of a wife, of a brother, of a sister, of a child, on seeing one, that was dead in trespasses and sins, restored to spiritual life; one, that was lost in the mazes of darkness and error, regain those paths of religion, which alone are pleasantness and peace !

That guardian angels are really assigned by the Almighty to his faithful servants, we are warranted to affirm from Holy Writ. When ABRAHAM was sending his son on a long journey, he said to him, "The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and prosper thy way." When Lor would otherwise have perished in the destruction of Sodom, by not making sufficient speed to escape the coming judgment, two angels laid hold on him, and hurried him out of the city. When the three holy youths were cast into the fiery furnace by order of Nebuchadnezzar, an angel appeared with them, and

preserved their bodies unhurt in the midst of the flames. When DANIEL was cast into a den of lions, the famished monsters did him no injury and the cause of the miracle he thus assigns himself:-" The Lord hath sent his angel to shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me." When St. PETER lay in prison, daily looking to be brought forth to execution, “the Lord sent an angel and delivered him out of the hand of Herod, and from the sanguinary expectations of the people of the Jews." Many other instances, of a similar kind, might be adduced, illustrative of the strong authority, in the book of Psalms, where DAVID says, "the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.”

By some of the wisest of men also, in later days, has the same pleasing idea been cherished and entertained. To mention only one-the sublime author of Paradise Lost, says,

"God will deign

To visit oft the dwellings of just men,
And thither send his winged messengers

G

On errands of his grace.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we
sleep."

No just objection to this soothing doctrine can arise from the acknowledged truth, that God, being every where present, can easily take care of us himself, without the assistance of angels: for so he could have destroyed the Assyrian army, without an angel, by the breath of his mouth. God can do all things by his own immediate act,

without difficulty; for, his power is every where alike. But, as he is pleased, in many cases, to make use of created human agents in accomplishing his will; so he may employ divine ones, for reasons at present utterly unknown to us, and for which we shall, doubtless, praise him hereafter.

Imperceptibly drawn, by a pleasing subject, into somewhat of a digression, I return to the great argument before us, impressed with holy awe at its grandeur, and