day; and you need me now, and here I am; and if you try to cut me down with your sword, I will dodge you, and follow you, and dodge you again, till I force you to let me be your man, for with you I will live and die. And now I can talk no more. "And with me thou shalt live and die," said Hereward, pulling up his horse, and frankly holding out his hand to his new friend.

Martin Lightfoot took his hand, kissed it, licked it almost as a dog would have done. “I am your man," he said, "Amen; and true man I will prove to you, if you will prove true to me. And he dropped quietly back behind Hereward's horse, as if the business of his life was settled, and his mind utterly at rest.

"There is one more likeness between us," said Hereward, after a few minutes' thought. "If I have robbed a church, thou hast robbed one too. What is this precious spoil which is to serve me and thee in such mighty stead?"

Martin drew from inside his shirt and under his waistband a small battle-axe, and handed it up to Hereward. It was a tool the like of which in shape Hereward had seldom seen, and never its equal in beauty. The handle was some fifteen inches long, made of thick strips of black whalebone, curiously bound with silver, and butted with narwhal ivory. This handle was evidently the work of some cunning Norseman of old. But who was the maker of the blade? It was some eight inches long, with a sharp edge on one side, a sharp crooked pick on the other; of the finest steel, inlaid with strange characters in gold, the work probably of some Circassian, Tartar, or Persian; such a battle-axe

Whoever

as Rustum or Zohrab may have wielded in fight upon the banks of Oxus; one of those magic weapons, brought, men knew not how, out of the magic East, which were hereditary in many a Norse family, and sung of in many a Norse saga. "Look at it," said Martin Lightfoot. "There is magic on it. It must bring us luck. holds that must kill his man. It will pick a lock of steel. It will crack a mail corslet as a nut-hatch cracks a nut. It will hew a lance in two at a single blow. Devils and spirits forged it—I know that; Virgilius the Enchanter, perhaps, or Solomon the Great, or whosoever's name is on it, graven there in letters of gold. Handle it, feel its balance; but no-do not handle it too much. There is a devil in it, who would make you kill me. Whenever I play with it I long to kill a man. It would be so easyso easy. Give it me back, my lord, give it me back, lest the devil come through the handle into your palm, and possess you."

axe.

Hereward laughed, and gave him back his battleBut he had hardly less doubt of the magic virtues of such a blade than had Martin himself. "Magical or not, thou wilt not have to hit a man twice with that, Martin, my lad. So we two outlaws are both well armed; and having neither wife nor child, land nor beeves to lose, ought to be a match for any six honest men who may have a grudge against us, and sound reasons at home for running away."

And so those two went northward through the green Bruneswald, and northward again through merry Sherwood, and were not seen in that land again for many a year.

JESUS for water Mary sent,

From where by Joseph's bench he stood.
With pitcher in his hand he went,
And drew the water very good.

Then home upon his head he bore
The pitcher, to the brim upfill'd;
But ere he reach'd the cottage-door,
The pitcher broke, the water spill'd.

His cloak upon the ground he laid,

And in it gather'd up the pool; Obedient there the water stay'd,

And home he bore it sweet and cool.

Eligius said: "It is not good:

The hands that all the worlds control, Had there been room for wonders, would Have made His mother's pitcher whole.

"But even an ancient fable, told

In love of thee, the Truth indeed, Like broken pitcher, yet may hold Some water for a loving need.

"Thy living water I have spilt.

I thought to bear the pitcher high;
I stumbled on the stones of guilt-
There the wet fragments scatter'd lie.

"Christ, gather up my life's poor hoard;
It sinks and sobs into the ground;
Bear in thy woven garment, Lord,
What in thy well at first I found.

"For if it pass in bubbled foam,

And I sit down to look and mourn, What will they do I left at home, Thirsting and waiting my return?

"What will He say whose love will drink Of any cup that love hath fill'd,

If I be left on Sychar's brink,

My pitcher broke, my water spill'd?

"Lift, then, and bear my life, thy gift,
Too heavy to be borne by me;
And I the cross will try to lift,

And bear all-humbly after thee."

GEORGE MAC DONALD.

H

CONSIDERING how wide and deep-rooted, as well as Biblical, the belief in angels has been, it is singular how seldom it comes up to the surface. Is it that in these days of illumination we are ashamed of it, that it sounds like a fable which well-bred minds ought to reject, that it is like confessing to witches and ghosts? As our telescopes sweep the skies with a more searching scrutiny, are we staggered that they have not discovered a feather from an angel's wing? Is there a conflict in our minds between the traditional faith we have accepted and the restless, advancing, and polished scepticism of our time, and that we are half inclined to think the sceptics are right? When a faith is so rickety, a little quizzing, a slight assumption of superior culture, will knock it under. And as no one has seen an angel, and as the chubby heads and well-draped and solid winged figures that we are taught are angels, are often ridiculous, and as the world seems to get on without spiritual intervention, it is as well perhaps to repress all enthusiasm about angelic dogmas, and spiritualise and allegorise a little until we get the Bible to say that it never meant to say there were angels. There may be a feeble protest that there are more things in heaven and earth than we have seen or ever can see, and that disclaiming spiritual intervention and agency over and above natural, is the same thing as disclaiming a personal relation between God and His creatures. But no one likes to be pulled up by principles when he only wants a single opinion. It is as irritating as a tollbar to a man who only drives a mile. Or is it that our notions are too vague and crude to bear expression, like Washington Irving's Irishman who shot an owl, and being told by a friend it was a cherubim, died of fright? Have we thought so little about them, that they mix themselves up crudely with will-o'-the-wisps, meteors, spectres, hobgoblins, and other night fears? If a paper on angels were added to the competitive examinations, one can conceive the blank result; or if any ordinary congregation were examined in the last verses of the hundred and third Psalm, or the third and fourth strophes of the Te Deum, how many ordinary men and women could answer? Does Jones think there are angels ministering to him? Has Smith felt that they are more than a vague spot of glory in the Apocalypse? No doubt both of them have said more than once, that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread;" they are keen about the discussion on Campbell's line, Like angel-visits, few and far between ;" and they know of people that they call " good angels." But these phrases, like many more, have acquired a mere conventional force, and are passed from hand to hand as fools' counters, not as wise men's money. That angels visit us at all, implies a popular recogni

tion of the truth of the Scripture doctrine regarding them; that they are a distinct and most real order of creatures, and that they are in personal relation to us. There is some confusion in it, as in most popular sayings: for it is evident that it refers to what goes on at present; that it is not a dry fact of history dug out for the purpose of illustration; and yet, as for visible angelic appearances, we know of none since the days of the Apostles, and cannot say whether they are as rare as in the days of old. And good angels are among us, moving noiselessly through the world; and most men can recall one in their own circle. It has been some mild and gracious sister moving in gentle ministry about a sick, irritable, peevish, and selfish brother; checking her own wishes by his; quick to anticipate the morbid change of his fancies; smiling under his fretful words and discontent; stung by his thoughtlessness, but only more tolerant ; vexed, but not betraying it; sad enough, perhaps, with her own cares, but always cheerful to him; patient, without showing that there is need of patience; on whom he leans all his burden; whom he cannot bear out of his sight; who turns from every pleasant service of life to link her hand in his, and so, hand in hand, to walk down the sad valley of the shadow of death. It has been some stricken one, wasted and imprisoned by disease; and the bright faces of the rest throw no gloom upon her; the children steal to her side to put their hands in hers, and look on her with the awe with which childhood watches pain; she has a kiss and a smile, and a kind word for each; she is their peacemaker in their quarrels, to whom they fly with both their tears and laughter; she holds the secrets of the house, knows every private smart, and gives the tenderest consolation; the stubborn become easy with her, the rough, gentle; she manages the most difficult tempers, makes the largest allowances, soothes down the little petulances that break into the family; as he looks at the pale cheek and the invalid slumbering upon the sofa, the tears may come into her father's eyes, for the rest go busily round in the world, and she must suffer there God's time; but she could least be spared, the link between them all, the angel of the house. It has been some maiden aunt whose quiet love and self-sacrifice make her to be felt rather than noticed where she is a guest; to whom the boys run out with boisterous welcome, whom the girls draw away to their rooms with merry force; who brings into the house the nameless charm that everybody knows; cheerful and happiest when others are happy, with pure honest face in its setting of grey hairs; to whom we turn at the first threat of trial; who has been the first to stand at our side; who makes long journeys to nurse the sick, and parts from one house only to renew her

Uriel, Chamuel, Jophiel, Zadkiel; of whom the four first and greatest sustain the throne of God. These four also preside over the four elements, and are the solemn ministers of God:-Michael is prime minister, presiding over worship; Raphael, minister of health; Gabriel, of war; and Uriel, of justice.* The order and mode of government of an earthly kingdom was thus transferred to heaven: so that we are not surprised to find the four-and-twenty elders of the Revelations are four-and-twenty angels forming a senate or awful inner and secret council, and, like the four-and-twenty orders of the Jewish priests, each having his period of special service. Some preside over kingdoms, some over planets, like "The Angel of the Earth who, while he guides His chariot planet round the goal of day, All trembling, gazes on the eye of God."

Elihu was an angel: and afterwards in Alexandria they said that it was an angel that was the star that led the Magi. The residence of these and of all angels is in the stars, and thus the Plurality of Worlds is set at rest.

For their knowledge, it is commonly restricted, though one divine of the sixteenth century affirms

So they appear in the paintings of the great masters: singing, with uplifted heads, sometimes in harmony, before a scroll of music floating loosely over their hands; sometimes in unison, countless faces radiant with blissful worship, till, gazing on the canvas, you wonder that the whole air does not break into audible song. For angelic instruments, the harp is the commonest with the poet, the lute or pipe with the painter. Coleridge speaks of "the prayer

"Harped by archangels when they sing of mercy;

Nor has the silence needful to the hearing of such pure and heavenly strains escaped an earlier poet : as in Henry Vaughan's lines :

"Calm and unhaunted as is Thy dark tent, Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice Is seldom rent."

But Milton, following no doubt those visions of

rant-the day of the Second Advent, men's hearts, and the number of the elect; and another declares them to be "good philosophers, great statists, and knowing the affairs of kingdoms. ... wise and very knowing, always lusty and lively." Their occupations are very various, though falling under only two great classes-worship and service; the former towards God, the latter towards meu: and their worship is always heavenly singing. Latimer preaches of the "angels singing with great pleasant voice;" and Milton speaks of the angels:

"Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent." Shakespeare uses it for one of his most beautiful similes :

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims."

Herbert turns it in his own reverent way:

"Lord, let the angels praise Thy name,
Man is a foolish thing, a foolish thing!"

And hearty George Wither, distributing the parts of a universal chorus, gives the angels the tenor:

"Come ye sons of human race,
In this chorus take a place,
And amid the mortal throng
Be ye masters of the song;
Angels and supernal powers,
Be the noblest tenor yours!

Of these Michael and Gabriel are mentioned in the Bible; Raphael and Uriel in the Apocrypha. That Raphael should be physician in the Book of Job, it need not surprise us: but Aubrey gravely relates how in his time, Dr. Richard Napier, whose knees were horny with frequent praying," retired into his closet when a patient came, conversed with Raphael, and prescribed accordingly. Nor were the prescriptions always medical, for in 1621 he told Prideaux that he would be a bishop in twenty years, 66 as it fell out."

celebrates

"with songs

And choral symphonies, day without night," the angels circle God's throne.

For their service, the Talmudist taught that there was a distinct class of angels who worked while others worshipped. These angels of service not understanding Aramaic, the Jews always prayed in Hebrew. Gabriel indeed, by an old legend, taught Joseph seventy tongues, but this was a solitary exception. Their service rests partly on their strict obedience as agents in carrying out God's thoughts, and partly on their power of sympathy and tenderness, and their love of men. Norfolk declares that Queen Catherine loves Henry VIII.

"with that excellence That angels love good men with ;"

scruple to sacrifice ethical truth to a pretty thought; and his easy way of wiping out an oath sets at defiance those angels through whom the majesty of the Law was ministered, and who watched round the cradle and cross of Christ. There is relief in turning to the beautiful idea of Sibbes, that "we have a derivative comfort from the attendance of angels upon Christ . . . They attended upon Him as the Head; they attend upon us as the members." It is not mere passive sympathy they bear, but sympathy of service; and by no one touched with deeper feeling than Spenser:

"And is there care in Heaven? And is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
That may compassion of their evils move?

There is-else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts! But 0 th' exceeding grace
Of Highest God that loves His creatures so,
And all His works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels He sends to and froe

To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe!

"How oft do they their silver bowres leave
To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant,
Against foul fiends to aid us militant!
They for us fight, they watch, they duly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant,
And all for love, and nothing for reward:
Oh why should Heavenly God to men have such
regard!"

And this heavenly service is most various. "The angels," cries Luther in his valiant way, 'prepare themselves for the combat and to strike down Turk and Pope into the bottomless pit ;" and they are also "our true and trusty servants, performing offices and work that no poor mendicant would be ashamed to do for another;" while again we "would be in despair if we should see for how many angels one devil makes work to do." The devils, he cries in one of his sermons, fly as thick about us as the crows, what need therefore of angels! And by an odd conceit he proportioned their size to the importance of those they watched, giving the larger to great men like princes, and the smaller to children and common folk. "If a man is saved from drowning, or escapes a falling stone, that is not chance, but the will of the dear angels." Enemies spiritual and temporal are to be fought and ourselves tended. In church, "whensoever and wheresoever the Word of God is preached, there are the angels present, which keep in safe custody all those who receive the Word of God and study to live after it" (Latimer). "They observe us," another old divine says, "and our carriages in the congregation." And each has a guardian angel, no doubt like that in, I think, Dürer's engraving, where the little child with bright simple face walks trustingly by the precipice, and the serpent, and the thorn; and the angel walks beside with folded wings and eager watch, and a guiding hand on the child's shoulder.

best when offending most; an office that may be assigned by Shakespeare when he says that

"Consideration, like an angel, came

And whipped the offending Adam out of him: "

though probably only a reference to the expulsion from Paradise. It is cognisant of the spiritual relations of the soul :

“The blessing fell upon her soul;
Her angel by her side

Knew that the hour of peace was come:
Her soul was purified."

The Schoolmen set it a peculiar work at the resurrection, when "every man's good angel shall gather together the bones of him he guarded." And Tennyson suggests that in the further world it might communicate between death-parted friends: "My guardian angel will speak out In that high place and tell thee all."

At dying, moreover, the angels have special charge.
They bend down so near that they may be heard:
"Hark! they whisper! Angels say:
Sister spirit, come away."

They stoop over them with radiant face like the dawning of heaven:

"And then, like to an angel o'er the dying
Who die in righteousness, she lean'd."

And when the soul flies the body, they accompany it to heaven. "Good night, sweet Prince," says Horatio of the dead Hamlet,

"And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." Numerous instances are on record of dying men and women who said they saw troops of angels, and death and the failure of bodily sight. Sometimes whose vision grew more distinct at the approach of it is shouts and songs that are heard; sometimes figures that are seen; and there is nothing visible to the spectators but what they describe as a peculiar brightness on the features of the dying.* fullest portraiture. We see them as little roundfaced chubby children, or as those righteous and in the Sistine Chapel. Sometimes the child face is most awful spirits that Michael Angelo has painted not of the earth but heaven, like the two cherubs that gaze up at the Dresden Madonna; sometimes this winged angel is not distinguishable from a tricksy Cupid. Angel heads and groups form rainbow arches round the glory of the throne. In long fair

But it is in painting that angels receive their

Queries," 3rd Ser. vol. iv. pp. 435, 6; vol. v. p. 448.
Some curious examples will be found in "Notes and
They might be largely increased. When Lazarus dies in
the old "Christmas Carol" on the parable of Dives,

"There came two angels out of heaven
His soul therein to guide.
Rise up, rise up, brother Lazarus,
And go along with me,

For you've a place prepared in heaven,
To sit on an angel's knee !'"