that there are many ranks and degrees of dignity, corresponding in their ascent by due gradation from man to the very throne of the Eternal, to that lower scale of graduation in intellectual and moral faculties which we find below man, through the less gifted inhabitants of earth, till the transition is imperceptible, where thought, volition, and animation cannot be traced.

We have many instances of angelic ministration in Scripture. An angel appeared to Hagar in the wilderness, and, by God's command, gave her directions for her future conduct (Gen. xvi.). In the plains of Mamre, three angels appeared to Abraham, and unfolded to him God's purpose of his posterity becoming a great and mighty nation (Gen. xviii.). In the same manner, we find Lot entertaining two angels (Gen. xix.). An angel interferes to prevent the sacrifice of Isaac by his father (Gen. xxii.). Again, Jacob wrestles with an angel at Peniel, on which occasion he receives the name of Israel. Not to mention multitudes of other instances of a like nature in the Old Testament, I have only to mention the announcement of Christ's birth by an angel, both to the Virgin and Joseph and the shepherds; the ministration of angels to our Saviour after his temptation of forty days in the wilderness; our Lord's rebuke of Peter for using his sword, saying, "Thinkest thou not that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he will presently send me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matt. xxvi. 53). Need I tell you of the angel who, in the very sepulchre where Christ was laid, announced to the holy women the resurrection of Christ; or that other which told the men of Galilee, who gazed on our ascending Lord, that the same Jesus, whom they then saw taken away from them, would come in like manner, clad with the majesty of heaven, to judge mankind; of the angel who liberated Peter from prison, and that other who effected the same deliverance for Paul and Silas ?

But there are general descriptions in Scripture of the offices and services rendered by angels, in obedience to the divine command. These are generally of an active nature, directly beneficial to mankind. St. Paul, speaking of them, evidently refers to an universal opinion on the subject when he asks the question-which is, in fact, tantamount to a direct assertion-" Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation?" (Heb. i.). The psalmist says (Ps. xxxiv.), "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them." And again: "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels; the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place" (Ps. lxviii.). How frequently did not God vouchsafe his communication to the prophets and apostles by angelic ambassadors, from him whose lips were touched by the fire from God's own altar, to the beloved apostle who was permitted to behold the dazzling wonders of the Apocalypse in extatic raptures?

It is a beautiful idea, my brethren, and most cheering to the heart of believers, that although we are here in a state of severe trial and probation, exposed to the malice of the evil one-not wrestling merely against flesh and blood, but "against principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in

high places"-still, over and above the means of grace which God has ordained in the bosom of his Church, besides the working of his Holy Spirit within us, we also receive, or may possess, the assistance of good angels, commissioned to guard us in peril or assist us in necessity. It is a lovely idea, and well agreeing with Scripture, that each of us, who are faithful to the word and the testimony of our God, is waited upon by some shining denizen of the court of heaven, who is deputed to watch over us-that the smile of sleeping infancy is made sweeter by the infused thoughts suggested by the seraph who guards its slumbers-that mid age is visited by thoughtful and holy intervals in the midst of the world's turmoil, suggested by some winged messenger from above-and that the contented looks of aged piety spring from unconscious commerce with the spirits that surround the throne of God, who have already made intimate acquaintance with their future companion in glory.

But to return to our immediate subject. The occasion referred to in our text is decidedly that of some signal overthrow of the great enemy of mankind. And if it be true, that the victory achieved by Michael the archangel, in heaven, indicates a return to Gospel principles and the Church of Christ on the part of the rulers of the world, it will appear that, after that downfall, the sway of Satan will be chiefly confined to the less instructed among mankind, the inferior classes. And this seems to be the meaning of the passage, because immediately afterwards the sacred text proceeds to say, "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.' Which passage, while it proves that the victory of the archangel had not exterminated the power of the enemy, still it had so weakened it, that in a brief time it would be entirely extinguished.

To this consummation, through God's grace and the ministry of those spirits whom he sends to our succour, all things by Divine Providence are tending. The question, the battle, the conflict, is between God's will and man's will, between God's word and man's word, between God's infallibility and man's infallibility. Which will you choose? Which of the two will you espouse? The believer in Christ well knows, by the teaching of the Scriptures of truth, which of them will eventually gain the ascendancy: when the cry shall be through the whole habitable globe, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of God, and the power of his Christ." But, alas ! to those who are not deeply rooted and grounded in the faith, among men of fickle minds, capricious habits, and proud thoughts of themselves, how different is the case? With what distorted eyes do they read Scripture, making every passage of it feed their own vanity, or flatter their own fancy! How rooted their acquired prejudices! And when their reason is convinced of their falsehood, how idle and frivolous their excuses for continuing to countenance them! How many are the modes of trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils, rather than in the living God, whose word of truth is before them! One person will trust in his own works, and thus the accuser of the brethren, who accuses them day

and night, has advantage of them. Another will trust to the Church which he belongs to, and her infallibility is substituted for the word and the testimony of God, which were given to light his steps to Paradise. Another, perverting and abusing the right of private judgment, when he has not knowledge to form any correct opinion on the subject, sets up his own infallibilty for a guide, though he can, absurdly enough, declaim against the infallibility of synods and councils. All these have departed, voluntarily and freely, from God. They will hear neither God, nor his Scriptures, nor his Church. They have all gone out of the way; they have departed from the living God; they have set up the stumbling-block of their iniquity, and made themselves idols of their own hearts, the objects of their own creation, whose worship they prefer to that of the Most High.

In these, and in all similar cases of faith and the Church of Christ, to which are the promises, and the graces, and the covenants, and God's holy sacraments, and the means of grace, and heavenly ministrations, have been forsaken; and that apostacy has been occasioned by listening to the seducer, the betrayer, the accuser of the brethren. He seduces you to quit the faith and the Church. Here, by necessity, in the position in which he has placed you, the strict holy law of God, without reference to his covenanted mercies in Christ, must judge you; and as sure as you become the object of its judgment, does it condemn you. He then betrays you into sin the more certainly, because your only safeguard, faith, is gone; and then with what overwhelming effect will he not appear as your accuser day and night, backed by the enactments of God's righteous law, which knows no mercy, and extenuates no transgression?

Brethren, you have the sacred law of God, the word and the testimony, in your hands. The earth, the world, the rulers thereof, and the kingdoms, and the nations, and the multitudes of people, with their wisdom, their learning, and their might, shall all perish. The fabric of this firm globe, with its mountains, waters, its wild wastes and cultivated vallies, shall come to an end. Yea, the heavens themselves shall roll away like a cloud, and be dispersed at the nod of Him who gave them birth. The sun and the moon shall withdraw their shining; but the word of God, the Scriptures of his truth, the word and the testimony which we preach, shall endure for

ever.

So also shall the souls of the faithful in Christ's holy Church, in that day when this fearful tragedy shall take place; for they overcame the enemy "by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony," and they will join in the glorious acclamation-" Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night."

THE PESTILENCE.

Written in 1833.

BY THOMAS POWELL, ESQ.

THERE was a wailing in the land,
A wailing o'er the sea;
And every breath of air that stirr'd,
Puls'd strong with agony:
For lo there pass'd a pest along,
Like a fierce and rushing surge,
And it chang'd old England's merry song
To a dark and funeral dirge.

I heard the widow's broken sob-
The father's stifl'd moans;
And then, amid these awful sounds,
Came dying shrieks and groans !
From every tongue, or old or young,
The voice of gladness fled;

O'er every house the pest had breath'd,
The dying watch'd the dead!

And there sprang up in each churchyard,
The graves, like earth's quick sighs;
Yea, wheresoe'er the footsteps trod,
Were funeral obsequies!

And men and women walk'd in dread,
And mov'd as though they were
In shroud and winding-sheet array'd,
Shut from the blessed air.

And they who with the morning rose,
In health, and strength, and bloom,
Were, ere the midnight bell had toll'd,
Pale dwellers in the tomb:

And they who follow'd mourning them,
And tears of sorrow shed,
Were, ere another day had gone,
Themselves the silent dead.

All nature seem'd in sackcloth clad,
With ashes on its hair;

Some sat benumb'd with awful dread,
Some rapt in fervent prayer:

And some who ne'er had bent the knee,
Kneel'd now in anguish down;

And they who ne'er had thought on God,
Now quail'd beneath his frown!

The pest pass'd by, the scourge was stay'd,
The world forgot to weep;

And men with lighter hearts began
To court the nightly sleep,

On wassail, vice, and thoughtlessness,
Again the world is bent;

And care not for that awful pest―
A nation's punishment.

THE HEROIC OR ROMANTIC AGES.-No II.

BY THE REV. HENRY CHRISTMAS, M.A., F.S.A.
(Continued from page 19).

ONE more instance from the "Arabian Nights:" A young man is taken to a city of enchantment, and marries Queen Labe, the Circe of the place. In the midst of the night, the sorceress leaves the arms of her husband, supposing him to be asleep, lays across the chamber a train of yellow powder, and, by a spell, changes it into a river; with the water she then kneads some more of the said powder into a cake, which she dresses, and the next day presents to her husband. He in the mean time is made aware of her malific intentions, and furnished with the means of frustrating them: he eats a cake which he had secreted; and though Labe threw water over him, and commanded him to take the shape of a horse, her charm was powerless. He then, seeing she attempted to turn it into a joke, said, "If it be so, then, to convince me, eat some of my cake." No sooner had the sorceress done so, than her husband commanded her to take the shape of a mare, which she was accordingly forced to do, and he took her to a distant country; here he sold her to one who was aware of the enchantment, and who restored her to her former shape. These two now turned the tables, and the unfortunate young gentleman was some time before he escaped their vengeance.

Now let us turn to the treatise "Sanhedrim," and we there find the embryo of this tale. True, the Arabian romancer has decked it with all the gorgeous splendours of poetry, and all the wild interest of deep passion-has magnified the little and dignified the mean; but the tale is the same. "Jannai (says the the treatise in question) came to an inn, and said to them, Give me some water to drink,' but they brought him water beaten up with flour called "shethità," and he perceived that the lips of the woman who brought it did move; he also observed that she was an enchantress. He therefore poured a little of it out, and it turned to scorpions; then said he, I have drunken of your liquor-drink you, I pray you, of mine.' And when he had given the woman to drink, she was transformed into an ass, upon which he seated himself and rode to market: but there came one of her companions, who, as soon as she saw her, broke the enchantment, and there stood in the market a woman instead of an ass." It may be worth while to notice that the thousand and one tales were, by the medium of minstrels and troubadours, well known (at least, many of them) in Europe long before the first direct translation from the eastern originals. With altered names, and an admixture of European chivalry and character, the same stories, which beguiled the hours of the Caliphs of Bagdad,