ANGELIC STUDY. BY JOHN W. HANNER, D. D., OF THE TENNESSEE CONFERENCE. "Which things the angels desire to look into."-1 Peter i, 12. There are no gaps or chasms in the creation of God. All its parts are admirably connected together, making up one universal, harmonious whole. There is a chain of beings, from the lowest to the highest point from a sand-grain to an archangel. This scale of being advances not by leaps, but by smooth and gentle degrees. Although we may not be able to note accurately the degrees by which this scale is graduated, yet in a gross and general way we may begin with inorganical particles of water and earth, and ascend, through minerals, vegetables, insects, beasts, and men, to angels. Of angels, however, we know nothing but by divine revelation. The crude notion which ancient heathens had of this order of intelligences was doubtless derived from tradition-bent and broken rays of light from God's original communications to man-scattered over the world. This order of being they placed between God and man. The Greeks called them demons—that is, knowing ones; the Romans named them genii and lares. Socrates had his good demon, or angel, that gave him notice in the morning of any evil which would befall him during the day. On the day he was condemned to drink the hemlock, he says: "My demon did not give me notice this morning of any evil that was to befall me to-day; therefore I cannot regard as any evil my being condemned to die." There is in this scrap of profane history a strange and deep spirituality, that must be interesting to a reflecting mind. It is one of the most earnest and wonderful sayings of uninspired man. Who but an angel of God could have been the knowing one that revealed beneficial secrets to the great mind of the sage, honestly struggling for light amid the darkness of the heathen world? What a Godsend would the Bible have been to that man! "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable |