1. The Book of Gold | 2. His Heavenly Monitor |  3. Ministers of Special Providence | 4. Elastic As the Light | 5. An Angel in the House | 6. Christ the Lord of Angels | 7. An Angel Leads | 8. With Watchful Care | 9. Angels Sympathize with Men | 10. "The Lord Hath Sent His Angels." | 11. Protect, Defend and Foster | 12. Peopling the Aerial Spaces | 13. "Ere I Lay me down to Sleep." | 14. Outward Help and Relief | 15. Personal Beings in Scripture | 16. Compassion over Us | 17. Invisible Friends | 18. Their Durance Immortal | 19. Allotments of Happiness | 20. Synonym of Perfection | 21. His Best Angel, Love | 22. Clad in Angelic Light | 23. Children of the Sun | 24. Word Spoken by Angels | 25. Ever-Blooming Youth | 26. Formed into Armies | 27. Celestial Hierarchy | 28. Angel-Worship | 29. Story of the Archangels | 30. "To You who are Troubled."

"ERE I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP."

September 13.

For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the
Pharisees confess both.—Acts 23:8.

THE scenes in which the Sadducees denied angels and spirits
are not quite clear. The Sadducees received the written
Scriptures, but disallowed the oral developments upheld by the
Pharisees and scribes; and it is possible that they repudiated
only that more modern luxuriant angelology current in their day,
without questioning the ancient angelophanies. The great historical
and ritual writing "P" contains no reference to angels.
The Torah contained the revelation of God's will, and expressed
all His relations to the world and men; special intervention of
God was not yet needed. And this may have been the position
of the Sadducees. On the other hand, from the Sadducean inclination
to free thinldng, inherited from the pre-Maccabean Gr.
period, it is possible that they interpreted the angelophanies of
the written Scriptures received by them in a rationalistic way
as personified natural forces.    —Scribner's Bible Dic.

Hear my prayer, Heavenly Father,
Ere I lay me down to sleep;—
Bid Thine angels, pure and holy,
Round my bed their vigil keep.
Guide and guard me with Thy blessing
Till Thine angels bid me home.
                     —Charles Dickens.

And Christ looks down upon it
With approving smile of love,
And the angels weave the story
Into their songs above.
                          -H. Biddle.