FAR AS ANGEL'S KEN.

December 7.

And there followed another angel saying: Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city. —Revelation 14:8.

CORPOREAL matter is not the proper cause of action; nor
does any philosophy prove that anything that is merely
body can move itself. So that the angelic essence, being tree
from any material mixture, is also free from all clogs and encumbrances.
It is all pure action, and so must needs exert itself
at a higher rate of force than any of those bodily agents that we
see and converse with. Neither do the angels move by certain
periods and steps of progression, as we are fain to do ; but they
measure the vastest spaces in the twinkling of an eye, in a
moment, in a portion of time so shore that it falls under no
mortal perception of observation. And for this cause were the
cherubim in the tabernacle painted with wings, the best way that
we have of expressing their great agility; though the swiftness of
an arrow is no more to be compared to the speed of an angel
than the motion of a snail can be compared to that of the arrow.
                                                                 -R. South, D. D.

And when the angel shadow
Rests his feet on wave and shore,
And our eyes grow dim with weeping,
And our hearts faint at the oar,
Happy is he who heareth
The angel of his release
In the bells of the Holy City,
The chimes of eternal peace. —Anonymous.
Fit words and music come to birth;
There soars an angel to the skies,
There walks a Presence on the earth.
                    — Sir Lewis Morris.