BUT if fancy may revel among the opening pages of the
world's history and gather a wealth of imagery around
these guardians and ministers to the wants of the young creation
—how much richer and more replete with beauty is the wonderful
and awesome epoch of the coming of the lost world's Savior!
And here, we know that not the wildest dreaming, not the utmost
exuberance of imagination can approach the truth.
And now the flower from the root of Jesse is about to bloom.
. . . Fifteen years, as we count time, and then the Archangel
Gabriel comes to Zachary. How impatiently must this gentle
spirit have waited for the intervening six months to pass.
"He bore the palm
Down unto Mary when the Son of God
Vouchsafed to clothe Him in terrestrial weeds."
Thus Dante saw him and thus Angelico has painted him. At
the first look of the Omnipotent, indicating the Divine will, the
gracious messenger raises his pinions all glowing with the light
of the Divine Complaisance above his head, rises upon them
above the watching throngs and sweeps through the ether to that
small house of Nazareth; standing before her whom he has
watched over and loved as only angels love, bending his star-
crowned head and veiling his radiant face with his pulsing
pinions, he hails her, "full of grace."
The watching angels who have accompanied him wait as do
the mighty hosts, the numberless spirits in the sphere whence
they have just descended—upon that weak woman's answer. She
questions and is answered, and then, "Behold the handmaid of
the Lord. ' ' Hark to the angelic hosannas ! They echo down the
centuries bearing superhuman strength and heavenly consolation
to hearts "weary with dragging the crosses" of an existence
otherwise beyond all mortal bearing.
Henceforth it would seem that the courts of the King of kinge
must be deserted, so dense is the throng of angels in that small
corner of the world where dwells the Mystic Rose. They crowd
the house at Nazareth all the day, they hover over the slumbers
of their queen during the midnight watches, and when she moves
abroad surely she of Sheba was not more magnificently attended.
Angels sustain her footsteps, archangels shadow her with their
wings lest the Syrian sun beat upon her head too fiercely, the
winds of the Syrian desert assail her form too roughly. The
principalities and dominations watch her lest she grow weary,
the virtues lead her gently, the powers ward off the evil one who
will not believe that earth holds a mortal who is not his lawful
prey. Above, in the blue arch of heaven, the higher choirs chant
the praises of the Creator in that He has shown such mercy to
man, and has had regard to the humility of His handmaid. Verily
is she to be called "blessed." —M.
Bright angels are around thee,
They that have served thee from thy birth, and there
Their hands with stars have crowned thee;
Thou peerless Queen of Air,
As sandals to thy feet the silver moon dost wear.
—Longfellow.
Golden harps are sounding
Angel voices ring,
Pearly gates are opened,
Opened for the King. —F. R. Havergal.
