1. My White Archangel | 2. War in Angel-Land | 3. Good Angels Conquer | 4. Sweet than a Mother's Song | 5. Lofty Minstrelsy | 6. Flying in Midair | 7. Far as Angel's Ken | 8. Music, the Speech of Angels | 9. Silver Bowers Leave | 10. Succor us, who Succor Want | 11. Angel Reaper's Choice | 12. Whose Faces See God | 13. Holy Placid Harp Tones | 14. Many an Angel Tent | 15. White and Serried Ranks | 16. Telling of their Father's Shelter | 17. Ideal in their Ministry | 18. Excel in Loving | 19. With their Lightning Swords | 20. Soother to every Joy | 21. Cynosure of all Eyes | 22. My Little Playmates Bright | 23. Happy Making Sight with God | 24. Angels All Adore Him | 25. Feast of Love | 26. Transcending our Wonted Themes | 27. The Holy Jerusalem | 28. Angels to Beckon Me | 29. Divine Creatures | 30. Angel-worship Forbidden | 31. Till Morning's Joy
WHITE AND SERRIED RANKS.
December 15.
And the temple was filled with smoke, from the glory of God, and from his power;
and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels
were fulfilled.—Revelation 15:6.
BEAUTIFUL indeed are the Bible's eulogies of the glorious
achievements of the pure and holy angels of heaven. And
the fancies of poet and painter have alike reveled in this real or
imaginary glory of the angelic world. The great Paul was simply
intoxicated with delight when he was caught up into Paradise and
beheld for the first time the white and serried ranks of Angel
Land. The early fathers of Christianity lingered long and pondered
much over the sacred pages to learn what God's angels said
and sung when they came on missions of mercy to men. The
artists also— "those bending worshipers of beauty"— in the
dawning days of the Renaissance, were inspired, as were the
prophets of old, to reproduce their ecstatic visions and dreams,
their lofty conceptions of angels and archangels, cherubim and
seraphim and all the glorious host of heaven. And say ! how poor
the art galleries of the world would appear were they bereft of
the marvelous master paintings of angels which have been
handed down to us by Murillo, Guido, Kaulbach, Titian, Van
Dyck, Fra Angelico and the divine Raphael.
—Alfred Fowler.
Ah, painful sweet ! how can I take it in !
That somewhere in the illimitable blue
Of God's pure space, which men call heaven, we two
Again shall find each other, and begin
The infinite life of love, a life akin
To angels'—only angels never knew
The ecstasy of blessedness that drew
Us each to each, even in this world of sin.
—Margaret J. Preston.
| 
