case, the Lord fed him by the hand of a ministering spirit, and he whom God fed could know no want: he whom God strengthened, no weariness. He fulfilled his mission, not without further communion with angelic helpers; for though, in general, the expression is, "the word of the Lord came to Elijah," without specifying the medium through which it reached him, we are told when Ahaziah sent to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, concerning the event of his disease, "the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the TishbiteArise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria," and told him the prophetic words that he should speak to them. 2 Kings i. 3, 4.

Elijah's translation into heaven was by "a chariot of fire, and horses of fire," no doubt forming a part of the magnificent array of which we are next to speak as belonging to the armament of heaven: for when the servant of Elisha, terrified at the sight of the besieging host of Syria compassing the city, cried out, "Alas, my master how shall we do?" the prophet's answer was, "Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." In answer to his

prayer, the young man's eyes were opened; "and he saw; and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." 2 Kings vi. 15-17. Angels are not mentioned here; but however the blaze of the glory might enwrap, and so render them invisible, we may be sure it was not of chariots and horses that Elisha spoke when alluding to the number of his unseen allies. We may rather suppose the scene to have

resembled what is very glowingly described by a firstrate poet of our day, in referring to this passage:

At the word rushed a cloud
From the crown of the sky:
In its splendours the sun

Seemed to sicken and die.
From its depths poured a host
Upon mountain and plain.
There was seen the starred helm,
And the sky-tinctured vane;
And the armour of fire,

And the seraph's broad wing;
But no eye-ball dared gaze
On the pomp of the blaze,
As their banner unfolded

The name of their KING.

He

After Elisha, Isaiah had proof of the being, the brightness, and the benevolence of God's angels. has related a very remarkable vision: "In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each had six wings! with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, wo is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips: and I dwell in the midst of a

people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphím unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." Isaiah vi. 1-7.

This sublime vision was the preparation for that wonderful strain of prophecy which has caused some, not inaptly, to term Isaiah the fifth evangelist. It was Christ's glory that he saw, and it was of him that he spake (John xii. 41 ;) and this bright company of the seraphim were veiling their faces with awe before Him who was despised and rejected of men. In the midst of their solemn alternate song of adoration, the voice of a conscience-stricken man was heard, bewailing his sinfulness, and lamenting over his undone estate, the uncleanness of his lips, and the guilt of his people. Immediately a seraph is commissioned to remove his grief; and he, with the earnest alacrity that we have remarked, flies to the distressed seer, bearing not only a message, but a token of reconciling, sanctifying grace, repeating the impressive assurance, "thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." It appears to have been in the material temple in Jerusalem, that this revelation was made; but it is very remarkable how much the temple imagery prevails in representations of heaven itself; even in the descriptions given by John, who wrote in an especial manner for Gentile churches. In this vision of Isaiah, He was present who gives substance to the shadow, efficacy to

the means; and a coal from off the altar was used, typical at once of the purifying influences of the Holy Ghost, and of the flaming zeal that should burst forth in strains of glowing eloquence from the prophet's nowconsecrated lip. This is the only place in the Bible where our translators have introduced the word seraphim.

We next come to the mysterious revelations made to Ezekiel, who uses the appellation "cherubim," in describing the heavenly beings whom he saw. It seems, so far as our dim faculties may penetrate the mysterious veil, as though these were a peculiar order of angelic creatures. The title is constantly given to those appearances which the Lord instructed Moses to place at each end of the ark of the testament, over the mercy-seat of which they extended their wings; and who are nowhere called by the general term of angels. Their station, we may venture to think, is one of more immediate proximity to the throne of glory than that of others; both from the position assigned to them in the material temple, which we are told was a figure of the true, or heavenly house of God, and from the descriptions given by Ezekiel. Cherubim also were placed at the gate of the garden of Eden, to wield the terrible sword of flame which barred all approach; keeping the way to the tree of life. It is a most inviting field for the imagination to rove in, these glimpses of the heavenly territory, and its angelic inhabitants; but imagination must not enter where we are humbly following the footsteps of inspiration, to speak according to the word of the Lord, neither more nor less;

and we must be content to believe, without expecting fully to understand, what the prophet was enabled to convey of his own impression of those things which he beheld; so far, at least, as he makes distinct mention of beings whom we are taught to consider as a part of the armies of heaven. Whether or not, these appearances were real; whether the angels are material, invisible essences, and therefore impossible to be seen by us in their natural state, and only clothed in the semblance of something tangible for occasional revelation to man, or whether the weakness of our powers, defiled and debilitated by original guilt, shuts them out from our mortal ken, is a point that never will be fully cleared up until we come to know even as we are known; but there is quite as much to be said for the latter as for the former proposition, although the weight of names is certainly against us; men having inherited the opinions of their predecessors as a matter of course, and battled for all as belonging to them by rightful descent. By such means have successive generations been blinded to the meaning of many a rich promise and glorious prediction now on the eve of fulfilment; and the consequence of such mistaken impressions is but too likely to be that complained of by the prophet:"Lord, when thine arm is stretched out, they will not see!" Most ingenious explanations have been affixed by various commentators to the minute particulars recorded by Ezekiel of the visions that he beheld; but with these we have nothing to do; our business being with the literal descriptions.

Ezekiel, being among the captive Jews carried into Babylon, was commissioned to bear to them many re