Sunday afternoons. A book for little people

Contents

Page I. The Soul 5

II. The Angels 34

m God _ . 56

II. The Angels

THERE are things about you besides what you can see — things just as real as trees and hills and stars. I mean spirits. These wonderful beings do all the thinking and wishing and willing, all the knowing and feeling, all the loving and hating, all the hoping and fearing, all the right-doing and wrong-doing, that is done any where — and yet you never saw them, and never can see them with such eyes as you now have.

We know of at least three sorts of spirits — souls, angels, and God. When I last met you I spent the time in telling about souls — those beings which, hidden in our bodies, do all our thinking and wishing and willing. I will now tell yon about another kind of spirits, namely, angels.

A long time ago some soldiers were standing before a cave. They had "been standing there all night to keep the dead person who had been laid in it from being carried away. Just as morning was coming — it was Sunday morning that was just beginning to touch the hills in the east— they suddenly heard a great noise and the ground shook under their feet, and they saw something like a man come down from the sky close to them, with a face bright as lightning and dress white as snow. They were so frightened, soldiers as they were, that they fainted away. But some good women who came along had better courage, and, though they did not dare to speak to so bright a being, they heard what he said to them. He told them what they came to the place for ; that the dead body they expected to find was alive again and gone, and that if his friends would go to a certain mountain they should see him. This was an cmgel, or, rather, it was the body which an angel had put on. As nobody has ever seen a soul, only the body in which it lives, so nobody has ever seen angels, only the bodies which they have worn. But, for all that, we know a good deal about them, and you should understand that they are as rmich grander and brighter than our souls as that lightning-body which the soldiers saw was grander and brighter than such bodies as we have.

The angels are much more knowing than we are. They are a great deal wiser and stronger. I do not suppose that a whole army of men would be able to stand against one of them. Indeed, I happen to know that one night a single angel killed near two hundred thousand men ; and it was done so quietly and easily that those sleeping by the side of the slain knew nothing of it till the mornino; came. Then they awoke and found the camp filled with dead. The angels are not obliged to creep along the ground as we do. They can fly through the sky swifter than any bird,

The Angefo. 37

swifter than any cannon-ball, swifter even than the swift lightning. We cannot get away from the earth if we try ; the most we can do is to travel a little on it, and now and then go up a few hundred feet in a balloon. But the angels can fly away to the sun and stars, and can pass from star to star almost as quickly as you can think of its being done. If you want to go into a room you have to open a door or window ; if you want to go to the other side of a hill you have to go over or around it ; but an angel can pass right through walls of wood or stone just as if they were so much air.

Did you never read how it happened once in the olden time ? Some friends of Jesus were together in a room, and the doors and windows were all shut and fastened for fear of the Jews. All at once Jesus stood in the midst of them. How did he get in ? No door had opened, nor window. Could you have looked at the bolts and bars you would have found them quite untouched. Yet there he was. This shows you how easily angels may go anywhere among us, and that not even the thickest prison walls can shut in or out these wonderful spirits.

The angels are very old. Long ago, when the world was young, men themselves lived almost a thousand years — trees are now standing which must have stood more than three times that great time — and O how long, long a time that does seem to you, stretching out and out as if it would never end ! But I have no idea this is any thing like as long as the angels have lived. I cannot say exactly how old they are, but I think that the youngest of them is older than the world — counting from the time when men began to live on it. Six thousand years, at least, have the angels lived — it may be six hundred thousand — and, what is even more wonderful, they show no sign of being old at all. They are just as fresh and strong as they ever were. They were never so wise, so active, so mighty as they are at this moment. They are actually getting stronger and stronger every day, instead of weaker and weaker. " Is this so ? M you say ; 44 then very likely they will never die. This growing stronger for six thousand years and more does not look like dying." You are right. The angels will live always — life-time after life-time, century after century, world-life after world-life, I had almost said eternity after eternity.

Are they very many, these angels ? O yes, wonderfully many ! There is no counting them, they are so many. Not long ago we were every day hearing of our great armies at Washington and elsewhere, all ready to fight for and against their country. Could you have seen them you would have said, " What a sight of people ! n And then almost every country in Europe has armies nearly as large as we once had. But put theirs and ours together and they would not equal the mighty armies of the angels. Sure I am

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they are many times more than all the people of the world. They are like the leaves on the trees or the sands on the sea-shore. Did you never hear of a little boy whom his father took one day to the beach to gather the yellow shells and play in the soft white sand — and how the child took up a handful of the sand and tried to count all the little grains — and how he soon became quite discouraged and gave tip the counting, and said, " Father, there is no end of them ! w Suppose he had tried to count all the sands on all the sea-shores of the world ! As well might one try to count the angels.

There are two sorts of angels, living; in two very different places. One sort are perfectly good beings, and these live in Heaven, that beautiful place to which good men go when they die. The other sort are very bad beings, and these live in Hell, that dreadful place to which bad men go at last. Once there was only one kind of angels. They were all good and all lived in Heaven. But a great many of them in some way became wicked, and after that they were cast out of their glorious home and were obliged to go and live in a place as bad as themselves. And that is very bad. Neither bad nor good angels are bad or good like men. The good are perfectly good and the bad are well-nigh perfectly bad — the one sort white as the whitest snow, the others black as ink. And so the place where the good angels live is the brightest and most beautiful that ever was known, and the place where the others live is the dreariest and worst — nothing like it anywhere. But you must not think that the angels stay in these places all the while. These places are only their homes. They go and come, just as men do. A man leaves his house and is gone all clay — perhaps a good many clays — and yet people call it his home, and say that is where he lives. Perhaps he goes a great distance — say to New York or Washington — perhaps he travels about on the other side of the ocean for a whole year, and yet people say this is his home, this is where he lives. In the same way we say that Heaven is the home of the good angels, and Hell the home of the bad, though none of them stay in these homes all the while, but, on the contrary,

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fly about and go away to very distant places, and stay away for a long time. I have no doubt that both kinds of them come as far as us, and make a long tarry too — especially the bad angels, because our world is so much pleasanter than theirs ; but still Heaven is the place to which the good angels belong, and Hell is the place to which belong the bad angels.

The angels are not all equally great and strong and wise and high. It is with them as it is with men. Some men are strong, and some are very weak. Some know much, and some very little. Some are beautiful, and some are very homely. Some are private soldiers, some captains, some generals, and some kings and emperors. They differ among themselves as much as do the lakes and the mountains. We have three small lakes in our own small town, but these would be almost nothing by the side of some of our great western lakes stretching; through hundreds of miles. We have our large hills, and any day you can see Mount Archer looking down pleasantly on them, as a father does on his children ; but what would the highest of these be by the side of the Rocky Mountains and the Alps, their heads white with everlasting snows? There is just as much difference among the angels in greatness and glory as there is among mountains or lakes or men. Michael is a leader and prince among the good angels, Satan is the leader and prince among the bad angels. And there was a time, now long ago, when these two great spirits, each with an army of lesser spirits under him, fought against each other on the plains of Heaven. Satan was conquered, and he and his fell from Heaven as some

44 Sunday Afteknoons.

of you have seen the shooting-stars fall in November — only much more thickly. The sky was all ablaze with them.

In this country people often change their homes. *A man sells out. He gets together all that he cares about, and puts it on a cart or in a boat, and goes away into another place to live. Still, some persons spend their whole lives in one place. The houses they were born in are the houses they live and die in. In England, the country from which our fathers came, it is no uncommon thing to find families which have been living on the same lands and in the same dwellings time out of mind — fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and away back for hundreds of years. They have never moved. They are proud of it, and hope they will never have any other homes while the world stands. It is not very likely they will have their wish, this is such a changing world. But I can tell you of some beings who never, never change their homes. I mean the angels. It is true that the bad angels made a change some thousands of years ago, (and a very dreadful change it was,) but there will be no more changes. They will never have any other home than the dreary, dreadful one they have had ever since. And the angels who kept their goodness will never have any other than the bright, glorious home they have always had. No ? from this time forward none of these spirits will ever change their home; and the reason is, that none of them will ever change their character. Bad men often become very good men — bad children often become very good children. Your parents and teachers are hoping that those of you who have evil, wicked hearts will one day come to have good hearts instead of the bad.

Such things are happening every day, especially among the children who go to the Sunday-school. I have read of a boy so bad that he had to be sent to prison. He would swear and lie and steal, and when a kind man tried to "help him and teach him better things he had no gratitude, but tried to steal from that best friend. But that friend would not give up the poor wicked boy, and after awhile, though he was so wicked at first, he came to be good. People hardly knew him, the change was so great. It was like the change sometimes made in an old house. The carpenter repairs, takes away, adds, and at last you hardly know the building. It is as good as new. On some accounts it is better than a new house could be. Such was the change in that little boy. lie was quite another child, much to the wonder of all who knew him. And all of you can be changed from bad to good in the same way. But such a thing will never happen to the bad angels. They will always stay bad, and the good angels will always stay good. A change there will be, but not of this kind. The good angels will get stronger and stronger in their goodness every day, while the bad angels will be getting worse and worse. And so it will be that none of them will ever change their home. If it is Heaven, there they will stay forever. If it is that other w r orld, which it is so hard to name because it is so dreadful, there they will stay forever. Each in the place suited to his character.

But now, perhaps, some of you are thinking something like this, " What have we to do with these angels ? What use in our hearing so much about them, if they do not live in this world ? " Let me tell you, by bringing back to your minds what I have already told you. The two worlds where these angels live are the places to which when we die all of us must go. We must have, by and by, one or the other sort of angels for company, and have them for company always. And there is another thing to be thought of. Though the homes of the angels are in the two distant worlds I have spoken of, yet these spirits are by no means shut up in them, but spend much of their time in

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this world right among us. Good angels and bad — they are flying about us all the while. They are in the fields where men are at work, in the stores where men buy and sell, in the boats where men are fishing, along the roads where men are walking and riding, in the houses where families sit together, even in the churches where we come to learn and do holy things. They are at our ears, our eyes, our tongues, our hands, our hearts. They put good and bad thoughts into our minds ; they try to get us to do this and to do that ; they help us and they hinder us ; they fight for us and they fight against us. The holy angels try to do us all the good they can — the wicked angels try to do us all the hurt they can. The good spirits want to have us good like themselves, and do all they can to make us so : the bad spirits want to have us bad like themselves, and do all they can to make us so. And they do not forget the children, down to the youngest. I suppose they are just as busy at the ears and in the heart of a child of six years as of a man of sixty — the good pulling him upward, and the bad pulling him downward. Xone of them can make even the smallest child do as they please : all they can do is to tempt him, to persuade him. If he has a mind to refuse them he can do so, and can drive them quite away from him. All he has to do is to say no to them, and to keep saying it, and they will leave him, whether they are good angels or evil ones. And if he wants to keep them let him say yes to them, and Jceep saying it, and they will stay by him without fail.

So you must never think yourselves alone. When your fathers and mothers and playmates are out of sight, and on looking about you every-where, above and below and around, not a sign of a person can be seen, then remember that there are many beings besides those which the eye can see. For augvht vou can know the air about you may be all alive with people — people whom you cannot see, but who can see you and hear you and know all you are doing. It may be as if you were in a city when you seem most alone. Do not forget that the world is full of angels, bad and good, and that at no moment can you be sure that thousands of them are not watching every thing you do.

There was once a good man whom a certain king wished to take prisoner. So this king sent a great army to the city where the man was. And when his servant looked over the wall and saw so many waving banners and glittering spears he was much afraid. It seemed as if nothing could save him. Then his master asked God to open his eyes. All at once, instead of finding himself all alone amid a host of enemies, he saw the sky about him filled with protecting angels. Of course he was not afraid any more. When he thought himself all alone there were thousands and thousands of angels about him. So it may be with you.

Besides, do not forget that there is a great straggle going on between the two kinds of angels as to which shall have you with them. 'The good angels want you, and the bad angels want you. The one want to have you wise and holy, and to take you up with them to the beautiful world where they most delightfully live; the others want to make you foolish and wicked, and to take you down with them to that wicked world where they are to live forever in shame and punishment. And so they are struggling and pulling you different ways. The reason you do not feel it is that the pulling is on your hearts and icills, and not on your bodies. They are trying to persuade you — trying about as hard as they can — to have you be their friends and go with them where they will always live. And you must think what you will do — must choose on which side you will be. On which side shall we find you I

Would you not rather have the good

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angels for friends — those bright, beautiftd beings who love you so much ? To tell the truth the bad angels do not love you at all. They do not love anybody. All they want is to deceive you, and. hurt you, and make you wretched forever. They will be as glad as such wicked beings can be to make you as wicked as themselves and drag you clown to that black world where they belong, and there torment you *xs badly as can be without end — they hate you so much. But the good angels love you as much as the bad ones hate you. If they can only get you to be on their side and to do as they do — to be good like themselves, and go with them to their golden homes in the sky — it will make them very happy.

How your parents' faces will sometimes shine upon you with love and joy when they see you doing well, and feel encouraged to think that you will grow up to be a comfort and honor to them ! You would at such times see much brighter faces than those of father and mother shining joyfully upon vou, if you could then see the good angels

which are all about you. The sky is all in a glory with their glad and thankful looks — they love you so much.

Xow which angels would you rather live with always \ AVhat place would you rather live in always — the brightest and fairest and happiest world that ever was known, or the blackest and wretcheclest ? I know what you would say, "We want to go to the Happy Land, Every one of us wants to find his home at last with those bright angels, brighter than summer or the stars, and who are as loving as they are bright." But, that you may do this, you must begin now to le like the good angels. While you are in this world you must learn to be good like them — you must learn to love right-doing and to hate wrong-doing, just as they do. It is not easy for you to do this. You have evil hearts which help the bad spirits to lead you in evil ways. But you can get the better of them if you try hard. There is a great Spirit, far greater than they, stronger and wiser than all of them together, who will help you against them if you will ask Him. There is a great Saviour who loves children and is mightier than all the evil angels and your evil hearts put together, and who will save you from them if you will ask him. I hope to tell you more about these great helpers soon ; but you know something about them already, and when you feel it hard to be good you must not forget to ask them to help you. Ask them to take away your evil hearts. Ask them to take your part against the bad angels and Satan their king. In this way you will drive those evil ones away from you, and the bright, good angels will most gladly take you for their own, and watch over you day and night, and help you to be better and better ; and by and by, when you die, they will gather about you in a golden cloud and carry you up with joyful songs to your home in heaven. And such a home ! I have seen many places which I thought very beautiful. I have seen pictures of places which I thought more beautiful still, and I can shut my eyes and build up in my thoughts glorious palaces and cities and countries far richer and fairer than I ever saw in the finest paintings ; but even these thought-pictures, when we have done our best to make them lovely, give but a very poor idea of that glorious land to which you and I may go if we will.

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III. God

I SHALL speak to you next about the greatest Being ever known — about GOD. This is one of his names, the name we most hear ; but he has many other names, such as Lord, Jehovah, Creator, Almighty.

I hope you will remember how I have come to speak to you of this great Being. I first told you of two sorts of things — the things that can be seen, and the things that cannot be seen with such eyes as we have. People sometimes call these two sorts of things matter and spirit. I did not say much to you about matter — about the trees, the flowers, the fields, the rivers, the mountains, the stars, although these are very curious and beautiful things — because they are not so beautiful and im-

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portant as the other sort of things. So I went on to tell you about spirits. I said we knew at least three kinds of spirits — souls, angels, and God. Souls I told you about when we first met. At our next meeting I told you about angels. And now I will tell you of the greatest spirit of all, namely, GOD — the Being we pray to, the Being we speak of so often in the Church, the Being whose great name wicked people sometimes take in vain.

You must not think that I will try to tell you every thing about God. I could not do it if I wished, for I do not myself know every thing about him. Indeed, I know very little about him compared with what there is to be known — He is so great a being. But the little I do know is very important, and I will tell it to you just as a father brings home to his children a few grains of sand from the great sea-shore that winds all around the world.

God is like us in some things. Like us, he thinks, feels, chooses; and, like our

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souls, he cannot be seen with our coarse eyes. But there are many things in which he is very different from our spirits. He has no one body in which he lives. No voice of his goes ringing daily, and almost every moment, through the air as our voices do. Our houses are sounding with words from morning to night ; the streets and fields echo with calls and shouts and talks ; but these are human voices only. Never once have we heard God's voice among them. We turn our ear upward, and then downward ; we set it toward every part of the sky ; we listen with all our might for something that seems like the voice of God. But we hear nothing but the whispering breeze, the humming insects, and the talking or shouting men. He speaks no words that we can hear. God is always silent among us. Years come and go, life-times pass away, and it is all the same — the same unbroken stillness. You never heard God say any thing ; your fathers will tell you that they

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never have heard the tones of his voice ; your forefathers for hundreds of years will say as much. He lias been known to speak on the earth ; but the last time of his doing it, so far as we know, was more than eighteen hundred years ago. Then his voice fell from the sky, and some men said that it thundered. But now he is always silent.

Very different from us, also, is God in another thing. He can see and do things any distance away just as well as he can nigh. Your souls come and look out at your eyes, and see the things that are very near you quite plainly ; but as soon as you begin to look a little way off every thing gets dim, and a little farther away you can see nothing at all. Your souls take hold of your hands and work easily on things your hands can reach, but on things miles away they cannot act at all. They have to send messengers. They hava to shoot with the cannon. They have to stretch the telegraph wires. That is to say, they

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have to make & connection in some way with the thing to be acted on. But it is not so with God. He can see things equally well a thousand inches and a thousand miles away — equally well where he is, and great star-distances away where he is not. He can work on the most far-away things just as well as he can on the nearest — just as easily and quickly at the sun, or places infinitely farther off, as he can just here where he happens to be. Distance makes no difference with his seeing or his doing. A thousand millions of miles counts no more than a foot. It is all the same as if he were everv-where at once.

It takes some time for the arrow, though shot from a strong bow strongly pulled, to reach its mark. It takes time for even the sun to shoot its swift rays to us. Bat God can shoot his sight or his power to the end of the universe in no time at all. Before we can think it is there. As soon as it starts it reaches the end of its journey.