Recording Angel

“ —The Accusing Spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blush'd as he gave it in;—and the Recording Angel, as he wrote it down, dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever. ”

“ As the features of the countenance are reproduced with unerring accuracy on the polished plate of the artist, so the character is faithfully delineated in the books above. Yet how little solicitude is felt concerning that record which is to meet the gaze of heavenly beings. Could the veil which separates the visible from the invisible world be swept back, and the children of men behold an angel recording every word and deed, which they must meet again in the judgment, how many words that are daily uttered would remain unspoken ”

“ Their little voices are the natural key of music, their graceful carriage and sprightly abandon the very poetry of motion. As Michael Angelo’s imprisoned angel pleaded out of dumb marble, so the divinity within them pleads in the beauty of their forms, the clear heaven of their eyes, the white purity of their souls, for knowledge and enlargement. ”

“ The marble Angel that was to have been his masterpiece! His last gift to man was now his hated treasure.
Night came on and with it the fury of the storm increased—and still the mad artist now implored, now threatened. The Angel smiled and looked Heavenward.
When I chose a model for my masterpiece, he murmured, she was beautiful, but had not the face of that Angel. How came I to copy the image in my heart and not the living one that for months was each day here in my studio. ”

“ Wilt thou sit down here? the dust is soft, and the music is like angels singing."
Iddo smiled. "Thou art right, little one," he said; "'tis like the voice of an angel."
"I lift up mine eyes to the hills.
Whence cometh my help?
My help is from Jehovah,
Maker of heaven and earth," chanted the melodious voice within, then it dropped to a pleading cadence,
"May He not suffer thy foot to be moved! ”

“ The pallid, goose-winged object represented to us as inhabiting a country of No-Where without landscape or colour, playing on an unsatisfactory harp and singing ‘Holy, holy’ for ever and ever, is no Angel, but rather a libel on the whole systematic creative plan of the Universe. Beauty, brilliancy, activity, glory and infinite variety of thought and disposition—if these be not in the composition of an Angel, then the Creator is but poorly served! ”

“ The worst thing he had been called for years hitherto was a "mediæval anachronism" (by an advocate of Disestablishment) . "Do I understand that you consider me as—as something in a dream?"
"Of course," said the Angel smiling.
"And this world about me, these rugged trees and spreading fronds———"
"Is all so very dream-like," said the Angel. Just exactly what one dreams of—or artists imagine."
"You have artists then among the Angels?"
"All kinds of artists. Angels with wonderful imaginations, who invent men and cows and eagles and a thousand impossible creatures." ”

“ The Madonna is sitting in the same light and airy loggia reading in some little book, as the Angel Gabriel, with his iridescent wings still poised for flight, alights at her feet, filling the air with glory. Outside, the grass is starred with the flowers which Angelico loved to paint; and far away, silhouetted against the sky, we see the Angel with a flaming sword driving Man and Woman from their Garden of Paradise, whose gates not even the coming of Christ could reopen on earth. ”

“ An Angel Playing on the Shalm.
In other manuscripts we find the ordinary musical instruments placed in the hands of the angels; as in the early fourteenth century MS. Reg. 2 B. vii., in a representation (copied in our cut No. 128) of the creation with the morning stars singing together, and all the sons of God shouting for joy, an angelic choir are making melody on the trumpet, fiddle, cittern, shalm, and harp. ”

“ No one ever sees the Angel; but he is heard by those who are meant to hear him. He often comes when they least expect him, when they are sad and disheartened. Then their ears suddenly perceive celestial harmonies, a divine voice, which they remember all their lives. Persons who are visited by the Angel quiver with a thrill unknown to the rest of mankind. And they can not touch an instrument, or open their mouths to sing, without producing sounds that put all other human sounds to shame. Then people who do not know that the Angel has visited those persons say that they have genius. ”

“ He created Music, the only universal language, holding the keys of Memory, and wearing the crown of Hope. Angelo, strange architect in that dim domain of chaos, thy creation, fleeting, invisible, and unembodied, is in perpetual, flow; changeful as the play of clouds, yet stable as the eternal laws by which they form their misty towers, their glittering fanes, and foam-crested pinnacles! Trackless as the wind, yet as powerful, thy sweet spirit, Music, floats wherever beats the human heart, for Rhythm rocks the core of life. Music nerves the soul with strength or dissolves it in love ”

“ A hymn is the rhythmic aspiration of the race. No one can look through a good hymnal—through Hymns Ancient and Modern, for instance, or the Church Hymnary—without feeling that therein is bound up the devotional life of the world. The spiritual outlook is cosmic. Our every mood of penitence, praise, and aspiration resounds in melodious and time-defying strains.
In art, the religious spirit broods over the great work of the world. In Angelo, Francesca, Veronese, Botticelli, Titian, Raphael, Tintoretto, and Correggio, the brush of the painter has set forth the adoration of the Church of God. ”

“ Angel, full of music as a bird, could strum some sort of accompaniment to any song on the piano. It was Mary Ellen's delight on a Saturday morning to pour forth her pent up feelings in one of the popular songs, with Angel to keep her on the tune and thump a chord or two.
It was a risky business. But The Seraph mounted guard at the window while I pressed my nose against the glass case that held the stuffed birds and wondered if any of them had come from South America. "How jolly," I thought, "to be there with father." ”

“ Has eloquence sought to nerve men for the grand conflicts of life? the church of Christ has touched the lips of eloquence with living fire from her altar, until have sprung forth words that flamed with love to man and love to God. Has music sought to weave her entrancing spells around the ear and heart and soul? the church of Christ has breathed into music her own divine being, until the music of the church seems like beatific worship, and worship on earth like beatific music. ”

“ But when he takes his violin, and holds it so caressingly to his ear, to catch the faint vibration of its strings, it seems as if “the angels were whispering to him.” As his fingers sweep across the strings, the angels pass into his soul, give him their tones, and look out from his eyes, with the wondrous beauty of inspiration. His motions sway to the music, like a tree in the winds; for soul and body accord. In fact, “his soul is but a harp, which an infinite breath modulates; his senses are but strings, which weave the passing air into rhythm and cadence.” ”

“ From the helpless babe may come a Michael Angelo, who from some crude mass of stone from the mountain side shall work out a heaven-born vision that shall hold the attention of men for generations, and make them wonder at the God-like powers of man that has created an all but living and breathing statue. Or a Mozart, a Beethoven, or a Handel, may come from the babe, and call out from the silence those melodies and the richer harmonies that lift the soul out of its present narrow prison house and give it fellowship for a season with the Gods. ”

“ These angel children were the first point on which my mind rested, in its struggle to overcome its disappointment, and bring itself en rapport with the artist. In order fully to appreciate their spiritual beauty, one must have seen an assortment of those things called angels, which occur in the works of the old masters. Generally speaking, I know of nothing more calculated to moderate any undue eagerness to go to heaven than the common run of canvas angels. ”

“ For there above in the tympanum, in the midst over the head of Christ, stand three angels, p. 161and the midmost of them bears scales in his hands, wherein are the souls being weighed against the accusations of the Accuser, and on either side of him stands another angel, blowing a long trumpet, held downwards, and their long, long raiment, tight across the breast, falls down over their feet, heavy, vast, ungirt; and at the corners of this same division stand two other angels, and they also are blowing long trumpets held downwards, so that their blast goes round the world and through it ”

“ Thy sphere is a noble one, and thy mission worthy. The mind must be stored with knowledge and stimulated with truth. It is thine to impart information and administer culture,—to aid in the education of our race. We give thee a place in our school, but cannot crown thee as its Ruling Angel. Stand here upon the left (leads her to the left of the throne) .
The Angel of Music (comes up the aisle starting from the vestibule of the church, having in her hand a harp, or other instrument, and a roll of music, singing) :
[Listen to Music]
Solo, by Angel of Music. ”

“ The ancients were wont to say that he who cultivates music imitates the divinity, and St. Augustine tells us that it was the sweet sound of psalmody which made the lives of the monks of old so beautiful and harmonious. God is eternal harmony, and the works of his hand are harmonious, and his great precept to men is that they live in harmony. Did not Jesus Christ come into the world amid the choral song of angels? Would you, then, banish music from the church of Jesus? No art has such power as music to draw the soul toward the infinite. ”

“ I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the Organ,
And entered into mine.
It may be that Death’s bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,—
It may be that only in Heaven
I shall hear that grand Amen. ”

“ These psalms climb higher and higher in their rapturous call to all creatures, animate and inanimate, on earth and in heaven, to praise Him. The golden waves of music and song pour out ever faster and fuller. At last we hear this invocation to every instrument of music to praise Him, responded to, as we may suppose, by each, in turn as summoned, adding its tributary notes to the broadening river of harmony—until all, with gathered might of glad sound blended with the crash of many voices, unite in the final words, 'Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. ”

“ It is the music that is ever in God's presence, not the music of angels only, or glorified saints, or a redeemed creation. More probably it is that of all of them together. And the song which they sing is new, like that of chap. v. 9, which is sung by "the four living creatures and the four-and-twenty elders, who have each one a harp, and golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." That song the Church on earth understands, [Pg 242] and she alone can understand. It spoke of truths which the redeemed alone could appreciate, and of joys which they alone could value. ”

“ And if the people saved be called the lyre, it will be understood to be in consequence of their giving glory musically, through the inspiration of the Word and the knowledge of God, being struck by the Word so as to produce faith. You may take music in another way, as the ecclesiastical symphony at once of the law and the prophets, and the apostles along with the gospel, and the harmony which obtained in each prophet, in the transitions of the persons. ”

“ Then the Angel was hidden by something massive (no one knew what) that fell, incandescent, across the doorway.
There was a cry of "Delia" and no more. But suddenly the flames spurted out in a blinding glare that shot upward to an immense height a blinding brilliance broken by a thousand flickering gleams like the waving of swords. And a gust of sparks, flashing in a thousand colours whirled up and vanished. Just then, and for a moment by some strange accident, a rush of music like the swell of an organ, wove into the roaring of the flames. ”

“ The Apostle Paul and other writers of the New Testament, who quote freely from a variety of sources, have used fragments of hymns to reinforce their teachings or with a devotional purpose. One gains from such citations a text only, or a fragment of text. Singing is not implied. The apocalyptic vision of the Book of Revelation, however, contains several magnificent hymns of praise which testify not alone to the form and content of the early hymn but also to the practice of worship in song. The praises of the heavenly host are mirrored in the praises of the congregation upon earth. ”

“ If alive, they surely (so would argue the witnesses) must be angelic beings, since they were said to come from heaven; and the attendant phenomena of the seance no doubt would increase the awe with which these "angels" were received and treasured. An "angel" is simply a vehicle for a message, in the original signification. Let us glance in passing at the accounts of materializing through the psychic power. In this sense, a pearl materialized through the psychic power of so reliable a modern medium as the Rev. ”

“ This mighty angel is symbolical of some human agencies of distinguished character; for it stands in striking contrast with the destructive powers described under the preceding trumpets. When angels appear on the panoramic scene only in the temple above, they themselves are not symbolic characters, but only the conductors of the Revelation; but whenever they appear on earth, they represent distinguished [pg 176] agencies among men. In the present vision the symbol is drawn, not from the natural world, but from the heavenly, and the scene is laid upon earth ”