Editorial October 26, 1918 Issue

Not Seeing the Angel

William P. McKenzie

In the book of Daniel we are told how the weary king, after his night of fasting and sleepless humiliation at being tricked by his courtiers, rose early and came with haste to the den of lions into which Daniel had been thrust, and "cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel," saying, "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?" Then he heard Daniel's reassuring voice calmly saying, "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me."

That was five centuries and more before the Christian era, which was inaugurated by one who said to his disciples: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." We are in the twentieth century succeeding that wonderful time and might expect that men would now in days of need see the angel as Daniel did, or, like Christ Jesus who beheld Satan fall from his seat of power swift as the lightning flash, perceive at the same time the entire safety of man protected against all power of the enemy and able to tread upon serpents and scorpions, its poisonous agents. We find, however, that men need a better knowledge of the God of Daniel, "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," and it is just that needed understanding which Christian Science unfolds.

Why should men worship God? Not because of the heathen conception promulgated by priests that Deity will be angered by neglect, but for the Christian reason that we honestly love God and desire to know His true nature and to become, as Peter said, "partakers of the divine nature." Now God is Savior, as the Bible declares; hence to know God is salvation. Of God's people in past times it was said in Isaiah, "The angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them." The psalmist, when disquieted, said to himself, "Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance." The corrected translation is a little more clear: "I shall yet give thanks, for his presence is salvation."

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