Editorial March 13, 1920 Issue

The Two Angels

Ella W. Hoag

In the Bible we read, "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven;" and in Science and Health (p. 566) Mrs. Eddy writes: "The Old Testament assigns to the angels, God's divine messages, different offices. Michael's characteristic is spiritual strength. He leads the hosts of heaven against the power of sin, Satan, and fights the holy wars. Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love. These angels deliver us from the depths."

Now God's angels and warfare have not ordinarily been associated in the thought of mortals. Nevertheless, spiritual warfare is a subject of vital interest to all men. There is no mortal but must at some time enter upon it and fight it to the finish. The teaching of scholasticism has touched upon it, but because of a limited perception of what such warfare involves, scholasticism has never approached it with the earnestness it demands; or even if its necessity was temporarily proclaimed, a proper understanding of it was still lacking. With the usual concepts of a present earthly existence, to be finally terminated in a future heaven or hell, where all further effort would either be entirely over or utterly hopeless, it is not strange that the world has largely slept on, with little desire to do more than make itself comfortable; or if it did endeavor to better itself, it was generally but to struggle for a larger hold upon materiality and its deceptive offers of satisfaction.

When warfare has been contemplated it has most frequently been from the standpoint of going out personally against a great and formidable foe, and many a trepidation and many a heart questioning has preceded the encounter. A great diversity of opinion has produced a faltering sense in regard to where the right was situated, and so there has always been more or less doubt as to where victory would rest. Even with the Christian there has been much uncertainty, for although he may have sung many times, "There is a battle to be fought, a victory to be won," he has nevertheless had very little faith in being triumphant, because he has so little understood what was before him. What he was to fight for, what he was to fight against, and what were to be his weapons, were all subjects of greater or less speculation. And who had ever dreamed he would be accompanied through it all by angels, "God's divine messages"?

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